After that he refrained from collecting things inside the building (he continued to collect outside).  This compromise was fine with me, and the incident allowed me to maintain the authority I needed to bully him into co-operating with the program:  taking his vitamins, and sticking to his fast until he finally reached 200 pounds.  After 90 days on water he actually looked quite handsome, he no longer smoked, he was off psychotropic medication, and his behaviors were within an acceptable range as long as your expectations were not too high.

He was well enough to live outside a hospital and also clear-headed enough to know that if he let too many people know how well he really was, he might have to give up his mental disability pension and actually become responsible for himself.  No way, Jose!  This fellow knew a good thing when he saw it.  So he continued to pull bizarre stunts just often enough in front of the right audience to keep his disability checks coming in, while managing to act sane enough to be allowed to live comfortably at home instead of in the hospital.  By keeping to my program he could stay off mind-numbing psychotropic medication if he kept up his megavitamins and minerals.  This compromise was tolerable from his point of view, because there were no side effects like he experienced from his tranquilizers.

It is very rare for a mentally ill person who has spent more than a few months in a mental hospital to ever usefully return to society because they find “mental illness” too rewarding.

My Own 56 Day Long Fast

Fasters go through a lot of different emotional states, these can get intense and do change quite rapidly.  The physical body, too, will manifest transitory conditions.  Some can be quite uncomfortable.  But, I don’t want to leave the reader with the impression that fasting is inevitably painful.  So I will now recount my own longest fast in detail.

When I did my own 42 day water fast followed by two weeks on carrot juice diluted 50/50 with water, which really amounted to 56 consecutive days, my predominant sensation for the first three days was a desire to eat that was mostly a mental condition, and a lot of rumbling and growling from my stomach.  This is not real hunger, just the sounds the stomach likes to make when it is shrinking.  After all, this organ is accustomed to being filled at regular intervals, and then, all of a sudden, it gets nothing, so naturally the stomach wants to know what is going on.  Once it realizes it is on temporary vacation, the stomach wisely decides to reduce itself to a size suitable for a retired organ.  And it shuts up.  This process usually takes three to five days and for most people, no further “hunger pangs” are felt until the fast is over.

Real hunger comes only when the body is actually starving.  The intense discomforts many people experience upon missing a meal are frequently interpreted as hunger but they aren’t.  What is actually happening is that their highly toxic bodies are taking the opportunity presented by having missed a meal or two to begin to cleanse.  The toxins being released and processed make assorted unpleasant symptoms such as headaches and inability to think clearly.  These symptoms can be instantly eliminated by the intake of a bit of food, bringing the detox to a screeching halt.