Citation

Contemporary and historical accounts from spiritual traditions and elsewhere appear to suggest a role for fasting and vegetarianism in spiritual development and access to ‘supernormal powers.’ We recently interviewed psi adepts who used fasting and vegetarianism to support their work with psi and reported findings consistent with such accounts. However, it was not clear whether these associations apply only to particular elite practitioners or whether they might also apply to broader populations. We therefore proposed to conduct online questionnaire-based surveys of two separate samples recruited through Facebook groups consisting of vegans and vegetarians (N = 804) and those who practice fasting (N = 154) to see if these associations could be confirmed. Working with a vegan/vegetarian group allowed us to compare those who fast with those who do not; similarly, the fasting sample allowed us to compare vegans and vegetarians with those who eat meat. Preliminary findings indicate that significantly higher levels of self-reported anomalous experiences and abilities are reported by those who fast, engage in longer fasts, practice vegan or vegetarian over meat-eating diets, and vegan over vegetarian diets. The implications of these findings are discussed.