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Breatharianism is the American movement founded by Wiley Brooks in the early ‘80s that believes humans can live just fine by replacing food with sun and the passive inhalation of cosmic micro-dust. It moved slightly in from the fringe recently when Valeria “The Human Barbie” Lukyanova revealed herself to be one of Breatharianism’s followers.

For obvious reasons the sun and dust diet is fast becoming a trend in pro-anorexia communities and Lukyanova’s viral endorsement is leading the resurgence. To be clear, if you try to live off of light and air, commonsense says you will die.

Wiley Brooks isn’t dead, he’s 77, which for some will be a giveaway he’s no longer practicing what he’s still preaching. We called him on his personal Arizona hotline—he doesn’t use Skype because it’s “monitored by the NSA”—to talk about the downsides of his followers starving to death and the time he got busted eating a pie.

VICE: Hi Wiley. I heard you mention having a few past lives.
Wiley Brooks: The only reason why I’m alive today is because I came into the world with a lot of knowledge about what to do, because I’m continuing a process that was started with Christ and before that. One of my past lives, if you’ll notice, was John the Baptist.

You have also identified previously as Jesus Christ.
[pauses] Well, it’s really complicated, yes, but I carry that frequency. The energy called “Christ” just means light. It’s a light energy that was created at the beginning of creation and is the foundation of all creation. It’s like the energy that holds creation together. It has got to constantly keep being renewed in different civilisations.

What does this have to do with breatharianism?
It’s just a take on what one does, eats—like vegetarian, fruitarian. Breatharian is basically air. Everybody does it, so everybody’s a breatharian. Here’s a complicated matter, here’s where the crux of the whole thing is: You notice on my website I say, “I am the Lord thy God and creator of this universe?” That is the truth.