Breatharianism
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Breatharianism is the idea that one can live without food and drink, and subsist only off of "pranic light." According to practitioners, pranic light is accurate, channelled information from a huge invisible spaceship hovering over North America. Or something.[1]
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[edit] Relationship to sungazing
Breatharianism frequently involves sungazing in the dubious belief that nourishment can be gained directly from the sun's energy through the eye, even though it is not a photosynthesising organ. This is likely to be just a woo-based explanation of "energy", which has little or nothing to do with real definitions 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 - usually this sort of excuse allows proponents to ignore evidence based on people trying and failing 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 of the world's starvation problems.
Incidentally don't experiment! Staring at the sun is extremely dangerous and can cause blindness.[2]
[edit] How do they survive?
There are people who practice breatharianism or sungazing who to seem to live quite normal (well, normal-ish) lives. So how to they survive?
In the first instance, anyone claiming to live on light and/or air alone is most certainly lying. In 1983, most of the leadership of the movement in California resigned when Wiley Brooks, a notable proponent of breatharianism, was caught sneaking into a hotel and ordering a chicken pie.[3] Under controlled conditions where people are actually watched to see if they can do it without sneaking some real food, they almost certainly fail. The name most commonly associated with breatharianism is Australia's Jasmuheen (born Ellen Greve), who claims to live only on a cup of 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[4] and the trial was halted after four days, despite Greve's insistence 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 this excuse even after she was moved to the middle of nowhere.
[edit] Er, they don't
The second possible answer to "how do they survive" is that "they don't". Most of the time whenever breatharianism hits the news, it isn't because one of the leaders and proponents have been caught cheating, but because one of the followers has died of extreme malnutrition[5][6][7]—stories sufficient to win a Darwin Award.[8] But hey, at least they saved a lot on food bills and became ascended beings of light!
[edit] Pro-ana
Breatharianism of late has been crossing over with pro-ana, or anorexia advocacy.[9]
[edit] Caveat
Practitioners of Jainism, in advanced age, sometimes renounce food and offer justifications for doing so that sound like Breatharians' twaddle on a superficial level. There the similarity ends, and the two practices should not be confused. This is an extremely advanced religious practice, appropriate to the end of life. Jains do not usually delude themselves that complete renunciation of food will bring long or eternal life in the flesh.
[edit] Breatharian Soundtrack
Breatharians don't have an album out, but if they did, they might have a trashy section like on Wikipedia for it.
- Something in the Air Tonight - Genesis.
- Every Breath You Take - The Police.
- Take My Breath Away - Berlin.
- My Heart Keeps Missing a Beat - Pet Shop Boys.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Apologetics Index
- Wiley Brooks is still going strong!
- Oh and he needs billions of dollars, what a surprise.
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ Breatharians on Livejournal
- ↑ Staring at the sun will make you go blind
- ↑ Neohumanism on Breatharianism
- ↑ Fresh-air dietician fails TV show's challenge
- ↑ Scotland Woman 'starved herself to death'
- ↑ Three deaths linked to 'living on air' cult
- ↑ Swiss woman starves to death on daylight diet.
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ At least according to the raw-foodies