Béla Bicsérdy (

Senta Senta ( sr-cyrl, Сента, ; Hungarian: ''Zenta'', ; Romanian: ''Zenta'') is a town and municipality located in the North Banat District of the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. It is situated on the bank of the Tisa river in the ge ...

, February 22, 1874 -

Billings Billings is the largest city in the U.S. state of Montana, with a population of 117,116 as of the 2020 census. Located in the south-central portion of the state, it is the seat of Yellowstone County and the principal city of the Billings Metrop ...

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

, December 7, 1951) was a Hungarian pioneer in health culture, lifestyle reformer,

alternative medicine Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or evidence from clinical trials. Complementary medicine (CM), complementary and alt ...

advocate, lecturer, author of many books, athlete, supporter of rawism,

fasting Fasting is the abstention from eating and sometimes drinking. From a purely physiological context, "fasting" may refer to the metabolic status of a person who has not eaten overnight (see " Breakfast"), or to the metabolic state achieved after ...

and

holistic therapies Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or evidence from clinical trials. Complementary medicine (CM), complementary and alt ...

Life and career

According to Bicsérdy, after medical doctors couldn't cure him from his illnesses, he became a raw foodist and took long fasts. Bicsérdy claimed that he cured himself from all his illnesses, and his hair and lost teeth grew back. In the 1920s, Bicsérdy inspired a great many people in

Transylvania Transylvania ( ro, Ardeal or ; hu, Erdély; german: Siebenbürgen) is a historical and cultural region in Central Europe, encompassing central Romania. To the east and south its natural border is the Carpathian Mountains, and to the west the Ap ...

and

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...

promoting a regime of a raw vegetarian diet (mostly fruits with some bread and raw milk), regular fasting, sunbathing, daily outdoor exercising and regular water-cure."History of Alternative Medicine in Hungary in 19th and Early 20th Century"
, Erika Koltay. In ''Orvostörténeti Közlemények: Communicationes de historia artis medicinae, Volumes 188-189'', 2004 He claimed that any person who followed his regime will be cured of illness and will live hundreds of years, just as known possible from ancient times (the Bible for example reported many long-lived people). Bicsérdy delivered lectures throughout Transylvania where he had his greatest following. The method became known as ''bicsérdism'' and by 1925 he had 120 to 150 thousand followers in Transylvania alone. He wrote a popular book on the subject which was inspired by

mazdaznan Mazdaznan is a neo-Zoroastrian religion which held that the Earth should be restored to a garden where humanity can cooperate and converse with God. Founded at the end of the 19th century by Otoman Zar-Adusht Ha'nish, born Otto Hanisch, the reli ...

philosophy, and in which he compared his own beliefs with the

Zoroastrian Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic on ...

Zend Avesta The Avesta () is the primary collection of religious texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language. The Avesta texts fall into several different categories, arranged either by dialect, or by usage. The principal text in the litu ...

''. In addition to the book there was a periodical that was first published in 1925, as ''On Behalf of Mankind'' and later under the title ''Bicsérdism''. After a few people died due to long fasting he received serious criticism. At the end of the 1920s, he withdrew from public life. By the mid 1940s, ''bicsérdism'' had largely been forgotten. At the end of the

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

he moved with his fifth wife, Kató Jaschke to

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, and then in 1951 to the USA, where he died in the same year, at the age of 79.Romániai Magyar Irodalmi Lexikon
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References

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bicserdy, Bela 1874 births 1951 deaths Fasting advocates Naturopaths Orthopaths Pseudoscientific diet advocates Raw foodists Vegetarianism activists Hungarian emigrants to the United States