The fire-walker's high: affect and physiological responses in an extreme collective ritual

PLoS One. 2014 Feb 20;9(2):e88355. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0088355. eCollection 2014.

Abstract

How do people feel during extreme collective rituals? Despite longstanding speculation, few studies have attempted to quantify ritual experiences. Using a novel pre/post design, we quantified physiological fluctuations (heart rates) and self-reported affective states from a collective fire-walking ritual in a Mauritian Hindu community. Specifically, we compared changes in levels of happiness, fatigue, and heart rate reactivity among high-ordeal participants (fire-walkers), low-ordeal participants (non-fire-walking participants with familial bonds to fire-walkers) and spectators (unrelated/unknown to the fire-walkers). We observed that fire-walkers experienced the highest increase in heart rate and reported greater happiness post-ritual compared to low-ordeal participants and spectators. Low-ordeal participants reported increased fatigue after the ritual compared to both fire-walkers and spectators, suggesting empathetic identification effects. Thus, witnessing the ritualistic suffering of loved ones may be more exhausting than experiencing suffering oneself. The findings demonstrate that the level of ritual involvement is important for shaping affective responses to collective rituals. Enduring a ritual ordeal is associated with greater happiness, whereas observing a loved-one endure a ritual ordeal is associated with greater fatigue post-ritual.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Affect / physiology*
  • Analysis of Variance
  • Ceremonial Behavior*
  • Family / psychology
  • Fatigue / physiopathology
  • Female
  • Fires*
  • Happiness*
  • Heart Rate
  • Hinduism / psychology*
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Mauritius
  • Walking / physiology*
  • Walking / psychology

Grants and funding

The study was supported by a University Research Funding Grant from Victoria University of Wellington (URF Grant 8-3046-108855); the “Technologies of the Mind” project, financed by the Velux Foundation; the Interactive Minds Centre at Aarhus University, Denmark; the Laboratory for the Experimental Research of Religion at Masaryk University, (LEVYNA, CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0048), co-financed by the European Social Fund and the state budget of the Czech Republic; and the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) project “The Evolution of Religion and Morality.” The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.