A decade or so ago, while waiting for a table in a vegetarian restaurant, I saw a video touting Breatharianism. This bizarre pseudoscience claims it’s possible to live without food (and perhaps without even water). Wikipedia wisely notes that it’s dangerous, and that “several adherents of these practices have died from starvation or dehydration.” It was quite a strange thing for a restaurant to be showing, given that their business was selling food. As I recall, I had a fine meal, and I did not get recruited into a cult that day. But human memory is so frail, so who knows the truth?

Ever since I first heard of it, however, it occasionally pops into my mind and causes me to shake my head. Recently, SFGate had a piece on Wiley Brooks, perhaps the world’s most successful conman when it came to getting people into Breatharianism. What a wacky story.