This is 1 of the 10 topics from Richard van der Linde's – Bukuru founder – research into superhuman skills.The main source to be credited is www.dmtquest.com. At the bottom of the page is a link to the other topics.

Summary: there seems to be a state of mind in which humans produce a hormone that can be metabolized into the same hormones that our digestive system turns food into.

The resurgence of medical hypnosis, which we discussed in an ealier chapter, is not the only development the medical establishment has had to endure in recent decades. With this chapter, we wade into a topic of perhaps even more controversy among medical experts.

You're probably familiar with vegetarians, vegans, and perhaps even fruitarians, but have you heard of breatharians before? Yes, you read that right: people who live on thin air. More precisely, breatharians are people who claim to depend on “cosmic energy” for nutrition and nourishment. They eat no food nor do they drink water, but consume only intangible sources of energy.

In a world that sometimes aggressively reacts to even vegans, a suggestion that one could have a normal way of living without ingesting food and water merits due suspicion. And it makes sense, because within our standard paradigm, where nutrition comes from food ingestion and cooling and detoxing of the body happens through ingesting and secreting liquids, the claim is nonsensical. However, there are indeed serious adherents of breatharianism all over the world—to the extent that scientists have even given this practice a medical term: inedia.

There might even be a biological explanation for the mechanism by which the body would still obtain the energy and resources one requires according to the current state of scientific consensus. It might merely be the method of absorption that is different from what we’re all familiar with and enjoy so much – eating and drinking. Let’s take an objective, non-judgmental look at some impossible-sounding cases and indeed some science on the hormonal level.

In the beginning there was light

The most ubiquitous resource discussing the phenomenon of breatharianism is a documentary film with the title “In the Beginning there was Light”. In this documentary, we follow the director P. A. Straubinger's search for an answer to this question: Can human beings survive without food and fluid over many years and live on light alone? Straubinger follows the journey of breatharians from different parts of the world, presenting their experiences, beliefs, and motivations. The interviewees describe how they discovered this alternative way of living and the transformations it brought into their lives. One of the interviewees in the documentary is also the most prominent face of this global underground movement: Jasmuheen.

Jasmuheen and other breatharians

An Australian author and teaching breatharian, Jasmuheen (born Ellen Greve) gained significant attention and controversy for her book titled Pranic Nourishment. In this book, one of the first about the topic, she explains how humans can live without physical food and sustain themselves through practicing specific breathing techniques and meditation. While the book is not lacking the use of New Age terms, Jasmuheen does outline a striking three-week initiation process for breatharianism which is pretty straight forward. In short, individuals are encouraged to undergo a gradual reduction in food intake, progressively giving up red meat, white meat, dairy products and finally plant-based foods to transition smoothly into the breatharian diet.

Like with many behavioral change programs, a participant is supposed to take 21 days for the transitioning process, because body cells seems to need this much time to adapt to a new habit. The breatharian claim is that while fasting denotes restraining hunger, this process involves accepting “universal energy” or prana – the Sanskrit word for what is also known as chi but could also be translated into English as breath. Thus, in theory, the practice is distinct from fasting.

Nicolas Pilartz, a Britisher who spearheads the breatharian movement in Italy, runs the Eden Pranic Center at his residence in Fabiano. He too offers a 21-day pranic workshop, and according to his website, the three weeks also have specific goals:

• Week 1—detoxing the physical body;

• Week 2—purifying the emotional body;

• Week 3—settling of the Body of Light and checking that the breatharian criteria have appeared.

Another present-day practitioner who offers guidance and 8-day retreats is the Israelian Ray Maor. His programs only prescribe abstinence of food though, not water. Maor claims to live normally while ingesting only approximately 350 kcal per week. He gained most recognition when he reportedly accepted the invitation of a wealthy businessman to prove that he could survive for a week without any food or liquids. The study was broadcast on a TV show, and by the end of the week, Maor felt a strong longing for water, but still had normal-seeming urine samples.

It has also been recorded that some people died from attempting a shift to living on prana, something Jasmuheen confirms in her book. Yet other practitioners have abandoned their attempts to survive on sunlight alone after losing a large percentage of their body weight. Jasmuheen herself lost a significant amount of body weight while attempting abstinence for a reality show in the 80s. For the first 48 hours, she had been confined to a hotel room in Brisbane, Australia and exuded stress levels when measuring her blood pressure and hydration levels. On the third day, she was then moved to a mountainside retreat to accommodate her request for fresher air. By 96 hours her dehydration levels were reported to have risen to over 10% and the TV station pulled the plug on the program/challenge.

Jasmuheen claims that the story that was portrayed by the media was not entirely accurate. She also stated that throughout the time of the experiment she was quickly woken up each time she fell asleep and there was full lighting 24/7. She outlines the fact that, according to later studies, maintaining a theta-wave brain state is essential to the “breatharian” lifestyle, which was virtually impossible in the setting of the TV show. In 2012, a Swiss national newspaper claimed that a woman had died in her attempt to live on prana after watching the documentary In The Beginning There Was Light. However, the film’s official showed in response “a facsimile of an e-mail that the responsible state attorney wrote to the director in which he confirms that no third party could be made responsible for the death of the woman and an adequate causality between the film and the death could be definitely excluded.”

Dr. Michael Werner

Someone who read Jasmuheen’s book with skeptic curiosity after learning about the phenomenon was Dr. Michael Werner, who holds a PhD in chemistry. In January 2001, he decided to undergo the 21-day breatharian process. Per his account, on the third night, he experienced an undeniable change, and since the fourth day, he started feeling full—like he required no more food (anyone who has successfully tried a ketogenic diet might have had a somewhat similar experience of an internal shift from one predominant source of energy (carbs) to another (fat), which generally involves a phase of experiencing an increasing lack of fuel until a tipping point is reached where one shifts to another source for metabolic processing and suddenly feels saturated. The difference, of course, being that one from thereon requires intake of fats.). He claims he hasn't gone back to eating since, except for the occasional fruit juice for his enjoyment of the taste. Completely aware that his colleagues in the scientific circle would take a dull view of what in their eyes was pseudoscience, he subsequently took it upon himself to find answers to the questions generated by his newfound ability to live without food.

Werner put himself through two 10-day medical studies in controlled environments—and he successfully completed both studies. He has detailed his experiences from this study in his book, Life from Light: Is It Possible to Live Without Food? 

“Mataji” Prahlad Jani

Another extensively recorded case is that of Mataji, a remarkable Indian yogi who claimed to have lived without food or water from the age of 11, in 1940, until his death on May 26, 2020. Understandably, he became a subject of intense scientific scrutiny due to his claims. Born on August 13, 1929, in Gujarat, India, Mataji dwelled in a cave in the mountains for more than seven decades. When his fame spread to the city, scientists pounced on the opportunity to examine his body.

The first notable scientific study conducted on Mataji Prahlad Jani took place in 2003, when he was monitored by a team of physicians and researchers from the Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS) in India. During this study, Mataji was subjected to rigorous observation under controlled conditions, during which he abstained from food and water for a period of ten days. Astonishingly, he exhibited stable vital signs, maintained a healthy level of hydration, and displayed no physiological deterioration, contrary to the expected outcomes for a person deprived of sustenance.

Subsequently, in 2010, Mataji consented to another rigorous study conducted by a team of scientists from Sterling Hospital in Ahmedabad, India, led by Dr. Sudhir Shah. This study spanned 15 days, during which the yogi was again kept under constant observation.

Once more, the results were striking. Despite the absence of any nutritional intake, Mataji displayed no significant changes in his vital parameters, blood chemistry, or physiological functions. Moreover, the researchers noted that his body weight remained stable throughout the observation period, trouncing conventional scientific understanding.

Curiously, the doctors found that Mataji's organs were still cycling nutrients through his body. His urine record is clear evidence of this. The radiologist in the study, Dr. Sanjay Mehta, shares, “I was doing his sonography twice a day for seven days. Morning, evening, morning, evening… and there’s ups and downs; one time, it’s 400ml, then 200ml, 300ml, urine. But at the end of the study, gradually, there was no urine in his urinary bladder.” Somehow, mysteriously, Mataji's body had developed the exceptional ability to derive sustenance from environmental sources, enabling him to subsist without food or water.

Scientific studies

Skeptics claim that the settings of research allow for the possibility of fraud. The studies of Mataji, Werner, Jasmuheen, and Maor are covered in a thorough meta-study by Dr. Mast, in which a large number of public claims of long-term abstinence are assessed based on study quality. This is Mast's conclusion: “I consider the evidential status of inedia unconfirmed as no assessed study had both anomalous findings and impeccable quality. However, quality was often downgraded due to reporting issues and it cannot be concluded in reverse that all claimants with anomalous results were able to deceive the investigators. The results of many studies are curious and demand further research.”

Putting aside the room for fraud, let’s hypothesize for a moment that leading a breatharian lifestyle is possible and dive into the potential scientific explanations for how self-acclaimed breatharians might be pulling this off without fraud.

The human ability to digest food into energy

All the aforementioned cases challenge the conventional understanding of human physiology. But how does food actually sustain our body? Food is the only known source available to us to produce a co-enzyme in our body called adenosine triphosphate (ATP), vital for good health. This co-enzyme is considered the “energy” of cells, organs, and ultimately life as a whole. What we eat, we break down to ATP. In a three-step process – digestion, oxidation and finally a series of reactions that ends with the release of energy that produces the ATP – food becomes energy.

What reminds us to eat food? This common feeling called hunger, which in biological terms is the interplay of two hormones, leptin and ghrelin. A rise in ghrelin levels causes an increase in appetite, which we perceive as a signal from the body to the brain that it needs food. And once we satisfy our hunger, ghrelin secretion stops and leptin levels rise, indicating that we need to stop eating now. In a nutshell, ghrelin stimulates appetite, and leptin suppresses appetite. Thus, leptin tells the brain that the body's nutrition requirement has been met—that ATP levels have been stabilized yet again. So, when we eat and satisfy our hunger, leptin is secreted to suppress our appetite so that we stop eating.

Food intake => Hunger satisfaction => Leptin secretion

A healthy person has normal ATP levels. And there's no way to maintain normal ATP levels without food—unless—there is another source of a crucial hormone: melatonin. Doctors prescribe melatonin to help insomniac patients regulate their sleep patterns. But as found by many studies,[1],[2],[3],[4] melatonin administration might also lead to a normalization of ATP levels.

In 2002, in the “International journal of Biochemistry and Cell Biology” a study outlined the increased production of ATP in rat brain and liver mitochondria from melatonin administration. A year later in 2003, “Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology” published a study on the effects of melatonin on mitochondrial regulation. The effects of melatonin led to a normalization of ATP production.

Another study in 2005 in the “Journal of Pineal Research” outlined the role of melatonin administration on liver bile flow and ATP levels for Rat’s with liver problems. It was found that ATP levels were elevated from the melatonin. A 2006 study in the “Neuroendocrinology Letters” was done on the role of melatonin given to septic Mice. The dying mice had been running at an ATP deficit until the administration of melatonin. The results concluded that melatonin was able to normalize the production of ATP.

Moreover, the compound also appears to have a direct positive effect on leptin levels.[5],[6],[7] Thus, the pattern begins to look like this:

Melatonin intake => Hunger satisfaction (ATP) => Leptin secretion

Considering this is indeed the physiological change occurring, how might breatharians access the required levels of melatonin to abstain from eating and drinking? There are two possible sources: sunlight and meditation.

(a)  Melatonin from sunlight

In his documentary, Straubinger touches on Hira Ratan Manek, another Indian breatharian. Every day, Hira would gaze at the sun for 44 minutes at dawn (starting from sunrise) and for another 44 minutes at dusk (until sunset). The times are important to note, for at sunrise and sunset there is no risk of harmful UV radiation. In 2002, Hira was observed over a 130-day period by George C. Brainard PhD from the Thomas Jefferson University, a leading expert on neuroendocrine physiology. Per the study results, Hira had apparently developed a huge pineal gland, an indicator of high melatonin production. If this increase was a result of his sungazing practice, then his digestive process perhaps functions like this:

Sunlight => Melatonin => Hunger satisfaction (ATP production) => Leptin secretion

(b)  Melatonin from meditation and breathing techniques

Breatharians practice a combination of meditation, quietness, and breathing exercises as part of their daily routine. How could these practices affect their physiology? Is there a link between meditation and melatonin secretion?

Indeed, there is evidence that “significantly higher plasma melatonin levels in the period immediately following meditation compared with the same period at the same time on a control night”. Another study confirms that the experienced meditators exhibited an average of 58% higher plasma melatonin level compared to the control group during the normal waking state. According to a further study, experienced meditators had melatonin levels nearly 500% greater than non-meditators. In particular, when attention is focused on the pineal gland – the organ that produces melatonin – this focus seems to amplify the creation of this hormone.

Further, regarding the influence of breathing techniques, a study conducted on a diaphragmatic breathing group and a control group reveals that the former exhibited nocturnal salivary melatonin levels approximately 42% greater than those of the control group. Noteworthily, meditation and deep breathing practices are known to allow people to stay in the theta-wave state through the day. It has been established through EEG recordings that different types of focus in meditation and different breathing patterns result in different brain-wave states. Typically associated with the theta band are open monitoring practices such as Vipassana and Zen meditation, compared to focused attention practices.

This leads to a function looking like this:

Meditation with focus on pineal gland + diaphragmic breathing => Melatonin production => Hunger satisfaction (ATP production) => Leptin secretion

Additionally, the thicker the corpus callosum, the better the brain seems to function. Einstein, for example, was noted to have an average-sized brain, but a very thick corpus callosum.

It’s also interesting to note that studies published in 2010 in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences and 2011 in the journal NeuroImage observe that meditation leads to developing a thicker corpus callosum.

Meditation=> increased corpus callosum size => Improved Melatonin production capacity

The bottom line is that melatonin can be metabolized into the same co-enzyme that we digest food into, and melatonin levels can be increased through practices that often find their origin in the ancient wisdom traditions of India and the Asian continent. If such practices indeed lead to sufficient melatonin levels and the breakdown of the hormone into ATP, we might have found a possible explanation that fits into the mainstream scientific model.

But why would it require a cellular reprogramming, as is the claim by those who offer programs, to switch to melatonin as a source for energy? Let’s recall some examples of the previous chapter, where mental conditioning was responsible for the abilities and limitations of the functioning of our bodies. Not only did we see examples of people in a hypnotized state unable to move their feet or suddenly able to become stiff and form a plank between the backs of two chairs, but we also saw several runners (in a normal wake state) able to break limits that were considered physically impossible to break, once this had been disproven. On top of that, we met Wim Hof, who gained some level of control over previously considered autonomous bodily functions, as well as showcasing and teaching others how to withstand extreme cold and heat (interestingly, Jasmuheen mentions in one of her books that: “tuning so that one no longer feels temperature extremes but simply adjusts the body temperature to the comfort of the physical environment – is an ability I am still in training with.”. Apparently, overcoming the fear barrier for relying on prana for food and water does not necessarily undo the mind and body of every other limiting beliefs, even if those are perhaps less extreme.).

In many areas, our mental conditioning seems to affect how our body functions, whether it is a function that we can also consciously control, such as our muscles when we run or functions that appear to happen without any intervention from what we consider me. According to people who introduce (or, as they perhaps prefer, initiate) others to the pranic lifestyle, the main step is to let go of the mental conditioning that we need food – an idea that seems among the most undisputable in life. Once hunger creeps in and we near the time limit that scientists consider safe to go without intake of food, the tendency will be to drop out of slow-wave theta states and into a fight-or-flight beta-wave mode in which even breatharians cannot live on prana. The same goes perhaps even more for our next idea: the need for intake of water when we become thirsty.

Water absorption and retention without drinking

It turns out melatonin might play a role here too. While leptin secretion suppresses appetite and blocks hunger for food, another hormone is involved in a similar way to quench thirst: vasopressin. Also called antidiuretic hormone (ADH), vasopressin is synthesized in the hypothalamus – an area deep in the brain that controls the production of hormones – and scientists have established its crucial role in controlling the body's osmotic balance, kidney functioning, blood pressure regulation, and sodium homeostasis. Water intake aids vasopressin secretion, helping maintain blood/plasma homeostasis. However, could melatonin substitute for water intake? Apparently, in high doses, it very well might.

In a 1997 study published in the journal Brain Research Bulletin, Bojanowska and Forsling investigated the effects of melatonin on vasopressin release in three groups of rats that were administered different doses of melatonin (0.5 ng, 1 ng, and 5 ng). While ADH levels decreased in the first group and stayed the same in the second, the group that received the highest amount of melatonin (5ng) showed a remarkable increase in plasma vasopressin levels after about 20 minutes.

This might mean that for a human to live without water, they would need to stimulate melatonin secretion in abnormally high amounts, much higher than what might be necessary to live without food. In essence, such a breatharian would need to be able to not only maintain normal ATP levels to abstain from food, but also simultaneously maintain blood/plasma homeostasis consistently enough to not require water. Thus, the breatharian equation for water might look like this:

Meditation with focus on pineal gland + diaphragmic breathing => Melatonin production => ADH secretion => Blood/Plasma Homeostasis

Conclusion

Do we perhaps just eat and drink because we believe we have to, in order to take in enough nutrients and calories? Apparently, gaining the ability to live without or with little food and water requires some training, and circumstances affect our ability as well. For example, air quality, strength of electromagnetic fields, and amount of sunlight captured by the retina are considered to play important roles. But the main requirement seems to be one's ability to access the theta state of mind, to remain focused, and to visualize the scenario of having the ability, especially when fear comes into play during the initiation process. The process might make you wonder: Are the symptoms associated with hunger clear signs of danger, like you are used to interpreting them, or is that just a limiting belief you're trying to get past? In any case, if the mechanisms regarding melatonin as a substitute for food and water are correct, a proposed 21-day regime with limited mental stimulus and lots of meditation undoubtedly positively affects this ability, as based on robust scientific findings, such a protocol would amplify melatonin levels, including enlargement of the corpus callosum.