Mystical systems
Breatharianism
Direct answer
Breatharianism: Breatharianism, also called inedia, is the claim that a person can live without food, and in some versions without water, sustained by air, sunlight or a subtle energy called prana.
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At a glance
- Also called
- inedia, living on light, pranic nourishment, breatharian diet
- Found in
- Mystical Systems
- Related
- Asceticism, Tapas, Prayer and Fasting, Ekadashi
Breatharianism, also called inedia, is the claim that a person can live without food, and in some versions without water, sustained by air, sunlight or a subtle energy called prana.
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Can a person live without food or water?
Breatharianism is the belief that eating is unnecessary. Its advocates say the body can be nourished by breath, sunlight or prana, the life force of Indian thought. The older word is inedia, Latin for fasting, used in Catholic writing for saints said to have lived for years on the communion wafer alone.
No such claim has held up under observation. The human body needs water within days and food within weeks, and supervised tests of breatharians have ended early or failed to rule out eating. In 1999 an Australian television programme watched a prominent advocate under medical supervision, and the supervising doctor stopped the trial after four days because of dehydration. Deaths have been reported among people attempting it. The idea is described here as a claim and a history, never as something to try. It can kill.
On the tree of the hidden arts: Fasting and discipline.
What sets Breatharianism apart
Breatharianism differs from every religious fast in having no end date. Lent, Ramadan and Ekadashi stop by rule and excuse the sick; this teaching presents not eating as a permanent state to be reached. It also makes a claim about the body that can be checked, and the checks have gone one way. The saints' lives it cites describe people who ate very little and often died young, and the Church that honoured them never taught that others should stop eating.
- Older name: inedia, Latin for fasting or going without food
- Claimed source of life: air, sunlight or prana
- Modern movement: United States, 1980s; books on living on light in the 1990s
- Televised test: Australia, 1999, stopped by a doctor after four days
- Reported harm: deaths have been reported among people attempting it
- Medical verdict: starvation and dehydration; no verified case of living without food
Often mistaken for something else: A religious fast is limited in time and exempts those it would harm; breatharianism claims that food can be given up for good, a claim no test has borne out.
The story behind Breatharianism
Stories of holy people who do not eat are told of medieval saints such as Catherine of Siena, who died in 1380 aged thirty-three, and of the Bavarian mystic Therese Neumann in the twentieth century. Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi, published in 1946, describes a Bengali woman said to live without food. The modern movement dates from the 1980s in the United States and grew in the 1990s through books on living on light.
Why Breatharianism matters
Breatharianism is the far end of fasting lore, where an ascetic ideal turns into a physical claim that can be tested and has cost lives.
How to read Breatharianism
The word is used by advocates for their practice and by doctors and journalists for a dangerous form of prolonged starvation.
Breatharianism in practice: an example
A reader who meets the claim online can ask one question of it: has anyone ever done this under continuous independent watch? No one has.
Where readings of Breatharianism go wrong
People have died attempting it. Going without water is fatal within days, and no teaching makes prolonged starvation safe.
Sources and editorial method
This entry summarizes the tradition in the Almanac's own words; where no source is listed, it is an editorial summary rather than a primary text, and symbolic readings are named as the tradition's, not as fact.
- Source
- The Great Almanac Dictionary
- Category
- Mystical Systems
- Aliases
- inedia, breatharian, living on light, pranic nourishment, breatharian diet
- Last updated
- 2026-09-26
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Common questions
Can a person live without food or water?
No. Without water a person dies within days, and without food within weeks to a couple of months, depending on health and conditions. No claim to the contrary has been confirmed under controlled observation.
What is inedia?
It is the Latin term for abstaining from food, used especially in accounts of saints and mystics said to have lived without eating. Such accounts rest on testimony and were not verified under continuous watch.
Has breatharianism ever been tested?
Yes, several times. Tests have been stopped for medical reasons or have failed to exclude eating and drinking. A televised trial in Australia in 1999 was ended by the supervising doctor after four days.
