Man 'Survives Without Food' For 70 Years

[The Consul]

Good thing the pentagon doesn't have him....they're probably waterboard him and torture with bigmacwhopperkfc and then replace Jarrod with Prani on the subway ads. He could come on Biggest Loser and give nutrition advice. He needs to man-up for the free market and assume his place in saving america's primacy in the f(l)at global village....

[ShinShinKid]

That's flukking hilarious!

Let's sign him up for the Yankees!

[Joe Hillshoist]

Just another bloke wasting his time on meditation, although in his case he undoubtedly doesn't believe in it himself.

Eh? Why is it a waste of time, and why don't you think he 'believes in' it? What does that even mean?

The man has apparently spent his entire life living as a tranny in a cave cos the Goddess spoke to him.

Of course he doesn't believe it himself.

[Ben D]

The yogi has passed the test.

And apparently the test was initiated and monitored by military doctors from India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the state defence and military research institute.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20100510/tod-starving-yogi-astounds-indian-scient-451ab4f.html

'Starving yogi' astounds Indian scientists
Yesterday, 12:14 pm
Rajesh Joshi

An 83-year-old Indian holy man who says he has spent seven decades without food or water has astounded a team of military doctors who studied him during a two-week observation period.

Prahlad Jani spent a fortnight in a hospital in the western India state of Gujarat under constant surveillance from a team of 30 medics equipped with cameras and closed circuit television.

During the period, he neither ate nor drank and did not go to the toilet.

"We still do not know how he survives," neurologist Sudhir Shah told reporters after the end of the experiment. "It is still a mystery what kind of phenomenon this is."

The long-haired and bearded yogi was sealed in a hospital in the city of Ahmedabad in a study initiated by India's Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the state defence and military research institute.

The DRDO hopes that the findings, set to be released in greater detail in several months, could help soldiers survive without food and drink, assist astronauts or even save the lives of people trapped in natural disasters.

"(Jani's) only contact with any kind of fluid was during gargling and bathing periodically during the period," G. Ilavazahagan, director of India's Defence Institute of Physiology and Allied Sciences (DIPAS), said in a statement.

Jani has since returned to his village near Ambaji in northern Gujarat where he will resume his routine of yoga and meditation. He says that he was blessed by a goddess at a young age, which gave him special powers.

During the 15-day observation, which ended on Thursday, the doctors took scans of Jani's organs, brain, and blood vessels, as well as doing tests on his heart, lungs and memory capacity.

"The reports were all in the pre-determined safety range through the observation period," Shah told reporters at a press conference last week.

Other results from DNA analysis, molecular biological studies and tests on his hormones, enzymes, energy metabolism and genes will take months to come through.

"If Jani does not derive energy from food and water, he must be doing that from energy sources around him, sunlight being one," said Shah.

"As medical practitioners we cannot shut our eyes to possibilities, to a source of energy other than calories."

[stefano]

Just came across this case from a reference in EF Schumacher's Guide for the perplexed. Wiki, but taken from a book on the case and I'm sure there are other sources on the net.

Therese Neumann (9 April 1898 – 18 September 1962) was a German Catholic mystic and stigmatic.
[...]
From the years of 1922 until her death in 1962, Therese Neumann apparently consumed no food other than The Holy Eucharist, and claimed to have drunk no water from 1926 until her death.

In July 1927 a medical doctor and four Franciscan nurses kept a watch on her 24 hours a day for a two-week period. They confirmed that she had consumed nothing except for one consecrated sacred Host a day, and had suffered no ill effects, loss of weight, or dehydration. Montague Summers in the "Physical Phenomenon of Mysticism" speaks of her supernatural ability to survive for long periods without food or water. He supported this claim by citing an article about Therese Neumann in the January 5, 1940 "The Universe" which said the peasant woman refused German ration cards saying she had no need of food and drink. During some of her Friday trances, she would utter phrases identified by witnesses (including priests) as ancient Aramaic. She was also said to have been able to understand Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.
[...]
Paramahansa Yogananda visited her and wrote about her case in his book Autobiography of a Yogi, published in 1946. He wrote an entire chapter, Therese Neumann, The Catholic Stigmatist of Bavaria, which reverently gives a vivid first-hand description of one of her Friday Passion trances.
[...]
According to Paramahansa Yogananda Therese Neumann said during his visit: "One of the reasons I am here on earth today is to prove that man can live by God's invisible light, and not by food only." His judgement was: "I realized at once that her strange life is intended by God to reassure all Christians of the historical authenticity of Jesus' life and crucifixion as recorded in the New Testament, and to dramatically display the ever-living bond between the Galilean Master and his devotees." When Paramahansa Yogananda questions the notion that Therese Neumann had lived eating only a daily eucharistic wafer for the past 12 years, she states that she lives by God's light. The renowned yogi then suggests, "I see you realize that energy flows to your body from the ether, sun, and air." Therese then smiles and expresses her happiness that he understands the way she lives.

[Simulist]

From the years of 1922 until her death in 1962, Therese Neumann apparently consumed no food other than The Holy Eucharist, and claimed to have drunk no water from 1926 until her death.

[…]

The renowned yogi then suggests, "I see you realize that energy flows to your body from the ether, sun, and air." Therese then smiles and expresses her happiness that he understands the way she lives.

That is extremely fascinating, Stefano. What's more, I believe it.

Also, I think the theory of the ether was the "baby" that got thrown out along with the "bathwater" a long time ago, unfortunately.

[As a (very) side note, I knew some Jesuits during college that used to bake their own eucharistic bread... well, before the bishop had a fit over what they were doing, and stopped them. They put such things as sunflower seeds, raisins, honey, even carob (to simulate chocolate chips) in the dough. Although that is definitely not what this story is talking about or what Therese Neumann ate, I can definitely see how someone might be able to live on that, if it were.]

[crikkett]

From the years of 1922 until her death in 1962, Therese Neumann apparently consumed no food other than The Holy Eucharist, and claimed to have drunk no water from 1926 until her death.

[…]

The renowned yogi then suggests, "I see you realize that energy flows to your body from the ether, sun, and air." Therese then smiles and expresses her happiness that he understands the way she lives.

That is extremely fascinating, Stefano. What's more, I believe it.

Also, I think the theory of the ether was the "baby" that got thrown out along with the "bathwater" a long time ago, unfortunately.

[As a (very) side note, I knew some Jesuits during college that used to bake their own eucharistic bread... well, before the bishop had a fit over what they were doing, and stopped them. They put such things as sunflower seeds, raisins, honey, even carob (to simulate chocolate chips) in the dough. Although that is definitely not what this story is talking about or what Therese Neumann ate, I can definitely see how someone might be able to live on that, if it were.]

Those Jesuits were wise. I'd pledge my soul to Christ for a chocolate-chip cookie.

The Little Vagabond

Dear mother, dear mother, the church is cold,
But the ale-house is healthy and pleasant and warm;
Besides I can tell where I am used well,
Such usage in Heaven will never do well.

But if at the church they would give us some ale,
And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,
We'd sing and we'd pray all the live-long day,
Nor ever once wish from the church to stray.

Then the parson might preach, and drink, and sing,
And we'd be as happy as birds in the spring;
And modest Dame Lurch, who is always at church,
Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.

And God, like a father rejoicing to see
His children as pleasant and happy as he,
Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the barrel,
But kiss him, and give him both drink and apparel.

[Simulist]

Thanks, Crikkett. That's a great poem.

If the Church were more like those Jesuits — or like your William Blake poem — I might still feel some respect left for it.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

OP article is a psyops decoy.

Current issue of Harpers Magazine on the stands has a cover story about
Wall Street fomenting mass hunger around the world.

[slomo]

OP article is a psyops decoy.

Current issue of Harpers Magazine on the stands has a cover story about
Wall Street fomenting mass hunger around the world.

How exactly is some offbeat story about a Jain mystic eating nothing - a story which the vast majority of Americans will disbelieve anyway - going to stop people from learning about world hunger?

[Simulist]

It isn't — and that's what makes it such a perfect psyop: it's undetectable!

[slomo]

It isn't — and that's what makes it such a perfect psyop: it's undetectable!

http://www.explosm.net/comics/2065/

Warning: not-entirely-safe-for-work off-color comic strip.

[Simulist]

Ha! That's hilarious.

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

The Harpers magazine cover story I saw in line at the supermarket isn't the only *hunger* story in the mediasphere right now.
Shades of Reagan-Thatcher-era surplus government cheese and elderly consumers of catfood...

Saturday, July 3 2010-

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=13 ... =351021809

UK mulling food vouchers distribution

The unemployed whose benefits have been cut off by government will receive food vouchers by charities supported by the government to make up for the cuts in welfare spending.

Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, has given his department's executive arm, JobCentre Plus the go-ahead to distribute tickets that can be traded for food parcels.

>snip<

How exactly is some offbeat story about a Jain mystic eating nothing - a story which the vast majority of Americans will disbelieve anyway - going to stop people from learning about world hunger?

Competing associations for keywords, themes, and images...s.o.p.

It's basic game theory and mnemonics:
> steal market share for keywords, themes, and images
> provide individual's memories and cognitive filters something less disturbing to veer towards
such as "Oh, poor people are used to going without and it's a whole ascetic religious practice like fasting"...etc.

During the Katrina massacre National Propaganda Radio kept playing New Orleans Funeral marching band music to imply "those negroes are used to death and have a lovely way of dealing with it so no biggie..."

Recency effect, path-of-least-resistence-thinking, diluted visibility, palliative shock-absorbers...

[slomo]

Hugh, it's not that I think the PTB would not like to disappear problematic stories. It's that I doubt KWH is an effective way to do it.

Headline market share is relatively easy to control. See the last week of Glenn Greenwald's posts if you want a well-researched take on corruption of media at a high level. Note, in particular, how the Gulf Coast is now a police state to keep nosy journalists from reporting the truth of what's going on down there. If they could make Gulf stories disappear from the collective consciousness merely by planting fake esoteric stories, I think they would not spend the resources required to lock down a whole coastline.

I don't see any clear explanatory theoretical mechanism for how KWH could actually work, in a way that is reliable enough, with enough empirical evidence to back it up, that would justify the large-scale CIA effort that is implied by your hypothesis. The only one that makes sense to me is a nonlinear memetic effect that, for all intents and purposes, would be technically indistinguishable from magick. And I personally don't doubt the power of magick, but you are hostile to anything with even a remote whiff of woo. In other words, the one theoretical construct that could make your hypothesis plausible is the one that you steadfastly disavow.