This is a "documentary" based on this healer from Java set in 1987. I, of course, am exceptionally skeptical (partially because my dad is a magician who performs tricks like these). The cuts of the film never allow a continuous feed, and there is plenty of room for "movie magic".
That being said, what do you think?
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"You must eat bitter before you can taste sweet"- Iron & Silk
"I see no virtue where I smell no sweat"
"Arm yourself because no one else here will save you" - Chris Cornell
I liked the news paper burning though...
I'm a fire geek.
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If the problem has a solution, worrying is pointless, in the end the problem will be solved. If the problem has no solution, there is no reason to worry, because it can't be solved.
If a "magus" comes witht the fire trick you know he's a hoax. If holy persons could have done that, you would have found them up and down the centers of power, near the kings and emperors. Weapons were forbidden in there, so all H2H fighting, and someone who could have lit people on fire just touching them would have been king. Daoists kept there using their own little "tricks", but as we know, lighting people was not one of them. Influencing was. A teacher of Zhang San Feng went on foot to Afghanistan to chat Cengiz Khan out of attacking China, and succeeded. No weapons, no threats, no fire. That saved a lot of lives. Not even "tumo" claims they can create enough heat to light paper, just dry towels.
I would travel there, give him my own newspaper fresh from the kiosk, ask him to wash his hands thorougly, and then he shall show me again he can do it to this paper. Then I "believe" that. After taking a sample of his sweat on the hands, making sure it does not contain some sort of chemicals we know.
__________________ "Fawning, but proud!" - (at least sometimes, in rare cases) "Killing them all didn't make it any better..." - "Are you a freak or something ???" - Max Payne "Theft is a crime, even in Iraq." - Me.
Like I said, my dad is a magician and has been since his late teens. He performs all over the area, and invests much of his time and money into old/rare texts and videos. His training is very much akin to that of a martial artist in that there is real skill that is required to perform these tricks. Knowing how the trick works is easy, but performing it to keep the secret masked takes skill.
That being said, I told him about this video and showed it to him. He told me how every one of this guy's feats could be reproduced fairly easily and told me how,
With regards to the Newspaper fire, he said that this is a very common magician's trick. When the paper is crumpled, a "palmed" piece of magnesium is placed in the newspaper. From here all he needs to ignite it is a drop of sweat or some other water.
__________________
"You must eat bitter before you can taste sweet"- Iron & Silk
"I see no virtue where I smell no sweat"
"Arm yourself because no one else here will save you" - Chris Cornell
Originally
Posted By: hazmat
I give a lot of credit to magicians, it's very difficult work requiring exceptional skill, dexterity, and a heap load of luck
-hz
”
Replace luck with hard work.
Not to get too off-topic, but there is one magician in the area named Tony Eacon who makes the other magician's draws drop regularly. Aside from having many secret techniques (magicians are very akin the chinese martial artists) that he only shows to a select few...he has a very great ability. The one thing I remember was him on stage with an outstretched arm and rolled up sleeves producing a handful of cards in his fingers for ~3 minutes straight. He would produce them, toss them to the ground, then produce another handful. That is one of the times I saw someone of true grace and skill totally amaze me.
__________________
"You must eat bitter before you can taste sweet"- Iron & Silk
"I see no virtue where I smell no sweat"
"Arm yourself because no one else here will save you" - Chris Cornell
I'll give you hard work, but I still think there's some luck to it. I watched a piece on Houdini the other night, he was amazingly talented, skilled, and a hard worker, but he lucked out a few times to cheat death.
Want the truth? When I was a kid I LOVED magic acts, always wanted to be a magician. Oh well, I still love watching the acts... and if I was going to learn anything now it would be escape artist techniques, I think some of Houdini's stuff was just...well...impressive as heck.
Anywho, back on the subject of the guy in this video...who apparently is a "level 20th" Qigong master according to one source I found yesterday while doing some snooping on the interweb.
__________________
"You must eat bitter before you can taste sweet"- Iron & Silk
"I see no virtue where I smell no sweat"
"Arm yourself because no one else here will save you" - Chris Cornell
lol, that's exactly what my buddy told me when I talked to him about. He is studying Qigong himself down in Louisiana, so I was really interested in what he had to say about this.
About the only thing I read that made me tihnk of what he was doing was that someone mentioned that to attain level 2 requires ~3 years of training. And my buddy had told me that after his basic Qigong training his teacher put him on a 10,000 day training program. Unfortunately he said that throwing fireballs and shocking people was not on the curriculum.
__________________
"You must eat bitter before you can taste sweet"- Iron & Silk
"I see no virtue where I smell no sweat"
"Arm yourself because no one else here will save you" - Chris Cornell
Sure we condense the chi in the dantian . We have a special way that we do microcosmic circulation to where it activates an electric like energy in the spine. And creates what we call an electric fan belt in side the body and this fan belts produces the power.
I could think of a million better things to do in Japan for a month besides jumping off of picnic tables. - x893
