Breatharianism, also known as inedia, is the belief that a person can survive without consuming food or water, instead subsisting on prana or “life-force energy.” While the notion has roots in ancient spiritual traditions and appeared in a 17th century esoteric text, it is today associated primarily with the claims of two modern individuals.
Wiley Brooks, the founder of the Breatharian Institute of America, gained national attention in 1980 with an appearance on the television show “That’s Incredible!” where he claimed not to have eaten solid food for nearly 20 years. He argued that eating was a learned habit and that breathing alone could sustain life. Brooks further asserted that hunger strikers did not die from starvation but from psychological causes, and that even infants could survive without food if properly trained. In a 2013 interview, Michelle Pfeiffer said that she had been introduced to breatharianism as an aspiring actor in Los Angeles in the early 1980s by a “very controlling” couple who may have been linked to Brooks.
Brooks’s credibility suffered a major setback in 1983 when a former follower reported seeing him purchase and consume a Slurpee, Twinkies, and a hot dog at a 7-Eleven. Although Brooks denied the allegations, the incident led to public skepticism and a decline in his following. Brooks later refined his teachings, introducing concepts such as “people pollution” and “electro pollution” as obstacles to successful breatharian living. He also proposed that some fast food items, particularly McDonald’s double quarter-pounder with cheese and Diet Coke, could align with the “base frequency” of a fifth-dimensional universe.
Brooks began offering expensive workshops and spiritual retreats, targeting affluent clients with prices ranging from $100,000 to as much as $50 billion. In the final years of his life, he acknowledged that he still needed to eat and said he was focusing on understanding why this was the case. Brooks died in 2016.
Another central figure in the modern movement was Ellen Greve, who adopted the name Jasmuheen. Active from the 1990s, she promoted “pranic nourishment,” claiming that she could go for months with little or no food, subsisting primarily on a cup of tea. Jasmuheen linked her beliefs to the teachings of the mystical figure St. Germain and authored books that outlined her approach.
In 1999, she agreed to participate in a supervised test organized by the Australian television program “60 Minutes.” The experiment aimed to assess whether she could sustain herself without food or water over a week. By the third day, Jasmuheen complained that the hotel setting, located near a busy road, was too polluted to allow her to absorb nutrients from the air. The test was relocated to a rural retreat, but her physical condition continued to worsen. After several days, a doctor employed by the show recommended that the experiment be halted, reporting that Jasmuheen’s pulse rate had doubled, she was severely dehydrated, and that kidney failure was imminent. Jasmuheen disagreed with the decision but complied.
In 2000, Jasmuheen received the “Bent Spoon Award” from the rationalist group Australian Skeptics for promoting what they described as the year’s most egregious pseudoscientific claim. That same year, she was also awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for her book Living on Light. As of 2017, at least five deaths had been linked to individuals attempting breatharian practices allegedly influenced by her writings. Jasmuheen has denied culpability, stating that in one of the cases, the deceased’s practice was perhaps “not coming from a place of integrity and did not have the right motivation.”
Other prominent modern breatharian claimants include Prahlad Jani, an Indian sadhu who stated that he had lived without food or water for over 70 years, and Hira Ratan Manek, an Indian man who claimed to have lived primarily on water, with occasional tea, coffee, or buttermilk, since 1995. A 2011 documentary included footage of Manek eating a large meal in a restaurant.
Key Sources:
BBC News. (1999, September 22). All they need is the air…
Bote, J. (2022, March 9). The strange, sad Bay Area ‘diet cult’ that fell apart over a chicken pot pie. The San Francisco Chronicle.
Haidrani, L. (2017, May 23). “Breatharians” believe you can survive on air alone. Vice.
Holman, T. (2013, November 4). Michelle Pfeiffer Was In A Breatharian Cult As A Young Actress. The Inquisitr.
Steiner, S. (1999, September 21). Face behind food-free teaching. The Times of London.
Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religious Movements 