Inedia
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Inedia (Latin: "fasting") is the ability to live without food. The word was first used to describe a fast-based lifestyle within Catholic tradition, which holds that certain saints were able to survive for extended periods of time without food or drink other than the Eucharist.
Breatharianism is a related concept, in which believers claim food and possibly water are not necessary, and that humans can be sustained solely by prana (the vital life force in Hinduism), or, according to some, by the energy in sunlight (according to Ayurveda, sunlight is one of the main sources of prana). The terms breatharianism or inedia may also refer to this philosophy practised as a lifestyle in place of the usual diet.
While there is not peer-verified scientific support for the claims, some promote the practices of breatharianism as a skill which can be learned through specific techniques.
Religious traditions
Roman Catholicism
Roman Catholicism also has traditions of inedia, in which saints, as well as Jesus, are claimed to have been able to go for months or years without any food (or with no food but the Eucharist). Such saints include:
- Alpais of Cudot
- Catherine of Siena
- Elisabeth the Good
- Helen Enselmini
- Lydwina of Schiedam
- Mariana de Jesús de Paredes (Mary Ann de Paredes)
- Marthe Robin (allegedly 53 years)
- Nicholas of Flue (According to legend, he survived for nineteen years with no food except for the Eucharist.)
- Therese Neumann
- Alexandrina Maria da Costa
See also
- No Way To Heaven, a 2008 documentary on breatharianism
- In the Beginning There Was Light, a 2010 documentary
- Fasting girls
- Sungazing
- Johnny Lovewisdom
- Ram Bahadur Bomjon: Feats of inedia