Komar

I first saw Dr Baker speak at the Mind Body Spirit Festival at Earls Court in April 1979. I can still picture him drawing on flipchart paper or a blackboard, I forget which, using large crayons sideways on to depict the several subtle bodies as he explained to us the nature of the etheric, astral and mental worlds.
Two or three months later I made my first visit to Claregate College, converted from a splendid old school building, with spacious, well-kept gardens, a swimming pool, and the building itself resplendent with hand-painted images of the Greek Gods.
On the large lawn to the right of the school was a bed of elm logs ablaze, about 10 metres in length.
I was soon to see the amazing Komar, a cheese factory worker from Ohio, go into a state of concentration, sipping a bottle of coke which somehow aided the process, and then suddenly and calmly walk across this bed of coals whose temperature was measured at about 600 degrees Celsius.
His feet were then inspected by Dr Baker, a medical doctor among his other attributes, and officials from the Guinness Book of Records. Komar was completely unperturbed, and physically unharmed.
After hearing of Vernon's death in 2010, Dr Baker wrote:
I was on a lecture tour and had just given a talk in Akron, Ohio.
I was enjoying a cup of tea and a hot dog in a restaurant which appeared to be built around a railway dining carriage, when this guy presented himself to me shortish, sturdy figure, quietly spoken.
He showed me photos which indicated that he was a celebrity, and of all things, a man able to walk barefooted on fire and in other ways control pain.
He was not esoteric and never really believed in the occult, but he did come to me to try to find an explanation for his wonderful feats in controlling his nervous system and pain.
As I was making for lectures in Denver and Colorado, he offered to demonstrate his powers at my lectures.
His occupation was a cheese-maker, and a very clever one, because he could not only run the cheese factory efficiently but could also persuade the owner to give him time off for his feats at offsetting pain, which was becoming famous enough to put him in the Guinness Book of World Records.
I brought him to England where he performed and I gave an esoteric explanation as to how he managed to control pain.
In a trance-induced state, his feet became resistant to red-hot coals or 6-inch nails. His stage name was 'Komar.'
At Claregate's firewalk, we managed to get the temperature of the burning logs to 1100 degrees Fahrenheit.
I had invited a Professor of Physiology from London University to attend, and he took the temperature not only of the red-hot coals but also of the surface of Komar's naked feet before and after the firewalk.
Komar never attracted sponsors and had to work all his life.
He gave his time freely to medical research panels investigating pain.
Dr Baker worked with Komar for over thirty years, and this cheerful, unassuming man was always spoken of with reverence at Claregate College.
This is his story.

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