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From the Files of Fortean Slips
by D. Trull
Enigma Editor
dtrull@parascope.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.
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