to this and like, what the [ __ ] is Joe
Rogan doing on this podcast? I saw it
happen with whim in real time. And
though I had no substantial financial or
business connections to Hoff's
organization, by promoting my book, I
contributed to the problem. And there
are also things that I just missed. The
cultural studies professor Paul Bowman
noted in his research paper that Whim
frequently repeats a story about his
miraculous birth where he almost died
from his fxiation in the first minutes
of his life and how his mother declared
that he would be a missionary for God
after he survived. But there is reason
to think that Hoff was systematically
altering his biography to fit this guru
narrative. When you notice that each of
his books has um an an autobiography in
it and the autobiograph the
autobiographical details are radically
different in each story like he he
doesn't have one consistent biographical
narrative. Um and it's not just the case
of um you know we sometimes get things
wrong when you you know you get data
wrong and stuff when when you tell your
life story. His are completely different
stories. um across the books and it's
just it's it's kind of preposterous.
>> While reporting What Doesn't Kill Us, I
was so taken by the way that my body had
changed when I challenged it with cold
exposure and breath work that I missed
the things about the reality of his guru
aura. One of the reasons that I'm
finally re-releasing What Doesn't Kill
Us this month with two new chapters and
restored pages that didn't make it into
the original is that right before
publication in 2017, my publisher and I
caved to pressure from the Hoff
organization to admit key details from
his biography that showed how unstable
and erratic Hoff could really be. Here
are a few of the things that I'm
bringing back. The first is what I call
the fountain incident. Or perhaps if you
prefer, his near fatal enema. If you've
ever seen Hoff shirtless, you will
notice a triangular scar on his abdomen
that eclipses his belly button. For
reasons that I will get into soon, Whim
had not seen his son Michael for 10
years and had arranged to meet him at a
place called Vondal Park in Amsterdam,
where there was a fountain that spurted
water into the air in the middle of a
small pond. He arrived early and whim
being whim decided to take a swim. And
this part is so hard to believe. And so
many people in the comments of my
previous videos have said that I made it
up that I am just going to play you a
recording of an interview that I did
with him in 2013.
>> I had done it already like 100 times.
You can say this crazy or this or that.
No, it's just a fountain and I put it up
my ass and it cleans cleanses all my uh
[ __ ] in my intestines and you [ __ ] it
out like that and all goes and you feel good.
good.
>> Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, you're giving
giving
>> this time
>> you're giving yourself enemas at a
public fountain.
>> Yes. Nobody sees it, you know. You just
[ __ ] it out. Nobody sees it.
>> Yeah, you heard it right. It was a
fountain enema. But this time, just
before he reconnected with his long-
lost son, something was different.
>> So they changed the piece on the pipe. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> And it makes, you know, with
>> more power- with water, you can slice
this easily or even stone metal. Okay.
>> So the f the more precise or
concentrated the the water beam, the
more it looks like a knife. >> Sure.
>> Sure.
>> So uh that one got through. I I sat on
it with my pants, but it got through my pants
pants
>> and uh through the the [ __ ] up into
the intestines and it just cut it
and got my stomach or my intestines full
the the cavity over there full of dirty water.
water.
>> A jet of water skewered Whim and almost
killed him. He somehow managed to paddle
back to the shore and the first words he
spoke to his son in 10 years was that he
needed to go to the hospital. Now, the
timing was weird on this. So, I asked
Whim if maybe he purposely hurt himself
before his son's meeting because of a
sense of guilt for not being part of his
son's life. And have you already met
your son or you about to meet your son
at this point?
>> Yeah, I was about to meet him. >> Mhm.
>> Mhm.
>> But then I
>> You're just going to give yourself an
enema before you meet your son?
>> Yeah. Yeah. No, I thought, you know, I
was so so [ __ ] up
>> because of the situation.
>> I just had to and I thought of 15 years
ago. I was always happy. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> And okay. And doing all kinds of things
in the parks and playing around and
fooling and doing crazy yoga stuff and
uh was all always very successful, very
good, very powerful, very like happy,
like like no worries. Mhm.
>> And but at that time I was [ __ ] up and
uh I thought sort of tendency to go back
to that time. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> To to that experience and clean myself. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> So I went up there
and uh I see it still be in front of my
me right now. I had a sort of doubt but
maybe maybe it's also sort of
you get a feeling you want to kill
yourself. You want to end the story,
>> but not not deliberately but
unconsciously sort of. >> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> Stop this. Stop this [ __ ] Even if I
have to die almost, I want to stop this.
>> Something like that was going on.
>> But then yeah, I got on it and I felt it directly.
directly.
>> This was the story that Whim and his
cohort never wanted to see the light of
day. To be clear, I've been telling this
on my YouTube channel and online on
Reddit as far back as 2017, but I regret
to caving to the pressure from his
organization and not including in the
book itself. At the time, I rationalized
it that I was writing about techniques
that had changed my life for the better
and getting mired in the sorted personal
details would just turn people off to
the possibility of benefiting from the
practices that he was teaching. What I
didn't dwell on enough at the time was
that some people would take Whim's
teachings as gospel and follow his
instructions without thinking. And that
perhaps knowing how irresponsible he is
personally with his own body might make
them think twice about trusting
everything he says, especially when some
things he teaches can be deadly.
This is particularly the case when
people follow his instructions to do his
breath work in the water. And I've done
a lot of videos about exactly how this
happens on my channel over the last two
years as I catalog the deaths of 33
people. And you can go check out those
videos at your leisure. But to summarize
very quickly, while the Wimhof method
includes two basic practices, cold water
exposure and hyperventilation breath
work, it is critical to understand that
you should never practice those two
together. Wimhof breathing allows you to
hold your breath for long periods of
time because when you hyperventilate,
you blow off your CO2 and the body, it
detects CO2 as the trigger for the gasp
reflex. And because you're
hyperventilate, Wimhof breathing
artificially lowers that indicator and
you're able to actually hold your breath
for longer than you might expect.
However, and this caveat is so
important, when you hyperventilate, it
can lower that set point to a place
where you can run out of oxygen before
you know there is a problem, leading you
to pass out unexpectedly. And on land,
it's not really much of a problem. You
just wake up. But in water, it just
means you drown and very quickly.
>> I mean, I know anybody taking whims work
and going into a pool and
hyperventilating, you're just playing
roulette. You're almost guaranteed at
some point to go out when you do that.
This well understood phenomena is called
shallow water blackout and occasionally
also underwater hypoxic blackout. And
while Inner Fire now posts a warning on
all of their YouTube videos and online
courses about the dangers of using
Whim's breath work and waterwork
together, Wimhof himself still
frequently performs this very dangerous
technique in his videos and his public
lectures. Here's Paul Bowman again.
Wimhof pushes customers uh and and
clients into doing the the intensive
breathing exercises in dangerous
conditions. But the paradox is that that
that's central to to Wimhof's product.
Like he pushed himself into dangerous
situations. He's break he's broken
records swimming under under ice. You
like it's in an inherently dangerous
product or or his brand is inherently
dangerous. But to sell that exposes
yourself to all sorts of legal risk. So
they backpedal and they try and step
away from that even to the extent where
you get really contorted
um situations where in one of the on the
courses that you can buy the online
courses you see Wimhof in some in a cold
water lake um with um some of his
students there and he's saying to the
guy they're in the water keep doing the
breathing. And then there's a little
note that flashes up saying, "No, this
is a cold water challenge. This is not a
breathing challenge." Wimhof is is is
just helping him to focus. He's not
saying keep It's almost like he's not
saying keep doing the breathing, even as
he's saying, "Keep doing the breathing."
>> Indeed, here is the very first video
And here he is before one of his many,
[Music]
and once again explaining how he's done
the same thing, the same
hyperventilation and submersion for 44 years.
years.
>> So B4 was hyperventilating like what I
did now. I have done dozens of
interviews with survivors and family
members of the deceased and I'm not
going to subject you to all of their
interviews except from this one from a
mother whose 21-year-old son died in her
arms last year.
>> We had a whole life. It's a whole life interrupted,
interrupted,
you know, and it's just so effing tragic.
tragic.
>> It is so effing tragic. None of this
needed to happen. As a stuntman, Whim
was used to taking risks with his life.
But when he became a teacher, he
continued to teach dangerous techniques
solely for the purpose of gaining
attention. And so many people died
needlessly because of it. Which brings
me back to Whim's personality. I saw it
get worse over the years as he got more
successful, but many people who have
known Whim longer than me have said that
the darkness, it was always there. In
the last year, an independent reporting
team at the Dutch newspaper Devulkrg
interviewed his ex-wife Karolina, who
alleged that Whim used to beat her and
even kicked her while she was pregnant
with her son. To quote the piece, "He
slapped my face and then he dragged me
through the room by my hair and tried to
kick me in the belly. I was just about
able to hide behind the couch so his
kick only grazed me." Her story was
corroborated by court records and emails
at the time. Meanwhile, the Department
of Justice in the Netherlands said that
they regret not following up on the case
in more detail at the time that it
happened. Whim was only sentenced to
community service for abusing his son,
Noah. But that was hardly the first time
that Whim was violent. Whim's own
brother, Robert, has alleged that he saw
Wimhof beat his first wife, Olia, and
locked her in a closet when she
misbehaved. Then we found Zola at the
home uh crying and she was in Holland
not speaking the language and left alone
with the children. Whim was outside
didn't leave any money. When he came
back uh
uh he treated her very badly. Uh my
former girlfriend was a psychologist and
saw everything. Uh he beat us. He beat
her and when she cried, she lock he
locked her up in the wardrobe.
>> For those who are aware of his origin
story, Wimhof often cites Elias suicide
in 1995 as the basis for him becoming so
focused on the cold to improve his
mental health. He says that he was
devastated by her death and the cold
brought him into a sense of normaly and
control. But Whim's own brother
remembers the events differently.
>> She was making his life very uh
difficult uh because she was always
shouting at him and blaming him.
Uh so
in a way I think he felt relieved when
she died. uh
uh
if it is a suicide
or not, I don't have any uh clue about
this. But I know he was relieved.
It was not something that he uh it was
not an act that he said, "Oh, what a
pity." No, he was relieved. Indeed,
Robert's memories are corroborated by an
interview that Wimhof gave to the Daily
Mail just a few years ago titled, "My
wife's suicide broke my heart. Only the
ice gives me peace." Where he was quoted
saying that she had recently asked him
for a divorce and that there was
violence in their relationship. After
Olia's suicide, Hoff moved back to the
Netherlands. And as I alluded to with
his reunion with Michael, Hoff left his
children to raise themselves alone in a
squat house.
>> No. when the the children were grieving
and what I said since 95 until 2003 they
were abandoned and in 2003 it was really
alarming in Amsterdam that we found them
uh like in a refugee camp.
>> He moved in with Caroline who later said
that he abused her. And I know that
Wimhof often says that he loves the
people who do his method. He loves the
people around him and love leads the
way. But what does Whim know about love
with this in his background? Love is not
a vibe. Love is taking responsibility
for the people around you and the people
you influence. The way Wimhof uses love
is just marketing for his courses. A lot
of the details of those years are
missing. And his inconsistent stories
about his own birth and discovery of the
method, they're all difficult to nail
down. I only personally knew Whim after
2013 when I began interviewing him
extensively and traveling with him and
examining the science of his method.
Wimhof and Innerfire say that the people
who allege that Whim is violent against
them are just in it for the money.
>> Anakah Vantolin, she is a hateful person
and she most likely has a screw loose in
her mind. They have hate. This is hate
and frustration. They say that I turned
on him two years ago in order to make
myself more popular at his expense.
>> He made a whole series of videos about
me on YouTube, the internet. He's just a
YouTuber with a lot of stories
fabricated and all.
>> He has said similar things about other
independent journalists too in the
Netherlands, in the United Kingdom, and
in France who have called his
authenticity into question or written
their own exposees. It's always the
world against whim. And there's been a
little bit of an update to this. It's
breaking right now as I put out this
video because one of Whim's strategies
has always been to threaten the media
with lawsuits. And he filed a lawsuit
against Anukica Van Stolen at Devulkrant
alleging defamation for using Robert
Hoff's quotes saying that he had abused
his first wife
and of course Carolyn Hack. Well, the
thing is just a week before this video
came out, uh, the court in the
Netherlands ruled against Wimhof, saying
that Devulkrant had done actually a
great reporting job and that Whim has to
drop his claims and actually pay
Devulkran's legal fees. So, at least the
courts are eventually getting it right
and standing up to Whim's bullying
against the truth. And there's one more
thing. There's something here that Whim
is missing is that until my reporting
came out, 33 people had died by doing
his method in water. And after I made a
little bit of a splash with a video that
went sort of viral, well, no more people
have died, which is a testament to the
power of reporting truth over someone's
self delusion. What I can tell you for
sure is that I sincerely hope that this
is the last YouTube video that I ever do
on Wimhof. Since putting out my first
criticisms of Hoff two years ago, I have
endured a near constant stream of abuse
from his followers and my book sales
have plummeted almost 80%. I could have
reversed course years ago and wooed back
my audience and brought those book sales
up and sold courses, but for me, the
truth is more important than profit. I'm
here to set the record straight and to
let you know that I've done it in print
as well. Finally, this month, what
doesn't kill us has been completely
revised to include the omitted material
and bring the story of Hoff up to date.
I spent a decade of my life devoted to
him before finally realizing that the
reality is different from the branding.
And to some extent, I regret my role in
helping make him more famous. At the
same time, I also have to admit that I
have benefited from the method, the
things that I learned from him greatly.
I am still enraptured by the power of
breath work and cold, and I have seen
many people recover from difficult
physical ailments by challenging
themselves in different environments.
I would still call myself an evangelist
for breath work and cold exposure. But,
and this is so important, we don't need
a charismatic madman to lead the
movement anymore. We don't need to put
Wimhof on a platform of perfection. And
so, when I was revising the book, I had
to straddle a careful line. On one hand,
I preserved a lot of my experiences and
enthusiasm with whim in amber, still
marveling at the wonder of those
innocent days. But I've also grounded
all of it in the gritty reality of what
has happened before and since
publication. I've set the record
straight and I'd love you to give it a
read or a listen on the new audio book.
I'm curious to know if audiences today
in 2025 and beyond are as enthusiastic
about the complex and problematic truth
of Wimhof as they were with the
incomplete but certainly inspiring
version from 2017. I'd love to know what
you think because we live in a reality
now where grifters have literally taken
over the government. We have narcissists
and anti-science demagogues setting
health policy with hot takes that more
often than not personally benefit their
own pockets. While I was originally
writing about health and wellness, I saw
a space where it was possible to talk
about unconventional approaches to human
health. And that's why I promoted cold
exposure and breath work and so many
other things. But the way I saw it is
that these are complements to the
advances of modern medicine, not
replacements for it. But the bizarre
thing about the last few years is that
instead of parallel approaches to
health, the griftiest versions of the
for-profit wellness world have taken
over. The nuance conversation that I
wanted the world to have when I found
whim has been completely overshadowed by
the madness of dissent and
conspiratorial thinking. The world
turned against evidence-based medicine
for the uncertainties of charisma. And
this is the real tragedy of the current
moment. I'm still trying to chart a
course through it all where we can be
open to new ideas without demonizing old
ones. But the search for truth is hard.
and I appreciate you for being on it
with me. All right, so thanks for
watching this video and thank you to the
people who directly support my
journalism on Substack and Patreon. You
brave souls are the ones who keep
fiercely independent reporting alive on
the internet. And if you aren't a
subscriber, well, you can get my free
newsletter where you get updates that
you don't see on this channel. But if
you want to be one and you can get stuff
early, well, consider going to check out
my work at sgcarnney.substack.com.
There's a link in the pinned comment
down below. All right. Well, that's all
I have to say for now. From Pokey Bear
LLC in Denver, Colorado, this was Scott
Carney hopefully does his last video on Wimhof.
Wimhof.
Thank you so much for all of my
supporters on Patreon and on Substack
who make this work possible. The
contributions you give keep this sort of
independent journalism on the air, and I
really just could not do it without you.
If you want to get early access to my
work and get your name on the honor roll
right over there, please sign up at the
links down below. From Poke Bear LLC in
Denver, Colorado, this was Scott Carney Investigates.
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