Recently, I've found myself thinking again about the power of belief, and the concept of sustaining life without intake of food or water. This idea was sparked for me from the documentary The Boy With Divine Powers (below is the summary from my personal video recommendations page).

Ram, a young practicing Buddist monk, born May 9, 1989, in Nepal, began meditating in the crook of a tree (as pictured) on May 16, 2005. He told his family that he intended to meditate (non-stop) for 6 years, and would be taking no food or water.

He had been meditation for 10 months by the time this documentary began filming. Nutritional experts' comments were given stating that according to medical science the longest a person should be able to live without food is 2.5 months, and without water 4 to 5 days. Midway through the documentary a physician from India contacted the film crew with information his team had gather from studies of other mystic/meditators who had been filmed and studied 24/hours for 10 days taking no food or water. To them this was not a new phenomenon.

The crew of this documentary filmed Ram continuously for 4 days with no indication of him leaving his spot, nor drinking or eating. However, Ram "disappeared" on March 11, 2006. The prevailing belief is that he went further into the jungle to continue his meditation in peace.

Here is the BBC story on the mystic/fakir who was studied in a proper hospital, laboratory environment as he consumed no food or water for 10 days.