I don’t want to make any judgement about this right now but breatharianism is intriguing, not just because going without food is remarkable in itself but because of what it implies about the nature of reality.

I met someone who claims to be a breatharian about a year ago but she didn’t talk too much about it. She didn’t want to be defined by it, it was just part of her life.

I have blogged about bretharianism, also called ‘inedia’ before; what seems a bit different about this guy, Kirby De Lanerolle. He , is that he claims to be able to teach breatharianism and he is young, handsome and more accessible to western sensibilities than people like Prahlad Jani. Kirby gave an interesting TED talk:

TED is a pretty mainstream media vehicle but it does allow non-mainstream speakers with disclaimers:

Note from TED: We’ve flagged this talk, which was filmed at an independent TEDx event, because it falls outside TED’s curatorial guidelines, by virtue of its questionable health advice. For example, it implies humans can gain adequate energy from air and sunlight instead of food, a claim which is not scientifically credible. Indeed it could cause harm if taken seriously.

What Kirby claims is beyond remarkable. He is saying that we can solve the food crisis by learning to live on air and love. There is a sense in which this is obscene; if it is possible to live without food why are people in parts of Africa starving to death? Surely something in them would have been triggered by the crisis of starvation. Kirby is either a liar, or he is one of a group of physiologically different humans who can go without food for extended amounts of time or he is telling the truth and we all have this hidden capability.