Complex Numbers

Just Breathe

I'd heard about these fools way back in the 1980s.

The strange, sad Bay Area ‘diet cult’ that fell apart over a chicken pot pie  

For most dieters, his shopping list on that fateful day in 1983 (chicken pot pie, chili and biscuits) would be, at worst, an embarrassment. But Brooks was no average weight-watcher. He was the founder of the spiritual and pseudoscientific movement known as Breatharianism, famous for spreading the gospel that humans could live on air alone.

They can. Just not for very long.

He claimed he hadn’t eaten in 19 years. To his followers, the binge was an unforgivable sin — as if God himself had taken a bite out of the forbidden apple.

Some people simply believe what they want to believe, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Breatharianism wasn't even the worst example.

Yet that very public scandal didn’t stop Breatharianism. Instead of dying out, the movement spread around the globe, fracturing over the decades into stranger, more dangerous forms. It’s even helped shape health and wellness culture as we know it today.

And sometimes, evidence to the contrary, against all rational expectations, actually strengthens one's beliefs.

“Breatharianism is a philosophy that believes that the human body, when it’s in perfect harmony with itself and nature, is a perfect Breatharian — you know, all the constituents that we need is taken from the air we breathe,” Brooks told Snyder, in front of a studio audience that seemed both amused and entranced by his words.

And this leads to what is perhaps the most insidious conclusion: that if you fail in whatever you're doing (in this case, fasting), then the problem is you not being pure, resolute, or spiritual enough. This can easily spiral into dangerous territory... and it even happens in more mainstream religions.

He went on to make other strange, spurious claims, including that Breatharian mothers don’t need to feed their babies, who are born able to survive on air and sun. He also said that hunger strikers who die are killed by their death wish, not from starvation.

Part of me doesn't care what happens to people who fall for this shit, but the baby shouldn't suffer for its mother's idiocy.

His logic shifted again in 1993, when he told the Seattle Times that he no longer believed food was an addiction. Though he still believed food was a poison, he also believed it could serve as “medicine,” a salve for low-quality city air. He himself occasionally balanced his aura with orange juice, honey and Twinkies, he said.

Breakfast of Champions.

In 2009, the official gospel of Breatharianism was updated again, this time with a convoluted explanation of how a McDonald’s cheeseburger meal and a Diet Coke can help keep a Breatharian healthy. In a fifth-dimensional universe, apparently, the “base frequency” of the meal aligns with the needs of man.

You gotta wonder if the company paid him for the advertising. Hell, if I were him -- assuming I could live with myself after fooling all those gullible people -- I'd be taking bids from food manufacturers. Highest bid gets the "best vibrational energy" spiel for that week.

Even though Brooks was widely ridiculed in the media, it’s easy to see why his ideas found a foothold in the ’80s and ’90s. Low-fat and low-calorie junk foods like Lean Cuisine and Diet Coke filled Americans’ fridges and minds, turning food into a deep source of shame. The idea of self-restriction as the essence of health and beauty was shamelessly promoted in books and daytime television.

"If you're sick it's YOUR FAULT. You're doing something wrong. Stay neurotic. Keep buying our fix!"

Wellness culture, like Brooks, tells us to fear aging and detest weight gain, as if these things are moral failures rather than an inescapable part of the human condition. Whether through nutritional deprivation or immortality-through-technology, transcending the body and its flaws is all the rage right now. And what comes after humanity but holiness?

The only moral failure involved here is in believing the bullshit.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have a box of Twinkies to inhale.