Jasmuheen: Embajadores de la luz

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Wiley Brooks

Breatharianism is physical perfection.  Man came into physical existence a perfect Breatharian. The breath of life supplied all the requirements of animation. God breathed into his nostrils the Breath of Life, and man became a living entity (Gen 2:7). Nothing was lacking, and nothing more was needed. The Breatharian needs air and Sunlight only, and nothing more to sustain his body.

The world is flooded with books on food and eating.  No one seems to realize that eating is not natural, but an acquired habit, like smoking and drinking, and that FRESH CLEAN AIR is the Cosmic Reservoir of all things, including the substance that builds and sustains the human body.

Science has shown that the body is built of cells, which are composed of molecules, which are composed of atoms, which are composed of electrons, which are nothing more than whirling centers of force in the ether.

Electrons do not eat, atoms do not eat, molecules do not eat, cells do not eat, and the body is built of and sustained by the cells, and not by what man eats. 

More proof that eating is only a very bad habit, appears in the fact that a sick person often begins at once to recover their health when given no food, and even shows signs of GROWING YOUNGER.  This could not be, and it would be dangerous for one to fast, if eating were natural and food were needed to sustain the body. 

The whole truth and Nothing but.....

A Long time ago, pre-dating our currently known history there were very few different types of human bodies residing on the planet at any given time.  As the Earth became more populated by beings from many different worlds, more body types and different density patterns became available, some by mutation and others by choice.  There were beings whose only need for sustenance was light and sound vibrations, which their souls or higher selves provided.  There were others whose only  sustenance was breath. 

There were also beings whose worlds of origin included the consumption of watery plant materials.  Because the Earth's kelp beds and seaweed grasses did not adequately meet the nutritional needs of these beings; rather than leave the planet altogether, they were able to adapt over a period of time to what today you would call a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle.  WHICH BODY TYPE ARE YOU?  

Why do we have a digestive systems?

 July 4, 2002

 Dear M.............,

I am sorry you were not able to get through on the Charlie Wolf Show, on radio station, REDFM,  104-106, Cork, Ireland.   However, I am very happy that you took the time to write to me with your questions.   I will answer them as best I can.

Before I begin answering your questions I would like to state my position on eating.   I do not, under any circumstances recommend or suggest that anyone stop eating food without the proper knowledge and/or conditions.  Limited fasting can be helpful when used intelligently.

Now, for our communication to be the most effective, I suggest that you try to keep an open mind as much as possible and allow your body to absorb the spiritual energy which is an essential part of each word that you read.   Allow some time for your conclusions after you have read all pertinent information related to the questions.  In that way you will absorb the total essence of the words, which include an emotional content that you may feel in the heart area of your body.  Try to keep an awareness of this energy as you read this letter so you might experience what is being written and not just seeing the words.

I am sure you are already aware of the great amount of light the Sun produces everyday to light up the day.   Just as the light bulbs you use in your lamps at night require a certain amount of energy from some outside source of power (electrical outlet) to make it light up, the Sun must also must have a source of energy to produce its huge amount of light.  The very Earth that we live on requires huge amounts of energy everyday, 24/7, for its maintenance and sustenance just as we humans do. You may not have heard anyone mention seeing gigantic mouths and digestion systems in the Sun or the Earth but I assure you that they are there.   The real function of the digestion system is the condensation of spiritual energy (energy we can’t see) into physical energy/matter (energy we can see).

As to your question: ‘ why do we all have a digestive systems?’  The truth is that everything you see as physical matter has a digestion system of some kind.  When you turn on the light switches in your home at night you do not actually see light until the spiritual/electrical energy from your power company or source is literally absorbed/eaten and digested by the light bulb.  In other words, some process of absorption/eating and digestion of spiritual energy create all physical matter.  The original intent of the digestion system was to digest, process and convert spiritual energy into physical energy or matter. We are truly spiritual beings sustained by the spiritual component of the breath of life (light).  Our bodies are physical beings sustained by the physical component of the breath of life (Air).

A long time ago the Earth was a place where love, peace, beauty and harmony between the many races of people living at that time was the norm, not the exception.  The air, the breath of life, was fresh and full of pure spiritual energy.  During that time there was an invisible energy grid that covered the entire surface of the earth, which maintained a constant flow of the balanced spiritual energy needed to sustain all life on earth.  All life on the planet at that time had a symbiotic relationship with the earth and was fully supported by this energy matrix or grid.  There was more than enough of the right spiritual energy to support the physical world.   Considering the condition of the Earth and its environment at the time, it is easy to see why human bodies were originally designed to be sustained by breath alone. Our bodies literally convert spirituality into physicality.

The true digestion organ for a spiritual being is the heart.  The primary distributor of physical energy for the bodies is through the heart center.  There really was a time when humans lived on love alone.  Love is simply a type of emotional energy of a specific frequency that causes us to feel good.  When we have enough of this energy we are complete.  This energy is contained within all other types of energy.

This energy is experienced more in the heart than the mind.

This matrix or grid that surrounds the earth was damaged over the years by the many destructive wars fought by humans on the planet.  The explosion of nuclear weapons and many other destructive forces created by humans reduced the grid’s capacity to maintain a flow of all the frequencies needed to balance earth’s energy.  The frequencies we experience as love was greatly reduced.  So it became necessary to get this (love) energy from other sources. Because this love energy is found in all other living things we resorted to eating.  This was and still is a very inefficient way to energize the body.   This is why even though people are eating more than ever they seem to have less energy.

The good news is that over the last few years this energy matrix or grid has been in the process of being repaired.   The completion date is set for December, 2002.  I’ve have noticed a great increase in this love/breatharian frequency/energy in the last few months.

A Breatharian is really anyone who breathes.  The important thing to know about Breatharianism is that when the Earth is restored to its originally pristine state people will have a choice as to how they chose to energize their bodies.   Until that time I would suggest that people should eat what their hearts desire, with the watchful eye of the mind.

This is the first time I have tried to answer these types of questions in this way (writing), I decided to write as much as necessary to have my answers make sense.  You have inspired me to post the answers to the many question I will be getting in future on my web site.

   At this time the Earth is not ready to support a permanent no eating life style. I believe Everyone should continue to eat until the proper time.

P.S. I personally, do not recommend fasting for anyone under the age of 21.

Wiley Brook

Who checks up on people making outrageous claims?

I talk to Jasmuheen who claims to have eaten nothing for 4 years.

TRANSCRIPT

(PAUL) When someone makes an outrageous claim, should they have to prove it? And what test would be satisfactory? Meet Jasmuheen. You have an unusual diet - can you tell us about it?

(JASMUHEEN) Yes, generally I tend to live off what I call prahnic nourishment. You can get your vitamins and nourishment from vitamins and minerals contained within food, or you can bypass food and hook into what we call the universal life force which is prahna.

(PAUL) Could you tell me exactly what you would consume in a day?

(JASMUHEEN) Generally not much at all. Maybe a few cups of tea and a glass of water, but now and then if I feel a bit bored and I want some flavour, then I will have a mouthful of whatever it is I'm wanting the flavour of. So it might be a piece of chocolate or it might be a mouthful of a cheesecake or something like that.

(PAUL) You've been quoted as saying that this could be a solution to global starvation, and that people suffering from anorexia are interested in your techniques. Is this something that anyone can do?

(JASMUHEEN) It is something that anyone can do. With the anorexic people it's not just a dietary thing, that's what it manifests itself as. It is very much tied up with issues of lack of self worth etc, so that needs to be cleared before anything else can take place. With global hunger it's a matter of re-education so that people can take control over the physical vehicle, tune themselves and then living on prahna is very easy. We free ourselves from very basic primordial fear, which is if you don't eat you're going to die - well that's not true.

(PAUL) What's the general reaction been to your claims?

(JASMUHEEN) Depends what country. I just did a tour through Europe and the media reports were excellent. In Australia I think it's a little different - Australians are naturally skeptical. Anything they don't understand is often put into the too hard basket and let's dismiss it as a load of rubbish.

(JASMUHEEN) What we're looking for is to film a documentary. We want to have normal medical practitioners doing testing on a person going through the process before and after. We want to work with alternative therapists and we want to submit a very educational and very informative and very intelligent documentary that along the way happens to prove that this is possible.

(PAUL) But how could you prove what you say? I mean how could you prove that you're not sort of sneaking in a packet of Tim Tams under the doona?

(JASMUHEEN) You just live it you know. That's the purpose of the documentary. Because every time I'm doing media work - especially in Australia - it's like well we don't believe you, it's too extreme - prove it to us.

(PAUL) One claim that I thought could be tested relatively easily, according to your web pages, your DNA is changing to take up more hydrogen and is developing from 2 to 12 strands. Now they could be checked very quickly with a blood test, a simple blood test. Would you consent to such a testing?

(JASMUHEEN) Oh that depends. What I'd rather do is people go and have a look at the work of the Dalai Lama for example. Like in 1991 ---

(PAUL) Pardon me for interrupting, but I don't think he actually made the claim that he was restructuring his DNA, and this is a claim that could be tested. Further to it actually being tested, if you could actually prove that you have managed to manipulate your DNA there are groups like, say, the Australian Skeptics, who would gladly give you $30,000 just for being able to show that. So, would you be prepared to submit yourself to a blood test?

(JASMUHEEN) For blood test for DNA - I don't know. I'd have to really think about that one. I don't know what the relevance for it is.

(PAUL) So what you're saying is that there is no objective way to be able to test or prove what you're saying except by living it.

(JASMUHEEN) Yeah, exactly, live it!

(PAUL) So you don't think that if someone makes a claim you don't think that it's up to them to be able to prove it?

(JASMUHEEN) Oh it is, and it's up to them to do it in a way that keeps them happy and the people who are wanting proof done.

(PAUL) Jasmuheen is selling books and videos and lectures off the back of her unproven claims. So why doesn't she submit her claims to suitable testing? Her proposed video would be expensive, time consuming and easily bodged. But a blood test would be simple, cheap and cheat-proof. Perhaps this one little prick would ruin her story.

The Prana Diet Plan

By D. Trull

Enigma Editor

mailto:PSCP%20Trull@aol.com

If it's a rich fountainhead of unexplained phenomena you're looking for, check out all the stuff that goes on in beer commercials. Probably because they're forbidden to show anyone actually drinking and it's no longer politically correct to rely on bikini-clad spokesmodels, the beer hucksters have been cooking up some koo-koo kinda ads to keep you from flipping the flicker.

You've got them talking frogs and beer-smuggling ant colonies, beers that create spontaneous blizzards when opened, guys who can warp time and space by banging their bottles on a TV set... And how about those where some guy goes, "Gimme a Light," and the bartender gives him a lamp or a flaming torch or a semaphore signaler or something zany like that? And then he'd go, "No, you moron, a BUD Light!" Oh, the wackiness! If only reality could be so fun-filled and nutty!

Well, for one shining beechwood-aged moment, it is. In a bizarre case of life imitates beer commercial, there actually is someone on the planet who would not be upset for her waiter to serve her a flashlight or a book of matches instead of a cold, frosty brew.

An Australian new age guru known as Jasmuheen advocates a revolutionary "Breatharian" dietary plan: she believes that people can get all the nutrition they need simply by absorbing light. She explains that humans have had it wrong all this time, improperly shoving chunks of solid matter down our gullets whenever we feel hungry. Silly us.

"The human body was not designed to consume food, but rather light, which I call prana," says Jasmuheen. "I converted to light nourishment three years ago, after a gastronomic incident with a mollusc." Sure, we've all felt like fasting a spell in the wake of a bad seafood experience, but Jasmuheen decided to go cold turkey on cold turkey, as well as all other known meats, fruits, vegetables, grains, dairy products and tasty cream-filled snack treat items. She claims to have subsisted for the past three years on nothing but plenty of prana and "an occasional nibble at a Hob Nob," which is apparently some kind of Australian cookie. She will not fess up to drinking so much as a drop of water. For three years.

Jasmuheen recently passed through Hong Kong on a world tour to promote the Breatharian lifestyle and her book, "Prana and Immortality." She's certainly entitled to circle the globe with her message of medically impossible garbage, assuming that anyone who decides to chow down on prana is permitted to bail out once dehydration sets in. Still, it must be pointed out that Jasmuheen openly trivializes the plights of two tragically stricken groups with her crackpot diet. First, she offers this to the world's hunger victims: "Wouldn't it be wonderful to go into third world countries and say: 'listen, I know you guys have only one meal a week, but it doesn't matter, just re-programme.' If people in poor countries would only stop listening to the mass media, who tell them they will die without food, then they could learn to live entirely off liquid light, like I do."

Umm... okay. Gee, Jasmuheen, isn't it a shame that these people aren't getting enough light as it is? They really should get outside more. And then there's your other pearl of wisdom: "My message is particularly helpful for teenage girls who are suffering from anorexia nervosa. The anorexics I've met have been absolutely ecstatic at the idea of living off liquid light, and are delighted to hear that Breatharians can give up food and water entirely, without any ill effects."

Yeah, and you'd be popular with alcoholics if you said they could safely chug all the Jack Daniel's they could hold, but that wouldn't exactly make you a hero.

If you ask me, the only possible truth concealed by a global prana conspiracy would be clandestine midnight Ho-Ho's and Haagen Dazs pig-outs in Jasmuheen's kitchen. Because if she was right, it goes without saying that McDonald's, Archer Daniels Midland and those wacky beer companies would have had her whacked by now.

(c) Copyright 1996 ParaScope, Inc.

A Light Lunch

At school, I always found Biology fascinating. I was more naturally predisposed to engineering, though, which often gave me a strange perspective on matters biological. For example, I remember a feeling of joy when I discovered that some bacteria have wheels; to me, it had always seemed odd that there weren't any wheels found in nature, and now suddenly it was revealed that there were after all. I still wanted to know why there weren't any wheeled mammals, though...

Another mystery of my childhood biology lessons was the question of why animals don't carry out photosynthesis. The teacher said they weren't equipped to do so, but of course that was just begging the question. The answer, I know now, is that photosynthesis just can't provide the quantities of energy needed for (say) a mammal. Which brings me to the subject of this month's web.scan.

Wiley Brooks has discovered a radical solution for hunger; it's called Breatharianism. You can think of it as the logical next step after vegetarianism, veganism and fruitarianism.

According to the Breatharians, this whole business of eating and drinking is a kind of addiction passed on from parents to their children. You're born, you're made to eat and drink -- and pretty soon you become convinced that you can't do without food and water! The gut becomes filled with decaying food, and you suffer an instinctive reflex to eat more food, purely so as to push out the decaying matter. However, Breatharians have learned how to break free of this cycle, via a rigorous program of fasting. Freed from food, they can nourish themselves with pure Prana energy extracted from the air with every breath. Now they are taking their message of hope to the world, via the official Breatharian Web Site.

Wiley Brooks' message of salvation is spelled out in straightforward terms on the web site: $425 for a seminar, payment in advance, no refunds. As he reportedly said a few years ago, when the prices were lower: if you can't find $300, then how do you expect to find God?

But these days, Brooks himself seems to be keeping a lower profile, and the new rising star of Breatharianism is Ellen Greve, a 42 year old Australian woman who now calls herself Jasmuheen. Her book "Living on Light" is available from Amazon.com. There, we learn that tragically, many who learn to live on Prana still go back to eating -- because of peer pressure. The TV ads must be a problem, too -- forget Philip Morris, when are the Breatharians going to file a class-action lawsuit against McDonalds?

At the time of writing, there are five-star reviews on Amazon from three happy Breatharians who have read Jasmuheen's book. However, Breatharianism hasn't been a complete success for everyone. Earlier this year another Australian, Verity Linn, apparently starved herself to death; it's believed that she may have been attempting to purify herself and become a Breatharian. A few similar cases have been reported in other countries. Maybe they just didn't believe with enough faith?

Or perhaps not. You see, I first heard about this particular religious health cult around 1989, thanks to the Church of the SubGenius and the Rev Ivan Stang. According to Stang, the Breatharians suffered a bit of a setback in the 80s when Wiley Brooks was discovered to have been making secret late-night trips to pick up junk food from his local convenience stores. In interviews, Jasmuheen seems to like to clarify matters: she isn't claiming that she doesn't eat or drink anything. No, she's claiming that if she were to stop eating and drinking, she wouldn't die. In the mean time, she's happy to munch biscuits and drink tea.

I think I'm beginning to get the picture here. And you know, I could jump out of a window, fly up to the clouds, and tap-dance on them -- if I chose to do so. I just choose not to. Some other sucker... er, seeker after truth can try leaping out of windows. Perhaps I should start selling $450 seminars on Defenestrationism?

There's more to Breatharianism than just not eating, though. Consider this thoughtful explanation of how man came to be, from one of Jasmuheen's interviews:

"You have to look at the process of evolution. OK, how we originally manifested on the planet. Some stories say it was those gigantic blobs of fluid-type energy, with these 2 transmitter type feeler things coming out of our head... some stories (laugh)... and then we definitely looked like we look today, and we didn't have digestive organs, we synthesized light, OK? So we were just so in tune with the morphogenic fields of creation, and we didn't have individualization -- and anyone who wants to track that process of evolution can go on and study theosophy and the root-race cycles. OK, so we've gone through a natural process, where the body has supported our belief system. We've densified. So over eons of time, millenniums, we've developed the organs needed to support our belief system which said that we need food. And then over eons of time to come, we will go through an evolutionary process where we probably will have no digestive tract, we might not have teeth, we might not have mouths! And God knows what we'll look like! So our body just reflects our consciousness today."

If you want more of this woman's wisdom, there are videos and CDs available. There are several other Breatharian authors, too. Like Hilton Hotema, who writes: "This booklet demonstrates just how incredible each mind can be." Incredible, yes, that's almost the right word isn't it?

Then there's the CIA. No, not that one -- Jasmuheen's Cosmic Internet Academy. Unfortunately most of the material seems to be in PDF format, but if you have the patience to download it I'm sure it won't disappoint.

But enough of Jasmuheen; let's look at a self-described NUT -- a "Naturopathic Urine Therapist", that is. A "health consultant" who goes by the name Ahmen Heaven. With a name like that you'd expect him to be taking the piss, and you wouldn't be far wrong: his Christian Health Research web site is a potent blend of Breatharianism, Christianity, Hindu mysticism, and urine drinking.

Yes, urine. For in the Bible, Jesus said "If you believe in me, you will never thirst" and "Rivers of living water shall flow from your bellies" (John 7:38). And obviously he was talking about urine, wasn't he?

Urine, the fountain of youth. It's pure, it's healthy, it's full of antibodies, vitamins and minerals, it's "a nourishing drink, that is also cleansing, as well as medicinal." In fact, it sounds so good that I bet the only reason the Coca-Cola company don't sell cans of carbonated piss is that Anheuser-Busch have already cornered the market.

But Ahmen Heaven and other urine enthusiasts don't just drink it. They also massage with it, and bath in it, because "cures were faster and more effective in those who bathed, massaged, rubbed, and soaked themselves with urine." You can also boil it down to 25% volume, keep it for four days, and then apply it to your skin to get rid of burns. Even if it doesn't improve your complexion, it'll keep people far enough away that they won't see your scars.

Plus sniffing urine can help loosen mucus; and don't forget to try urine eye-drops too. Is there no end to the uses of this miracle liquid? But the really puzzling one, to my mind, is the claim that being soaked in urine is a medically proven cure for tuberculosis. If that's true, why is TB such a problem amongst homeless drunks?

One thing I've noticed is that somehow, whenever a web site features advocacy of fasting and bodily purity up front, there always seems to be an enema behind. So to speak. And the Christian Health Research web site is no exception to the rule. Yes, urine enemas. Don't try this at home. Or if you do, please do not send me e-mail telling me about it.

Finally, one claim that's absolutely believable: "Drinking your own urine makes you think seriously about what you eat." I bet. But not half as seriously as it makes you think about what you're drinking, I'd imagine.

If this sounds like the health cult for you, you might like to check out the Health Oasis Resort Hotel in Thailand. They offer Breatharian vacations and Colonic Cellular Cleansing programs. Bargain rates include all the air you can eat, with hot and cold running enemas. Can't say fairer than that, eh? But what's the Breatharian room service menu like?

mathew

<meta@pobox.com>

http://www.pobox.com/~meta/

I haven't eaten for 5 years

Electronic Telegraph, October 24, 1999

Doctors and dieticians dismiss her claims as dangerous gobbledegook and a woman has died trying to convert to her breatharian creed. But Jasmuheen still insists that she 'lives on light'. Barbie Dutter meets her JASMUHEEN dances to the door in a leopard-print sundress that showcases an outstanding figure for a 41-year-old. She is curvaceous, with a slender waist and peachy complexion. Her eyes are bright, her hair glossy, her teeth white and strong. And she claims not to have eaten for five years.

We sit on the veranda of her Brisbane home, overlooking a generous pool, and sip blackcurrant and vanilla tea. This is her one concession to ingestion - two cups of tea a day, and the occasional glass of water. Or so she says.

She remembers quite clearly the last nutritious morsel to pass her lips - a lightly toasted, perfectly spiced felafel from a Lebanese health food shop. Then, she insists, she stopped eating forever.

Jasmuheen is a breatharian, the public face of a strange phenomenon called "living on light". She claims she tuned her body in 1993 to be spiritually receptive to an alternative, intangible form of nourishment called prana, or liquid light. On this basis, she says, she does not need to eat, never feels hungry and has gone without any food - with the exception of the odd chocolate biscuit to satisfy a stubborn taste-craving - for more than five years.

If this seems an outlandish assertion, there are even more fantastic claims to come. That this "pranic nourishment" could be the solution to global famine. That it parallels the discovery that the Earth is round. That Jasmuheen is a messenger of the Ascended Masters, with whom she communicates through cosmic telepathy and who instructed her to attract public attention through the media to the cause of world hunger.

Her home, with its sunshine-yellow walls and pungent scent of incense, overflows with ancient and new-age icons. A gallery of "the Ascended Ones" - Christ, Krishna, Babaji, St Germain, the Dalai Lama and more - adorns the walls. Their presence seems awkward alongside the material trappings of a fully equipped gym, sauna and dance room. But Jasmuheen attributes her glowing health not only to the lack of toxicity in her body, but to a daily routine of meditation and exercise involving hour upon hour of workouts, weight-training and aerobics.

All this on no food? Nonsense, declare the nutritionists. Physically impossible, proclaim the doctors. Morally irresponsible, cry the dieticians, concerned that she is preaching a message that will encourage dangerous weight loss or give anorexics their much-coveted excuse not to eat.

Jasmuheen's answer to such medical scepticism is this: "If a doctor told me it was physically impossible to survive without eating, I would say: 'Yes, according to your research it is. But not according to mine'."

So the research on which the health-care profession relies is flawed? "No, it is 100 per cent correct. However, it does not take into account the fact that there are alternative forms of nourishment."

But, as a physical being, how is it possible to live without physical forms of nutrition?

"I do have nutrition - but from another source. If you put another nourishment source into your body, or release another nourishment source from within your body, then you don't need vitamins, minerals, nutrition from food.

"The point here is what form of nourishment you are taking. When you tune yourself - through meditation, through physical exercise, through dietary choices - then the signals that you are transmitting, as a bio-energetic system, are altered. The ability to live on light comes as a direct result of tuning those signals."

She claims the Christian definition of pranic nourishment would be that a person is "fed by the light of God". What would an atheist say? "That you have boosted the voltage of electro-magnetic energy in the body."

Bamboozled, I ask to examine the contents of her fridge. She flings open the door with a flourish and an array of shiny, healthy food confronts us - brown bread and beansprouts, pawpaw and hummus, half a dozen cartons of soya milk and jar upon jar of cooking sauces. "It's Jeff's food," she announces. Jeff is her fiancé, a vegan, who cooks and eats. A quick glance around the kitchen reveals a well-used chopping board, a shelf jostling with herbs and condiments and - aha! - a dozen bottles of vitamins and supplements. "They're Jeff's. I don't need vitamins. I get all the vitamins I need."

Jasmuheen is a new-age guru who is relatively unknown in her native Australia but hugely successful in Germany. She has written eight books on self-empowerment, mind-mastery and, more recently, living on light, but claims to make little money from her work, re-investing any royalties into spreading the word. Her home in the smart, hillside suburb of Chapel Hill was, however, purchased through the proceeds of her books.

Next month she will bring her message to Britain, and is confident her work will be embraced worldwide. She has even been tipped off - by an angelic source - that she will be invited on The Oprah Winfrey Show. She claims her spiritual mentor, St Germain, told her to use the fact of not needing to eat to harness media attention. "He's my etheric Press officer," she says, giggling at my look of earthly incomprehension.

She is unswerving in her claim that her life is food-free. She is also somewhat smug in the knowledge that these claims are impossible to prove - short of being locked in a laboratory or having a minder with her every second of every day.

As we talk, there is a rustle of plastic in the kitchen, signalling Jeff's arrival home with some groceries. Jasmuheen seizes the moment delightedly to remind me that her life is free of such mundane chores. "I have no shopping, I have no cooking, I have no cleaning, I have no dishes. I have endless extra time because I don't have to worry about food. When you're not eating you don't need to sleep much, so I have 20 hours a day to play with. It's wonderful."

Jasmuheen was born Ellen Greve in the Snowy Mountains of New South Wales, the fifth and youngest child of Norwegian migrants who came to Australia after the Second World War. She dropped out of an art degree after less than a year, and became pregnant at 19 while waitressing in Sydney to save money "to do the hippy trail".

She married the father of her baby (the first of two daughters who are now apparently supportive of their mother's mission) but the marriage foundered after seven years and she took a job in the finance industry, earning a salary substantial enough to pay for a nanny, private schooling for her daughters and an Alfa Romeo.

In 1992, she lost her job, and began to focus on her interest in meditation and mind-mastery. She held workshops and seminars, began writing and sold her home and car to make ends meet. It was around this time, during a meditation session, that a message "came through" to stop eating food. Already a vegetarian of two decades, she prepared herself by refining and reducing her intake until all she was eating was a little soup. She then put herself through a punishing 21-day conversion course with no food or fluids for the first seven days and occasional sips of orange juice and water for the remaining 14.

This course, which she co-pioneered and writes about extensively in her latest book Living on Light, attracted controversy in July when an Australian woman, attempting to convert to Breatharianism, collapsed and died in hospital 10 days later. The dead woman's tutor - a 60-year-old Brisbane man whom Jasmuheen claims never to have met but is referred to in her book - is awaiting trial for unlawful killing.

Jasmuheen admits the course is dangerous, and insists it is only for "spiritual warriors" who have prepared themselves through years of meditation and exercise, who have weaned themselves off their emotional dependency on food and have a basic grasp of quantum physics. She rejects accusations of moral irresponsibility, saying she has publicly warned those with weight problems or anorexia against the process. She says that they could not complete the conversion anyway. "If people are not coming from a place of integrity and the right motivation then it doesn't work."

Dr Sandra Capra, a senior lecturer at the School of Public Health at the Queensland University of Technology and President of the Dieticians Association of Australia, describes Jasmuheen's claims as meaningless mumbo-jumbo. "It's like me saying the moon is a rocky substance that orbits the Earth, and somebody else saying the moon is made of cheese.

"It would be impossible for her to still be alive on what she claims her intake to be. You don't have to eat - you can survive on a well-planned liquid diet - but you cannot survive without nutrients. I think this message is appalling because it misleads people and it is dangerous."

Dr Capra says total abstinence from food and fluids is considered highly dangerous after three to four days. The maximum accepted time for a person to survive with no fluids is six days. In a period of weeks, with no nutrients, repercussions could include symptoms of scurvy and beri beri; changes in the blood leading to headaches, dizziness and the increased threat of strokes; disturbance to the cardio-vascular system, increasing the risk of heart attacks; major metabolic problems, brain disorders and coma.

"This individual claims there are about 5,000 breatharians internationally, but cannot name any. She says there have been studies, but cannot name any. I can't tell if she's a true believer or a liar, but this is gobbledegook."

The only way for Jasmuheen to quieten her critics would be to submit to clinical tests, she says. Jasmuheen responds that in August 1999, during a 33-day retreat - yet to be arranged - in Germany or France, she and about 30 other breatharians will submit to the full scrutiny of medical professionals, scientists and the media. But she says she will not have tests beforehand because the results would be dismissed as a "one-off miracle".

As the founder and mouthpiece of a number of Internet-based outfits - the Self Empowerment Academy, the Cosmic Internet Academy, the Movement of an Awakened Positive Society - Jasmuheen is beefing up her international profile with lecture tours, such as the one in London in late November.

She is scholarly in metaphysics and Eastern philosophy and articulate in her arguments. Her analogies are a peculiar mixture of the esoteric and the technical. "The body has cellular memory like computer software. If you change what you want to achieve, you've got to change the program. So if people have a program that says: 'If I don't eat or drink I'll die or waste away to nothing', then they'll die or waste away to nothing. But you can reprogram the body by changing your belief systems."

She says that she has suffered little weight loss - around 9 lb - because of such a reprogramming process. "I decided that when my weight dropped below 47 kilos I looked like a Biafran, so I commanded the body to stabilize at a minimum of 47 kilos and it did."

She says her social life has suffered from the lack of invitations to dinner parties. She regrets her fiancé's frustration in not being able to express his love by cooking. I wonder if she conducts midnight raids on Jeff's goodies, or keeps muesli bars stashed under her mattress. I ask if she has bowel movements. She is unfazed. "It may be rabbit-type droppings every three weeks if I am just drinking, or a little more if I nibble once a week. There is little to eliminate, except for dead cells and pollutants."

On this note I leave - and head for the nearest McDonald's.

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