Theosophy - Vegetarianism and Occultism by C.W.Leadbeater - Adyar Pamphlet No. 33
Adyar Pamphlets
No. 33
Vegetarianism
and Occultism
by C.
W. LEADBEATER
November 1913
Theosophical
Publishing House, Adyar, Chennai (Madras) India
IN
speaking of the relation between vegetarianism and
occultism, it may be well for us to begin by defining our terms.
We all know
what is meant by vegetarianism; and although there
are several varieties of it, it will not be necessary to discuss
them. The
vegetarian is one who abstains from eating flesh-food.
There are some of them who admit such animal products as are
obtained without
destroying the life of the animal, as, for example,
milk, butter and cheese. There are others who restrict themselves
to certain
varieties of the vegetable - to fruit and nuts, perhaps;
there are others who prefer to take only such food
as can be eaten uncooked; others will take no food
which grows underground, such
as potatoes, turnips, carrots, etc. We need not concern
ourselves with these divisions, but simply define the
vegetarian as one who
abstains from any food which is obtained by the
slaughter of animals - of
course including birds and fish.
How shall we define
occultism ? The word is derived from the Latin occultus,
hidden; so that
it is
the study of the hidden laws of nature. Since all the
great laws of nature are in fact working in the invisible
world far more than
in the visible, occultism involves the acceptance of
a much wider view of nature than that which is ordinarily
taken. The occultist,
then, is a man who studies all the laws of nature that
he can reach or of which he can hear, and as a result
of his study he identifies
himself with these laws and devotes his life to the
service of
evolution.
How
does occultism regard vegetarianism ? It regards it
very favourably, and that for many reasons. These reasons
may be divided into two
classes - those which are ordinary and physical, and
those which are occult or hidden. There are many reasons
in favour of
vegetarianism which are down here on the physical plane
and patent to the eyes of any one who will take the
trouble to examine the
subject; and these will operate with the occult student
even more strongly than with the ordinary man. In addition
to these and altogether
beyond them, the
occult student knows of other reasons which come from the study
of those hidden laws which are as yet so little understood by the majority
of mankind. We must therefore divide our consideration of these reasons
into two parts, first taking the
ordinary and physical.
Even
these ordinary reasons may themselves be sub-divided
into two classes - the
first containing those which are physical and as it
were selfish, and secondly those which may be described
as the moral and unselfish
considerations.
First,
then, let us take the reasons in favour of vegetarianism
which concern only the man himself, and are purely
upon the physical plane. For the moment we will put
aside the consideration of the
effect upon
others - which is so infinitely more important - and think
only of the results for the man himself. It is necessary to do this,
because
one of the objections frequently brought against vegetarianism is that
it is a beautiful theory, but one the working of which is impracticable,
since it is supposed that a man cannot live without devouring dead
flesh. That objection is irrational, and is founded upon ignorance
or perversion of facts. I am myself an example of its falsity; for
I have lived without the pollution of
flesh food - without meat, fish or fowl - for the last thirty-eight
years and I not only still survive, but have been during all that time
in remarkably good health. Nor am I in any way peculiar in this, for
I know some thousands of others who have done the same thing. I know
some younger ones who have been so happy as to be unpolluted by the
eating of flesh during the whole of their lives; and they are distinctly
freer from disease than those who partake of such things. Assuredly
there are many reasons in favour of vegetarianism from the purely selfish
point of view; and I will put
that first, because I know that the selfish considerations
will appeal most strongly to a majority of people,
though I hope that in the case of those who are studying Theosophy
we may assume
that the moral considerations which I shall later adduce
will sway them
far more forcibly.
WE
WANT THE BEST
I
take it that in food, as well as in everything else,
we all of us want the best that is within our means.
We should like to bring
our lives, and therefore our daily food as a not unimportant
part of our lives, into harmony with our aspirations,
into harmony with
the highest that we know. We should be glad to take
what is really best; and if we do not yet know enough
to be able to appreciate
what is best, then we should be glad to learn to do
so. If we think of it, we shall see that this is the
case along other lines, as,
for example, in music, art or literature. We have been
taught from childhood that if we want our musical taste
developed along the
best lines we must select only the best music, and
if at first we do not fully appreciate or understand
it, we must be willing
patiently to wait and to listen, until at length something
of its sweet beauty dawns upon our souls, and we come
to comprehend that
which at first awakened no response within our hearts.
If we want to appreciate the best in art we must not
fill our eyes with the
sensational broadsheets of police news, or with the hideous
abominations which are miscalled comic pictures; but
we must steadily look and learn until the mystery of
the work of Turner begins to
unfold to our patient contemplation, or the grand breadth
of Velasquez comes within our power to understand.
So too in literature. It
has been the sad experience of many that much of the
best and the most beautiful is lost to those whose
mental food consists exclusively
of the sensational paper or the cheap novel, or of
that frothy mass of waste material which is thrown
up like scum upon the molten
metal of life - novelettes, serials, and fragments of a type
which neither teach the ignorant, nor strengthen the
weak, nor develop the immature. If we wish to unfold
the mind in our children
we do not leave them to their own uncultivated taste
in all these things, but we try to help them to train
that taste, whether it
be in art, in music
or in literature.
Surely
then we may seek to find the best in physical as well
as in mental food, and surely we must find this not
by mere blind instinct,
but by learning to think and to reason out the matter
from the higher point of view. There may be those in
the world who have
no desire for the best, who are willing to remain
on the lower levels and consciously and intentionally
to build into themselves
that which is coarse and degrading; but surely there
are many who wish to rise above this, who would gladly
and eagerly take the
best if they only knew what it was, or if their attention
was directed
to it.
There are men and women who are morally of the highest
class, who yet have been brought up to feed with the
hyenas and the wolves
of life, and have been taught that their necessary
dietary was the corpse of a slaughtered animal. It
needs but little thought
to show us that this horror cannot be the highest and
the purest, and that if we ever wish to raise ourselves
in the scale of nature,
i£ we ever wish that our bodies shall be pure and clean as
the temples of the Master should be, we must abandon
this loathsome custom, and take our place among the
princely hosts who are striving
for the evolution of
mankind - striving for the highest and the purest in everything,
for themselves as well as for their fellow-men. Let us see in detail
why a vegetarian diet is emphatically the purest and the best.
1.
MORE NUTRIMENT
First:
Because vegetables contain more nutriment than an equal amount
of dead flesh. This will sound a surprising and incredible statement
to many people, because they have been brought up to believe that
they cannot exist unless they defile themselves with flesh, and
this delusion is so widely spread that it is difficult to awaken
the average man from it. It must be clearly understood that this
is not a question of habit, or of sentiment, or of prejudice; it
is simply a question of plain fact, and as to the facts there is not
and there never has been the slightest question. There are four
elements necessary in food, all of them essential to the repair
and the upbuilding of the body, (a) Proteids or nitrogenous foods;
(b) carbohydrates; (c) hydro-carbons or fats; (d) salts. This is
the classification usually accepted among physiologists, although
some recent investigations are tending to modify it to a certain
extent.
Now
there is no question that all of these elements exist
to a greater extent in vegetables than they do in dead
flesh. For instance,
milk, cream, cheese, nuts, peas and beans contain a
large percentage of proteids or nitrogenous matter.
Wheat, oats, rice and other
grains, fruits and most of the vegetables (except perhaps
peas, beans, and
lentils) consist mainly of the carbohydrates - that is, of starches
and sugars. The hydro-carbons, or fats, are found in nearly all the
proteid foods, and can also be taken in the form of butter or of oils.
The salts are found practically in all food to a greater or less extent.
They are of the utmost importance in the maintenance of the body tissues,
and what is called saline starvation is the
cause of many diseases.
It
is sometimes claimed that flesh-meat contains some
of these things to a larger degree than vegetables,
and some tables are drawn up
in such a way as to suggest this; but once more, this
is a question of facts, and must be faced from that
point of view. The only sources
of energy
in dead flesh are the proteid matter
contained therein, and the fat; and as the fat in it
has certainly no more value than other fat, the only point to be considered
is
the proteids. Now. it must be remembered that proteids
have only one origin; they are organized in plants and nowhere else.
Nuts,
peas, beans, and lentils are far richer than any kind
of flesh in these elements, and they have this enormous advantage,
that
the proteids are pure, and therefore contain all the
energy originally stored up in them during their organization. In the
animal body
these proteids, which the animal has absorbed from
the vegetable kingdom during its life, are constantly passing down
to disorganization,
during which descent the energy originally stored in
them is released. Consequently what has been used already by one animal
cannot be
utilised by another. The proteids are estimated in
some of these tables by the amount of nitrogen contained therein, but
in flesh-meat
there are many products of tissue-change such as urea,
uric acid, and creatine, all of which contain nitrogen and are therefore
estimated
as proteids, though they have no food value whatever.
Nor
is this all the evil; for this tissue-change is necessarily
accompanied by the formation of various poisons, which
are always to be found
in flesh of any kind; and in many cases the virulence
of these poisons is very great. So you will observe
that if you gain any
nourishment from the eating of dead flesh, you obtain
it because
during its life the animal
consumed vegetable matter. You get less of this
nourishment
than you ought to have, because the
animal has already used up half of it, and you have
along with it various undesirable substances, and even
some active poisons,
which are of course distinctly deleterious. I know
that there are many doctors who will prescribe the
loathsome flesh diet in, order
to strengthen people, and that they will often meet
with a certain amount of success; though even on this
point they are by no
means agreed, for Dr.
Milner Fothergill writes: " All the bloodshed caused by the
warlike disposition of Napoleon is as nothing compared
to the loss
of life among the myriads of
persons who have sunk into their graves through a misplaced
confidence in the supposed value of beef-tea." At any rate,
the strengthening results can be obtained more easily
from the vegetable kingdom when the science of diet
is properly understood,
and they can
be obtained without the horrible pollution and without all
the undesirable concomitants of the other system.
Let me show you that I am not in all this making any
unfounded assertions; let me quote to you the opinions of
physicians,
of men whose names are well-known
in the medical world, so that you may see that I have
abundant
authority for all that I have said.
We
find Sir Henry Thompson, F.K.C.S., saying: "It is a vulgar
error to regard meat in any form as necessary to life.
All that is
necessary to the human body
can be. supplied by the vegetable kingdom ... The vegetarian
can extract from his food all the principles necessary
for the growth
and support of the body, as well as for the production
of heat and force. It must be admitted as a fact beyond
all question that
some persons are stronger and more healthy who live
on that food. I know how much of the prevailing meat
diet is not merely a wasteful
extravagance, but a source of serious evil to the
consumer." There
is a definite statement by a well-known medical man.
Then
we may turn to the words of a Fellow of the Royal Society,
Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, M.D.; he says: " It must be
honestly admitted that weight by weight, vegetable
substance, when carefully
selected, possesses the most striking advantages over
animal food in nutritious value. I should like to see
a vegetarian and fruit-living
plan put into general use, and I believe it will be."
The
well-known physician, Dr. William S. Playfair, C.
B.,
has said quite
clearly: "Animal diet is not essential to man"; and we
find Dr.F.J.Sykes, B.Sc.,
the medical official for St. Pancras,
writing:"Chemistry is not antagonistic to vegetarianism, any
more than biology is. Flesh food is certainly not necessary to supply
the nitrogenous products required for the repair of tissues; therefore
a well-selected diet from the vegetable kingdom is perfectly right,
from the chemical point of view, for the nutrition
of men."
Dr.
Francis Vacher, F.R.C.S.,
F.C.S., remarks: "I have no belief
that a man is better physically or mentally for taking flesh-food."
Dr.
Alexander Haig, F.E.C.P., the leading physician of
one of the great London hospitals, has written : " That it
is easily possible to sustain life on the products of the vegetable
kingdom needs
no demonstration for physiologists, even if the majority
of the human race were not constantly engaged in demonstrating
it; and
my researches show, not only that it is possible, but
that it is infinitely preferable in every way, and produces superior
powers,
both of mind and body."
Dr.
M. F. Coomes, in The American Practitioner and News of July, 1902,
concluded a scientific article as follows: "Let me state
first that the flesh of warm blooded animals is not
essential as a diet for the purpose of maintaining
the human body in perfect
health." He goes on to make some further remarks which we
shall quote under our
next head.
The
Dean of the Faculty of Jefferson Medical College (of
Philadelphia) said: "It is a well-known fact that cereals
as articles of daily food hold a high place in the
human economy; they contain
constituents amply sufficient to sustain life in its
highest form. If the value of cereal food products
were better known it would
be a good thing for the race. Nations live and thrive
upon them alone, and it has been fully demonstrated
that meat is
not a necessity."
There
you have a number of plain statements, and all of them
are taken from the writings of well-known men who have made a considerable
study of the chemistry of foods. It is impossible to
deny that
man can exist without this horrible flesh-diet, and
furthermore that there is more nutriment in an equal amount of
vegetable than
of dead flesh. I could give you many other quotations,
but those above mentioned are sufficient, and they are fair samples
of the
rest.
2.
LESS DISEASE
Second:
Because many serious diseases come from this loathsome
habit of devouring dead bodies. Here again I could easily give
you a long
list of quotations, but as before I will be satisfied
with a few. Dr.
Josiah Oldfield, M.E.C.S.,
L.R.C.P., writes: "Flesh is an unnatural
food, and therefore tends to create functional disturbances. As it
is taken in modern civilisations, it is infected with such terrible
diseases (readily communicable to man) as cancer, consumption, fever,
intestinal worms, etc., to an enormous extent. There is little need
to wonder that flesh-eating is one of the most serious causes of the
diseases that carry off ninety-nine out of every hundred people that
are born."
Sir
Edward Saunders tells us : "Any attempt to teach mankind
that beef and beer are not necessary for health and
efficiency must be
good, and must tend to
thrift and happiness; and, as this goes on I believe
we shall hear less of gout, Bright's disease, and trouble
with the liver and
the kidneys in the former, and less of brutality and
wife-beating and murder in the latter. I believe that
the tendency is towards
vegetarian diet, that it will be recognised as fit
and proper, and that the time is not far distant when
the idea of animal food
will be
found revolting to civilized man."
Sir
Robert Christison, M.D., asserts positively that "the flesh
and secretions of animals affected with carbuncular
diseases analogous to anthrax are so poisonous that
those who eat the product of them
are
apt to suffer severely - the disease taking the form either of
inflammation
of the digestive canal, or of an eruption of one or more
carbuncles."
Dr.
A. Kingsford, of the University of Paris, says: "Animal meat
may directly engender many painful and loathsome diseases.
Scrofula itself, that fecund source of suffering and
death, not improbably
owes its origin to flesh-eating habits. It is a curious
fact that the word scrofula is derived from scrofa,
a sow. To say that one
has
scrofula is to say that he has swine's evil."
In
his fifth report to the Privy Council in England we
find Professor Gamgee stating that "one-fifth of the total
amount of meat consumed is derived from animals killed in a state
of malignant
disease"; while Professor A. Winter Blyth, F.R.C.S., writes:
"Economically
speaking, flesh food is not necessary - and meat seriously
diseased may be so prepared as to look like fairly
good meat. Many an animal
with advanced diseases of the lung yet shows to the
naked eye no
appearance in the flesh which differs from the normal."
Dr
M. P. Coornes, in the article above quoted, remarks
: We have many substitutes for meat which are free
from the deleterious effects
of that food upon the animal economy - namely, in the
production of rheumatism, gout and all other kindred
diseases to say nothing
of cerebral congestion, which frequently terminates
in apoplexy and venal diseases of one kind and another,
migraine and many other
such forms of headache, resulting from the excessive
use of meat and often
produced when meat is not eaten to excess. Dr J. H. Kellogg
remarks: "It is interesting to note that scientific men all over
the world are awakening to the fact that the flesh of animals as food
is not a pure nutriment, but is mixed with poisonous substances, excrementitious
in character, which are the natural results of animal life. The vegetable
stores up energy. It is from the vegetable world - the coal and the
wood - that the energy is derived which runs our steam engine pulls
our
trains,
drives our steamships and does the work of civilisation. It is from
vegetable world that all animals, directly or indirectly, denve
the energy which is manifested by animal life through muscular and
mental work. The
vegetable builds
up; the animal tears down. The vegetable stores up
energy; the animal expends energy. Various waste and
poisonous products result
from the manifestation of energy, whether by the locomotive
or the animal. The working tissues of the animal are
enabled to continue
their activity only by the fact that they are continually
washed clean by the blood, a never-ceasing stream flowing
through and about
them, carrying away the poisonous products resulting
from their work as rapidly as they are formed. The
venous blood owes its character
to these poisons, which are removed by the kidneys,
lungs, skin and bowels. The flesh of a dead animal
contains a great quantity
of these poisons, the elimination of which ceases at
the instant of death, although their formation continues
for some time after
death. An eminent French surgeon recently remarked
that 'beef-tea is a veritable solution of poisons'.
Intelligent physicians everywhere
are coming to recognise these facts, and to make a
practical application
of them."
Here
again you see we have no lack of evidence; and many
of the quotations with regard to the introduction of
poisons into the system through
flesh-food are not from the vegetarian doctors, but
from those who still hold it right to eat sparingly
of corpses, but yet have
studied to some extent the science of the matter. It
should be remembered that dead flesh can never be in
a condition of perfect
health, because decay commences at the moment when
the creature
is killed. All
sorts of products are being formed in this process
of retrograde change; all of these are useless, and many of them are
positively
dangerous and poisonous. In the ancient scriptures
of the Hindus we find a very remarkable passage, which refers to the
fact that
even in India some of the lower castes at that early
period commenced to feed on flesh. The statement made is that in ancient
times only
three diseases existed, one of which was old age; but
that now, since people had commenced to eat flesh, seventy-eight new
diseases
had arisen. This shows us that the idea that disease
might come from the devouring of corpses has been recognised for thousands
of years.
3.
MORE NATURAL TO MAN
Third: Because
man is not naturally made to be carnivorous, and therefore
this horrible food is not suited to him.
Here again let me give
you a few quotations to show you what authorities are
ranged upon our side
of this matter. Baron Cuvier himself writes: "The natural food
of man, judging from his structure, consists of fruit, roots and
vegetables"; and Professor Eay tells us: "Certainly man
was never made to be a carnivorous animal."Sir Richard Owen,
F.
R. C. S., writes: " Anthropoids and all the quadrumana
derive
their alimentation from fruits, grains and other succulent vegetable
substances, and the strict analogy which exists between
the structures of these animals and that of man clearly
demonstrates
his frugivorous nature."
Another
Fellow of the Royal Society, Professor William Lawrence,
writes: "The teeth of man have not the slightest resemblance
to those of carnivorous animals; and whether we consider
the teeth, the jaws or the digestive organs, the human
structure closely resembles
that of
the frugivorous animals."
Once
more Dr.Spencer Thompson remarks: "No physiologist would
dispute that man ought to live on vegetarian diet "; and
Dr.
Sylvester Graham writes: "Comparative anatomy proves that man
is naturally a frugivorous animal, formed to subsist upon fruits, seeds,
and farinaceous vegetables."
The
desirability of the vegetarian diet will of course
need no argument for anyone who believes in the inspiration
of the scriptures, for
it will be remembered that God, in speaking to Adam
while in the Garden
of Eden, said : " Behold, I have given you every herb bearing
seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in the
which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for
meat." It was only after the fall of man, when death came into
the world, that a more degraded idea of feeding came along with it;
and if now we hope to rise again to edenic conditions we must surely
commence by abolishing unnecessary slaughter performed in order to
supply us with horrible and degrading food.
4.
GREATER STRENGTH
Fourth
: Because men are stronger and better on a vegetarian
diet. I know that people say: "You will be so weak if you
do not eat dead
flesh." As a matter of fact this is untrue. I do not know whether
there may be any people who find themselves weaker on a diet of vegetables;
but I do know this, that in many athletic contests recently the vegetarians
have proved themselves the strongest and the
most enduring - as for example in the recent cycling races in
Germany, where all those who took high places in the race were vegetarian.
There
have been many such trials, and they show that, other things being
equal, the man who takes pure food succeeds better. We have to face
facts, and in this case the facts are all ranged on one side, as against
foolish prejudices and loathsome lust on the other. The reason was
plainly given by Dr. J. D. Craig, who
writes :
"Vigour
of body is often boasted by flesh-eaters, particularly
if they live mostly in the open air; but there is this
peculiarity about
them, that they have not the endurance of vegetarians.
The reason of this is that flesh meat is already on
the downward path of retrograde
change, and as a consequence its presence in the tissues
is of short duration. The impetus given to it in the
body of the animal
from which it was taken is reinforced by another impulse
in the second
one, and for these reasons what
energy it does contain is soon given out, and there
are urgent demands for more to take its place. The
flesh-eater, then, may
do a large amount of work in a short time if well-fed.
He soon gets hungry, however, and when so becomes weak.
On the other hand,
vegetable products are of slow digestion; they contain
all of the original store of energy, and no poisons;
their retrograde change is less rapid than meat, having just commenced,
and
therefore their force is released more slowly with
less loss, and the person nourished
by them can work for a long time without food if necessary,
and without discomfort. The people in Europe who abstain
from flesh are of the better and more intelligent class, and the
subject of
endurance has been approached and thoroughly investigated
by them. In Germany and England a number of notable
athletic contests that
required endurance have been made between flesh-eaters
and vegetarians, with the result that the vegetarian
has invariably come
off victorious."
We
shall find, if we investigate, that this fact has been
known for a long time, for even in ancient history
we find traces of it.
It will be recollected that of all the tribes of Greeks
the strongest and the most enduring, by universal admission
and reputation, were
the Spartans; and the simplicity of their vegetable
diet is a matter of
common knowledge. Think too of the Greek athletes - those who
prepared
themselves with such care for
participation in the Olympian and Isthmian games.
If
you will read the classics you will find that these
men, who in their own line surpassed all the rest of
the world, lived upon
figs, nuts, cheese and maize. Then there were the Roman
gladiators - men
on whose strength depended their life and fame;
and yet we find that their diet consisted exclusively
of barley-cakes and oil;
they knew well that this was the more strengthening food.
All
these examples show us that the common and persistent
fallacy that one must eat flesh in order to be strong
has no foundation in fact;
indeed the exact contrary is true. Charles Darwin remarked
in one of
his letters: " The most extraordinary workers I ever saw, the
labourers in the mines of Chili, live exclusively on vegetable food,
including many seeds of leguminous plants."Of the same miners
Sir Francis Head writes: " It is usual for the copper miners
of Central Chili to carry loads of ore of two hundred pounds weight
up eighty perpendicular yards twelve times a day; and their diet is
entirely vegetarian - a breakfast of figs and small loaves of
bread,
a dinner of boiled beans, and a supper of roasted wheat."
Mr.
F. T. Wood in his Discoveries at Ephesus writes: "The
Turkish porters in Smyrna often carry from four hundred
to six hundred pounds weight on their backs, and the
captain one day pointed out
to me
one of his men who had carried an enormous bale of
merchandise weighing eight hundred pounds up an incline
into an upper warehouse; so that with this frugal diet their strength
was unusually great."
Of
these same Turks Sir William Fairbairn has said: "The Turk
can live and fight where soldiers of any other nationality
would starve. His simple habits, his abstinence from
intoxicating liquors,
and his normal vegetarian diet, enable him to suffer
the greatest hardships and to exist on the scantiest
and simplest
of foods."
I
myself can bear witness to the enormous strength displayed
by the vegetarian Tamil coolies of the South of India,
for I have frequently
seen them carry loads which astonished me. I remember
in one case standing upon the deck of a steamer, and
watching one of these
coolies take a huge case upon his back and walk slowly
but steadily down a plank to the shore with it and
deposit it in a shed. The
captain standing by me remarked with surprise, " Why, it took
four English labourers to get that case on board in
the docks at London
! " I have also seen another of these coolies, after having had
a grand piano put on his back, carry it unaided for a considerable
distance; yet these men are entirely vegetarian, for they live chiefly
upon rice and water, with perhaps occasionally a little tamarind for
flavouring.
On
the same subject Dr. Alexander Haig, whom we have already
quoted,
writes: "The effect of getting free
from uric acid has been to make my bodily powers quite
as great as they were fifteen years ago; I scarcely
believe that even fifteen
years ago I could have undertaken the exercise in which
I now indulge with absolute impunity - with freedom from fatigue
and distress at the time and from stiffness next day.
Indeed I often say that
it is impossible now to tire me, and relatively I believe
this is true." This distinguished physician became a vegetarian
because, from his study of the diseases caused by the
presence of uric acid in the system, he discovered
that flesh-eating was
the chief source of this deadly poison. Another interesting
point which he mentions is that his change of diet
brought about in him
a distinct change of
disposition - that whereas before he found himself constantly
nervous and irritable, he now became much steadier and calmer and less
angry;
he fully realises that this is due to the change in his
food.
If
we require any further evidence, we have it close to
our hand in the animal kingdom. We shall observe that
there the carnivora are
not the strongest, but that all the work of the world
is done by the
herbivora - by horses, mules, oxen, elephants and camels. We do
not find that men can utilise the lion or the tiger, or that the strength
of these savage flesh-eaters is at all equal to that of those who assimilate
directly from the vegetable kingdom.
5.
LESS ANIMAL PASSION
Fifth: Because
the eating of dead bodies leads to indulgence in drink,
and increases animal passions in man. Mr.
H. B. Fowler, who has
studied and lectured on dipsomania for forty years,
declares that the use of flesh foods, by the excitation
that it exercises on
the nervous system, prepares the way for habits of
intemperance in everything; and the more flesh is consumed,
the more serious
is the danger of confirmed alcoholism. Many experienced
physicians have made similar experiments and wisely
act on them in their treatment
of dipsomaniacs. The lower part of man's nature is
undoubtedly intensified by the habit of feeding upon
corpses. Even after eating
a full meal of such horrible material a man still feels
unsatisfied, for he is still conscious of a vague uncomfortable
sense of want,
and consequently he suffers greatly from nervous strain.
This craving is the hunger of the bodily tissues, which
cannot be renewed by
the poor stuff offered to them as food. To satisfy
this vague craving, or rather to appease these restless
nerves so that it will no longer
be felt, recourse is often had to stimulants. Sometimes
alcoholic beverages are taken, sometimes an attempt
is made to allay these
feelings with black coffee, and at other times strong
tobacco is used in the endeavour to soothe the irritated,
exhausted nerves.
Here we have the beginning of intemperance, for in the majority of
cases intemperance began in the attempt to allay with
alcoholic stimulants the vague uncomfortable sense
of want which follows
the
eating of impoverished food - food that does not feed.
There
is no doubt that drunkenness and all the poverty, wretchedness,
disease and crime associated with it may frequently be traced to
errors of feeding. We might follow out this line of thought indefinitely.
We might speak of the irritability, occasionally culminating in
insanity, which is now acknowledged by all authorities to be a
frequent result of erroneous feeding. We might mention a hundred
familiar symptoms of indigestion, and explain that indigestion
is always the result of incorrect feeding. Surely, however, enough
has been said to indicate the importance and far-reaching influence
of a pure diet upon the welfare of the individual and of the race.
Mr.
Brarnwell Booth, the chief of the Salvation Army, has issued a
pronunciamento upon this subject of vegetarianism, in which he
speaks strongly and decidedly in its favour, giving a list of no
less than nineteen good reasons why men should abstain from the
eating of
flesh.
He
insists that a vegetarian diet is necessary to purity, to chastity,
and to the perfect control of the appetites and passions which
are so often the source of great temptation. He remarks that the
growth of meat-eating among the people is one of the causes of
the increase of
drunkenness, and that it also favours indolence,
sleepiness, want of energy, indigestion, constipation and other
like miseries and degradations. He also states that eczema, piles,
worms, dysentery and severe headaches are frequently brought on
by flesh diet, and that he believes the great increase in consumption
and cancer during the last hundred years to have been caused by
the corresponding increase in the use of animal food.
6.
ECONOMY
Sixth:
Because the vegetable diet is in every way cheaper
as well as better than flesh. In the encyclical just
mentioned Mr. Booth gives
as one of his reasons for advocating it, that "a vegetarian
diet of wheat, oats, maize, and other grains, lentils,
peas, beans, nuts, and similar food is more than ten
times as economical as
a flesh diet. Meat contains half its weight in water,
which has to be paid for as though it were meat. A
vegetable diet, even if
we allow cheese, butter and milk, will cost only about
a quarter as much as a mixed diet of flesh and vegetables.
Tens of thousands of
our poor people who have now the greatest difficulty
to make ends meet after buying flesh-food, would by
the substitution of fruit and
vegetables and other economical foods, be able to get
along in
comfort."
There
is also an economic side of this question which must not be ignored.
Note how many more men could be supported by a certain number of
acres of
land which were devoted to the growing of wheat, than by the same
amount of land which was laid out in pasture. Think, too, for how
many more men healthy work upon the land would be found in the
former case than in the latter; and I think you will begin to see
that there is a great deal to be said from this point of view also.
THE
SIN OF SLAUGHTER
Hitherto
we have been speaking of what we have called the physical
and selfish considerations which. should make a man
give up the eating of this dead flesh, and turn him,
even though only for
his own sake, to the purer diet. Let us now think for
a few moments of the moral and unselfish considerations
connected with his duty
towards others.
The first of these - and this does seem to me a
most terrible thing - is the awful sin of unnecessarily murdering
these animals. Those who live in Chicago know well how this ghastly
ceaseless slaughter goes on in their midst, how they feed the greater
part of the world by wholesale butchery, and how the money made in
this abominable business is stained with blood, every coin of it. I
have shown clearly upon irreproachable testimony that all this is unnecessary;
and if it is unnecessary it is a crime.
The
destruction of life is always a crime. There may be
certain cases in
which it is the lesser of two evils; but
here it is needless and without a shadow of justification,
for it happens only because of the selfish unscrupulous
greed of those
who coin money out of the agonies of the animal kingdom
in order to pander to the perverted tastes of those
who are sufficiently depraved to desire such loathsome aliment. Remember
it is not only
those who do the obscene work, but those who by feeding
on this dead flesh encourage them and make their crime
remunerative,
who
are guilty before God of this awful thing. Every person
who partakes of this unclean food has his share in
the indescribable guilt and
suffering by which it has been obtained. It is universally
recognised in law
that qui facit per alium facit per se - whatsoever a man does through
another he does himself.
A
man will often say: "But it would make no difference to
all
this horror if I alone ceased to eat meat."That is untrue and
disingenuous. First, it would make a difference, for although you may
consume only a pound or two each day, that would in time amount to
the weight of an animal. Secondly, it is not a question of amount,
but of complicity in a crime; and if you partake of the results of
a crime, you are helping to make it remunerative, and so you share
in the guilt. No honest man can fail to see that this is so. But
when men's lower lusts are concerned they are usually dishonest in
their
view, and decline to face the plain facts. There surely can be no difference
of opinion as to the proposition that all this horrible
unnecessary slaughter is indeed a terrible crime.
Another
point to be remembered is that there is dreadful cruelty connected
with the transport of these miserable animals, both by land and
sea, and there is often dreadful cruelty in the slaughtering itself.
Those who seek to justify these loathsome crimes will tell you
that an endeavour is made to murder the animals as rapidly and
painlessly as possible; but you have only to read the reports to
see that in many cases these intentions are not carried out, and
appalling suffering
ensues.
THE
DEGRADATION OF THE SLAUGHTERMAN
Yet
another point to be considered is the wickedness of
causing degradation and sin in other men. If you yourselves
had to use the knife or
the pole-axe, and slaughter the animal before you could
feed upon its flesh, you would realise the sickening
nature of the task and
would soon refuse to perform it. Would the delicate
ladies who devour sanguinary beefsteaks like to see
their sons working as
slaughtermen ? If not, then they have no right to put
this task upon some other woman's son. We have no right
to impose upon a
fellow-citizen work which we ourselves should decline
to do. It may be said that we force no one to undertake
this abominable means
of livelihood; but that is a mere tergiversation, for in eating
this horrible food we are making a demand that some
one shall brutalise himself, that some one shall degrade
himself below the level of
humanity. You know that a class of men has been
created by the demand for this food - a class of men
which has an
exceedingly bad reputation. Naturally those who are
brutalised by such unclean work as this prove themselves
brutal in other relations as well.
They are savage in their disposition and bloodthirsty
in their quarrels; and I have heard it stated that
in many a murder case
evidence has been found that the criminal employed
the peculiar twist of the knife which is characteristic
of the slaughterman. You must surely recognise that
here is an unspeakably horrible
work, and that if you take any part
in this terrible business - even that of helping to
support it - you are putting another man in the position of doing
(not in the least for your need, but merely for the gratification of
your lusts and passions) work that you would under no circumstances
consent to do for yourself.
Then
we should surely remember that we are all of us hoping
for the time
of universal peace and kindness - a golden age when war shall
be no more, a time when man shall be so far removed from strife and
anger
that the whole conditions of the world will be different from those
which now prevail. Do you not think that the animal kingdom also will
have its share in that good time coming - that this
horrible nightmare of
wholesale slaughter will be removed from it ? The really
civilised nations of the world know far better than
this; it is only that
we of the West are as yet a young race, and still have
many of the crudities of youth; otherwise we could
not bear these things
amongst us even for a day. Beyond all question the
future is with the
vegetarian. It seems certain that in the future - and I hope it
maybe in the near future - we shall be looking back upon
this time with disgust and with horror. In spite of all its wonderful
discoveries, in spite of its marvelous machinery, in spite of the
enormous fortunes that have been made in it, I am certain that our
descendants will look back upon this age as one of only partial civilisation,
and in fact but little removed from savagery. One of the arguments
by which they will prove this will assuredly be that we allowed among
us this wholesale, unnecessary slaughter of
innocent animals - that we actually battened on it and made money
out of it, and that we even created a class of beings who did this
dirty work for us, arid that we were not ashamed to profit by the result
of their degradation.
All
of these are considerations referring only to the physical
plane. Now let me tell you something of the occult
side of all this. Up
to the
present I have made to you many statements - strong and definite,
I hope - but every one of them statements which you, can prove
for yourself. You can read the testimony of well-known doctors and
scientific
men; you may test for
yourselves the economic side of the question; you may
go and see, if you will, how all these different types
of men contrive to live
so well upon vegetarian diet. All that I have said
hitherto is thus within your reach. But now I am abandoning
the field of ordinary
physical reasoning, and taking you up to the level
where you have, naturally, to take the word of those
who have explored these higher
realms. Let us then turn now to the hidden side of
all this - the
occult.
OCCULT
REASONS
Under
this heading also we shall have two sets of reasons
- those which refer to ourselves and our own development,
and those which refer to the great scheme of evolution
and our duty towards it;
so that once more we may classify them as selfish and
unselfish, although at a much higher level than before.
I have, I hope, clearly
shown in the earlier part of this lecture that there
is simply no room for discussion in regard to this
question of vegetarianism; the whole of the evidence
and of the considerations are entirely on one side,
and there is absolutely nothing
to be said in opposition
to them. This is even more strikingly the case when
we come to consider the occult part of our argument.
There are some students
hovering round the fringes of occultism who are not
yet prepared
to follow its dictates to the uttermost, and therefore
do not accept its teaching when it interferes with
their personal habits and desires. Some such have tried to maintain
that the question
of food can make little difference from the occult
standpoint; but the unanimous verdict of all the great schools of occultism,
both ancient and modern, has been definite on this
point, and has
asserted that for all true progress purity is necessary,
even on the physical plane, and in matters of diet, as well as in far
higher
matters.
In
many books and lectures I have already explained the
existence of the different planes of nature and of
the vast unseen world
all about us; and I have also had occasion to refer
often to the fact that man has within himself matter
belonging to all these
higher planes, so that he is furnished with a vehicle
corresponding to each of them, through which he can
receive impressions and by
means of which he can act. Can these higher bodies
of man be in any way affected by the food which enters
into the physical body
with which they are so closely connected ? Assuredly
they can, and for this reason. The physical matter
in man is in close touch
with the astral and mental matter - so much so that
each is to a great extent a counterpart of the
other. There are many types and degrees of density among astral
matter, for example, so that
it is possible for one man to have an astral body built
of coarse and gross particles, while another may have
one which is much more
delicate and refined. As the
astral body is the vehicle of the emotions, passions
and sensations, it follows that the man whose astral
body is of the grosser type
will be chiefly amenable to the grosser varieties of
passion and emotion; whereas the man who has a finer
astral body will find
that its particles most readily vibrate in response
to higher and more refined emotions and aspirations.
The man therefore who builds
gross and undesirable matter into his physical body
is thereby drawing into his astral body matter of a
coarse and unpleasant
type as its counterpart.
We
all know that on the physical plane the effect of
over-indulgence in dead flesh is to produce a coarse
gross appearance
in the man. That does not mean that
it is only the physical body
which is in an unlovely condition; it means also
that those parts of the man which are invisible to
our ordinary sight, the
astral and the mental bodies, are not in good condition
either. Thus a man who is building himself a gross
and impure physical body is building for himself at the same time coarse
and unclean
astral and mental bodies as well. That is visible at
once to the eye of the developed clairvoyant. The man
who learns
to see these
higher vehicles sees at once the effects on the higher
bodies produced by impurity in the lower; he sees at
once the difference between
the man who feeds his physical vehicle with pure food
and the man who puts into it this loathsome decaying
flesh. Let us see how
this difference will affect the man's evolution.
IMPURE
VEHICLES
If
is clear that a man's duty with regard to himself is
to develop all his different vehicles as far as possible,
in order to make
them finished instruments for the use of the soul.
There is a still higher stage in which that soul itself
is being trained to be a
fit instrument in the hands of the Deity, a perfect
channel for the divine grace; but the first step towards
this high aim is that
the soul itself shall learn thoroughly to control the
lower bodies, so that there shall be in them no thought
or feeling except those
which the soul allows. All these vehicles therefore
should be in the highest possible condition of efficiency;
all should be pure
and clean and free from taint; and it is obvious that
this can never be so long as the man absorbs into the
physical encasement
such undesirable constituents. Even the physical body
and its sense perceptions can never be at their best
unless the food is pure.
Any one who adopts vegetarian diet will speedily begin
to notice that his sense of taste or of smell is far
keener than it was when
he fed upon flesh, and that he is now able to discern
a delicate difference of flavour in foods which before
he had thought of as
tasteless, such as
rice and wheat.
The
same thing is true to a still greater extent with regard
to the higher bodies. Their senses cannot be clear
if impure or coarse
matter is drawn into
them; anything of this nature clogs and dulls them,
so that it becomes more difficult for the soul to use them. This is
a fact
which has always been recognised by the student of
occultism; you will find that all those who in ancient days entered
upon the
Mysteries were men of the utmost purity, and of course
invariably vegetarian. Carnivorous diet is fatal to anything like real
development,
and
those who adopt it are throwing serious
and unnecessary difficulties in their own way.
I
am well aware that there are other and still higher
considerations which are of greater weight than anything upon the physical
plane, and that the purity of the heart
and of
the soul is more important to a man than that of the
body. Yet there is surely no reason why we should not
have both; indeed,
the one suggests the other, and the higher should include
the lower. There are quite enough difficulties in the
way of self-control and self-development; it is surely worse than
foolish
to go out
of our way to add another and a very considerable one
to the list. Although it is true that a pure heart
will do more for us than
a pure body, yet the latter can certainly do a great
deal; and we are none of us so far advanced along the
road towards spirituality
that we -can afford to neglect the great advantage
that it gives us. Anything that makes our path harder
than it need be is emphatically
something to be avoided. In all cases this
flesh-food undoubtedly makes the physical body a worse instrument,
and puts difficulties in the way of the soul
by intensifying all the undesirable elements and passions
belonging
to
these lower planes.
Nor
is this serious effect during physical life the only
one of which we have to think. If, through introducing
loathsome impurities
into the physical body, the man builds himself a coarse
and unclean astral body, we have to remember that it
is in this degraded vehicle
that he will have to spend the first part of his life
after death. Because of the gross matter which he has
built into it, all sorts
of undesirable entities will be drawn into association
with him and will make his vehicles their home, and
find a ready response
within him to their lower passions. It is not only
that his animal passions are more easily stirred here
on earth, but in addition
to this he will suffer acutely from the working out
of these desires after death. Here again, looked at
even from the selfish point of
view, we see that occult considerations confirm the
straight-forward common-sense of the arguments on the
physical plane. The higher
sight, when brought to bear upon this problem, shows
us still more vividly how undesirable is the devouring
of flesh, since it intensifies
within us that from which we most need to be free,
and therefore, from the point of view of progress,
that habit is a thing to be
cast out at
once and for ever.
MAN'S
DUTY TOWARDS NATURE
Then
there is the far more important unselfish side of the
question - that
of man's duty towards nature. Every religion has taught
that man should put himself always on the side of the
will of God in the
world, on the side of good as against evil, of evolution
as against retrogression. The man who ranges himself
on the side of evolution
realises the wickedness of destroying life; for he
knows that, just as he is here in this physical body
in order that he may learn
the lessons of this plane, so is the animal occupying
his body for the same reason, that through it he may
gain experience at
his lower stage. He knows that the life behind the
animal is the Divine Life, that all life in the world
is Divine; the animals
therefore are truly our brothers, even though they
may be younger brothers, and we can have no sort of
right to take their lives
for the gratification of
our perverted tastes - no right to cause them untold agony and
suffering merely to satisfy our degraded and detestable lusts.
We
have brought things to such a pass with our miscalled"sport" and
our wholesale slaughterings, that all wild creatures
fly from the sight of us. Does that seem like the universal
brotherhood of God's
creatures ? Is that your idea of the golden age of
world-wide kindliness that is to come - a condition
when every living thing flees from the face of man because of
his murderous instincts
? There
is an influence
flowing back upon us from all this - an effect which
you can hardly realise unless you are able to see how
it looks when regarded with the sight of the higher plane. Every
one of these creatures
which you so ruthlessly murder in this way has its
own thoughts and feelings with regard to all this;
it has horror, pain and indignation,
and an intense but unexpressed feeling of the hideous
injustice of it all. The whole atmosphere about us
is full of it. Twice lately
I have heard from psychic people that they felt the
awful aura or surroundings of Chicago even many miles
away from it. Mrs. Besant
herself told me the same thing years ago in England
- that long before she came in sight of Chicago she felt
the horror of it and the deadly pall of depression
descending upon her, and asked: " Where
are we, and what is the reason that there should be
this terrible feeling in the air ? " To sense the effect as
clearly as this is beyond the reach of the person who
is not developed ; but, though all the inhabitants
may not be directly conscious
of it and recognise
it as Mrs. Besant did, they may be sure that they are
suffering from it unconsciously, and that that terrible
vibration of horror
and fear and injustice is acting upon every one of
.them, even though they
do not know it.
GHASTLY
UNSEEN RESULTS
The
feelings of nervousness and profound depression which
are so common
there are largely due to that awful
influence which spreads over the city like a plague-cloud.
I do not know how many thousands of creatures are killed
every day,
but the number is very large. Remember that every one
of these creatures is a
definite entity - not a permanent, reincarnating individuality
like yours or mine, but still an entity which has its life upon the
astral
plane, and persists there for a considerable time. Remember that every
one of these remains to pour out his feeling of indignation and horror
at all the injustice and torment which has been inflicted upon him.
Realise for yourself the terrible atmosphere which exists about those
slaughterhouses; remember that a clairvoyant can see the vast hosts
of animal souls, that he knows how strong are their feelings of horror
and resentment, and how these recoil at all points upon the human race.
They react most of all upon those who are
least able to resist them - upon the children, who are more delicate
and sensitive than the hardened adult. That city is a terrible place
in which to bring up children - a place where the whole atmosphere,
both physical and psychic, is charged with fumes of blood and with
all that
that means.
I
read an article only the other day in which it was
explained that the nauseating stench which rises from
those Chicago slaughterhouses,
and settles like a fatal miasma over the city, is by
no means the most deadly influence that comes up from
that Christian hell for
animals,
though it is the breath of certain death to many
a mother's darling. The slaughterhouses make not only
a pest-hole for the bodies of children, but for their
souls as well. Not only
are the children employed in the most revolting and
cruel work, but the whole trend of their thoughts is
directed towards killing.
Occasionally one is found too sensitive to endure
the sights and sounds of that ceaseless awful battle
between man's cruel lust
and the inalienable right of every creature to its
own life. I read how one boy, for whom a minister had
secured a place in the
slaughterhouse, returned home day after day pale and
sick and unable to eat or sleep, and finally came to
that minister of the gospel
of the compassionate Christ and told him that he was
willing to starve if necessary, but that he could not
wade in blood another
day. The horrors of the slaughter had so affected
him that he could no longer sleep. Yet this is what
many a boy is doing and seeing
from day to day until he becomes hardened to the taking
of life; and then some day, instead of cutting the
throat of a lamb or a
pig he kills a man, and straightway we turn our lust
for slaughter upon him in turn, and think that
we have done
justice.
I
read that a young woman who does much philanthropic
work in the neighbourhood of these pest houses declares
that what most impresses
her about the children is that they seem to have no
games except games of killing, that they have no conception
of any relation
to
animals except the relation of the
slaughterer to the victim. This is the education which
so-called Christians are giving to the children of
the slaughterhouse - a
daily education in murder; and then they express surprise
at the number and brutality of the murders in that district. Yet your
Christian public goes on serenely saying its prayers
and singing
its psalms and listening to its sermons, as if no such
outrages were being perpetrated against God's children in that sink-hole
of pestilence and crime. Surely the habit of eating
dead flesh
has produced a moral apathy among us. Are you doing
well, do you think, in rearing your future citizens among surroundings
of such
utter brutality as this ? Even on the physical plane
this is a terribly serious matter, and from the occult point of view
it is
unfortunately far more serious still; for the occultist
sees the psychic result of all this, sees how these forces are acting
upon
the people and how
they intensify brutality and unscrupulousness. He sees what a
centre of vice and of crime you have created, and how from it the infection
is gradually spreading until it affects the whole country, and even
the whole of what is called civilised humanity.
The
world is being affected by it in many ways which most
people do not in the least realise. There are constant
feelings of causeless
terror in the air. Many of your children are unnecessarily
and inexplicably
afraid; they feel terror of they know not what - terror of the
dark, or when they are alone for a few moments.
Strong forces are playing about us for which you cannot account,
and you do not realise that this all comes from the fact that the
whole atmosphere is charged with the hostility of these murdered
creatures. The stages of evolution are closely interrelated, and
you cannot do wholesale murder in this way upon your younger brothers
without feeling the effect terribly among your own innocent children.
Surely a better time shall come, when we shall be free from this
horrible blot upon our civilisation, this awful reproach upon our
compassion and our sympathy; and when that comes we shall find
presently that there will be a vast improvement in these matters,
and by degrees we shall all rise to a higher level and be freed
from all these
instinctive terrors and hatreds.
THE
BETTER TIME TO COME
We
might all be freed from it very soon if men and women
would only think; for the average man is not after
all a brute, but means
to be kind if he only knew how. He does not think;
he goes on from day to day, and does not realise that
he is taking part all the
time in an awful crime. But facts are facts, and there
is no escape from them; every one who is partaking
of this abomination is helping
to make this appalling thing a possibility, and undoubtedly
shares the
responsibility for it. You know that this
is so, and you can see what a terrible thing it is;
but you will say: " What can we do to improve matters - we
who are only tiny units in this mighty seething mass
of humanity ? " It
is only by units rising above the rest and becoming
more civilised that we shall finally arrive at a higher
civilisation of the race
as a whole. There is a Golden Age to come, not only
for man but for the lower kingdoms, a time when humanity
will realise its duty
to its
younger brothers - not to destroy them, but to help them and
train them, so that we may receive from them, not terror and hatred
but love
and devotion and friendship and reasonable co-operation. A time will
come when all the forces of Nature shall be intelligently working
together towards the final end, not with constant suspicion and hostility,
but with universal recognition of that Brotherhood which is ours because
we are all children of the same Almighty
Father.
Let
us at least make the experiment; let us free ourselves
from complicity in these awful crimes, let us set ourselves
to try, each in our own small circle, to bring nearer
that bright time of peace
and love which is the dream and the earnest desire
of every true-hearted and thinking man. At least we
ought surely to be willing to do
so small a thing as this to help the world onward towards
that glorious future; we ought to make ourselves pure,
our thoughts and our actions as well as our food,
so that by example as well
as by precept we may be doing all that in us lies to spread the
gospel of love and of compassion, to put. an end to
the reign of brutality and terror, and to bring
nearer the dawn .of the great kingdom of righteousness and
love when the will of our
Father shall
be done upon earth as it is in heaven. |