Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Benky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
Speaker 1: of Curiosities. We are what we eat. At least that's
Speaker 1: what we're told by nutritionists and fitness enthusiasts who'd rather
Speaker 1: we didn't pop that last piece of candy into our mouths.
Speaker 1: There are vegetarians who swear off meat, while vegans refused
Speaker 1: to eat all animals and all animal products. There are
Speaker 1: also pscytarians who eat only vegetables and seafood. It seems
Speaker 1: that for every type of food out there, there's a
Speaker 1: special diet to go with it. However, one other group
Speaker 1: of diet style exists. They don't eat meat or vegetables
Speaker 1: or fish. In fact, their diet is pretty light. These
Speaker 1: special dieters practice something called a edia. In Edia is
Speaker 1: the belief that the human body can survive on air
Speaker 1: and in some cases sunlights alone. In Sanskrit, the essence
Speaker 1: being consumed is called prana or life force, but many
Speaker 1: other countries and religions have their own words for it,
Speaker 1: and edia has been studied and documented for centuries. The
Speaker 1: Catholics called it anorexia mirabilis or holy anorexia, Unlike the
Speaker 1: more common form of the disorder we know today, and
Speaker 1: arexia mirabilis was fueled by blind devotion to one's faith
Speaker 1: rather than a desire to be thin. Jane monks in
Speaker 1: India have been known to fast for six months or more,
Speaker 1: with one monk going as long as five hundred days
Speaker 1: without food. Back in the late sixteen hundreds, Rosa Crucians
Speaker 1: saw spiritual enlightenment from a secret esoteric order possessing a knowledge.
Speaker 1: Among their topics of study were the teachings of an
Speaker 1: alchemist named Paracelsus, who claimed to have lived for several
Speaker 1: years on nothing more than a little bit of sunlight.
Speaker 1: Among the surprising number of an Edians out there, a
Speaker 1: Buddhist monk living in Nepal was able to survive for
Speaker 1: more than four days on air alone, not a particularly
Speaker 1: impressive feat when compared to the Jane monks, until you
Speaker 1: realize he did it while sitting in one spot without
Speaker 1: moving a muscle. Mahama Gandhi famously fasted as a method
Speaker 1: of political protest. He called it the truest prayer. Of course,
Speaker 1: such a diet isn't for the faint of heart. Literally,
Speaker 1: several practitioners of such extreme fasting have died of starvation
Speaker 1: and dehydration over the years. But it was in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty when an American named Willie Brooks took the Inetian
Speaker 1: movement to a whole new level. He burst onto the
Speaker 1: scene on the television show That's Incredible. Brooks was the
Speaker 1: founder of the breath Aian Institute of America. Breathe Aians,
Speaker 1: he explained, were people who could live without eating physical food.
Speaker 1: At the time of his television debut, Brooks claimed that
Speaker 1: he hadn't eaten so much as a peanut in over
Speaker 1: fifteen years. His group started out with several hundred followers
Speaker 1: who wanted to learn how to sustain themselves on only
Speaker 1: air and sunshine, and Brooks was only too happy to
Speaker 1: help for a price. Of course, he charged people ten
Speaker 1: dollars to attend his lectures, while all day seminars earned
Speaker 1: him a hundred bucks ahead. Those who really wanted to
Speaker 1: change their lives had to drop five dollars to attend
Speaker 1: an intensive retreat, and during these seminars, Brooks taught people
Speaker 1: that the body was able to pull all the nutrients
Speaker 1: that needed to survive right out of the air. He
Speaker 1: explained how when he was in his late twenties, he
Speaker 1: was losing his hair and feeling older by the day.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until he started fasting when his body started
Speaker 1: to bounce back, his hair grew back, he felt better.
Speaker 1: To those who followed him, Brooks walked the walk as
Speaker 1: much as he talked the talk. He eventually compounded his
Speaker 1: fat steam regiment with a special form of meditation, which
Speaker 1: he claimed fed the body as much as the soul.
Speaker 1: Things seem to be going well for the spiritual leader
Speaker 1: until his followers finally saw the truth. In three a
Speaker 1: news report came out that Willie Brooks hadn't been completely
Speaker 1: honest about his diet. It seems his human body needed
Speaker 1: a little more than air to survive. Brooks had been
Speaker 1: spotted coming out of a seven eleven, a slurpye in
Speaker 1: one hand and a hot dog Twinkies in the other,
Speaker 1: with plenty of room, one would assume, or a slice
Speaker 1: of humble pie. Parents don't always understand the things that
Speaker 1: young people are into. Their music is too loud, their
Speaker 1: clothes or too baggy, or their hair is too long.
Speaker 1: They just don't get that young people need to express
Speaker 1: themselves to unwind when things get tough. King James the
Speaker 1: First of Scotland didn't understand either. Of course, they didn't
Speaker 1: have rock and roll back then. Rather, James had a
Speaker 1: problem with certain distractions, which is why he passed an
Speaker 1: act in fourteen twenty four, the Football Act. That's right,
Speaker 1: King James the first banded football. He passed his distaste
Speaker 1: of the sport onto his son, James the Second, who
Speaker 1: became king in fourteen thirty seven. He believed a weak
Speaker 1: and unprepared army would spell doom for the safety at
Speaker 1: his kingdom. That was why he made sure that all
Speaker 1: young men twelve years or older were automatically drafted into
Speaker 1: the military. They were to hone their fighting skills whenever
Speaker 1: they weren't sleeping, eating, or actively in battle. However, instead
Speaker 1: of practicing their sword play or archery, the men often
Speaker 1: stuck off to play sports. Their favorites and the ones
Speaker 1: that invited the ire of the king the most were
Speaker 1: football and golf. Soldiers found an excuse to play and
Speaker 1: they would play anywhere they could, including churchyards, in the
Speaker 1: middle of the road, or in open fields. James couldn't
Speaker 1: stand it. He believed their sole focus should have been
Speaker 1: on preparing for war with England. When his soldiers wouldn't
Speaker 1: listen to his demands, James did something to make them obey.
Speaker 1: He put it down on paper, just like his father
Speaker 1: had done years earlier. According to James the Second's Act
Speaker 1: of Parliament, football and golf would be and I quote
Speaker 1: utterly condemned and stopped. In other words, he banned them,
Speaker 1: but he didn't stop there. He also outlawed what he
Speaker 1: referred to as pointless sports. Those who refused to comply
Speaker 1: were find forty shillings if caught. Rather than waste their
Speaker 1: time throwing a ball, soldiers were instructed to spend their
Speaker 1: days shooting arrows at targets. Four times a year, they
Speaker 1: would be expected to perform in an archery display, most
Speaker 1: likely to demonstrate their accuracy. The sports ban lasted for
Speaker 1: some time, but the men couldn't stay away forever. They
Speaker 1: needed to find ways to unwind and squeezed in games
Speaker 1: where they could. After James the Third assumed the throne
Speaker 1: in fourteen sixty, He also noticed the distractions that had
Speaker 1: plagued his father's soldiers, and he renewed the ban on
Speaker 1: golf and football in fourteen seventy. The prohibition continued until
Speaker 1: fourteen nine one, when James the third son James the fourth,
Speaker 1: also renewed the ban on the two sports. Apparently, the
Speaker 1: men in the royal family just didn't want their armies
Speaker 1: focusing on anything but combat. Even though James the fourth
Speaker 1: was a fan of both golf and football. According to
Speaker 1: records from the time, he owned several footballs and golf
Speaker 1: clubs which had been made for him. In the city
Speaker 1: of Perth around fifteen two, still people found a way
Speaker 1: to play both inside and outside the military. The servants
Speaker 1: and apprentices who worked under metal workers in Perth were
Speaker 1: prohibited from playing football, as were Scottish citizens living in Peoples.
Speaker 1: If someone was caught playing, they were required to pay
Speaker 1: a fine of eight shillings. Holy Men were also not
Speaker 1: exempt from the law. In fifteen eighty five, a minister
Speaker 1: aptly named Archibald James Law was censured because he had
Speaker 1: dared to play a game of football on a Sunday.
Speaker 1: No less, and the more people played, the worst the
Speaker 1: violence got the particularly rough games ended with fighting and
Speaker 1: in one case, people nearly killing each other with guns. Golf,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, never ended with players getting shot,
Speaker 1: but it was still in nuisance. Both the Church and
Speaker 1: Parliament believed anyone playing golf would have been better served
Speaker 1: either at their job or in a pew. Sunday was
Speaker 1: a day for church, not chip shots. As time passed
Speaker 1: and military technology evolved from arrows to bullets, the rules
Speaker 1: were slowly relaxed. Soldiers were no longer fined or scolded
Speaker 1: for the occasional ball game. However, the government would have
Speaker 1: been well within its rights to prosecute anyone caught playing
Speaker 1: golf or football up until the century. The band was
Speaker 1: kept in place until nineteen o six, when it was
Speaker 1: if you'll pardon the pun sidelined for good. I hope
Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
Speaker 1: Subscribed for re on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the world
Speaker 1: of lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious. Yeah,