Tolly Burkan, also known as Bruce Burkan, (born May 17, 1948 in
New York City) is a
firewalking spokesman.
During the 1970s, Burkan created a firewalking class and began teaching firewalking to the general public. In the 1980s, he started working with large corporations and began training instructors.
He has written eight books that have been translated into 15 languages, including ''Extreme Spirituality'', ''Let It Be Easy'', and ''Dying to Live: From Despair and Death to Freedom and Joy''.
Burkan's disappearance from
Asbury Park, New Jersey
Asbury Park () is a beachfront city located on the Jersey Shore in Monmouth County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It is part of the New York metropolitan area.
As of the 2020 U.S. census, the city's population was 15,188 and his subsequent reappearance two months later, after a memorial service, was the subject of national news in 1967. Although he would explain in his book ''Dying to Live'' and in news stories years later that he had run away from home for two months, the incident would continue to be cited in pseudoscience books as "still unexplained" and evidence of alien abduction or teleportation
["Teleportation... The Ultimate Trip", by George Cunningham-Tee, in ''Pittsburgh Press Sunday Magazine'', November 20, 1983]
References
Further reading
*
*Beth Ann Drier, "The Curious Hot Foot It to a New Fad,"
Los Angeles Times, 11 April 1984, pt. 1, 1.
*
*''
USA Today'' 4-2-90 Page 1, Section D
External links
*
''National Geographic''Loring M. Danforth, Firewalking and Religious Healing: The Anastenaria of Greece and the American Firewalking Movement, Princeton University PressEdwards, Emily D. “Firewalking: A Contemporary Ritual and Transformation.” TDR 42 (1998): 98-114.analysis of Burkan's seminars
*
Mythbusters - Firewalking 101'
"The Encyclopedia of Religious Phenomena"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Burkan, Tolly
1948 births
Living people
New Age writers
American motivational writers
American self-help writers
American spiritual teachers
American spiritual writers