An experiment from the archives
Buried in our old blog archives is one of the more unusual stories in this retreat's history. In the autumn of 2001, our co-founder Frank Jensen, inspired by the Living on Light movement associated with the Australian teacher Jasmuheen, attempted what's known as the 21-Day Process: seven days of nothing but air, followed by two further weeks easing back onto diluted juice and water, undertaken as an act of spiritual devotion rather than a diet.
What actually happened
The real value had little to do with going without — and everything to do with uninterrupted solitude, meditation and stillness.
Frank kept a daily diary throughout, later published on our old site, and it's a genuinely candid account. Far from the effortless transformation he'd hoped for, he found himself profoundly weak within days, at points barely able to stand, and entirely dependent on experienced caregivers to see him through it. The diary describes vivid, visionary experiences along the way, but Frank himself was honest that the process left him physically depleted for weeks afterwards, in ways he hadn't anticipated and wouldn't have managed without support.
The conclusion he came to
Writing about it years later, Frank's own verdict was clear, and we think worth passing on: he came to believe the real value of those three weeks had little to do with going without water, and everything to do with the uninterrupted solitude, meditation and surrender the process forced upon him, something he felt could be reached just as fully, and far more safely, through the retreat's own juice fasting programme. He also grew sceptical of the wider movement once it drifted toward commercial products, and quietly distanced himself and the retreat from it. His own words, looking back: "Juice fasting is the best."
Why we're sharing it
We're not in the business of water fasting, then or now — Moinhos Velhos has always been, and remains, a juice fasting retreat, precisely because it lets people reach many of the same benefits without the extremes Frank put himself through. We share this story not as something to try, but as a genuinely fascinating piece of this valley's history, and a reminder of just how far its founders were willing to go in search of an experience guests now have, in a rather gentler form, every week.
