Pyrokinesis

 ( Fire ) 

The medium Daniel Dunglas Home was known for performing fire feats and handling a heated lump of coal taken from a fire. The magician Henry R. Evans wrote that the coal handling was a juggling trick, performed by Home using a hidden piece of platinum. Hereward Carrington described Evans hypothesis as "certainly ingenious" but pointed out William Crookes, an experienced chemist, was present at a séance whilst Home performed the feat and would have known how to distinguish the difference between coal and platinum. Frank Podmore wrote that most of the fire feats could have easily been performed by conjuring tricks and sleight of hand but hallucination and sense-deception may have explained Crookes' claim about observing flames from Home's fingers.

Joseph McCabe has written that Home's alleged feats of pyrokinesis were weak and unsatisfactory, he noted that they were performed in dark conditions amongst unreliable witnesses. McCabe suggested the coal handling was probably a "piece of asbestos from Home's pocket".

Sometimes claims of pyrokinesis are published in the context of fire ghosts, such as Canneto di Caronia fires and the 1982 Italian case of a young Scottish nanny, Carole Compton.

In March 2011, a three-year-old girl in Antique, a Philippines province with important mysticism and folklore, gained local media attention for the supposed supernatural power to predict or create fires. The town mayor said he witnessed a pillow ignite after the girl said "fire... pillow." Others claimed to have witnessed the girl either predicting or causing fire without any physical contact with the objects. A pastor claimed to have exorcised the girl and police failed to find anything abnormal although a paranormal proponent claimed that she must have inherited those powers from a previous life. The story of the alleged "fire starter" was featured on the June 22, 2020 Kapuso Mo, Jessica Soho show. Since several objects around the house were ignited, local residents flocked to the girl's house to learn of the circumstances and emergency services visited the house to investigate.

There is no scientifically known method for the brain to trigger explosions or fires.

• Fire (classical element)
• Firewalking
• Fire breathing
• Firestarter (novel)
• Spontaneous human combustion

• Gordon Stein. (1993). Encyclopedia of Hoaxes. Gale Research.
• John G. Taylor. (1980). Science and the Supernatural: An Investigation of Paranormal Phenomena Including Psychic Healing, Clairvoyance, Telepathy, and Precognition by a Distinguished Physicist and Mathematician. Temple Smith.