Spontaneous Human Combustion Support Group

Believe it or not, scanning your local yellow pages for a spontaneous human combustion support group will not yield many results. Trolling the internet is equally frustrating. So what can the victims and survivors of spontaneous human combustion (SHC) do? Who will assuage fears that they will combust again? A support group and only a support group will suffice. So get one going in your community today!

I first became interested in the phenomenon of human combustion in the 1980s while watching the film "This is Spinal Tap". Two of the band's drummers, Peter Bond and Mick Shrimpton, both died (in separate incidents) of self combustion. Later in college, while working as a columnist for the campus newspaper, I watched a program on the Discovery Channel which further piqued my interest in this strange affliction.

On October 2, 1996, I wrote the following:

"All over the world there are reports of
individuals with large build-ups of internal methane who
became cinder piles from the inside out. One such case was a
man in France who started to burn at the dinner table.
Flames shot from his stomach which prompted his daughter to
put down her croissant and call the fire department. When
the firefighters arrived, the man was dead but still ablaze
so they thrust a fire hose into his open stomach and put him
out."

Since then, I have devoted my life to thinking about human combustion. That's why I feel comfortable advising people how to start their own SHC support group.

First you will need a place to meet. You may be tempted to gather in your home, but there are a lot of pitfalls to this approach. Combustion survivors need a comfortable setting in order to "open themselves". A home immediately conjures images of comfort, but for SHC survivors, it is a cauldron of bad memory triggers. Most SHC victims suffer their affliction in their own homes. Typical home similarities such as a living room sofa, a staircase, a wall of family portraits or a fire place mantle may involuntarily remind a survivor of their own incident and send them into an emotional breakdown. Further, gathering a dozen people with unusually high methane levels is an insurance risk. While human combustion is usually self-contained and does not burn the victim's surroundings, you never know what kind of chain-reaction a grouping of high-risk individuals may cause. So it's best to keep your home out of harm's way.

If you do decide to conduct an SHC support group in your home, be sure to make the environment as sterile as possible, have plenty of fire extinguishers on hand and do not cook meat in the house less than 24 hours before the meeting. Even lingering charred meat smells can have a negative impact on group therapy.

The ideal spot for a group to meet, if you can get permission, is an empty classroom at a school near a fire station. Or in a swimming pool. Short of this, you may have a hard time shoring something up. Be diligent, ask around and hope for the best.

After settling on a meeting place, you will then need to advertise your group. Starting off, keep everything local. Make flyers to post on bulletin boards and telephone polls. Take out an ad in the local paper and/or penny press. Ask around at work, church, the gym, the country club etc. to see if you can find SHC survivors on your own. Tell them about your group and ask them to spread the word.

What to put in your ads. Keep it short and sweet: Spontaneous Human Combustion Survivors Meeting -- This Thursday at Pine Avenue Elementary room 3B. That kind of thing. And then include an eye-catching picture. A simple, iconic rendering of a human with flames shooting out of his stomach should suffice. Keep the imagery straightforward (like a restroom figurine). Making the image too realistic, too graphic could trigger an emotional meltdown in some survivors and may inspire grocery story managers to remove your flyers from their bulletin boards.

After you've found a meeting place and sufficiently advertised, it is time to set your itinerary. What will you discuss at your meeting? Here are some topic suggestions:

The History of Spontaneous Human Combustion -- From Moses to Michael Jackson.

Why Me? Why Did I Catch Fire and Not My Chain-smoking Neighbor?

Was It Something I Ate or Is It Genetic?

Once you have attracted one or two members to your group, hold a brainstorming session for ongoing topics and possible guest speakers you may want to invite. Don't be discouraged if the ideas don't catch fire immediately. New members of any support group will often need time to let ideas smolder before any real sparks fly. Human combustion support members are no different.

Finally, you have the space, the members and the itinerary, all that's left are the snacks. Spontaneous human combustion often leaves victims with a hallow feeling. Fill that empty space with donut holes, licorice and corn chips, plenty of water and diet soda. Bran muffins, habanero chili and alcohol are all bad ideas. Marshmellows are okay, but only if none of the group members had their incendiary incident while camping.

Good luck starting your own SHC support chapter. Even if you've never been personally touched by this unique affliction, by lending your time and energy to those who have, you place a windbreaker around the candles of hope that burn in literally dozens of people around the world.