I really had no knowledge of ear candling prior to this thread. I heard of it, but thats about it.
Interesting take on quack watch which seems to make sense. One reader did their own experiment which I will post here...
Quote:
From Rebecca Silveous, Marenga, Ohio:
After undergoing ear coning, I was amazed when the remains of the cone was cut open, and revealed what appeared to be cerumin from my ears. However, I later discovered that it was nothing more than melted wax from the burned-down cone itself.
To investigate, I used an old insulin bottle that had had the rubber on the top. Since the rubber was gone, I used furnace tape to complete my experiment. I placed an ear cone into the opening at the top of the bottle which was approximately two and a half inches long and about an inch in diameter. I then taped around the top of the bottle and around the smaller end of the ear cone to hold it in place at the top of the bottle. I made sure that no air could get in or out. The bottle was laid on its side and the ear cone was set at 30 to 40 degrees. I then lit the candle at its largest end and, snipping off burned remains, proceeded to watch it burn down to about 4 inches from the bottle, at which time I pulled it from the bottle and extinguished the flame. I then cut it open length-wise and observed the contents in the cone tube. It had the appearance, color and texture of ear wax, and looked like ear wax, and yet was not inserted into any ear whatsoever.
While the candle burned, no smoke went into the bottle or came out of the top of the candle. So my experiment showed that the smoke would not enter the ear at all, and the heat some people feel is actually the heat from the flame itself. Most of the ear cone packages state that they are for entertainment purposes only. People who claim they have healing properties are deceiving the public.
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This should be easy enough to try on your own. Personally I wondered how it could clean out the ear when I first heard about it, but I didn't give it a lot of thought. The more I think about it, the more improbable it seems.