This study from the 2023 issue of the Journal of Parapsychology, by authors Michael J. Daw, Chris A. Roe and Callum E. Cooper set out to discover through a meticulous survey method whether fasting, veganism and vegetarianism, made any difference in whether people had anomalous (psychic) experiences. Does doing any of these things help people reach a desired altered state?

This survey came in response to researching the possible link between fasting, veganism, vegetarianism and psychic ability. What made this a promising avenue of exploration was the wealth of literature about shamanism and other spiritual practices that encouraged fasting and vegetarianism as methods of achieving altered spiritual states of consciousness. In an earlier paper on this subject the authors noted:

The use of fasting and vegetarianism is widespread in Shamanism, perhaps humankind’s earliest and most sustained spiritual tradition. Fasting in particular appears almost ubiquitous (Winkelman, 1990) and is used both during a shaman’s initiation and in the application of shamanic powers.For example, Walsh (1994,p.10) describes a ‘vision quest’ in which the would-be shaman spends time ‘‘in solitude and fasting devoted to receiving a guiding vision for one’s life’’. Trance states induced by fasting, and sometimes supported through avoiding meat, are used to cultivate psi abilities (Hugh-Jones, 1996), including those described by Wright (2013) who reports that Amazonian shamans contact spirits through trance to heal illness, control the weather, and even kill enemies at a distance when the tribe is under attack.

Very Little Research on Psi and Food

This led to their current paper, in which they noted in their abstract:

Despite this widespread literature, there has, so far, been little empirical research into the potential effects of food on psi functioning.

They created two different surveys to this end: a vegan survey and a fasting survey.

The vegan survey recruited 804 participants, mostly women, through Facebook special interest groups with almost 3/4’s of them being college educated.

The fasting survey recruited 154 people through similar means and like the vegan survey, most of them were women and most of them were college educated.

The authors chose to pre-state their hypothesis as opposed to post hoc analysis. This is a characteristic of good study design. The authors noted:

The following hypotheses were pre-specified. The sample in which each hypothesis (H) and exploratory question (e) is explored is marked with a ‘V’ (for our veg*an sample) or ‘F’ (for our fasting sample).

Hypotheses and exploratory questions related to fasting are presented first. There was no clear indication from our psi adept study (Daw et al., 2023) as to which particular patterns of fasting might most affect psi, hence the use of exploratory questions addressing these matters rather than formal hypotheses. These exploratory questions were formulated in the light of a content analysis of responses to open-ended survey items.

The Hypotheses on Fasting:

Here are the hypotheses:

H1: Respondents who engage in fasting will be more likely to report anomalous experiences and abilities than those who do not fast. V(erified)

e1: Does how long respondents have practiced fasting affect the extent of reported anomalous experiences and abilities? F(alse)

e2: Does the maximum duration of respondents’ fasts affect the extent of reported anomalous experiences and abilities? F

e3: Does consuming limited amounts of food during fasting affect the extent of reported anomalous experiences and abilities? F

e4: Does consuming liquids during a fast affect the extent of reported anomalous experiences and abilities? F

The Hypotheses on Veganism:

H2: Respondents with a veg*an diet will be more likely to report anomalous experiences and abilities than those who eat meat. F

H3: Respondents with a vegan diet will be more likely to report anomalous experiences and abilities than those with a vegetarian diet. V

(The author’s veg*an: definition: The paper uses the term ‘veg*an and its derivations to include all those who abstain from eating animal flesh, whether or not they eat eggs and/or dairy.)

The Demographics:

There were 804 participants in the vegan survey, the majority of which were college educated British women. In the fasting survey there were 154 participants and again, they were mostly college educated women although the split between Britain, the U.S. and Canada was a bit more even.

In the study they surveyed dietary choices and in the process excluded 38 respondents who did not meet the qualification criteria for veganism. They also surveyed using the Anomalous Experiences Inventory (AEI) which incorporates survival after death, mystical experiences and other “high strangeness”. It’s a method that has produced good results in the past.

Ethics were handled in the usual way.

Ethical approval for this study was provided by the University of Northampton’s Research Ethics Committee on 14 October 2021 (ref.: ETH2021-0128). Before posting the survey to any Facebook group, we secured explicit permission to do so from one of the administrators for that group. If such permission was not granted, then this Facebook group was not used to recruit participants.

The authors had predicted that those who engage in fasting would be more likely to report anomalous experiences and abilities than those who did not. When the analysis was completed, this hypothesis was confirmed. Fasting helped people achieve desired anomalous experiences.

They also asked participants how long they had been doing fasting to see the amount of time and effort they had put into practicing a fasting ritual of some sort correlated to better performance. This seemed to be true.

However, after testing for covariance with age, nationality, the consumption of whole-foods, and the consumption of added sugars, the association between length of time practicing fasting and AEI [Anomalous Experience Inventory] experience was no longer significant (Table A1), indicating that there is no support for finding that those who have been practicing fasting for longer report higher levels of anomalous experiences or abilities.

Fasting Longer Seemed to Help

When they looked at longer periods of fasting however, there was a significant correlation to anomalous experiences. Fasting longer appeared to have a relationship to higher levels of anomalous experiences and abilities.

Another question they put forward was to look at vegan vs. Meat-eating diets. They had predicted that vegans would do better than meat eaters. They ran into some complicating factors which led to an interesting conclusion: vegans do better with anomalous abilities, but this can’t be confirmed to the same degree for anomalous experiences.

They also looked at vegan vs. vegetarian diets, with the hypothesis that vegans would do better. Again, this was confirmed for anomalous abilities, but not experiences. If the study findings can be confirmed, this may open the door to more reliable psi testing in the future.

One area not covered by the surveys was individual differences in psychic ability and also individual differences in people’s ability to stick to their diets. They also noted that although diet and fasting seemed to be the important factors in this study, other factors could be coming into play.

The authors stated as well that they had avoided addressing questions about possible mechanisms for these results, as these were beyond the scope of the study. Also, self-administered questionnaires contained limitations as well, mostly because it relied on self reporting and subjectively defined experiences and abilities. There was no way to know how accurately people were reporting their experiences and how they perceived study benchmarks. To unearth these issues, a more closely controlled study would be required, which the authors plan to undertake.

Looks Good But More Studies Needed

Author Michael Daw offered this conclusion:

Does this mean that if you fast and eat less meat and dairy you’ll be more psychic?

It could mean this yes. If so, it’s quite remarkable. Perhaps there is something to the idea that diet is important for spiritual and psychic awakening. However, this is just one study. Also, the relationship might be the other way around. For example, perhaps those more inclined to spiritual and psychic experiences are more drawn to vegetarianism because they realise our innate connection with the world? It’s possible. We’ve also got to remember that our survey relied on people’s self-reporting their experiences. This means our results could be affected by people misremembering experiences they’ve had, or their prior beliefs. But these results certainly are intriguing.’ All of which means – as ever with science – more research is required.”

I am grateful to study author Michael Daw for his contributions in ensuring the accuracy of this article.

If the study findings can be confirmed, this may open the door to more reliable psi testing in the future.

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