Breatharianism

[[File:Jasmuheen B.jpg|thumb|right|165px|Jasmuheen, a notable breatharian, here pictured in 2008.]]{{newage}}{{bronze}}

'''Breatharianism''' is the 
insane
 [[New Age]] idea that one can live without food and drink, subsisting only off "pranic light."  According to practitioners, pranic light is accurate, [[Channeling|channelled]] information from a [[UFO|huge invisible spaceship]] hovering over North America.<ref>[http://community.livejournal.com/breatharians/ Breatharians on Livejournal]</ref>

==Relationship to sungazing==
{{main|Sungazing}}

{{messagebox|warning-red|
'''Don't try this!'''

Staring at the Sun is extremely dangerous and can cause blindness.<ref>[http://hubpages.com/hub/Will-Staring-at-the-Sun-Make-You-Go-Blind Staring at the sun will make you go blind]</ref> If you're going to stare at the sun, get a special sungazing telescope or even some binoculars, but '''not a regular telescope''', as that can blow a hole right into your brain.{{Citation needed}}
}}

Breatharianism frequently involves [[sungazing]], in the dubious belief that nourishment can be gained directly from the [[Sun]]'s energy through the [[eye]],<ref group=note>Though [[Vitamin D|one vitamin]] is [https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional/ endogenously produced by the skin from sunlight].</ref> even though it is not a [[photosynthesis]]ing organ. This is likely to be just a [[woo]]-based explanation of "[[Subtle energy|energy]]", which has little or nothing to do with the real definition of [[energy]] as a state-function of what can perform work. As with most supposed techniques of its type, proponents claim that the arts of breatharianism take years to master &mdash; usually this sort of excuse allows proponents to ignore contrary evidence based on people's failed attempts at the technique. It clearly requires a great deal of courage and self-discipline to be able to keep a straight face while talking about staring at the Sun as a viable solution to the world's starvation problems.

==How do they survive?==
There are people who practice breatharianism or sungazing who do seem to live quite normal lives. So how do they survive?

In the first instance, anyone claiming to live on light and/or air alone is lying. In 1983, most of the leadership of the movement in [[California]] resigned when Wiley Brooks {{lived|1936|2016}},<ref>https://books.google.ca/books?id=9q-IDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PT471&vq=wiley%20brooks&dq=%22The%20Legend%20of%20Atlantis%3A%20Return%20of%20the%20Lightmasters%22&pg=PT476#v=onepage&q&f=false</ref> a notable proponent of breatharianism, was caught sneaking into a hotel and ordering a chicken pie (or buying Twinkies, according to another story).<ref>[https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/sep/28/millennium.uk Let them eat air… Breatharians claim to live on cosmic light alone, but their leaders have been dogged by rumours of furtive snacking. Oliver Burkeman finds out how long we can really go without food and water] Tuesday 28 September 1999 11.23 EDT. ''[[The Guardian]]''.</ref> Under controlled conditions, where people are actually watched to see if they can do it without sneaking some real food, they fail.

The second possible answer to "how do they survive" is that ''they don't''. Usually, when breatharianism hits the news, it isn't because one of the leaders and proponents has been caught cheating but because one of the followers has ''[[Dead|died]]'' of extreme malnutrition<ref>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/453661.stm Woman 'starved herself to death'], ''[[BBC]]'' (Scotland section), September 21, 1999</ref><ref>[https://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/swiss-woman-starved-to-death-on-daylight-diet/news-story/4592e28bf82c15fc930969b5f225aca9 Swiss woman starves to death on daylight diet], ''Herald Sun'', April 26, 2012. The [http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/leben/gesellschaft/Von-Licht-ernaehrt--bis-in-den-Tod/story/28039574 original article in German (Von Licht ernährt – bis in den Tod; Living on light - until death)] from the Swiss newspaper ''Tages-Anzeiger'' listed two additional breatharianism-related deaths: 31-year old [[Germany|Munich resident]] Timo Degen who died in March 1997 and the 53-year old [[New Zealand]]er Lani Morris who died in June 1998.</ref> &mdash; stories sufficient to be nominated for a [[Darwin Award]].<ref>[http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/darwin1999-58.html Breatharianism, 1999 Darwin Award nominee] (this was based on the Scottish case reported by the BBC).</ref>

==The metabolism problem==
As YouTube [[vlogger]] [[Thunderf00t]] explains in one of his videos,<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwOX7vOf0_s</ref> people lose weight simply by breathing out carbon dioxide, some 30 grams per hour on average. The carbon in this carbon dioxide originates either from digesting food or (in the case of starvation) from breaking down bodily tissues in order to keep the brain supplied with glucose. Thus, one only needs to check a breatharian's breath for carbon dioxide, and optionally after that check for symptoms of malnutrition such as edema and ascites (swollen legs and abdomen) in the case of true starvation, to prove them wrong.

==Notable Breatharians==
The name most commonly associated with breatharianism is [[Australia]]'s Jasmuheen (born Ellen Greve), who claims to live only on a cup of [[Fun:tea|tea]] and a biscuit every few days. However, the only supervised test of this claim (by the Australian edition of ''60 Minutes'' in 1999) left her suffering from severe dehydration,<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20000511184555/http://www.rickross.com/reference/breat/breat13.html Fresh-air dietician fails TV show's challenge]</ref> and the trial was halted after four days despite Greve's insistence that she was happy to continue. She claimed the failure was due to being near a city road, leading to her being forced to breathe "bad air." She continued with this excuse even after she was moved to the middle of nowhere. Jasmuheen won the 2000 [[Ig Nobel Prize]] in Literature for her book ''Living on Light''.<ref>[http://www.improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html  Winners of the Ig® Nobel Prize]</ref>

Comedian and [[civil rights]] activist Dick Gregory promoted and followed the dubious fruitarian diet, and promoted but did not follow the (even more dubious) breatharian diet in his still-popular 1974 book ''Dick Gregory's Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat: Cookin' With Mother Nature'' ("The final extreme of the continuum is 'breathatarianism,' or 'eating nothing.'").<ref>''''Dick Gregory's Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat: Cookin' With Mother Nature'' by Dick Gregory (1974) Perennial Library.</ref>{{rp|11}}

==Pro-ana==
Breatharianism of late has been crossing over with [[pro-ana]], or anorexia advocacy.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20061105114950/http://www.vegsource.com/talk/raw_diet/messages/354.html At least according to the raw-foodies]</ref> Nothing like one form of woo enabling another, yeah?

==Caveat==
Practitioners of [[Jainism]], in advanced age, sometimes renounce food and offer justifications for doing so that sound like breatharians on a superficial level. The similarity ends there, and the two practices should not be confused. Jains do this as a religious practice, and it is considered appropriate for the end of life; they usually do not believe that complete renunciation of food will bring long or eternal life in the flesh.<ref>[http://www.iep.utm.edu/jain/ Jain Philosophy]</ref>

==One last counterargument==
If ever you do encounter a breatharian, and they manage to [[PIDOOMA]] an explanation for how the eye, or really any part of the body other than the skin, could conceivably convert photons into atoms and, from there, nutrients, we advise you to ask them why, if sustenance can be obtained purely from staring at the sun, no species of animal has evolved to do so as its primary source of nutrition. Even ''plants'' are unable to rely on the sun alone for sustenance; they also require soil, water, and air (the first one being where the vast majority of the atoms that comprise them actually come from).

==See also==
*[[Fasting]]
*[[Inedia]]
*[[Sungazing]]
*[[Pranic healing]]

==External links==
*[http://www.apologeticsindex.org/b12.html Apologetics Index]
*[http://www.breatharian.com/ Wiley Brooks is still going strong!] 
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20090901172837/http://www.breatharian.com/immortalityworkshop.html Oh and he needs billions of dollars, what a surprise.]
*[https://www.snopes.com/breatharians/ Do Breatharians Survive Without Food or Water?], Snopes.com

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

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[[Category:Diet woo]]
[[Category:New Age]]
[[Category:Pseudoscience]]

Categories: Diet woo, New Age, Pseudoscience