Zoroastrianism is one of the oldest world religions, founded by the great prophet Zarathustra. Many of its devotees have worshiped fire for thousands of years. Even today the fire is constantly burning in their churches, now, however, already few in number. True, the worship of fire can have completely different, far from spiritual, origins.
Sly Pyro
A burning bonfire, splashing sparks into the darkness, restless tongues of flame in the fireplace - you can endlessly watch the mystical play of fire … However, there are people who are attracted by the violent and formidable flame of destructive fires. Their desire to admire fire all the time develops into a disease called pyromania. This strange and terrible affliction is characterized by an impulsive and irresistible urge to burn.
An interesting fact: the young Vladimir Ulyanov (the future leader of the proletariat, Lenin), starting his career as a lawyer, defended several pyromaniacs from prosecution. The peasants of the Simbirsk province, in order to admire the fire, set fire to their own houses. Ulyanov lost this process.
Here's an even more interesting example. At the beginning of the last century, a terrible and inexplicable fire occurred on an American ocean liner. The radio operator continued to transmit the SOS signal until the batteries exploded under his feet. Other ships arrived in time for the distressed liner and saved most of the passengers and crew members. The whole country learned about the valiant radio operator, he became a national hero.
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And only years later it became known that this fire and a whole series of similar disasters were arranged by this very "hero", who invariably figured as a witness or even an active participant in extinguishing the fire. A thorough investigation was carried out after the murder he committed, and a double one. It was it that revealed all the atrocities of the radio operator-pyromaniac.
Dexterous, cunning and clever, well-versed in chemistry and electrical engineering, this man made self-igniting small-sized devices and installed them on objects of his choice - and then waited for triggering in order to admire the raging elements of fire. Human suffering did not bother him.
What makes arsonists act so cruel
July 6, 1944 in the American city of Hartford (Connecticut), a giant circus tent was filled with 6 thousand spectators, mostly women with children. The tarpaulin tent of this circus was impregnated not with a fire-resistant compound (as required by safety precautions), but with a mixture of paraffin and gasoline, on the contrary, intensifying the fire. This was a fatal mistake by the circus administration, who decided to save money on this. At 2.30 pm, an awning broke out near the main entrance.
The flames rushed along the walls to the dome, and in a few minutes the tarpaulin awning was already blazing and falling apart. Shreds of burning canvas flew over the people. In panic, the audience rushed into the arena. The crush began. The path to salvation was blocked by three collapsible corridors intended for animals. Anyone who could not climb through these corridors was simply trampled. In this place about a hundred people crowded. All the unfortunates perished under the huge pieces of burning tarpaulin that fell on them.
Trying to save at least someone, circus performers and workers, policemen threw themselves into the scorching heat … But then, with a terrifying crash and noise, six gigantic supports, which had previously supported the dome, collapsed on the people. In 10 minutes, 168 people died in hellfire, about half a thousand suffered from severe wounds and burns.
A full six years after this disaster, a certain Robert Dale Segri appeared in the Hartford police. The man admitted that it was he who set the fire in the circus in July 1944, and on purpose. Segri told about the details of his crime. At the time of the tragedy, he was fourteen years old, but before that Robert had committed many arson attacks, including a shop, a boat dock, a Salvation Army center, a school building, etc. Segri said that a rider on a red horse called him to all such "feats" in a dream.
The court sentenced the arsonist to forty years in prison; it was a very mild punishment for such grave crimes …
Fortunately for us, pyromania is a rare disease, and numerous fires break out, usually without the involvement of insidious arsonists. However, there are pyromaniacs, and for the time being, they quietly and mrno live among us, posing a huge threat to people …
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By the way, people are also called pyromaniacs who, for no apparent reason, burn themselves out. They burn out from some mystical internal fire, on the one hand, which has tremendous power that can turn a person into ashes in a matter of minutes, and on the other, it is characterized by fantastic selectivity, when nothing but the body burns out, sometimes even the clothes remain intact. Check out the documentary Pyromaniac: The Flamethrower Man about this.