Merged Swiss woman starved after 'eating' only light

[Kuko 4000]

http://www.thelocal.ch/3196/20120425/

A woman living in the east of Switzerland who believed she could survive on light alone was found starved to death, it has emerged.

Anna Gut (not her real name) was in her early fifties when she saw the film, “In the beginning there was light,” a documentary in which two men claim to survive entirely on light, newspaper Tages Anzeiger reported.

The film, which ran in Swiss cinemas in 2010, portrayed two men, 62-year-old Swiss Michael Werner, an anthroposophist with a doctorate in chemistry, and 83-year-old Indian yogi Prahlad Jani. Both men claimed to derive sustenance from spiritual means rather than the intake of food.

Werner claims he has lived this way since 2001, while Jani says he has lived for 70 years not only without food but also without water.

Anna Gut started her long preparations for the process by reading a book by another proponent of "breatharianism", 54-year-old Australian Ellen Greve, who also goes by the name Jasmuheen, or eternal air.

So, the usual suspects, I wonder what's the harm?

 

[sophia8]

Sigh.
If this woman had all her intellectual faculties, then she was clearly acting out a subconscious suicide wish and rationalizing it to herself as a "spiritual cleansing" or somesuch.
Maybe she'd have killed herself some other way; who knows? But using some other method might have alerted others to her plight and got her treatment.

This film was shown in cinemas?? WTF????
It's like showing a film of a stuntman setting himself on fire and blowing himself up; then telling the audience that absolutely no stunt effects, safety precautions or CGI was used, the person filmed wasn't a stuntman and suffered no injuries at all and that everybody could go home and set themselves on fire and blow themselves up perfectly safely.

 

[Joey McGee]

Absolutely tragic.

But proponents of light nourishment dismiss such deaths, sometimes accusing the deceased of acting negligently or otherwise saying the true cause of death had not been properly established. Others look for spiritual reasons.

If you die, you weren't doing it right, or you attracted it with your bad karma. Brutal.

People need to understand how bad spiritual fraudsters can be, how heartless and cruel. I think they believe in this stuff because the guru's just seem so nice.

 

[Howie Felterbush]

I remember the days when "light nourishment" meant a sandwich and a glass of milk.

 

[23_Tauri]

Christ on a bike!

More from the same article:

In 1997, 31-year-old Timo Degen from Munich died from circulatory collapse during an attempt to live on light alone. A 53-year-old New Zealander, Lani Morris, also died from a stroke caused by fluid loss in 1998, and in 1999, Verity Linn, an Australian was found emaciated in a lake in Scotland having tried to follow light nourishment practices, Tages Anzeiger reports.

So it's not the first time this has happened. The more we allow apparently harmless woo to permeate society, the more frequently will extreme events like this happen to people.

The solution is going to the root cause, which is peoples' ignorance, and that can only be tackled through better education in science and critical thinking from an early age. It starts in schools.

I used to be a woo, but the more I read stories like this the more I feel compelled to become - as another current thread in this sub-forum puts it - something of a fanatical skeptic.

 

[Belz...]

http://www.thelocal.ch/3196/20120425/




So, the usual suspects, I wonder what's the harm?

So when it obviously didn't work and she was getting weaker and weaker, she didn't think "damn ! I'd better start eating again !" ?

 

[Lamuella]

Verity Linn
Timo Degen
Lani Morris

and now this poor woman. This isn't just BS. This is BS with a bodycount.

 

[Rasmus]

So when it obviously didn't work and she was getting weaker and weaker, she didn't think "damn ! I'd better start eating again !" ?

Doesn't homeopathy teach that it has to get worse before it gets better?

Look at people praying - do you think that ever worked? And they still keep doing it ...

Also, if you deprive yourself of food and water, your brain will stop working right fairly quickly I guess...

 

[Marduk]

and now this poor woman. This isn't just BS. This is BS with a bodycount.

I disagree
this is natural selection

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Absolutely tragic.



If you die, you weren't doing it right, or you attracted it with your bad karma. Brutal.

People need to understand how bad spiritual fraudsters can be, how heartless and cruel. I think they believe in this stuff because the guru's just seem so nice.

Maybe Switzerland is just too far north.

 

[wheunis]

Maybe Switzerland is just too far north.

I hypothesize that it MIGHT be possible to test for stupidity levels correlating to average climatic temperature.

Too far north and your brain "freezes" slowing your thought processes to that of a wet doornail.

But, its just a hypothesis.
Anyone know any Eskimo's I can lure into a test?! lol.

 

[Moon-Spinner]

Out of the woo in this world, this one would seem like a no-brainer - If you don't eat, you die! What is so hard to understand about that? Didn't they learn how the human body works in grade school??

Sheeeeesh....

 

[Stray Cat]

I hypothesize that it MIGHT be possible to test for stupidity levels correlating to average climatic temperature.

Too far north and your brain "freezes" slowing your thought processes to that of a wet doornail.

But, its just a hypothesis.
Anyone know any Eskimo's I can lure into a test?! lol.

I believe George W Bush was from a warm climate region.
Your hypothesis is successfully refuted.

 

[wheunis]

I believe George W Bush was from a warm climate region.
Your hypothesis is successfully refuted.

Or possible, just needs revision!
To the drawing board!

*doodles pictures of boobs*

 

[Lamuella]

I disagree
this is natural selection

you can think that if you like. I try to be neither cheerful not smug when deluded people die.

 

[RationalVetMed]

"... another proponent of "breatharianism", 54-year-old Australian Ellen Greve, who also goes by the name Jasmuheen, or eternal air..."

I remember seeing a documentary on telly about "Jasmuheen" a few years back where a crew followed her around for a bit. She was extremely evasive about how much she actually ate and was actually filmed eating chips. I seem to remember she had also a suspicious amount of food in her fridge.

The words hypocritical, profiteering and murderer spring to mind for some reason.

Yuri

 

[Resume]

I remember seeing a documentary on telly about "Jasmuheen" a few years back where a crew followed her around for a bit. She was extremely evasive about how much she actually ate and was actually filmed eating chips. I seem to remember she had also a suspicious amount of food in her fridge.

The words hypocritical, profiteering and murderer spring to mind for some reason.

Yuri

I think it was the Australian 60 Minutes who observed her for 72 hours until a MD shut her little charade down for "Jasmuheen's" own welfare.

 

[Baloney]

Out of the woo in this world, this one would seem like a no-brainer - If you don't eat, you die! What is so hard to understand about that? Didn't they learn how the human body works in grade school??

Sheeeeesh....

I think you answered your own question.

 

[Polaris]

Out of the woo in this world, this one would seem like a no-brainer - If you don't eat, you die! What is so hard to understand about that? Didn't they learn how the human body works in grade school??

Sheeeeesh....

"Your body is magic, and if you think really, really happy thoughts you won't need to eat, so you won't get cavities or have to poo."

Something tells me that was the extent of that subject.

 

[23_Tauri]

Also, if you deprive yourself of food and water, your brain will stop working right fairly quickly I guess...

There is this, yes. As someone who suffered from anorexia as a teenager I can confirm that very weird things happen to your neurological functioning and resultant perception of how hungry/not hungry and thin/not thin you are when at very low body weight.

Still, this is no excuse for starving yourself to death because you think you can live on light.