What's the difference between the Apostle's claims and the claims of others who started religious movements?

So I recently watched a documentary about a new age movement and felt a bit rattled by what I perceived to be some examples of peoples behaving in a way that undermines the common arguments for trusting the gospel accounts. The video was about a new age movement called Breatharianism which basically claims that humans don't need to eat food but can instead subsist on the divine energy within them. While the gurus of this movement certainly did benefit financially and otherwise by promulgating their message which they had to have known was a lie, they also seemed to me at certain points to risk their lives for it. At multiple points, there was evidence that the gurus who claimed to have gone years without eating actually did eat regularly. So they knew what they were saying was a lie. Yet, they several times volunteered to undertake tests to prove this thing they knew was a lie. Even after knowing that some of their followers had died genuinely trying to follow the no eating rule. For instance, the most prominent woman volunteered to be monitored by 60 minutes to ensure she didn't eat for an entire week. The experient was ended by 60 minutes and not by her when the doctor who was monitoring her told her she was in imminent danger of dying. Certainly, it worked out in her favor, she got more publicity for nothing, but it seems as though she was determined to do this thing that she knew very well could have killed her despite the fact she had to know what she believed was a lie. Lots of people say, it's not plausible that the Apostles knowingly lied about seeing Jesus resurrected because of the persecution and eventual death they suffered because of it. It doesn't seem rational to die for a lie. And yet these breatharian people seem to be willing to do so. So what's the difference here?