Thursday, May 13. 2010
Prahlad Jani allegedly lives 15 days without food or water under surveillance
In 2006 I wrote a short article about Prahlad Jani, an Indian yogi who claims he can live without eating or even drinking. The news at that time were driven by another alleged “breatharian”, Ram Bahadur Bamjan, then a 16 year old boy, who was meditating for six months at that time.
Recently, Prahlad Jani returned to the major news after he was again under a 15-day surveillance in a hospital to verify his claims of not eating and drinking.
There are many sources about the latest tests. Here are some links to learn more:
- http://www.news.com.au/weird-true-freaky/man-claims-no-food-or-drink-for-70-years/story-e6frflri-1225859946801
- http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,592544,00.html
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGF7EY2Ucm8(video)
The following paragraphs mostly summarize what’s new:
Prahlad Jani, 83, who says he has not had a bite to eat for 70 years, was put under constant surveillance to test his astonishing claims by a team of 30 military medical staff.
During a 15 day stay in a hospital in the city of Ahmedabad, India — he astounded doctors by not eating, drinking or going to the bathroom.
The person claims to not have eaten for 70 years. That's quite a hard claim to swallow, frankly. A 15-day surveillance sounds good but the suspicious fact here is that the 2003 study and this one were conducted by the same hospital in Ahmedabad, the Sterling hospital. I think it was even the same crew leading researcher, Dr. Sudhir Shah.
What is new this time is that 1) the test was longer (15 days and not 10) and 2) that the study initiated by India's Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). I hope they're not as naïve as to let the hospital run the test without overseeing it themselves.
So, it is interesting news and it would be better, more reliable, if this man was tested by some western hospital, to reduce the chance of fraud by co-operating.
I originally learned about this new test from our forums. OC68 has posted the original news and much conversation still follows. You're welcome to join the discussion there.
What do you think about all this?
Discuss this and other posts in the mind-energy.net forum.
Vampire, burial rites, resurrections...
On the other hand, just because it is amazing and unheard of doesn't mean it is not true. There are many, many, things science doesn't have a clue of, and this could be one. Science is good at establishing that something is probably true, but not that something is not true. For instance, just because something is not repeatable doesn't mean it is false.
I'm pretty certain this isn't a hoax. Herbert Benson from the Harvard Medical School studied monks performing Dzogchen meditation found that with "simple" meditation the monks were able to decrease their metabolism 64%. The secret practices that are passed on to one student at a time can no doubt achieve much more. After 70 years of practice who knows what changes to his body Jani has been able to make.