We Don't Need Food! For We Are Breatharians!

Cults over here? Cults over there. There are cults everywhere. And we're gonna tell you all about it with a fairy tale twist. Welcome to Once Upon a Cult. Once upon a time there was a group of people who were like, "You know what? If plants can do it, so can I. I can take in nutrients from the sun. I don't have to eat. I can breathe in my light. And I will be a breatherian." Oh, I'm so full. Do you think the sander sensors would be able to take care of their hands? Oh, what does it look like? So, culties. We're talking about the authorians. This one, I'm gonna be a little honest. It took me on a ride because when I first heard about this, I was like, "This is silly. How can anybody believe in this?" And then we got into it and heard some kind of evidence. I'll say kind of heard different people's stories. It's kind of like, "Huh." And then I kind of, I won't say where I landed until the end. I mean, it's unique because there's just so many people involved or I guess like famous people, not famous, but like notable people involved in this. Yeah. It's very like it takes twists and turns. But before you get too into that, my name's Sean. I'm Alan. And we're here to talk about breatherians and stuff. Breitharians. Breitharians. So, this all started with, I love this title. Shall we give them the title to this book? Oh, yes. Easy to remember. It just rolls off the tongue. Dick Gregory's natural diet for folks who eat, cooking with mother nature. Yes. So, I don't remember the actual date, but this was written I think in the 60s. 1972. Oh, there you go. Oh, I do have 1972 here. I guess that's why I put that there. Yeah. So, this book came out and it talked about not so much, not eating, but just eating more naturally. Yeah. It talks about like different types of eaters. There's like the normal ones that you know, we'll eat everything. And then there's also another group. Kind of like vegetarians, more like the healthier eaters. And then it also mentions breatherians as like a third category. And this is kind of one of the first times this term was kind of mentioned in to people. So, and just a preface as well too. It wasn't really talking about like, oh, you should join the breatherian movement. This is another type of diet that people can consume as well. Yeah. So, kind of put those three food patterns or groups on a scale, saying like basically, if you just want to eat everything inside, you're basically just a big fat American. That is not as healthy, just eating, eating, eating. And then it talked about how vegetarians kind of like the next goal, like up from just eating everything. And then yeah, breatherianism was kind of like a last part of the road. Like if you can get there, you've reached food enlightenment. So, this book kind of came out. It didn't really make a lot of big waves because we like to eat. But, I love this name so much. I love it so much. This man found the book, Wiley Brooks. Wiley Brooks. He just sounds like a crook. Yeah. He sounds like he's out to get the road runner. Wiley Brooks. So, Wiley Brooks, he kind of found this book and rose to fame in 1981. And he started making claims that he hadn't eaten in 17 years because he had followed Dick Gregory's book. Yeah. He kind of came into notoriety because he was on this show on ABC called That's Incredible. And he was shown lifting far bells that were ten times his body weight. And yeah, he's like, yeah, I can do this, but I haven't eaten in like 17 years. Well, on top of that, before he put out this claim, he had earlier claimed years earlier that you should only eat yellow food. Yeah. I'm trying not to get gulped, but I mean, come on. Yeah. You can only eat yellow food because you want to know the really deep reason why? Why? Because yellow food has the best vibration. Yes. Because I didn't know my foods could vibrate. I eat vibrators all the time. So, it's interesting though that he says he hasn't eaten in 17 years, but only a few years earlier. He put out this claim that yellow food is the best. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently it's claimed to detoxify the body. But did you get. So, there's a list of foods that you can eat. Did you happen to see what those foods were? Ever you mentioned it. Go for it, girl. It would include things like eggs, corn, grapefruit. That's not yellow. I know. Papaya. But my favorite one is rum raisin ice cream from hogging dyes. It's very. not any other rum raisin ice cream, but it has the breed from hogging dyes. They vibrate more. Yeah. So, yeah. It's just something to hold in your back pocket there. Yeah. A couple of claims coming out pretty close together, but yeah. He hadn't eaten in 17 years, apparently. Which by the way, the book came out in 1972. And this is 1981, which is less than 17 years. Apparently when you're under this, you can't do math. So then, Wiley teams up with Nancy Foss. And together they publish breath therianism, breathe and live forever. Yes. So this is where it gets maybe just a little bit more into the cult world. In the early 80s, somebody who I love and respect. Well, I guess should we. let's hold off on saying who she is. Okay. We can get into some of the beliefs. And then we'll talk about this famous actress. Yeah. It was briefly a breath therian. Cool. So a lot of this you can find on like documentry.com. It's apparently been on YouTube. We couldn't find it this time, except for behind a paywall. But there are really cool documentaries on YouTube you can watch. So apparently this is based on the patron saint of Switzerland. This is where this idea kind of came from. And what the focus is in a nutshell is we have to get energy. To live. We get our energy from food. Our body processes the food. And then we have a bowel movement to get out any waste that we have in process. So the idea here is that our prana can get energy from elsewhere besides just food. And prana, I think for me, what I know more so of prana is Qi energy or Qi energy. That's the more popular in my opinion term that I find. But what breatherians believe is that you can basically like do different breathing techniques. Are you can go into the sun and get energy from the sun. So that way you don't have to eat that way you don't have to poop that way you don't have to pee. You can just live a healthy lifestyle without the constraints of food or sometimes even water. Yeah, and their argument too is like, well, if plants can do this we like photosynthesis and like we could do this too. Yeah. But like in addition to like the photosynthesis plants also get nutrients from soil and water too. And I mean, you can argue that people don't have leaves which are made to soak up the sunlight and turn it into energy. Yep. So you can leave me alone with that argument. Oh, but I'll be fine. So also, there's sun gazing is what it's actually called when you are looking into the sun and gathering energy. Yeah. So if you ever see someone just standing still or sitting still looking into the sun then you can kind of be like, hey, eat a sandwich. Just hanging in front of their face and looking. So sorry, now that we kind of have a road map of what this group is, let's return to our story, shall we? Yeah. So the beautiful, the inigmatic, the wonderful. Can you tell she's like one of my top favorite actresses? Michelle Fyfer was brought into this group in the early 80s. I think she was in her early 20s. And she said right away the group that she was a part of were bugging her for money. Every time she was there, they just constantly wanted money from her. And then her husband, I'm not sure if they're still married now as a director. and he did a movie. about a cult and Michelle Fyfer's like oh shit I'm in a cult this is a cult so that's how she realized that she was being taken advantage of and that's what made her leave the group yeah yeah she was so the the documentary that Peter Horton her husband her has eventually was turned out to be her husband was doing a documentary on a group called the Moonies which is which are the followers of Reverend Moon Sun Myeong group for the unification church and yeah she was talking to an ex-moony and he was basically describing like the psychological manipulation that he experienced while he was in this group and she was like yeah like that's what I'm experiencing right now yeah so that's that's great that she got through that and was able to I guess Fyke kind of had her meet this person to before you know things got worse well and what's interesting about that I've talked about this on the show before but this is more for people maybe just tuning in for this episode or who hadn't heard the earlier episodes I have a friend who joined a group I believe it was called World Works and I could tell from the outside looking and I was like this isn't good they kept telling him you know it's just gonna go to this point and then you're free or just gonna go here and you'll obtain your learning and suddenly it turned into well we can't let you graduate unless you bring somebody else into the group so it turned into like you can't go on this trip to Vegas with everybody unless you bring somebody in yeah so he got really upset with me because I wouldn't join even though he had promised me not to try to force me into it and so for years after he left this group he would not admit that it was a cult I even showed him on my I'm like look if you look up World Works a lot of people say it's a cult and then he overheard us doing an episode once upon a cult and he came to me after he was like oh shit I was in a cult so you don't always know because it's like we've said many times on the show no group comes to you with bad intentions yeah they don't tell you like hey I want to join our cult so we can take advantage of you yeah and I think it's also tough pillow swallow if you are in a cult and you're like yeah because you you think like oh I would never join a cult that's not me but like you never know yeah you never know because something we always say on the show which I really will fight for is cults look for people on all different levels they'll target people who are low on funds they'll target people who are looking for enlightenment so you'll have especially if you watch the next-sem documentaries on HBO you'll see that a lot of people who join next-sem were very educated people who were looking for that next thing so they were being put together with other educated people and getting new ideas and new exciting things so I think it's a shame factor like you say nobody wants to admit that they were part of a cult but I think we need to take that shame away and just accept that anybody at any time in their life depending on how high or low they are at that point in their life they can be inducted into a cult yeah and around this time too with Mr. Wiley Brooks's stuff like group like around the 80s that's one a lot of it's like a booming area where there are a lot of like fat the fat diets sorry the fat the fat diet craze only that and also spirit spirit was spirit tourism sorry Kent Tucker now yeah spiritualism like those two was basically like what this group it was so like of course people would be interested because that's that it's a phase at this time yeah I know there are so many fat diets fat I'm always hearing people talking about the next thing that they're trying do you think we're coming to a point where we would see a resurgence in breatherianism because of all the kind of religious backlash we're going through with our politics possibly yeah I mean also with like banks crashing people are trying to probably find ways of easy money true and you know that's also another type of bait some of these groups tend to attract people yeah so so there's not really a clear-cut storyline I'll stay to this group we're gonna do I say this a lot lately we're gonna do things a little differently last episode we had kind of someone who hadn't heard about the groups so much with Jesse this time we decided we're gonna go through different people who have represented the breatherian movement and kind of talk about individual stories which will help us as the host and help you as the cult listener kind of see the whole picture and kind of decide the bigger picture here what's going on yeah so here's my favorite so let's kind of go back to our Wiley Brooks yeah so in the mid-80s Wiley Brooks was with Levine Leffler something went sour there they broke up and then Levine came out and said hey the whole time my man over there not eating for 17 years no I was sneaking him food into the bedroom yeah and it was mostly like stuff from 7-11 and like junk food like donuts yeah he relied a lot I mean supposedly he relied a lot on things that were openly so yeah he went to think places like 7-11 because that's when people wouldn't supposedly people didn't see him at night well you have to remember to this is a timeline cell phones weren't everywhere so hey not as many people are gonna recognize him out on the street yeah and be not as many people are gonna have a personal camera yeah but there were pictures of him on leaving a 7-11 and other members claimed that they had seen him leaving a 7-11 and also other members said that they would spot food in the trash can in his room yeah so my thing is if I'm gonna not eat I'm not gonna go to 7-11 they get something good you know yeah but you're right he did rely on places that were openly in that 7-11 I mean I don't know they're open 24 hours yeah they're open seven days a week 11 hours a day yeah but he does have an alibi for some of these accusations he said that he was just getting food for his friends yeah that makes sense yeah so this obviously put a big damper in our mr. wily Brooks yeah people didn't trust him so much no but Colties don't worry if you're like me you could go whenever you hear the name wily Brooks because it sounds so shady we will have more on him he is before the show is he yes I love mr. Brooks all right let's jump over to you she'll talk about Jasmine he yeah so Jasmine he showed up was it kind of like mid 90s she came on the scene yeah she came in the prominence around the late 1990s she so she's so she goes by Jasmine he but her birth name is Ellen Grieve and she's from New South Wales in Australia born to post-born her region migrant parents and yeah she was born in the 1950s 1957 I believe yes 1957 but yeah so she didn't come into province until the late 1990s and she had claimed that she lived on water and tea for two years but she also practiced breath rhythm for 11 years so I don't know what that means so I think what we'll see here and what was kind of talked about just to put this out there is they kind of talked about breath aeronism as on a scale like some people do eat some food some people drink water tea and some people just apparently go with nothing yeah so on the scale that maybe why Jasmine said that because maybe she went from like very minimal eating because they talked about how eventually she would eat like 300 calories a day so I wonder if it was something more like that and then she went from that to like nothing yeah but this is a little alarming to me what we get started getting from Jasmine because she talks about it as you need to fight past the hunger pain and dry mouth and lack of energy so what I get from this is your body is telling you I need this stuff and she's saying you don't you just need to ignore it ignore what your body is telling you because apparently that's what like the toxins in your body are like getting out of your your body so you're yeah just ignore it it'll get better yeah and there is even one lady who I guess we'll get to her in a little bit but I'll just do this up there now where she was actually like coughing up black gunk from your mouth you're not eating that's bad that's really bad and then it said that after two weeks of no eating or drinking, you're allowed to drink water or tea. Two weeks. Yeah. And let's talk about this a little bit here because I understand to a certain extent what we're talking about here. A lot of these people, including Jazz Maheen, are like, "I want to find a better way for people to live without having to eat." But at the same time, I like to eat. Yeah. Well, I mean, I don't want to get too much into body parts or anything, but we do have a butt and a urethread to expel wastes, right? Our bodies made to consume things and excrete it out. Yeah. So, biology is telling us, "Yeah, we need to eat something." Yeah, actually, that's a really good point. We have a very intricate system in which to take in and expel waste. You could even say, "Most of our body, because the intestine is a huge chunk of our body, is just for the ingesting and getting rid of food and energy." So, yeah, it's a little weird. That's why going into this, I was just like, "How can you say we don't eat food?" This is so odd. Well, there's another character that we'll talk about, but one of their, like, "Aha, moments," was like, "Well, if we can actually achieve this, then we could eliminate world hunger." Yeah. Which, like, yeah, I mean, essentially, yeah, that would be great, but again, we're made to consume food. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, we'll find out, though, I think Mr. Wileybrook comes up with the best answer that anyone can follow, but we'll get to him. So, Jazmaheen, so she's telling people, "Hey, I've been doing this. It works. You just got to get through the first two weeks, and then you're good." Well, unfortunately, while Jazmaheen was coming into prominence and really getting her message out there, we did have a few tragedies. In 1997, a Timo Deegan, a 31-year-old kindergarten teacher, slipped into a coma and actually died. Yeah. From trying to follow this. Years later, Lonnie Morris, this is the one I was speaking about. She started vomiting and dark liquid, and then she died. Yeah. And she was living with two other, a breathering couple. And they were the ones that were encouraging her. Like, what's happening right now is, yeah, this is the old spirit leaving her body, that black liquid coming out of you, that's what I'm talking about as well, too. So, like, they were egging her on, and just like, "It's fine. It's fine." I like how you said, "egging about someone who wasn't eating." I think that's really insincere of you. Sorry. But yeah, so unfortunately, that is how this goes with any group. If you're with other people doing something unhealthy, it is unfortunately unfortunate that they pushed her to keep on doing this despite her body telling her this is wrong. Yeah. And like, the messed up part about these was she was, so Jazz Mahin was confronted about these deaths. Oh, really? I got more. There's one room. Okay. Very deep lane died in Scotland from the program. And then lastly was Anna Guts. Anna Guts. Yeah. Really ironic. Yeah, I know. Don't you think? Yeah, so after these deaths, she responded, basically saying that the reason why they weren't successful in this is because they didn't come from a place of integrity, and they just weren't motivated enough. Yeah. So that's very culty, something we've seen, where the leader pushes it back on the members and says, "I told you the right way, but you didn't fully believe her. You weren't fully prepared." Yeah. So it's their fault they died. Around this time, Jazz Mahin was obviously getting a lot of flack. So she put a disclaimer on her website telling people to not try the program if they don't feel they have the defined spirits. Yes. Wow. The nerve. Yeah. You're not cool enough, so. Right. But this also, so all these deaths and like her being linked to it now cause her to get attention on through the media and 60 minutes, the TV show that we kind of all know, did a piece where they actually wanted to test to see if this program is successful. If people can actually do it. They had her at like a home where they surveillance to her, they put her under surveillance to prove. Mind you at this point, she Jazz Mahin is claiming she's been doing this for years. Yeah. So it's not a big deal. I can do this on TV. Yeah. Sorry to go for it. So, and the physician was there as well to make sure she was healthy and her vitals were good. Yeah, right away like after day two, the physician, physician warned her that she was dehydrated. But in response to that, Jazz Mahin said, well, it's because I'm in the city and there's a lot of pollutants in the air. So they ended up moving her out of the city. Thinking that, you know, that'll help. But then days on, she ended up losing around like 13 pounds. She also saw an increase in her blood, her in her pulses, well, too. And then she was experiencing around 11% dehydration. She was at risk of kidney failure. So in result, as a result, to, you know, for her health, 60 minutes, cancel the production. So, you know, that kind of shows that like you can't do this. Yeah. So the question comes up. If you've been doing this for years, how come suddenly when you're put on camera and doing this, your body just goes crazy? Yeah. And so some people came out of the woodwork and said, "Fek you 60 minutes, you stopped the experiment." Yeah. This is all part of the process that she's been doing for years, but you stopped it and it ruined it. Yeah. And then other people were like, duh. She hasn't been doing it. You can't live this way. Yeah. There were also reports that, um, I can't believe I even seen this. There were reports that there was food found in her refrigerator. Oh. I know. Well, she did claim though that you are able to eat things at your craving. I think in this case, she's like, that's my husband's food. Stop mine. So I just, um, I get a little upset and confused as to why lie about something like this. Yeah. And it obviously just seems like it's for the money, really. Yeah. But we'll get into that later. Shall we talk about, I love this name, Navina Shine? Well, before we get into that, I'm speaking about money. So she does regularly hold retreats worldwide and the cost of attending them is $1,500. Oh, it's cheap. Yeah. I mean, you're saving all that money from not eating. So you can spend it on retreats like this. Yeah. Why not? Yeah. Okay, I'm done. All right. So I love this name. Navina Shine. Shall we get into her? Yeah. So Navina is the founder of Living On Light and she decided she's going to document herself not eating or drinking. Navina at this time in 2014 is a 65 year old woman. She just seems like the sweetest little thing. I really want a granny, Navina, because she just seems so nice. But she basically drained her finances and stopped working in order to set up cameras around her home and set up a website so people could watch her day or night practicing for therianism and not eating, just eating right? Because she drinks eventually. Yeah. So she claimed, so she did in the beginning drink water and it believed tea as well too. But she ended up saying that like her stomach got started getting like some sort of digestion issue where she couldn't even drink water anymore. Yeah. She said she felt she was drinking too much water and it was like giving her issues. Yeah. So and some people around this time kind of gave her crap because I guess she was starting to take like a vitamin C supplement and she was putting the nerve cream in her tea. How dare she. So the cameras were on 24 hours. She lost a lot of money on this. By day one, she had lost 21 pounds. So a pound a day doing this and that's not healthy. You're supposed to believe it's like a pound a week or something like that. It's a very slow process to lose weight in a healthy way. And so she told her body, hey, you need to stop losing weight. So Navino is really in this mind space of that you can control your body through thoughts. And it's funny. I just realized like the way I've been talking about Wiley Broke's or Jasmine, I've been kind of joking around. But when we get to Navino, I'm very serious because I really like her. Yeah. Anyway, so she started getting viewers to ask her to stop due to health issues. And she said, "Nope, I'm going to 100 days. That's my goal. I'm going to do it." So along this path, you can really see the weight coming off of Navina and her face. And you can see her skin go very pallid from where she started. But she still seemed in good spirits until about half way through, probably about day 25 to 30. She started getting a lot of negativity because people are like, "You don't look good, you're going to kill yourself. You need a doctor, you need to eat." She had very few people actually giving her support at this point. And she had put up like a donate link on her site, and she wasn't getting many people donating to her. She thought she would. So it was getting harder and harder for her to live. Towards the end, her body actually started cannibalizing itself. So it started taking muscle mass and using that to keep her going. So about day 44, Navina decided that this is the universe telling me that this is dangerous. She basically said, "Even if I keep going and prove that you can do this, it's too difficult." She actually said, "It's like putting a shotgun in a baby's hand because if you don't do this right, you can die." Yeah. Yeah. So even in the end, she didn't admit saying that this is a wrong thing to do. It was just this is something she couldn't do. So she still gave hope that like, this is something some people can do, but just she couldn't. Yeah. That's her thing. Yeah, and I respect that. I think that's a nice way to put it is like she recognizes it's dangerous. She had also been inspired by earlier people like Jasmine Hing also. So I think she's also showing their respect to Jasmine Hing. Like maybe you can do this, but it's dangerous and it's not for me. Yeah. And it can no longer afford to do this too. Yeah. Because she hadn't been working at all for like a month and a half. I wonder how that goes like if an employer is like, "So what have you been done for the past 40 point days?" So luckily I was actually really concerned with this because Alan had watched the rest of the documentary by himself and I was like, "Can you just tell me if we get an answer to no Vina? I just want to know if we at least get to know what happened to her." She actually put out a video a few weeks after the experiment saying like, "She's doing well. She had come back into health so it does have kind of happy ending for our Vina. Yeah. And also because it's interesting because the whole thing is about like, you know, consuming and light. During this whole experiment that she did, she never left her house. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, she's stuck at home. I would go crazy. Remember when I had COVID and I was stuck in a hotel? Yeah. I mean I know for her it's different because she could walk about outside and she's not stuck into just a room. Yeah. But I mean it still gets. Yeah. I didn't know. I didn't know. No. There's a little bit of me. I didn't know we're close for like five days. Sorry, hotel room. So that's kind of the end of Naveena's journey and that takes us to one of the bigger names in breatherianism. Pralad Johnny. Yes. So it said that with Johnny that it was. he was born and blessed by three goddesses who put a hole in his mouth that dripped nutrients into it. Yeah. That was very interesting. Well, it's funny because like with that with that claim, when in the like instead of because we're gonna talk about like some of the experiments I guess that they kind of place on him but can't they just look at his mouth and see if there's a hole. Thank you. Right. Thank you. Like no hole. This is fake. Just look. You just said no hole. What's happening to us on the floor? So yeah. So he had he puts out a claim that he has had no food or water for 65 years. Yes. 65 freaking years. 65 years with a hole in your mouth. With a hole in his mouth. He's got more holes than the average man. Yeah. So he comes forward as being like a big name because of this. And so he was actually placed in I'm trying to think about this. So he condoned to being placed in a hospital, not for health reasons but for surveillance reasons. So he was told that are he allowed for people to observe him around the clock while he did not eat drink or use the toilet. Yeah. Which is weird. Yeah. So this is what I'm talking about. We see kind of a back and forth here where we see some that are just ridiculous and we see others that are like, huh. So let's go through this. So it's said that he was able to do this for I believe. Was it seven days? I believe ten days. Ten days. So it's said that he's able to not eat drink or use the restroom for ten days. Yeah. So it's like at this point you're kind of like, wow. So is it real? Yeah. Until we start picking it apart. So it's proven that one of the doctors involved in the experiment was actually a doctor who was supporting claims of multiple breatherians. Like he was also a buddy of Jasmine Hien. He was also a buddy of Wiley Brooks. And then when people dug in more they were kind of like, yeah, we have 24 hour surveillance but nobody's gone through the surveillance. Yeah. And like also some of the claims is that like, well, he also wasn't under surveillance when he used when he showered or used a bathroom or I know he's showered really. Yeah. So like they're thought as well maybe like some water splashing their mouth. Yeah. One claim was like he took a bath and nobody measured like how much water was there when he got in and how much was there when he got out. Yeah. So they think maybe he was drinking water that way. Or he could have peed in the bath. True. Right. Oh, that's another thing they said. Yeah. Well, they said they claimed that he did produce urine but then it would like metabolize his body and like refresh him. Yeah. But urine toxic to your body. What? I know. Yeah. So apparently he has like a urine, a brittle urine size. Yeah. So yeah, that's where it's like, I don't see any viable proof that this is a thing. Yeah. You can't just look at his mouth. Yeah, no. I mean, it seems like, um, breatherianism has kind of changed over the years because we heard about a Pronic World Festival, which still happens, where people gather to hear from other celebrity breatherians. One thing that I thought it was really funny is food is served at the event. Yeah. They're like, we don't want any ambulances or show up. They even know. They even know. Yeah. But I guess a lot of modern breatherians do various things like smoothies, broths, like liquidy type stuff. So they're still getting nutrients or just not getting it from food. So that's kind of like, well, is that really breatherianism? Or are you just on a liquid diet? Yeah. Yeah. They're juicing basically. Yeah, basically. So should we get back to my favorite, my Mr. Wiley Brooks? Yeah. Or since we talked about the Pronic World Festival, there is one coming up this year. Oh. Yeah. In August, first through 12th in Cacore, Italy, I think that's how you say it. And if you are interested, for 12 days it costs, it's actually not that bad. It's 230 euros for a 12 day retreat. That's not bad. Yeah. Or festivals, what they're calling it. Or, you know, if Italy's too far, you can also do it online for 49 euros. Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say there's no quick answer to losing weight. I mean, I would check out friend of the pod, Vicki, Keto, Victoria on Instagram, because she had a lot of success with Keto. Someone like me, I don't think Keto's the answer. So I've tried to take more to Peloton, which I've been on and off-mally and you need to get back on. And some people also consider as a cult. Yeah. Yeah. So I think there's different ways, but it seems like this may not be the answer. Or also, I mean, consult your doctor as well too. If you do want to consider something like this. Yeah. So yeah, it's a good point. Any type of diet that you're gonna go on because Vicki is good about seeing her doctor. Yeah so yeah. Wiley Brooks has resurfaced and he said that he still believes in breatherianism with kind of a little twist. Yep. That you should only eat. What? You should only eat a double quarter pounder with cheese and a diet coke from McDonald's. Yes. That's like the golden food, no pun intended. No fruit, no vegetables, none of that healthy stuff. None of that. Just McDonald's. Yeah. The specific meal. I love that it's a diet coke. Yeah, yeah, diet coke. It's the holiest of meals. Yeah. By the way, he has about five followers. But this guy really loves McDonald's. Yeah, he should do commercials. He says when you enter McDonald's, you enter a vortex of unconditional love. But you know, every time I go in McDonald's, I feel that. Yeah, definitely. I never feel like the workers want to blow their head up. Yeah. They always use so happy and cheerful. I mean, that's good that he likes McDonald's. Yeah. I mean, hey, we put ourselves out there like we love Disney. I think it's different than McDonald's. It doesn't vote for a different feeling in us though. Yeah. I mean, I can't hate on the guy too much, but it is funny. I mean, he's not harming anyone. He's not. Yeah. Except for his own body. Eating with the noodles every day. So yeah, I guess in the end, when you're actually watching one of these documentaries, it kind of takes you back and forth. So you're like, huh? Oh, yeah. Oh, so the way we presented it, we didn't do that as much for you since we went through each story. But I'd say overall, I don't think breatherianism is a good option. Yes. For I think a lot of people. Yeah. Should we go through our tenants? Sure. So charismatic leader. I think so. Well, one of the especially with Mr. Wiley, he was described as a smooth talker. So I can see him being charismatic. I mean, yes, the guy that can lift 10 times his weight. I'm sure that attracts a lot of people as well. Yeah. Yeah. And I'd say we'd have to look at this from the standpoint of there's not just been one leader. This has been many leaders throughout time. So overall, yeah, each one of them has been charismatic, even our little, even though I'd say she's different, even our Naveena, who is charismatic in the way that she presented things. Alienation. I feel like they didn't really alienate people or there wasn't a group that they alienated themselves from. Because I feel like any they would think that anyone can join it their group. So I didn't think there was that. I feel like if we look at it from like Michelle Fyfer's point of view, it seemed like she was with a specific group. That was trying to alienate her. But outside of that, it seems more like something you could come and go from. It doesn't seem like, you know, Jasmine Hien follower is being forced to be there. Yeah. Okay. Belief system. Yes. Yeah. McDonald's. McDonald's. Outside evil food. And sense of community. I think so. Yeah. I mean, they have these, you know, festivals throughout the year. But yeah, it's not like they live in a commune. Yeah. Yeah, I'd say this one doesn't seem like a dangerous cult. I could see where it gets the culty vibes. Because we go online. It is described in a lot of places as a cult. And under the definition of a cult nowadays, anything could be a cult. But yeah, I wouldn't say this is it. Well, I mean, let me rewind a little. I would say it's dangerous. Yes. In the harmful effects it has on your body. But I wouldn't say it's dangerous as in people are being forced to do this. Yeah. Most people do it because they want you. They've come to it on their own. Yeah. Like it's definitely a certain type of belief system. But I think there's like subgroups that could be culty or utilize it as a cult kind of thing. Because yeah, like that one woman who was submitting a for name too. Yeah. Like she had, she was living with other, uh, breatherian. Lani Morris. Lani Morris. There's well who were enforcing this on her. So I can see that could kind of be culty. But overall, like if I, if I heard someone saying, Oh, I'm going to try breatherianism, I wouldn't assume that they would be in a cult right away. Yeah. I would just try to be sure to tell them like eat. And I tell you, you know, get get a professional to walk through it with you. Like make sure to see your doctor regularly because I don't know. I feel like I'm not going to try to dissuade someone. Even I don't believe in it. But just take care of yourself if you're going to do it. Yeah. Know the facts. Yeah. Know the facts and make sure that you're healthy because people have died from doing this because I don't think it's a good idea. Yeah. I like food. Yeah. There's a lot of these followers like food too. Like, yeah, Wiley. It just really bothers me that there's people like Wiley Brooks out there who are going to claim to be breatherians when they're not. Yeah. Well, and like when you say that you fasted for 21 days like, and all of a sudden you can't do it on TV. Yeah. It is questionable. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I guess it's funny. Some of these other things that are referred to as breatherianism like eating 300 calories a day that doesn't seem like breatherianism to me anymore. It just seems like you're trying to do anything you can to keep this thing alive. Yeah. By kind of changing what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently recently now like, Jazz Moukine still like practices this in a bit, but she doesn't reference what she's doing as breatherianism. She actually, I forgot what the term she calls it. Oh, chronic living. She calls it that now. Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. This was interesting. This was one we've been meaning to do for a while. Actually, ever since we did the celebrity cult chapter I did with Vicki, we've had this on the list, but there's always been something else. So I figured since we're coming towards the end of our show, it would be a good time to finally get this one in a checkmarked. Yeah. And you can check out Michelle Fyfer and him and yeah, which is recent, which is good. And she looks like she's been eating yeah, she she eats now. She's vegan now. Yeah. Yeah. So cool. So that brings us to the end of this show where people find us. Well, they can also find us on one or her course on one's one. But also a marvelous galaxy of Disney where we talk about Disney news and everything under the Disney umbrella. Yes. And you can find me on solving for eggs. We have some exciting things going on there as we are now in season four of X-Men, which is the best season. And you can catch me on word to the wishes of the cabin where we are about to cover the charm books that took place in between season nine and ten. Right. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for listening to all these on season six. Bye. Bye. Bye. [Music]