Bittersweet Infamy - #9 - Living On Light

Episode Date: February 21, 2021

Taylor tells Josie about Breatharians: people who claim they can live without food or water. Plus: white lady mahjong.

Hey, this is Taylor from the podcast you're just about to listen to. Just a heads up that this week's story is about extreme disordered eating and maybe upsetting to some listeners. Take care of yourself and stay sweet. Hello and welcome to Bitter, Sweet, Infamy, the podcast about infamous people, places, and things. I'm Josie Mitchell. I'm Taylor Basso. My friend Taylor is going to tell me a story. I don't know what it will be about, but the only rule, the subject matter, must be infamous. So Taylor, I read recently that a small group of entrepreneurial white women received some backlash for redesigning mahjong tiles, redesigning the game, the look of the game,

so it had a little bit more edge, a bit more flair. Yeah, yeah, I saw that. I did in fact see that. It's almost like you knew. You did send it to me. Yeah. So do you want to explain the gist of that? I do. I do. So there are three American women who none of them have Asian ancestry, and they wanted to quote unquote refresh the original game and make it reflect their personalities. So usually mahjong mahjong is a game that's played with small tiles, and I was taught once how to play it, and then I quickly forgot. So it's like a very I'll say complicated because I don't know how to play it, but it's a strategy game where you move these tiles that have specific images and specific markings on them. And it's an ancient Chinese game that's

also really big in Jewish communities too. Yeah, when I was doing, I was also, when I sent this to you, I was curious about mahjong. So I did a little bit of reading up and apparently it's like, in America, it's kind of a bit of a bridge between the Chinese communities and the Jewish American communities. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty, yeah. Yeah, I had a Jewish granny teach me. But Oh, nice. Yeah, but I also saw a lot of games just in like on the street on the sidewalk in China. Right. And the tiles are really important because each image represents like a deck of cards, like how the images of Western deck of cards mean certain things in all different types of games. But typically, you know, the ace is highest to whatever. So it's the same for mahjong.

But these these young entrepreneurs thought that they would make make it a little bit more edgy, make it a little bit more like with the times. So the the images just look actually kind of retro, I'd say. They look a little Pinteresty or something to me. Yeah, yeah. They're there. So my uneducated who I take on it is this, I would be surprised if there was no such thing as like a reskinned mahjong set somewhere in the world. But I think that they they were very goop in the way that they went about it in a way that I think I think came off very like we're gentrifying mahjong, because like, not only did they reskin it or whatever, but they also like marked it way, way up. The game cost their game costs $325. Right. So how much how much does the

average mahjong set cost? Do you think? Oh, gosh, like like 50 bucks? Maybe even less because you can just get like, you can get like, you know, like dominoes. Yeah, you can get cheap dominoes or you can get like, yeah, exactly. Yeah. So so that's I think part of it too is like the optics of these white women coming and kind of like pressure washing the Chinese imagery off the mahjong set, and then also upmarking it and reselling it at a price high enough that they're clearly hoping that they're going to get included in one of these like Oprah's favorite things goop, you know, that kind of thing and sell a bunch. Like, yeah, I can see why that came off really badly. Yeah. And I could it's so strange because I could also see how they would just be like,

hey, we learned this game and it's really cool. And we're designers. So we designed another version here. Here it is, you know, but this push to be like, we want it to be a little edgy and to show our personalities and like to be Instagrammable. And yeah, we're white and it's just like, why why are you taking that route? You know what I mean? Yes. No, I mean, I think, I think it reminds me of I don't remember if you recall this and clearly it went nowhere because it doesn't exist. But this guy in New York City, I think wanted to make an app or it was some sort of like Wi Fi control Bluetooth controlled vending machine or something. It was like a very fancy bougie upscale little thing that had snacks in it or you could order snacks or I forget what

exactly the deal was. But it was something to do with getting snacks, but he called it bodega. And people like really stumbled on the idea that he was going to do in some way kind of like take away business from this like predominantly working class, you know, like brown population in New York City. Also kind of like these spaces that are like the the bulwark like like the meeting places like the community places too. And it's like you're going to replace that with a machine. Yeah, your machine doesn't have a cat man. Fuck off. Yeah. No, I saw this story because you sent it to me, but it definitely had like a very, I don't know, a gross grossness to it. It was a it was egregious. It was egregious. That's a good

word for it. It was a little egregious. It was a little egregious. We don't hear a better sweet infamy. We don't like egregious. It keeps us in business, but we don't like it. True enough. All right, Taylor. All right. Let me let me have it. I want to know. Then I'll tell you. I want to know the story that I don't know anything about. Well, you're gonna know. You know, I don't think I've known any of your stories yet. Really? No, they've all been beautiful, wonderful little bow wrapped surprises. Really? Okay, that's fun. Okay, let me see if I can keep the streak alive, baby. Okay. So Josie, did you know that the human body can live without food or water simply

by deriving energy from the sun? I did not know that because that's not true. Actually, this is the central tenet of a belief system known as Inedia, or as it's more commonly called breatharianism. Breatharianism? Breatharian, like vegetarian, but breatharian. Breatharian, okay, okay, okay. Breatharian. Yep, that's breathing. In 20... I know how to do that. Well, then you have reached the start of your journey. Yes. In 2013, a 65-year-old British woman living in Seattle named Naveena Shine. Good name. Attempted to prove just that. She started a YouTube channel called Living on Light, where she promised to document the process as her body learned to survive exclusively

on the divine energy of the universe. Naturally, this attracted international attention from concerned onlookers, rubber-neckers, and the New Age healing community. I want to make... I have a quick question. She's white, right? She's definitely white. Yes. Okay. But not everyone in this story is. This is a shockingly diverse story. I was surprised to find out. Oh, that looks good. Because it does have the whiff of white around it, absolutely. Naveena Shine is white. Okay. Her stated goal was to go 100 days without food. But before we find out if she succeeded in her mission, let me fill you in on the surreal history of breath-air veganism. I have no idea. Oh, well. Your streak is alive and well.

The streak continues. I'm still breathing. Okay. So let's get the most important part out of the way first. The introduction to the Wikipedia article on Inedia calls it, quote, a deadly pseudoscience. Oh, good. Okay. Thank you. Good. I'm glad that's... Yeah. No. Get that at the top. Yeah. The wiki editors are on it. The legitimate medical community is in total agreement that the effects of abstaining from food and water indefinitely are starvation, dehydration, and eventual death. Okay. See, I knew that. I knew. I knew that. Yeah, you wondered. There is no credible evidence that humans can live for long periods of time without eating or drinking, and it is incredibly dangerous to try it. Do not try it. Okay. Okay. Don't look at the sun.

No. Don't watch that one Pokemon episode, but also you can't live off the energy of the universe. Okay. Solely. Solely. Solely. Solely. So one last thing. I want to shout out a YouTube channel called Atrocity Guide. They have a really good video called The Strange World of Breath-Arianism. They have a lot of well-corelated info, and it's organized well, so it was really useful to me in putting this together. So I just want to shout them out kind of right off the top. I love good organization. So here's what, just to kind of bring you on the same sheet of music with me, here's what Breath-Arians believe. You might hear me or others use expressions like living on light or living on air, but when Breath-Arians say that, they're actually talking about a force they

claim is found in light and air called prana, or pranic energy. In Ayurvedic Hindu philosophy, prana is basically a kind of energy that permeates everything, air, food, water, everything. Okay. The idea behind Breath-Arianism is that one can bypass the need for food and water by spiritually honing oneself to be able to consume pranic energy directly from their surroundings, and you can do this through a combination of deep breathing, pranic yoga, and staring at the sun for up to 45 minutes at sunrise and sunset. Okay, I mean, I just said don't stare at the sun, and you gotta- They say differently, and one of you's gotta be wrong, so. Right, it's, yeah. Yeah, okay. By doing this, you can hypothetically live indefinitely without food.

Wow, so is part of this tenet that unless there's like an external force, you could live forever? Some texts around Breath-Arianism have gone as far as to promise immortality. Wow, that's a big promise. Let's see if they keep it. So okay, so in saying all that though, I don't want to misrepresent Hinduism. Right. Because I said that it's, you know, it's a piece of Hindu philosophy. Many Hindus observe periodic fasting as part of their religious practice to mark certain festivals or for spiritual reasons, but there's different kinds of fasts, many of which involve the substitution of certain foods for others rather than outright kiboshing food and water. Right, okay. It's also very

unusual to fast indefinitely, and the idea of living exclusively on pranic energy is a very extreme interpretation that only seems to exist in this world of Breath-Arianism. Okay. It's not reflective of the way most Hindus practice their faith, nor does Breath-Arianism even like necessarily classify itself as an offshoot of Hinduism. It's its own thing borrows Hindu concepts. Right, right. Okay, yeah, yeah. I mean yoga, yeah, exactly. I mean, you know, the quote unquote yoga, the yoga pants yoga. Yes, yes. The fancy mahjong tile yoga pants yoga. Yes, got you. The earliest verifiable documented example I could find of someone claiming to live without food, not counting religious scriptures and

apocryphal legends was in 1669. Good year. You know, I have to ask you, what were you doing in 1669? I was giving birth to my ninth child. You survived. I mean, the 10th was a little rough, but the ninth, quick enough. And then I went back to the farm chores of slopping pigs and, you know, cool. Yeah, sweeping the dirt floor of my hut. Yeah. At any point in all of this, did you or anybody else wash their hands? No. Okay, cool. There's no time for that. A woman named Martha Taylor, also known as the Darby Shire Damsel. Yeah, I want a nickname that survives lore, you know. Yeah, I was just thinking you should get another shirt like your like your Taylor gang and like your Taylor maid. Martha Taylor was said to

have fallen ill and then refused all food for one year. Allegedly, she maintained a positive disposition and did not lose weight in her face or upper body, although her lower body like withered away. Whoa. Believers attributed this occurrence to the forces of God or the devil as you do. Yeah. While skeptics insisted that she was eating in secret. A doctor, John Reynolds, observed her for 40 nights and determined that the small amount of water she ingested was likely to be one of the primary factors in keeping her alive. Because she was, dude, I don't like listen. I should probably also add that I'm not a doctor, but my understanding, my very rudimentary understanding of human biology is that anatomy, whatever,

is that while long term you need both food and water to survive, obviously, in a pinch you'd rather be not eating than not drinking. Yeah, yeah. I am also not a doctor, but that sounds right. There are countless other examples over the centuries of people claiming to go in human amounts of time without food or water from ascetic monks in Nepal and India to Victorian-era teenage girls. There was like a little bit of a fad around it that I didn't dig into, but now that I'm saying it out loud, I should have. No, that sounds like it might be a whole nother story.

They were called the fasting girls, and I never, it was just one too many wiki articles to click on, so I didn't, but now that I'm saying it, I'm like, oh, I should have just done the whole thing on the fasting girls. No, no, I'm into the Brethrenarianism. Yeah, all good. I'm gonna do the fasting girl. I go first all the time. That's true, that's true, you scoop me. But one of the people most influential in the rise of what we call breatharianism, which is this kind of like bastardization of Hindu philosophy mixed in with generic New Age platitudes as seen through an Instagram filter, is a man named Wiley Brooks. So in 1981, Wiley Brooks appeared on a

talk show called That's Incredible. That's incredible, I know. Incredible. As far as I can gather, That's Incredible was just like, you would go there to do something and people would be like, that's incredible. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you'd fucking stuff 20 people in a VW wagon or something. I don't fucking know. Yeah, like, look, my elbows are double-jointed. Yeah, that's incredible. Gross, that's incredible. Yeah, exactly. So on That's Incredible, Wiley Brooks was shown apparently lifting 10 times his own body weight. Okay. And the secret, Wiley, the secret he said was that he hadn't eaten in 17 years. He read a book on natural foods, the very well titled Dick Gregory's Natural Diet for Folks Who Eat. And in this book, the author- That's incredible.

Yeah, that's incredible. In this book, the author, Dick Gregory, made kind of like a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that there's this big spectrum of eaters with people who eat everything with reckless abandon, like fucking Kirby on one end. And then I don't know why I went with Kirby. And then on the- I liked it. Thank you. On the other side were what he jokingly called breatharians, like people who just live on breath. Right. And Wiley Brooks read this and was like, okay. I think I'm on that end, over there. Breatharianism, you say, sounds interesting. Right, the anti-Kirbys. Okay, I'm in. Yes, exactly. Brooks became the forefather of the breatharian movement, and he attracted followers who would pay to attend 12-hour intensives,

where they could learn to, quote, stop eating and start living. He released a book called Breatharianism, Breathe and Live Forever, which toed breatharianism as the healthy diet for eternal beauty and decried food as more addictive than heroin. Well, I mean, okay. When's the last time you ate? I had a pretzel like 10 minutes ago. When's the last time you did heroin? Exactly. It's been years. 17 years. It's been never. Mom, never. The book was also notable for claiming, as you scoped out early on, that followers could attain immortality. Okay, good, good, good. See, I tapped right in there. I knew. You had your breatharian hat on. He also recommended that people transition to breatharianism by subsisting

on a diet of only yellow foods, including eggs, corn, salsa picante, and Haagen-Dazs rum raisin ice cream. Rum raisin. Yeah. It has to be Haagen-Dazs, though. I think he just liked Haagen-Dazs. Like, I think that was probably his brand or something. Was he sponsored? Was he sponsored? He was sponsored. I would question, but then come to respect the mad genius of an ice cream marketer who decided to sponsor a breatharian. True. Okay, yeah. In case you're wondering why specifically they stated that it was these foods, apparently the vibrational frequency of the color yellow detoxifies the blood. It's sunny, it's happy. I've always said, I've always said, I've never met a bad person whose favorite color was yellow,

and it's always done me right. Everyone I meet who they tell me yellow is their favorite color, I'm like, salt to the earth. Oh, wow. Okay, good. Good. So this guy. Salt the salt to the earth, but, but hold the salt. Don't eat the salt. I have to say, in my head, I keep just hearing the song, take my breath away. Oh, don't, because you'll die. Right, if you're a breatharian, I'm starving. You've been all my breath away. So, breatharianism, breathe and live forever, was sort of this, I got very fancy when I wrote this, I said, this chimera of a religious tract and a crash diet. Yeah, I know. That was a spine tingle phrase. Oh boy, still got it. No flies on me.

This book earned Brooks many devoted followers, including a name you might recognize. So we love a good celebrity cameo on Bitter Sweet Infamy, Marianne Williamson, Courtney Love. Every story is better if you can attach a famous face. So allow me to introduce the biggest star among the breatharians of the 1980s. You know her from her roles in Batman Returns, Hairspray, What Lies Beneath, The One and Only, Ms. Michelle Pfeiffer. Sadly, Michelle's time with the breatharians was short-lived because her husband, who was a filmmaker, started doing research on cults for a movie he was developing. And Michelle was kind of like, well, Michelle was like peeking over his shoulder and she was like, wait a minute.

I'm an occult. No, God. The self-awareness to broach that puts her. And plus also, if in the early 1980s, you were a young actress in Hollywood and you weren't in some kind of cult, like, were you really living? Fair enough. Fair enough. At least it wasn't Scientology. She'd still be paying that off Christ. Yeah. Yeah. True enough. True enough. Not only did she catch it early, but, uh, you know, maybe she she laxed on to the right one. She got that out of her system. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. She purged those toxins. Right. She got out just in time, too, because shortly after Brooks rose to prominence, one of his followers, LaVelle Leffler, harsh-narked on him. Oh, harsh-nark. A harsh-nark. A big ol' harsh-nark. She said that she'd seen

him eat a dozen donuts, an omelet. He was always sneaking food when his followers were asleep. Apparently one time, the way this all started is the way he tested the waters was like they were just in a room together and he just kind of, like, slowly ate something while looking at her. And when she didn't react, that was his, like, carte blanche. I can eat whatever the fuck I want around LaVelle. But really, she just had need in a few days, so she was totally zonked and couldn't concentrate on anything. She's just, like, breathing. Trying to get some type of sustenance. Just, like, angrily breathing into a brown paper bag while staring at it. Yeah.

Um, so Brooks did what all men do when confronted with a woman's wrath, and he tried to paint her as this, like, crazy, jealous ex-girlfriend out for revenge. But his cover was blown when he was spotted leaving a 7-Eleven in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia. Oh, no way! So this is, this is half-assed local. One part of this story happens in Vancouver. Um, with bags full of chicken pot pie and Twinkies. Oh, wow. It seems like he was, like, a real junk food fiend. Like, not only did he not, not only was he not living exclusively off of pronic energy or whatever, but, um, he's the rare person where I look at his diet and say, wow, you eat worse than I do. I love eating yellow and brown foods, my favorite colors, but...

Damn. And the 7-Eleven, too. I think that's a nice touch. Like, there's just, there's a lot of elements there. Yeah. You know? There's nothing more universal than a 7-Eleven. Um, that's not true. I don't really have them in Houston. Yeah, no, that's not true. But we are getting one down the street. I'm very excited. What's your local chain? We have a Timewise that's down the street. Never heard of it. I don't know that chain. Yeah. I don't know. Um, gosh. Yeah, I can't even, like, there are a lot of, like, mom and pop-owned ones, actually. That's nice. Yeah. I'm sure they'll be replaced by an app soon. Uh, so Wiley tried to convince his followers that the success of the movement didn't depend on whether its founder happened to eat or not. No. It just depends on

whether you happen to eat or not. Exactly. Just because I'm breatharian, just because I'm not breatharian, doesn't mean that you aren't. Like, come on. Common sense. Yeah. Where's your sense of selfhood? Exactly. But also collectivism. Just basically do what I say. Right, yeah. Also, could you pass me that twinkie? Um, so there was no putting the toothpaste back in the tube, and the breatharian movement went back into deep freeze until about the mid-90s. Okay. Okay. Heroine Sheik is at the height of popularity. Oh, yeah. Everyone's all kinds of, all kinds of breatharians. Just, uh, the next big name in the movement, and arguably the most influential name you'll hear from the names that I give you, is a woman named Jasmine Heen.

Is that first and last? Or is that a first name? Or just one name? Is that one name? Like, share. Jasmine Heen is an Australian mortgage broker turned New Age guru. Very diverse CV. She rose to prominence in the 1990s when she claimed that she had gone 11 years without needing food. Wow. To give you an idea of the credibility of her claims, she also says that her DNA has expanded from two to 12 strands to consume more hydrogen. Two to 12. Okay. Yeah. She, she, it was two, you know how I'm doing a DNA with my arms. The double. And now, and now it is a, a, what is the, a doze up all helix? Yeah. It's basically, you know, those balls, there's like kinetic balls where you pull a string and

they expand and attract. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. Okay. She was offered $30,000 to provide a DNA sample to confirm this. And just a DNA sample. Just a DNA, and whatever it said, she got 30 grand free and clear. Wow. And her response to this was, quote, you cannot view spiritual energy under a microscope. But honey, you just, okay. Yeah. So that's Jasmine Heen. Okay. Okay. Mortgage broker. Mortgage broker. Australian. Got it. 12, 12 strands of DNA. Yes. Connected ball, just shblooping out over there. Shblooping all over the place. Yeah. So Jasmine Heen published a book in the 90s called Living on Light, which is from which Navina Shine took the name for her YouTube channel. Okay. And Jasmine Heen was like an endorser of

Navina Shine's experiment or whatever, like I think she publicly commented on it. Yeah. This book includes a 21 day process to transition from eating food to living exclusively on chronic energy. Okay. In week one, you are to consume nothing solid or liquid. Week one. Week one. So for seven days, I don't know. It's cold turkey that, yeah. It's just fuck. I don't know what, and this is really, I should have looked this up. I don't know what the medical knowledge is on how long you can live without water, but a week is really, really, really pushing it. That's yeah. Like that's like that's dire you need to be on a fucking IV right now situation. That's also like you have to take off time from work to do that. You know, you can't

you're not doing spreadsheets. No, you are not. There's no way. Hey, I just, Josie, I just wanted to point out you haven't changed the date stamp for about four days in the mailroom. And also you don't appear to have saliva anymore. So I have a few things I'm concerned about. I've written a list. So in week one, one week, no food, no drink, this will cause symptoms such as extreme fatigue, kidney pain, and blue mouth. I'm gonna use that more often also, glue mouth. I'm so thirsty. I've got a little glue mouth. I came up with that. I wanted to, I wanted to, I wanted to encapsulate the feeling of having a gluey mouth. So I came up with glue mouth. She explains that all of this is the old spirit leaving your body. Oh, that's with, oh,

that's, that's, that's all, that's all. It's just think of it as like an extreme and extreme cleanse. And then after the first week, you're allowed to drink water and distilled juice again. Okay. But you are encouraged to channel chronic nourishment through meditation. Okay. And as for how you do that, Jasmuheen says, quote, as the energy channels through, say, feed me. It's that simple. Ew, that's like the mo, ew. In a story full of con artists with eating disorders, Jasmuheen is, to my mind, the absolute most repellent human in this whole story. Like I hate Jasmuheen. I cannot stand her. Also week two, you're definitely, you're slurping down your distilled juices, but you're also probably on the toilet

for like a good 10 hours of the day. You got to be, because your body would just be like, what the fuck did you do to me? You know what I mean? Like, well, the not, the not eating and the not drinking makes it difficult for your body to produce like excretion. Like, yeah, yeah, it makes it hard to pee and it makes it hard to poo. I can't imagine that like even putting something as benign as a watered down juice on a stomach that is literally not eaten for seven days. Yeah. I don't even know what that would do. Like I, I shudder to think what that would do. Yeah. Yeah. What, where's the pooping and all of this too? Like, are you just like, you're not pooping, sweetheart. That's the first thing you kiss goodbye.

Food, food and water at the first. Food and water and then, and then, then pee and poop. Yes. So, uh, if you weren't much of a reader and you wanted to learn all of this directly from the master herself, you could do it by attending one of her seminars for a cool $1,500. Oh, excellent. And she has like a Brittany Mike and there's a hundred percent weird upholstered chairs. She gives you coaching like, are you eating? Don't. Yeah. Feed me. Yeah. Just sit here and feed me. Yeah. So, um, last year, you're probably thinking, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but at some point you, you might have thought something in my mouth.

I watched the, uh, the YouTube video that I was telling you about. I watched that while waiting for food to get delivered and it just made me hungrier. Um, no. Oh, I imagine. You've probably thought at some point while I've been telling this story, gee Taylor, that sounds a little dangerous. Um, if, if the wrong people got a hold of this kind of book and attempted to follow these teachings, that could end pretty badly. Yeah. So there, there is a fail safe in order to determine whether this 21 day process is right for you. You have to complete a thorough self assessment checklist. Um, and it includes questions like, are you spiritually fit? Have you been meditating regularly enough to feel the presence of the

divine one within? And then next to that, it says parentheses, D O W. And this is my favorite question. And I think the most important one, did your heart really sing when you discovered information about this process to the point where you know it is for you? So this is just a quiz that you can just like, it's like a Cosmo quiz that you'll do when you're bored and thinking about how fucking desperately you want a cinnamon bun. Yes. Right. Right. But if you're even picking up this book and considering it, you're already, or not even booked, but if you're picking up this like ideology, then you're already too far down that path. Yeah, it's not. I mean, it counts on people to self regulate to an unreasonable degree. And you will be shocked to

hear that at least one of the questions consult a physician. No, God, no, let's keep those quacks, keep them out of it. We know the truth. So sadly, at least five people have died from following Jasmuheen's teachings. Inevitably. Oh, I mean, yeah. But oh, you know, you don't want to hear it. No, you don't want to. Just about to describe these deaths to you. So maybe skip ahead if you're a little squeamish. The deaths include Lonnie Morris, a 53 year old woman from Melbourne who died less than a week into the 21 day process during which she vomited black liquid. Oh, asked for comment. Jasmuheen suggested that Morris's spiritual practice was quote, not coming from a place of integrity and did not have the right motivation.

Rude. Totally rude. That made me so angry when I heard that. Yeah. Yeah. Now I understand why you despise her. That's the most offensive thing I've ever heard someone say about a dead person, let alone a person who's death in which they were like, basically whether or not it was legal culpability, they were culpable in my eyes. But allegedly, allegedly, don't sue me, Jasmuheen. I know you got deep pockets. All right. Oh, she's still around. I'll give you a little update on our cast of characters at the end. Good. A young woman named Verity Lynn also died. Her emaciated body was discovered lying in a remote moor in Scotland by a fisherman. Oh, yeah. I think she was like, camped out somewhere and doing this thing. I

don't know what the story is there. Right. Yeah. Or she became delirious and no idea somehow traveled out there. Yeah. No idea. A Munich woman named Timo Dagen died. One anonymous Swiss woman died in 2012. She apparently had been spitting out her saliva so she didn't swallow it during the first week of no solids or fluids. Oh, that doesn't count. Yeah. Another Dutch woman who lived in a home with other breatharian practitioners died in 2017. Her housemates were suspected of deliberately withholding medical care. So they were like, they were like, we're not going to get you, you just need to work through this. You know what I mean? Week one is the hardest sweet, just push, just do it. Yeah, exactly. And then in 2017, a 22 year old German man named Finn

Bogumil died in, where else but Dominica after, yeah, who knew? After telling family and friends, as I was reading up to that, I was like, I forget which Caribbean island this happened on, but I hope it's Dominica. And then I looked down and it was, yes. There's a lot of Caribbean islands too. That's true. That's true. He told his friends prior to dying, he told his friends and family of his plans to live on light. I don't know if that death though, went on Dominica was directly related to Jazz Mujin, but it was on her wiki page. So there you go. Okay. Jazz Mujin obviously denies any responsibility for the deaths, which I include for legal reasons. Not for moral. Ask me off the record what I think. And I'll tell you, in 1999, the same year that

the death of Lonnie Morris stole headlines. So this was the first woman I told you about who coughed up black gunk. Yeah. 60 Minutes Australia challenged Jazz Mujin to not eat or drink for a full week while under 24 seven monitored surveillance. 60 Minutes Australia. 60 Minutes Australia. Wow, bold move. I like that. I've seen 60 Minutes Australia episodes before about random cancer scam ladies or blog scam ladies or whatever. So I don't apparently 60 Minutes loves to go after skinny white lady con artists. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Someone's gotta. Someone's gotta. So they say Jazz Mujin, we want you to not eat or drink 24 seven will have a physician monitoring you regularly and you'll always be surveilled. And Jazz Mujin being Jazz Mujin is like great.

That would be like a vacation. I can't wait. Ah, delicious. Eating all this air. Yeah. That's what she sounds like all the time. I bet when she's really hungry. She's also a smoker at that. She just smokes casually. So when producers went to her house, they discovered that her refrigerator was full of food. Weird. She insisted that it all belonged to her partner who, by the way, is a convicted fraudster. Just putting that in there. Oh, oh, little little asterisk there. That proves nothing. So we're just past 24 hours. Okay. Oh, she like really does it. Okay. Okay. Yeah. The physician monitoring Jazz Mujin starts observing dehydration and irregular blood pressure.

Yeah, of course. Jazz Mujin blames the city air and it's accompanying pollutants. Right. They're blocking the product energy. Yeah. Yeah. So the producers are like, okay, hun. And so they take her out to the countryside. We can do this out here too. Oh man. 60 minutes, Australia. By day four, she's dehydrated. Her pulse has doubled and she's at risk for kidney failure. The doctors say, yo, if she dies on your watch, and I mean that literally because it's 60 minutes, it's a big clock. That's a good idea. It came up with it on the spot. I'm doing better and better at this podcasting shit. It's nice. Yeah. They said, yo, 60 minutes would be culpable if she dies.

Yeah. Yeah. You challenged her every, yeah. Exactly. Like, and you, whether or not you actually got convicted of anything, like, who wants that? Who wants to be like, well, we starve Jazz Mujin to death. What now? So the experiment has stopped on day four. Both proponents and skeptics of Jazz Mujin claimed the ambiguous ending as a victory for their side. Of course. Yeah. Because if you're like, if you believe Jazz Mujin, you're like, yeah, well, she never like, they stopped her too early. You know what I mean? And whereas otherwise you're like, yo, this woman who supposedly hasn't had a bite of food, a morsel of food in 11 years, or she says, she would say like, you know, sometimes I'll have a little bite just to

have the sensation of something in my mouth, like a bite of chocolate or a cappuccino. Like, she's intolerable, this woman. But she claims that she has not eaten for sustenance in 11 years. And yet all of a sudden, this is four days of her doing what she supposedly been doing every day for thousands and thousands of days. But she's lost a bunch of weight, her fucking blood pressure is spiking, and she looks like she's gonna die. Yeah. This was not the only instance of a purported breatharian being monitored by an independent body. So other people have tried to test this out. Right. A Swiss man named Michael Werner, Dr. Michael Werner, even former high school chemistry teacher. He was quarantined

and studied for 10 days at the University of Bern in Switzerland. He experienced physiological changes like losing large amounts of weight, which he also attributed to poor air quality. Mmm. Convenient. That's that bad airman. A Gujarati Indian man named Pralajani, he claimed that the Hindu goddess Amba had blessed him as a child and fed him through a hole in the top of his palate, which allowed him to live without food or drink. Like the top of his mouth? Yeah, he said that he had like a hole in his palate that provided him like a slow drip of

essentially nectar, but whatever this godly substance is that... Yeah, exactly. Okay. He said that he'd lived 70 years without food. That's a long ass time. He was kept in a sealed room in an Indian hospital for 10 days, during which Dr. Sidhir Shah claimed that he consumed no fluids or food and passed no liquid or solid waste. Skeptics, including James Randy and the Indian Rationalist Association,

pointed out that he had ducked out a view of CCTV cameras at certain points. Oh, okay. Okay. And that he was apparently insufficiently monitored while bathing, during which time he could have like drank the bathwater. Oh, right. I totally, yes. Last but certainly not least, Dr. Shah, Dr. Sidhir Shah, who I told you about before, who monitored the experiment, was awfully cozy with the breatharian community. He had previously vouched for another famous breatharian named Hiru Ratan Manek,

who was later caught on camera eating a large meal at a San Francisco restaurant. He thought because he was abroad, he was like, no one around here knows me, I'll fuck in. San Francisco has a great food scene too. And it's like how, you know, when you don't smoke, but when you're on vacation, it doesn't count. So you can just smoke as much as you want. This is exactly what I was thinking about, especially when Jasmine Heen was like, I sometimes this sensation, I put things like chocolate, cappuccino, a large chicken dinner, you know, but I mean, I don't know, I have those moments where it's like,

I'm just going to have a little bite of this dessert. And then I think about like what I ate that day. And it's like, well, I didn't have any sweets. I didn't have any like, you know, the added sugar stuff. But it's like, no, no, no, I did have like a big ass spoonful of that bread pudding, or you know, whatever it is. And but it's like, it doesn't count because I wasn't hungry and I didn't need it. I just wanted it.

It's like how when you buy, say, say you buy two shirts and you get one for free and one was 20 bucks or something, 10 bucks, whatever, they're both the free shirt. You know what I mean? Exactly. Yeah, literally like whichever, whichever one you're wearing, the $10 gets transferred onto the other one. Yes, that's it. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. So anyways, all of this to say that this obvious, I would agree that this man's large, sumptuous meal in San Francisco doesn't count against his breatharian record, but there's some real tight asses out there who disagree. Oh gosh, nobody gets it. All of this brings us back to our girl, Navina Shine, who captured worldwide attention with her attempts to live on light

and documented on YouTube in 2013. So a little bit about- She lived in Seattle? Not a great place to live on light. That's right. No, I had that thought as well. Okay, good. Yeah, yeah.

Go down, go to Baja or something, man. Like fuck. Dominican's there. It's doing well. It's very popular right here. So to tell you a little bit about Navina, she is- these are my kind of subjective observations about her. She is a soft-spoken older woman with a sweet manner and disposition,

who I found easy to root for. Okay, okay. As opposed to Jasmine? Yeah, exactly. She was maybe the only person I could see in this story where I was- I became quite convinced that she was credulous and didn't have an ulterior motive to this, other than legitimately thinking she could do it.

And in a story full of, as I said, con artists with eating disorders, it was kind of nice to spend time with someone who wasn't blatantly a predator. Even if I thought what she was doing was quite irresponsible. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, maybe she seemed a little bit more duped than she was- Yeah, more- Like trying to be a proponent of this for other people to do. More victim than perpetrator to me for sure,

although I don't discount how dangerous it is to have someone on a platform like this doing a thing like this and receiving all of these eyes for it. Like that is a constant movement. Yeah, yeah. She had a pedigree for tenacity, having previously been in the 1997 Guinness Book of World Records for walking across the hottest fire. Okay, okay, so she likes some extremes?

She's chasing sensations and, you know, whatever. Records and- Yes, she brought that same spunk to this experiment, exalting her goal to uncover the greatest discovery in human history, ending world hunger, and ushering in a new utopian society. Oh yeah, I mean, yeah, if you can eat off light and chronic energy, then why would there be world hunger? No, it's straight up, it hands across America bigger shit.

You know what I mean? Like that real fucking one love rocking back and forth in unity, you know, the Berlin Wall falling down, all of it. Beautiful. Coca-Cola. There's a lot of Coca-Cola involved. Oh my god, that's everyone in the world loves Coke. Um, that's the one that got you, hey?

On other breatharians, Naveena naively said, quote, I can't think that all of them are lying. Why not? Yeah, no, me too, that's what I said. Naveena started her foodless journey on May 3rd, 2013. She attempted to set up a 24 hour livestream of every room in her house for viewers to monitor, keep her honest, but when that proved technologically and financially prohibitive, she simply gave daily vlog updates instead.

Very different, but okay. Very different. I imagine in 2013, your average 65 year old breath arian might have trouble like hardwiring an entire house to live stream directly to the internet. Right, yeah. For what it's worth, for what it's worth, I believe that she didn't cheat. One, I like her face, and then two, and then two, she would get like, she would make these updates where she would get a little snippy because she will have had

something very minute, like coffee creamer or emergency, and then the comments would dick-rider and be like, yo, that's not eating nothing, you're cheating. And then she would do these vlogs where she was like, I don't think it's that big a deal. So she was giving these little pieces of reportage that kind of showed her ass, and then she would feel a little hurt when people pushed back against it. So I do believe she was on the level. Okay, okay, I'm enjoying the solutions that you have. Naveena Shine, this is great.

I think it's like a Stockholm syndrome thing, where I was so just repelled by the raw grossness of jazz-muheen that I imprinted in some way on Naveena Shine. Because much like with the Dominica story that you told two weeks ago, I found myself with Mike Cowell, howl? Howl. Mike Howl, I found myself looking for a protagonist in the story, and sometimes you just jam that square peg right into that round hole just to keep yourself happy. And it just fits so well.

And it fits like a glove. Anyway, as I was talking, as I was saying about Naveena, or as I like to call her, Light Mom, she pledged to go without food, but she did allow herself water. Well, she did, well, she did the, I don't know if she was eventually, I think she was, the thought was eventually I can wean off of water, but to start out with, I'll do no food, and then I'll move to no water. I'm into the weaning. The cold turkey thing seems very intense.

The weaning makes more sense, but. Yeah, again, I'm not a doctor, but I agree. That actually created a stumbling block in the early going. She got sick from drinking too much water. Oh, because she was so hungry, she was just trying to put something in her body. Yeah, exactly. And she was just constantly, and you can, you can straight up dry drown if you drink too much water too fast.

It's no joke. Yeah. So she ended up feeling a little bit sick. Most of the kindest comments on her videos pleaded with her to reconsider or to simply not die. Yeah. Others abused and heckled her. And others still reported her to YouTube for terms of service violations, citing community rules against cell parm.

Oh, yeah. No, totally. That makes sense. Hoping, hoping presumably that if her YouTube channel were taken down, she would stop the experiment or whatever. Yeah. I would also, I don't know, there seems to be like, I mean, this trend through all of this, and you've already pointed it out,

but like super triggering for people who have eating disorders. Yeah, for sure. If there's this, if there's this trend, or if this person who has a vlog who's like, I'm trying this experiment that's totally legit. Everyone can do it. Solve world hunger, you know, blah, blah, blah. And then it's like, that can feed into a lot of, a lot of really negative and like unhealthy thinking about eating and your body.

No, absolutely. Of course it would. By day 21, she had lost 21 pounds, one for every day of her experiment. Whoa. She then said, quote, I told my body it's time to stop losing the weight now. We can taper it off and start stabilizing. How'd that work?

She said that typically if you ask your body nicely, it will listen. On day 36, Navina gave an interview with Vice. Because of course they did. Of course. Where she seemed in good spirits, but acknowledged that some days had been more difficult than others. She said, I don't think there will be that many consequences. I'm certainly not going to go to the place where I damaged my body

and I will stop if I find that I'm not thriving, that I'm going downhill, or my organs are starting not to work. And I'm sure I'm going to know that. If people are dying from starvation, I think they must know beforehand that they're not very well. When asked about the others who had died attempting similar fasts, she said, I don't know what was going on with them. I don't know why they didn't notice they were dying

and I don't know why they didn't do anything about it. We love an optimist. Yeah. Keep reaching for that rainbow. So in spite of her optimism and or delusion, she did and or like a hunger-induced mania. Right, always the third option, yeah. Always in the mix in this story.

She did finally encounter self-doubt in month two, acknowledging in one of her vlogs, I could be starving to death. Yeah, dude. But she's month two. She's the next update you will get is from day 42. So she's at this point, she's made it to at least day 42. Okay, okay. And she's still drinking water or she's not drinking water?

She's drinking water and occasionally she will have some coffee creamer or some vitamin C supplement to the consternation of the fucking breath area and hard liners. Level four breath areas, they're called. That's the terminology, I didn't make that up. Oh shit, okay, okay. When you straight up do not eat or drink anything ever and you only live on chronic energy, you are a level four breath area. When you tell everybody around you that you only live off chronic energy

and no types of food or water. But you're going to the sed and Popeyes and churches and and living it up. On the sly. Yep. Level four. Yep. Fucking free-basing pixie sticks. When all of your followers go to sleep, you are the dude with the mask from fucking spirited away.

You are just straight up fucking tipping entire wedding cakes into your mouth. Yes. Okay, level four, got it. By day 42, she was gaunt, tired and had lost 35 pounds. Oh. This was not a big woman to begin with. She was a small older woman, just to clock a look at her, not really knowing how tall she is. She seemed quite small and not particularly heavy or anything like that.

I'd put her at like 130 pounds maybe at the start and by maybe less, because by the end of it, she straight up looks like she's like 80, 90 pounds. Oh my gosh. Around this time, a TV crew visited her home and at one point during filming, she's straight up like, I need to lie down like right now. Yeah. Yeah. Like the the effort that it's taking to like stand and talk to this camera,

you can see like her eyes are glazing over and she starts to realize it. She's like, yo, I need to fucking lie down in bed. Wow. Fatigue and physical deterioration had brought her to her breaking point. On day 44, Navina Shine officially threw in the towel. Yeah, breathe a sigh of relief. And eat something. She said she would end her experiment in three days on day 47.

I don't know why the extra three days. She said that this was due to the financial reality of running out of money, but she did also have the rare humility to acknowledge that she still had no evidence she was living on light and that she may well have been slowly starving to death. While she was hesitant to admit that surviving without food could not be done, she conceded that continuing her attempt would be dangerous, both herself and to others attempting to emulate her. I think that's a really important distinction.

What you said just a second ago is that she had no evidence that she was living off of chronic energy. I think that because so far it's just been like, will you not die or will you die? Yeah. And it's like, wait, that's the that determines if you're living off chronic energy. Like, why aren't you like running marathons? Why are you, you know, like opening a new soup kitchen in your local town, you know, it's like. All of this stuff is what Jasmine Heen was kind of claiming she was doing.

Right. Maybe not the soup kitchen, I could see. You'll often see clips of her like working out or something like that to prove like, oh, it doesn't matter if I sweat because, you know, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, these are just goblets of little chronic energy. Exactly. On whether she believed that she could survive 100 days, she said, personally, do I think it's possible? For me, it's still a question.

I see much more evidence to show that, yes, it's possible, but I also see that it has to come from the inside. I'm not willing to risk either my life or other people's lives. Lot ton pack there. Lot ton pack. So she did. Yeah. She didn't come out of it necessarily wiser on the things that she was testing.

She just, she just came to the conclusion that it was irresponsible to continue for which she gets half marks from me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Half marks, not passing, but half marks. Yeah, yeah. She posted one last vlog four weeks later, looking happier, healthier, having regained some weight and confirming that she had eaten her first proper meal since ending the experiment and it was delicious.

What was it? Do you know? Did she say? I don't, but I want to imagine that it's something horrific that you would not want to be your first meal off of not eating anything, e.g. like a giant platter of Taco Bell. Yeah, just something that'll fucking like rip through you like a fucking flaming skeleton riding a cowboy's horse.

Like, I wanted her to get there and be like, blow my ring out. Like, Jesus Christ. Yeah, totally, totally nailed it. After that, she disappeared. Wherever she is, I wish her well and hope her judgment has improved. What of the rest of our cast of characters? Wiley Brooks, who kick-started the Breatharian movement in the 1980s. Old chicken pot pie.

He's still kicking around. He has amended his philosophy to encourage the exclusive consumption of McDonald's. Fuck no. Fuck no. What? Quote, don't eat anything but the McDonald's quarter pounder with cheese and a diet coke. McDonald's restaurants are living, breathing, vibrating consciousness buildings of love, abundance, creativity, immortality, and well-being.

When you walk into a McDonald's, just know that you are in a vortex of unconditional love. He should write the commercials. I know. One of these are totally missed opportunity. Has he not seen the Powerful Doc? Super size me. I thought you were going to say Kazam because there's that one scene where Shaq makes it rain happy meals.

That's my favorite documentary. That is fucking wild. If that doesn't undermine the entire Breatharian ideology, I don't know what will. That's insane. Well, he also posits that the secret ingredient in diet coke is liquid light. Oh, I see it all. Diet Coke too. He loves his diet.

I like that he rewrote. He had a draft that wasn't working for him because he wanted to eat as much McDonald's as he wanted. Like I said, he's like a junk food junkie. He's like me. He wants his fucking, his french fries and his popcorn. And I can't blame the man because I'm the same way. So he rewrote the doctrine to incorporate his pet loves.

Yeah. Yeah. Had a shitty first draft and worked with it. Worked with it. That shit needed a workshop. Got it. Got it to that good shiny final draft. Good.

Just know that you're in a vortex of unconditional love. He offers workshops for one million dollars and he sells immortality elixirs for ten thousand dollars. I couldn't find any like reviews. I couldn't find any reviews on the internet. I tell you I'd say no, no. Bummer. Um, what the fucking fuck?

And good for him. Yeah. Like listen, everyone. So he's an interesting one because he seems to have been, he's around when all of this shit with like Jazz Mujin and, and, Paula Johnny and all of these people is happening. But he seems to have been, I think he was such a big embarrassing like black eye that they kind of like ushered him out.

Yeah. They kind of, they kind of exiled him when he kind of resurfaced or whatever. Paula Johnny, the Indian mystic who claimed he hadn't eaten for 70 years. Oh right. He had the hole in his palate? Yes. He, he died in May 2020. Oh wow.

So quite recently he died. Yeah. He, he died post pandemic, not of that. Um, I mean, I don't know. Did he, did he die of starvation or dehydration? I mean, no, but I can see why you would ask. Okay. No, no, but it's, it's a very reasonable question.

No. Okay. Um, Jazz Mujin still pedals her bullshit in Australia. Okay. Like Wiley Brooks, she has stopped advocating for pure breatharianism, level four breatharianism. Level four. And instead promotes a diet of 50% chronic energy. And 50% food.

What is food? Is she on the McDonald's liquid light food or what? She'd never admit it, but probably. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Michelle Pfeiffer has enjoyed a studded Hollywood career. She has.

Including three Academy Award nominations. Recently you can enjoy her talents as she made her debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2018's Ant-Man and the Wasp. Oh really? Yeah. There you go. The original Wasp she is. I don't know what that means, but that's who she was.

Okay, okay. And then there's Martha Taylor, the Darby Shire Damsel from the 1660s. Right. Info about her becomes scarce after the doctor's report on her case. She may still be alive to this day. Oh, probably. I mean, she's on that chronic energy. She is.

Or, you know, the light. Having changed her name to Jasmine Heen. Oh, fuck, Jasmine Heen. That's a missed opportunity. As for breatharianism itself, it's enjoying a golden age. Oh. Social media has proven to be a thriving breeding ground for all kinds of quack dietary advice, spiritual flim-flammery, bogus science theories, and wannabe influencers looking to carve out a niche.

Not the social needs, no! You can type breatharian into YouTube and find all kinds of people advocating for various approaches to the consumption of chronic energy. One woman, Camila Castillo, claims that she practiced complete breatharianism during her pregnancy. Saying, quote, I knew my son would be nourished enough by my love. She and her husband, Akahi Salas, sell books and MP3s on how to become breatharian. And as of 2017, you could also join them for eight day retreats around the world, priced at up to $1,700.

Oh, okay. That seems reasonable considering, you know, think of all the money you'd save on food. I was gonna say, what are you paying for here? Yeah, just room. Yeah, just room. No board. You can't, no, the board is too tempting. And if all of this interests you, and if, despite my repeated warnings that nobody can

or should live without food and water, you want more info on how to pursue this lifestyle, which you should not. Don't do it. The Pranic World Festival hosts breatharians every single year. And if you're nervous about succumbing to your worldly desires and getting the munchies while you're there, don't be. The conference is catered. No, fuck, shit.

Really? They legit, there's something in their manual or whatever. Their brochure that says, like, we don't want to be responsible for sending anyone out in an ambulance. It's like, oh, really? Is that so? So the idea of people not eating is a bad thing, man. Right?

Ambulance. Bad thing. Weird. God, how would you like to be the caterer of that? Fuck, I bet that's, I bet that's one for the blog, man. That would be such a fucking trip. Yeah. Just be like, damn, these people eat a lot.

Yeah. We brought $5,000 worth of canapes. Where do you want them? Jesus. Yeah. So that's, that's where I've been for the past little while is in breatharian land. Wow. So what was your favorite meal as you were researching?

Can't be Japanese, can you? I assumed you were, you were just like eating constantly as you researched this. It made me, I don't know if, because I'm someone like honestly in my life, I have kind of a weird relationship with food and I'm a bit of a picky eater and I'm, I get some anxiety around the social aspects of eating and whatever. And I've long been the person where I'm like, I can't wait until I just make the dinner pills from the Jetsons where I can just, and then I'm good. Yeah.

It made me like food more this story. Oh good. It made me, it made me realize that my relationship with food is healthier than I thought it was. To circle, to circle back to a point you made earlier, if you have any sort of history with disordered eating, that obviously this kind of thing would be very triggering to you. And thank you for mentioning that because I might actually check a disclaimer up. I was, I was going to say that actually. I think that might be helpful.

Sure. Yeah. Okay. It made me think a lot about like some of the people that you can see doing this breatharian stuff on YouTube and on Instagram and whatever are like, they look like your average very young, very thin, very beautiful Instagram person. But this happens to be their hook. Is that they're a breath, some level of breatharian or whatever.

And so it's very like, it's weirdly influencer ready and it's got that kind of like tie to, to South Asian philosophy. And it's got, and come to, come do this with us on a beach for $1,700 in Australia and you know whatever. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's very Instagrammable and especially like now that as, as we've kind of been discussing a

lot lately, misinformation is a whole different animal than it used to be. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. And there's something, I don't know, it seems to be kind of purifying any type of unhealthy relationship with food too.

You know, like that's kind of the, the vibe of it. And I think there's something like particularly gross about that because food issues and like, yeah, I have like insecurities with food as well. They're just like, there's, they're tied to so many other things. Of course. They're not necessarily, yeah, they're not necessarily like that plate in front of you. And if you, if you pull up that string it unravels the whole sweater a lot of the time. Exactly.

And so it just feels like extremely irresponsible to have people be pulling up those strings without any type of support or without any type of understanding that food is actually is a necessary thing to, to live, you know. Something that had I come across it in a different era than the one that we're in, I might have looked an iscancetate class. It is something for very disordered people or big con artists or whatever. And then just kept walking. But I think the average person is more susceptible to stuff like this than we want to think.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would totally go down that YouTube rabbit hole and then I'd probably, I mean, I tried that intermittent fasting thing where like you don't eat for a certain amount of time. And I was, it was not for me. And I know of some people who they love it. Sure. Awesome.

But I like, I couldn't, couldn't mentally, I mean, I couldn't physically do it. But I also, the mental part was really hard because it was just like adding all this weird space and restriction to what I ate, which wasn't helpful. Yeah. Fuck, that's fucking, so fucking weird. I, I really love how much you love Naveena Shine. No, because now you make it so like she's my girlfriend. No, no, no, no.

Now you make it so. Did you call her? I'm a lone wolf, baby. Shine, Shine mom? What'd you call her? Oh my god, I don't, light mom. No, I, I, yeah, I guess I love Naveena Shine. God damn it.

I just, as I say that, as far as I can tell, she's never resurfaced. If she said, if she was in the Capitol building, like I don't love her. Like I'm just, you know, I'm covering my bases. I feel like, I feel like a person like that is, you know, God bless her. A hop, skip, a jump and away from ending up and once, you know, you pull the wrong thread. Do you have any final thoughts? This makes me so hungry. I want to eat like a big old cake.

Yeah, a cake sounds pretty good. What kind of cake, what kind of cake would you have? Oh man, I ordered the, actually these big ass cupcakes from a local bakery. And they're like a cupcake with a cookie baked inside. Right. And one of the flavors that we got that I'm very excited about is like a peanut butter cookie in a chocolate cookie. That sounds nice.

It's like a big cupcake cookie Reese's. That sounds good. And she makes Crumbville, Texas. That's the name of the place on Elgin Street. She's very cute, very cute. Ella's the baker. She's very sweet. And she makes a whole bunch of vegan stuff too.

Oh, cool. Cool. Yeah, I highly recommend. I mean, I haven't had it, but that's what I'm craving. Nice, nice. What do I want? I want like, I want a pizza. Thank you for that.

That's made me hungry. There we go. Let's go eat. Thanks to Taylor for that story and to all of you for listening in. If you want more infamy, we release episodes every other Sunday on Spotify, Apple podcasts, and at bittersweetinfamy.com. Stay sweet. The sources that I used while pouring together this story

were first and foremost a video called The Strange World of Fraterianism on a YouTube channel called Atrocity Guide that was published October 24th, 2020. I looked at the Wikipedia articles for Inidia, Jasmine Keen, and Prolet Johnny. I read an article on early modern medicine by Jennifer called the Derbyshire Damsel. I consulted an article on learned religion called Religious Fasting in Hinduism. Another source was This Woman is Living on Water,

Tea and Light for a Hundred Days. That was by Alex Mirjewski on Vice, June 10th, 2013. A Brief History of Breatharianism, which is Total Bullshit, by Matthew Zurus, also on Vice, June 20th, 2017. An article on Medical Daily by Anthony Rivas. Naveena Shine will stop Living on Light after 47 days without food, June 19th, 2013. And I also looked at Naveena Shine's YouTube channel, Living on Light. And the song you're listening to is Tea Street, by Brian Steele.

Treat yourself to a nice meal.