Why is Phoenix the true successor of Aajonus Vonderplanitz
After Aajonus death in 2013 the primal community was in shock and have lost their leader. without any leadership the conferences and meetups stopped and people where losing communication with each other. Jim Ellingson (born 1949) who was Aajonus secretary and maintained his website was getting too old and non functional. he was unable to perform his job anymore and was an ancient person unfamiliar with technology and the progression of society. His role was limited and didnt step up to fill Aajonus role. The group disbanded and the information was really at risk of dying out. This is where Mihaly or better known as Phoenix Be (born 1966) came to the spot. He was Aajonus event coordinator in Michigen state and met Aajonus and helped him spread the message. while he was not one of the close friends he definetly had a role and was involved in the diet. Phoenix was trying to help Jim function by giving him food and advicing him to improve his health. however, Jim health was deterirating and nothing could stop the wheel of time. During this time Phoenix was trying to get the group back together by contacting the prominent figures and doing video calls with members and figuring a way to resume Aajonus work. In 2024, Phoenix managed to get all the work from Jim including the website and sent a message to the official Primal diet Facebook group and him being as the successor of Aajonus and the new leader of the primal diet. During this time Jim was alive and didnt contest to any of this and later passed away in december 2025.
What qualifies Phoenix to be the leader role?
Being a leader is not simply declared but you have to be accepted. Phoenix managed to revive the group and get the support of prominent figures including Jeff Slay (born 1963), Owanza (Aajonus's girlfiend), Sam Schult (born 1960), Chris, and many more. The people who met Aajonus and knew him personally mostly agreed on Phoenix effort and plan of continuing Aajonus legacy. Therefore, it was a democratic voting done by the majority of the party and those people who knew Aajonus and were members of primal diet for long time only have the voting right to choose a new leader and not anyone else.
Are there any competing alternatives?
In 2026, there are many primal dieters but few prominent figures who have real influence through social media. Those include Gatis Lagzdiņš (born 1989 in Latvia) of better known as Goatis who has 200k subsrcibers on YouTube. Also, Scott Hall (born in 2000 USA) who managed the Reddit form "PrimalDietTM" created in October 2021 with 1.4k members. Lastly, Leclay Rom (born in 1996 in France) who managed other websites and has a Telegram open group for everyone to join.
Can Goatis be a successor?
Goatis has publicaly criticised Aajonus work and specifically the vegetable juice and went on to create his own version of the diet. Goatis is an Lativian who has never met Aajonus or any of his close friends, and wasnt part of their community for enough time. None of the original Primal dieters consider him as leader and the party disregards his legetamcy.
Can Scott Hall be a successor?
Scott follows Aajonus work to the letter and is an American who knows few of the original primal diet party, so he has legetmacy. However, he is very young and not experienced with no real following. Scott is very inconsistent and has deleted his content 5 times and went off grid, which makes him not a reliable source and not a leader. Scott identified himself as Nomad and wants to relax in the wild with no earthly bindings.
Can Rom be a successor?
Rom was an admin in the Primal diet Facebook group since 2020 where he impressed the old admins by being very active in the community and constantly posts content. Rom also is a devoted Aajonus follower and follows the diet reliougsly. he has several websites dedicated to the primal diet and created NoteBookLM AI that houses all Aajonus material which is very useful and convenient to get answers to your questions. However, Rom has never met
Aajonus, unknown by all the OG primal diet members and not accepted as their leader. Rom is an outsider from France and has never talked or met any important figure from the primal diet. In politics Rom will never be recognized as a successor nor as a leader to their community due to his forign status.