ICE MAN – Wim Hof

I first heard of Wim Hof a few days ago when a friend shared his interview with Joe Rogan, as I didn’t make it through the whole two hours I decided to look for more about him. This 39 minute video was inspiring as well as telling to what I intuitively know as my own whole body experiences have shown.

Anyone who knows me will testify that getting into icy water is something I don’t take to easily though anyone who’s taken the plunge knows it does something extraordinary to our body’s function. What Wim Hof has shown and proven within the current scientific model is that we do exert control on our body’s metabolism and with superhuman will can and do change how it reacts to environmental stress.

A worthy listen. For myself I will underline two things he says right at the end of the video as being experientially true. On speaking about the overwhelming grief he experienced when his wife committed suicide he says:

“That’s the time you can let go. It’s when you cry. […] Final stage is to go back to the grief, go back to the love, the lost love. I want to bring back love to the world. Love is compiled by happiness, strength and health. If you radiate good energy because you are healthy, happy and strong that is love. So love is my mission.”

And while throwing back shots of some Polish alcohol he says something so profoundly true, something I have alluded to many times.

“The thing about that if you are healthy electromagnetically, you are able to distinguish an energy field around your head. […] Asked “What is an electromagnetic halo?” He answers: “And if your brain is not fucked up then you got a nice electrical field around your head.”

Even while I have not put myself in the same extremes of temperature I have been tested in the extreme, the paths are many but the truth of this man’s life is one.

Wim Hof first caught the attention of scientists when he proved he was able to use meditation to stay submerged in ice for 1 hour and 53 minutes without his core body temperature changing. Since then, he’s climbed Mount Everest in his shorts, resisted altitude sickness, completed a marathon in the Namib Desert with no water and proven under a laboratory setting that he’s able to influence his autonomic nervous system and immune system at will.

Almost everything Wim has done was previously thought to be impossible – but he’s not a freak of nature.

To demonstrate that any human can learn his methods, Wim offered to teach Matt Shea and Daisy-May Hudson to climb a freezing cold mountain in their shorts without getting cold. But when Matt and Daisy signed up for the training, they had no idea that the so-called Iceman was planning to lead them on a psychedelic journey across Europe that circled the chasm between science, spirituality and mystery.

Sally Donatello – Photographer