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Vegetarianism and Occultism - CW Leadbeater · Self-Help Library

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Speaker 1: Section one. We want the best, I take it. Then,
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Speaker 1: in food as well as in everything else, we all
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Speaker 1: of us want the best that is within our means.
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Speaker 1: We should like to bring our lives, and therefore our
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Speaker 1: daily food, as a not unimportant part of our lives,
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Speaker 1: into harmony with our aspirations, into harmony with the highest
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Speaker 1: that we know. We should be glad to take what
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Speaker 1: is really best. And if we do not yet know
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Speaker 1: enough to be able to appreciate what is best, then
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Speaker 1: we should be glad to learn to do so. If
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Speaker 1: we think of it, we shall see that this is
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Speaker 1: the case along other lines, as for example, in music,
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Speaker 1: art or literature. We have been taught from childhood that
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Speaker 1: if we want our musical taste developed along the best lines,
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Speaker 1: we must select only the best music, And if at
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Speaker 1: first we do not fully appreciate or understand stand it,
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Speaker 1: we must be willing patiently to wait and to listen,
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Speaker 1: until at length something of its sweet beauty dawns upon
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Speaker 1: our souls and we come to comprehend that which at
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Speaker 1: first awaken no response within our hearts. If we want
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Speaker 1: to appreciate the best in art, we must not fill
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Speaker 1: our eyes with the sensational broadcasts of police news, or
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Speaker 1: with the hideous abominations which are miscalled comic pictures. But
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Speaker 1: we must steadily look and learn until the mystery of
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Speaker 1: the work of Turner begins to unfold to our patient contemplation,
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Speaker 1: or the grand breadth of the last case comes within
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Speaker 1: our power to understand. So too, in literature, it has
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Speaker 1: been the sad experience of many that much of the
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Speaker 1: best and the most beautiful is lost to those whose
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Speaker 1: mental food consists exclusively of the sensational paper, or the
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Speaker 1: cheap novel, or that frothy mass of waste material which
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Speaker 1: is thrown up like scum upon the molten metal of life, novelettes, cereals,
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Speaker 1: and fragments of a type which neither teach the ignorant,
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Speaker 1: nor strengthen the weak, nor develop the immature. If we
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Speaker 1: wish to unfold the mind in our children, we do
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Speaker 1: not leave them to their own uncultivated taste in all
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Speaker 1: these things, but we try to help them to train
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Speaker 1: that taste, whether it be in art, in music, or
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Speaker 1: in literature. Surely, then we may seek to find the
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Speaker 1: best in physical as well as in mental food. And
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Speaker 1: surely we must find this not by mere blind instinct,
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Speaker 1: but by learning to think and to reason out the
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Speaker 1: matter from the higher point of view. There may be
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Speaker 1: those in the world who have no desire for the best,
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Speaker 1: who are willing to remain on the lower levels, and
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Speaker 1: consciously and intentionally to build into themselves that which is
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Speaker 1: coarse and degrading. But surely there are many who wish
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Speaker 1: to rise above this, who would gladly and eagerly take
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Speaker 1: the best, if only they knew what it was, or
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Speaker 1: if their attention was directed to it. There are men
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Speaker 1: and women who are morally of the highest class, who
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Speaker 1: yet have been brought up to feed with the hyaenas
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Speaker 1: and the wolves of life, and have been taught that
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Speaker 1: their necessary dietary was the corpse of a slaughtered animal.
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Speaker 1: It needs but little thought to show us that this
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Speaker 1: horror cannot be the highest and the purest, and that
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Speaker 1: if we ever wish to raise ourselves in the scale
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Speaker 1: of nature, if we ever wish that our body shall
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Speaker 1: be pure and clean as the temples of the Master
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Speaker 1: should be, we must abandon this lonesome custom and take
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Speaker 1: our place among the princely hosts who are striving for
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Speaker 1: the evolution of mankind, striving for the highest and the
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Speaker 1: purest in everything, for themselves as well as for their
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Speaker 1: fellow men. Let us see in detail why a vegetarian
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Speaker 1: diet is emphatically the purest and the best end of
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Speaker 1: Section one Section two more nutriment. First, because vegetables contain
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Speaker 1: more nutriment than an equal amount of dead flesh. This
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Speaker 1: will sound a surprising and incredible statement to many people,
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Speaker 1: because they have been brought up to believe that they
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Speaker 1: cannot exist unless they defile themselves with flesh. And this
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Speaker 1: delusion is so widely spread that it is difficult to
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Speaker 1: awaken the average man from it. It must be clearly
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Speaker 1: understood that this is not a question of habit or
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Speaker 1: of sentiment, or of prejudice. It is simply a question
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Speaker 1: of plain fact. And as to the facts, there is not,
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Speaker 1: and there never has been, the slightest question. There are
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Speaker 1: four elements necessary in food, all of them essential to
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Speaker 1: the repair and the upbuilding of the body. A proteins
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Speaker 1: or nitrogenous foods, B carbohydrates, C, fats, D salts. This
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Speaker 1: is the classification usually accepted among physiologists, although some recent
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Speaker 1: investigations are tending to modify it to a certain extent.
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Speaker 1: Now there is no question that all of these elements
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Speaker 1: exist to a greater extent in vegetables than they do
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Speaker 1: in dead flesh. For instance, milk, cream, cheese, nuts, peas,
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Speaker 1: and beans contain a large percentage of proteins or nitrogenous matter. Wheat, oats, rice,
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Speaker 1: and other grains, fruits, and most of the vegetables, except
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Speaker 1: perhaps peas, beans and lentils, consists mainly of carbohydrates, that is,
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Speaker 1: of starches and sugars. The fats are found in nearly
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Speaker 1: all of the protein foods, and can also be taken
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Speaker 1: in the form of butter or of oils. The salts
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Speaker 1: are found practically in all foods to a greater or
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Speaker 1: less extent. They are of the utmost importance in the
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Speaker 1: maintenance of the body tissues, and what is called saline
6:29
Speaker 1: starvation is the cause of many diseases. It is sometimes
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Speaker 1: claimed that flesh meat contain some of the things to
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Speaker 1: a larger degree than vegetables, and some tables are drawn
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Speaker 1: up in such a way as to suggest this, But
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Speaker 1: once more, this is a question of facts and must
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Speaker 1: be faced. From that point of view, the only sources
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Speaker 1: of energy and dead flesh are the protein matter contained
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Speaker 1: therein and the fat and as the fat in it
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Speaker 1: certainly has no more value than other fat. The only
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Speaker 1: point to be considered is the proteins. Now, it must
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Speaker 1: be remembered that proteins have only one origin. They are
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Speaker 1: organized in plants and nowhere else. Nuts, peas, beans, and
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Speaker 1: lentils are far richer than any kind of flesh in
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Speaker 1: these elements, and they have this enormous advantage that the
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Speaker 1: proteins are pure and therefore contain all the energy originally
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Speaker 1: stored up in them during their organization. In the animal body,
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Speaker 1: these proteins, which the animal has absorbed from the vegetable
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Speaker 1: kingdom during its life, are constantly passing down to disorganization,
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Speaker 1: during which descent the energy originally stored in them is released. Consequently,
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Speaker 1: what has been used already by one animal cannot be
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Speaker 1: utilized by another. The proteins are estimated in some of
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Speaker 1: these tables by the amount of nitrogen contained therein. But
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Speaker 1: in flesh meat, there are many products of tissue change,
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Speaker 1: such as urea, uric acid, and creatine, all of which
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Speaker 1: contain nitrogen and are therefore estimated as proteins, though they
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Speaker 1: have no food value whatsoever. Nor is this all the
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Speaker 1: evil for this tissue change is necessarily accompanied by the
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Speaker 1: formation of various poisons, which are always to be found
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Speaker 1: in flesh of any kind, and in many cases the
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Speaker 1: virulence of these poisons is very great. So you will
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Speaker 1: observe that if you gain any nourishment from the eating
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Speaker 1: of dead flesh, you obtain it because during its life
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Speaker 1: the animal consume vegetable matter. You get less of this
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Speaker 1: nourishment than you ought to have, because the animal has
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Speaker 1: already used half of it, and you have along with
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Speaker 1: it various undesirable substances, and even some active poisons, which
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Speaker 1: are of course distinctly deleterious. I know that there are
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Speaker 1: many doctors who will prescribe the los and flesh diet
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Speaker 1: in order to strengthen people, and that they will often
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Speaker 1: meet with a certain amount of success, though even on
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Speaker 1: this point they are by no means agreed. For doctor
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Speaker 1: Milner Fothergill writes, all the bloodshed caused by the warlike
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Speaker 1: disposition of Napoleon is as nothing compared to the loss
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Speaker 1: of life among the myriads of persons who have sunk
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Speaker 1: into their graves through a displaced confidence in the supposed
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Speaker 1: value of beef tea. At any rate, the strengthening results
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Speaker 1: can be obtained more easily from the vegetable Kingdom, when
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Speaker 1: the science of diet is properly understood, and they can
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Speaker 1: be obtained without the horrible pollution and without all the
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Speaker 1: undesirable concomitants of the other system. Let me show you
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Speaker 1: that I am not, in all this making any unfounded assertations.
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Speaker 1: Let me quote to you the opinions of physicians, of
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Speaker 1: men whose names are well known in the medical world,
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Speaker 1: so you may see that I have abundant authority for
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Speaker 1: all that I have said. We find Sir Henry Thompson,
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Speaker 1: f r c S. Saying it is a vulgar error
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Speaker 1: to regard meat in any form as necessary to life.
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Speaker 1: All that is necessary to the human body can be
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Speaker 1: supplied by the vegetable kingdom. The vegetarian can extract from
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Speaker 1: his food all the principles necessary for the growth and
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Speaker 1: support of the body, as well as for the production
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Speaker 1: of heat and force. It must be admitted as a
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Speaker 1: fact beyond all question, that some persons are stronger and
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Speaker 1: more healthy who live on that food. I know how
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Speaker 1: much of the prevailing meat diet is not merely a
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Speaker 1: wasteful extravagance, but a source of serious evil to the consumer.
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Speaker 1: There is a definite statement by a well known medical man.
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Speaker 1: Then we may turn to the words of a fellow
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Speaker 1: of the Royal Society, Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, m D.
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Speaker 1: He says, it must be honestly admitted that weight by weight,
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Speaker 1: vegetable substance, when carefully selected, possesses the most striking advantages
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Speaker 1: over animal food in nutritious value. I should like to
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Speaker 1: see a vegetarian and fruit living plan put into general use,
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Speaker 1: and I believe it will be. The well known physician,
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Speaker 1: Doctor William S. Playfair c B has said quite clearly
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Speaker 1: animal diet is not essential to man, and we find
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Speaker 1: doctor F. J. Sykes B s C, the medicat official
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Speaker 1: for Saint Pancras, writing, mystry is not antagonistic to vegetarianism
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Speaker 1: any more than biology is. Flesh food is certainly not
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Speaker 1: necessary to supply the nitrogenous products required for the repair
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Speaker 1: of tissues. Therefore, a well selected diet from the vegetable
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Speaker 1: kingdom is perfectly right from the chemical point of view.
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Speaker 1: For the nutrition of men, Doctor Francis Thatcher FRCS FCS remarks,
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Speaker 1: I have no belief that a man is better physically
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Speaker 1: or mentally for taking flesh food. Doctor Alexander Haig f
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Speaker 1: p CP, the leading physician of one of the great
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Speaker 1: London hospitals, has written that it is easily possible to
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Speaker 1: sustain life on the products of the vegetable kingdom needs
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Speaker 1: no demonstration for physiologists, even if the majority of the
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Speaker 1: human race were not constantly engaged in demonstrating it. My
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Speaker 1: researches show not only that it is possible, but that
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Speaker 1: it is infinitely preferable in every way and produces superior
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Speaker 1: powers both of mind and body. Doctor M. F. Cou Rays,
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Speaker 1: in the American Practitioner and News of July nineteen o two,
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Speaker 1: concluded a scientific article as follows. Let me state first
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Speaker 1: that the flesh of warm blooded animals is not essential
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Speaker 1: as a diet for the purpose of maintaining the human
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Speaker 1: body in perfect health. He goes on to make some
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Speaker 1: further remarks, which we shall quote under our next head.
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Speaker 1: The Dean of the Faculty of Jefferson Medical College of
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Speaker 1: Philadelphia said, it is a well known fact that serials,
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Speaker 1: as articles of daily food, hold a high place in
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Speaker 1: the human economy. They contain constituents amply sufficient to sustain
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Speaker 1: life in its highest forms. If the value of serial
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Speaker 1: food products were better known, it would be a good
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Speaker 1: thing for the race. Nations live and thrive upon them alone.
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Speaker 1: And it has been fully demonstrated that meat is not
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Speaker 1: a necessity. There you have a number of plain statements,
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Speaker 1: and all of them are taken from the writings of
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Speaker 1: well known men who have made a considerable study of
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Speaker 1: the chemistry of foods. It is impossible to deny that
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Speaker 1: a man can exist without this horrible flesh diet, and furthermore,
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Speaker 1: that there is more nutriment in an equal amount of
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Speaker 1: vegetable than of dead flesh. I could give you many
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Speaker 1: other quotations, but those above mentioned are sufficient, and they
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Speaker 1: are fair samples of the rest end of Section two.
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Speaker 1: Section three. Less disease second, because many diseases come from
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Speaker 1: this lowth some habit of devouring dead bodies. Here again,
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Speaker 1: I could easily give you a long list of quotations,
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Speaker 1: but as before, I will be satisfied with a few.
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Speaker 1: Doctor Hosiah Oldfield, m r C s l RCP writes
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Speaker 1: flesh is an unnatural food and therefore tends to create
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Speaker 1: functional disturbances as it is taken in modern civilizations. It
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Speaker 1: is infected with such terrible diseases readily communicable to man
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Speaker 1: as cancer, consumption, fever, intestinal worms, et cetera, to an
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Speaker 1: enormous extent, there is little need to wonder that flesh
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Speaker 1: eating is one of the most serious causes of the
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Speaker 1: diseases that carry off ninety nine out of every hundred
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Speaker 1: people that are born. Sir Edward Saunders tells us any
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Speaker 1: attempt to teach mankind that beef and beer are not
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Speaker 1: necessary for health and efficiency, must be good and must
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Speaker 1: tend to thrift in happiness. And as this goes on,
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Speaker 1: I believe we shall hear less of gout Bright's disease
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Speaker 1: and trouble with the liver and the kidneys in the former,
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Speaker 1: and less of brutality and wife beating and murder in
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Speaker 1: the latter. I believe that the tendency is towards vegetarian diet,
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Speaker 1: that it will be recognized as fit and proper, and
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Speaker 1: that the time is not far distant when the idea
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Speaker 1: of animal food will be found revolting to civilized man.
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Speaker 1: Sir Robert Christison m D. Asserts positively that the flesh
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Speaker 1: and secretions of animals affected with carbuncular diseases anologists to
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Speaker 1: anthrax are so poisonous that those who eat the product
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Speaker 1: of them are apt to suffer severely, the disease taking
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Speaker 1: the form either of inflammation of the digestive canal or
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Speaker 1: of an eruption of one or more carbuncles. Doctor A.
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Speaker 1: Kingsford of the University of Paris says animal meat may
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Speaker 1: directly endanger many painful and lothsome diseases. Scrapula itself that
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Speaker 1: facan source of suffering and death, not improbably owes its
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Speaker 1: origin to flesh eating habits. It is a curious fact
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Speaker 1: that the word scrapula is derived from scrapha a sow.
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Speaker 1: To say that one has scrapula is to say that
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Speaker 1: he has swines evil. In his fifth report to the
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Speaker 1: Privy Council in England, we find Professor Gamghi stating that
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Speaker 1: one fifth of the total amount of meat consumed is
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Speaker 1: derived from animals killed in a state of malignant disease,
17:57
Speaker 1: while Professor A. Winter blythe f rites economically speaking, flesh
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Speaker 1: is not necessary, and meat seriously diseased may be so
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Speaker 1: prepared as to look like fairly good meat. Many an
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Speaker 1: animal with advanced diseases of the lung yet shows to
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Speaker 1: the naked eye no appearance in the flesh which differs
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Speaker 1: from the normal. Doctor M. K. Coombs, in the article
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Speaker 1: above quoted, remarks, we have many substitutes for meat which
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Speaker 1: are free from the deleterious effects of that food upon
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Speaker 1: the animal economy, namely in the production of rheumatism, gout,
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Speaker 1: and all other kindred diseases, to say nothing of cerebral congestion,
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Speaker 1: which frequently terminates in apoplexy and venal diseases of one
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Speaker 1: kind in another, migraine, and many other such forms of
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Speaker 1: headache resulting from the excessive use of meat, and often
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Speaker 1: produced when meat is not eaten to excess. Doctor J. H.
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Speaker 1: Kellogg remarks, it is interesting to note that scientific men
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Speaker 1: all over the world are awakening to the fact that
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Speaker 1: the flesh of animals as food is not pure nutriment,
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Speaker 1: but is mixed with poisonous substances excrementitious in character, which
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Speaker 1: are the natural results of animal life. The vegetable stores
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Speaker 1: up energy. It is from the vegetable world, the coal
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Speaker 1: and the wood, that the energy is derived which runs
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Speaker 1: our steam engines, pulls our trains, drives our steamships, and
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Speaker 1: does the work of civilization. It is from the vegetable
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Speaker 1: world that all animals directly or indirectly derive the energy
19:46
Speaker 1: which is manifested by animal life through muscular and mental work.
19:51
Speaker 1: The vegetable builds up, the animal tears down. The vegetable
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Speaker 1: stores up energy. The animal expends energy. Various waste and
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Speaker 1: poisonous products result from the manifestation of energy, whether by
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Speaker 1: the locomotive or the animal. The working tissues of the
20:11
Speaker 1: animal are enabled to continue their activity only by the
20:15
Speaker 1: fact that they are continually washed clean by the blood,
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Speaker 1: a never ceasing stream flowing through and about them, carrying
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Speaker 1: away the poisonous products resulting from their work as rapidly
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Speaker 1: as they are formed. The venous blood owes its character
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Speaker 1: to these poisons, which are removed by the kidneys, lungs, skin,
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Speaker 1: and bowels. The flesh of a dead animal contains a
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Speaker 1: great quantity of these poisons, the elimination of which ceases
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Speaker 1: at the instant of death, although their formation continues for
20:49
Speaker 1: some time after death. An eminent French surgeon recently remarked
20:54
Speaker 1: that beef tea is a veritable source of poisons. Intelligent
20:59
Speaker 1: physicians everywhere are coming to recognize these facts and to
21:03
Speaker 1: make a practical application of them. Here again you see
21:07
Speaker 1: we have no lack of evidence, and many of the
21:10
Speaker 1: quotations with regard to the introduction of poisons into the
21:14
Speaker 1: system through flesh food are not from the vegetarian doctors,
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Speaker 1: but from those who still hold it right to eat
21:21
Speaker 1: sparingly of corpses, but yet have studied to some extent
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Speaker 1: the science of the matter. It should be remembered that
21:30
Speaker 1: dead flesh can never be in a condition of perfect health,
21:34
Speaker 1: because decay commences at the moment when the creature is killed.
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Speaker 1: All sorts of products are being formed in this process
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Speaker 1: of retrograde change. All of these are useless, and many
21:46
Speaker 1: of them are positively dangerous and poisonous. In the ancient
21:51
Speaker 1: scriptures of the Hindus we find a very remarkable passage
21:55
Speaker 1: which refers to the fact that even in India, some
21:59
Speaker 1: of the lower caste at that early period commenced to
22:02
Speaker 1: feed on flesh. The statement made is that in ancient
22:06
Speaker 1: times only three diseases existed, one of which was old age,
22:12
Speaker 1: but that now since people had commenced to eat flesh,
22:16
Speaker 1: seventy eight new diseases had arisen. This shows us that
22:20
Speaker 1: the idea that disease might come from the devouring of corpses,
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Speaker 1: has been recognized for thousands of years. End of Section three,
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Speaker 1: Section four more natural to man. Third, because man is
22:38
Speaker 1: not naturally made to be carnivorous, and therefore this horrible
22:43
Speaker 1: food is not suited to him. Here again, let me
22:47
Speaker 1: give you a few quotations to show you what authorities
22:50
Speaker 1: are ranged upon our side of the matter. Baron Cuvier
22:55
Speaker 1: himself writes, the natural food of man, judging from his structure,
23:01
Speaker 1: consists of fruit, roots, and vegetables. And Professor Ray tells
23:06
Speaker 1: us certainly man was never made to be a carnivorous animal.
23:11
Speaker 1: Sir Richard Owen, f r C. S rights. Anthropoids and
23:17
Speaker 1: all the quadrumana derive their alimentation from fruits, grains, and
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Speaker 1: other succulent vegetable substances, and the strict analogy which exists
23:29
Speaker 1: between the structures of these animals and that of man
23:32
Speaker 1: clearly demonstrates his frugivorous nature. Another fellow of the Royal Society,
23:39
Speaker 1: Professor William Lawrence, writes, the teeth of man have not
23:44
Speaker 1: the slightest resemblance to those of carnivorous animals, And whether
23:48
Speaker 1: we consider the teeth, the jaws or the digestive organs.
23:53
Speaker 1: The human structure closely resembles that of frugivorous animals. Once more,
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Speaker 1: Doctor Spencer Thompson remarks, no physiologist would dispute that man
24:05
Speaker 1: ought to live on a vegetarian diet, and doctor Sylvester
24:09
Speaker 1: Graham writes, comparative anatomy proves that man is naturally a
24:15
Speaker 1: frugivorous animal, formed to subsist upon fruits, seeds, and farinaceous vegetables.
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Speaker 1: The desirability of the vegetarian diet will, of course need
24:26
Speaker 1: no argument for any one who believes in the inspiration
24:30
Speaker 1: of the scriptures, for it will be remembered that God,
24:33
Speaker 1: in speaking to Adam while in the garden of Eden,
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Speaker 1: said behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed
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Speaker 1: which is upon the face of all the earth, and
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Speaker 1: every tree in which is the fruit of a tree
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Speaker 1: yielding seed. To you it shall be for meat. And
24:51
Speaker 1: it was only after the fall of man, when death
24:53
Speaker 1: came into the world, that a more degraded idea of
24:56
Speaker 1: feeding came along with it. And if now we hope
25:00
Speaker 1: to rise again to eat in it conditions, we must
25:03
Speaker 1: surely commence by abolishing unnecessary slaughter performed in order to
25:08
Speaker 1: supply us with horrible and degrading food end of Section four,
25:15
Speaker 1: Section five greater strength. Fourth, because men are stronger and
25:22
Speaker 1: better on a vegetarian diet. I know that people say
25:27
Speaker 1: you will be so weak if you do not eat
25:29
Speaker 1: dead flesh. As a matter of fact, this is untrue.
25:34
Speaker 1: I do not know whether there may be any people
25:37
Speaker 1: who find themselves weaker on a diet of vegetables. But
25:40
Speaker 1: I do know this that in many athletic contests recently,
25:45
Speaker 1: the vegetarians have proved themselves the strongest and the most enduring,
25:50
Speaker 1: as for example in the recent cycling races in Germany,
25:54
Speaker 1: where all those who took high places in the race
25:57
Speaker 1: were vegetarian. There have been many such trials, and they
26:01
Speaker 1: show that other things being equal, the man who takes
26:05
Speaker 1: pure food succeeds better. We have to face facts, and
26:10
Speaker 1: in this case the facts are all ranged on one
26:13
Speaker 1: side as against foolish prejudices and lothsome lust on the other.
26:19
Speaker 1: The reason was plainly given by doctor J. D. Craig,
26:23
Speaker 1: who writes, vigor of the body is often boasted by
26:27
Speaker 1: flesh eaters, particularly if they live mostly in the open air.
26:32
Speaker 1: But there is peculiarity about them, and they have not
26:35
Speaker 1: the endurance of vegetarians. The reason of this is that
26:40
Speaker 1: flesh meat is already on the downward path of retrograde change,
26:45
Speaker 1: and as a consequence, its presence in the tissues is
26:48
Speaker 1: of short duration. The impetus given to it in the
26:53
Speaker 1: body of the animal from which it was taken is
26:56
Speaker 1: reinforced by another impulse in the second one, and for
26:59
Speaker 1: these reasons what energy it does contain is soon given out,
27:04
Speaker 1: and there are urgent demands for more to take its place.
27:08
Speaker 1: The flesh eater then may do a large amount of
27:11
Speaker 1: work in a short time. If well fed, he soon
27:15
Speaker 1: gets hungry, however, and when so becomes weak. On the
27:20
Speaker 1: other hand, vegetable products are of slow digestion, They contain
27:25
Speaker 1: all of the original store of energy and no poisons.
27:29
Speaker 1: Their retrograde change is less rapid than meat having just commenced,
27:34
Speaker 1: and therefore their force is released more slowly with less loss,
27:39
Speaker 1: and the person nourished by them can work for a
27:42
Speaker 1: long time without food, if necessary, and without discomfort. The
27:47
Speaker 1: people in Europe who abstain from flesh are of the
27:50
Speaker 1: better and more intelligent class, and the subject of endurance
27:54
Speaker 1: has been approached and thoroughly investigated by them. In Germany
27:59
Speaker 1: and in England, a number of notable athletic contests that
28:03
Speaker 1: required endurance have been made between flesh eaters and vegetarians,
28:08
Speaker 1: with the result that the vegetarian has invariably come off victorious.
28:15
Speaker 1: We shall find, if we investigate, that this fact has
28:18
Speaker 1: been known for a long time, for even in ancient
28:22
Speaker 1: history we find traces of it. It will be recollected
28:27
Speaker 1: that of all the tribes of Greeks, the strongest and
28:30
Speaker 1: the most enduring, by universal admission and reputation, were the Spartans,
28:36
Speaker 1: and the simplicity of their vegetable diet is a matter
28:39
Speaker 1: of common knowledge. Think too of the Greek athletes, those
28:43
Speaker 1: who prepared themselves with such care for participation in the
28:47
Speaker 1: Olympian and Isthmian Games. If you will read the classics,
28:52
Speaker 1: you will find that these men, who in their own
28:55
Speaker 1: lines surpassed all the rest of the world, lived upon figs,
28:59
Speaker 1: not cheese and maize. Then there were the Roman gladiators,
29:05
Speaker 1: men on whose strength depended their life and fame, And
29:09
Speaker 1: yet we find that their diet consisted exclusively of barley,
29:13
Speaker 1: cakes and oil. They knew well that this was the
29:17
Speaker 1: most strengthening food. All these examples show us that the
29:22
Speaker 1: common and persistent fallacy that one must eat flesh in
29:25
Speaker 1: order to be strong has no foundation. In fact, indeed,
29:30
Speaker 1: the exact contrary is true. Charles Darwin remarked in one
29:34
Speaker 1: of his letters, the most extraordinary workers I ever saw.
29:39
Speaker 1: The laborers in the mines of Chili live exclusively on
29:43
Speaker 1: vegetable food, including many seeds of laguminous plants. Of the
29:49
Speaker 1: same miners, Sir Francis Head writes, it is usual for
29:53
Speaker 1: the copper miners of central Chili to carry loads of
29:57
Speaker 1: ore of two hundred pounds weight of eighty perpendicular yards
30:02
Speaker 1: twelve times a day, and their diet is entirely vegetarian,
30:06
Speaker 1: a breakfast of figs and small loaves of bread, a
30:10
Speaker 1: dinner of boiled beans, and a supper of roasted wheat.
30:15
Speaker 1: Mister F. T. Wood, in his Discoveries at Ephesus, writes,
30:20
Speaker 1: the Turkish porters in Smyrna often carry from four hundred
30:24
Speaker 1: to six hundred pounds weighed on their backs, and the
30:27
Speaker 1: captain one day pointed out to me one of his
30:30
Speaker 1: men who had carried an enormous bale of merchandise weighing
30:34
Speaker 1: eight hundred pounds up in incline into an upper warehouse,
30:39
Speaker 1: so that with this frugal diet, their strength was unusually great.
30:44
Speaker 1: Of these same Turks, Sir William Fairbaron has said, the
30:49
Speaker 1: Turk can live and fight where soldiers of any other
30:52
Speaker 1: nationality would starve. His simple habits. His abstinence from intoxicating
30:58
Speaker 1: liquors and his normal vegetarian diet enable him to suffer
31:03
Speaker 1: the greatest hardships and to exist on the scantiest and
31:07
Speaker 1: simplest of foods. I myself can bear witness to the
31:11
Speaker 1: enormous strength displayed by the vegetarian Tamil coolies of the
31:15
Speaker 1: south of India, for I have frequently seen them carry
31:19
Speaker 1: loads which astonished me. I remember, in one case, standing
31:23
Speaker 1: upon the deck of a steamer and watching one of
31:26
Speaker 1: these coolies take a huge case upon his back and
31:29
Speaker 1: walk slowly but steadily down a plank to the shore
31:33
Speaker 1: with it and deposit it in a shed. The captain
31:36
Speaker 1: standing by me remarked with surprise why it took four
31:40
Speaker 1: English laborers to get that case on board in the
31:43
Speaker 1: docks at London. I have also seen another of these coolies,
31:48
Speaker 1: after having had a great piano put on his back,
31:52
Speaker 1: carry it unaided for a considerable distance. Yet these men
31:56
Speaker 1: are entirely vegetarian, for they live chiefly upon rice and winter,
32:00
Speaker 1: with perhaps occasionally a little tamarind for flavoring. On the
32:06
Speaker 1: same subject, doctor Alexander Haig, whom we have already quoted, writes,
32:12
Speaker 1: the effect of getting free from uric acid has been
32:16
Speaker 1: to make my bodily powers quite as great as they
32:18
Speaker 1: were fifteen years ago. I scarcely believe that even fifteen
32:22
Speaker 1: years ago I could have undertaken the exercise in which
32:26
Speaker 1: I now indulge with absolute impunity, with freedom from fatigue
32:30
Speaker 1: and distress at the time, and from stiffness next day. Indeed,
32:36
Speaker 1: I often say that it is impossible now to tire me,
32:39
Speaker 1: and relatively I believe this is true. This distinguished physician
32:45
Speaker 1: became a vegetarian because from his study of the diseases
32:49
Speaker 1: caused by the presence of uric acid in the system,
32:52
Speaker 1: he discovered that flesh eating was the chief source of
32:55
Speaker 1: this deadly poison. Another interesting point which he mentioned is
33:00
Speaker 1: that his change of diet brought about in him a
33:03
Speaker 1: distinct change of disposition, that whereas he found himself constantly
33:08
Speaker 1: nervous and irritable. He now became much steadier and calmer
33:12
Speaker 1: and less angry. He fully realizes that this is due
33:16
Speaker 1: to the change in his food. If we require any
33:20
Speaker 1: further evidence, we have it close to our hand. In
33:23
Speaker 1: the animal kingdom. We shall observe that there the carnivora
33:28
Speaker 1: are not the strongest, but that all the work of
33:31
Speaker 1: the world is done by the herbivora, by horses, mules, oxen, elephants,
33:38
Speaker 1: and camels. We do not find that men can utilize
33:41
Speaker 1: the lion or the tiger, or that the strength of
33:44
Speaker 1: these savage flesh eaters is at all equal to that
33:48
Speaker 1: of those who assimilate directly from the vegetable kingdom. End
33:53
Speaker 1: of Section five. Section six less animal passion fifth, because
34:02
Speaker 1: the eating of dead bodies leads to indulgence in drink
34:05
Speaker 1: and increases animal passions in man. Mister H. P. Fowler,
34:10
Speaker 1: who has studied and lectured on dipsomania for forty years,
34:15
Speaker 1: declares that the use of flesh foods, by the excitation
34:19
Speaker 1: that it exercises on the nervous system, prepares the way
34:22
Speaker 1: for habits of intemperance in everything, and the more flesh
34:27
Speaker 1: is consumed, the more serious is the danger of confirmed alcoholism.
34:32
Speaker 1: Many experienced physicians have made similar experiments and wisely act
34:37
Speaker 1: on them in their treatment of dipsomaniacs. The lower part
34:41
Speaker 1: of man's nature is undoubtedly intensified by the habit of
34:45
Speaker 1: feeding upon corpses. Even after eating a full meal of
34:50
Speaker 1: such horrible material, a man still feels unsatisfied, for he
34:55
Speaker 1: is still conscious of a vague, uncomfortable sense of want,
34:58
Speaker 1: and consequently he suffers greatly from nervous strain. This craving
35:04
Speaker 1: is the hunger of the bodily tissues, which cannot be
35:07
Speaker 1: renewed by the poor stuff offered to them as food.
35:11
Speaker 1: To satisfy this vague craving, or rather to appease these
35:15
Speaker 1: restless nerves so that it will no longer be felt,
35:19
Speaker 1: recourse is often had to stimulants. Sometimes alcoholic beverages are taken.
35:25
Speaker 1: Sometimes an attempt is made to allay these feelings with
35:29
Speaker 1: black coffee, and at other times strong tobacco is used
35:34
Speaker 1: in the endeavor to soothe the irritated, exhausted nerves. Here
35:38
Speaker 1: we have the beginning of intemperance, for in the majority
35:42
Speaker 1: of cases, intemperance began in the attempt to allay with
35:46
Speaker 1: alcoholic stimulants the vague, uncomfortable sense of want which follows
35:51
Speaker 1: the eating of impoverished food, food that does not feed.
35:56
Speaker 1: There is no doubt that drunkenness, and all the poverty, wretchedness, disease,
36:01
Speaker 1: and crime associated with it may frequently be traced to
36:05
Speaker 1: errors of feeding. We might follow out this line of
36:09
Speaker 1: thought indefinitely. We might speak of the irritability occasionally culminating
36:14
Speaker 1: in insanity, which is now acknowledged by all authorities to
36:18
Speaker 1: be a frequent result of erroneous feeding. We might mention
36:23
Speaker 1: a hundred familiar symptoms of indigestion, and explain that indigestion
36:28
Speaker 1: is always the result of incorrect feeding. Surely, however, enough
36:33
Speaker 1: has been said to indicate the importance and far reaching
36:36
Speaker 1: influence of a pure diet upon the welfare of the
36:40
Speaker 1: individual and of the race. Mister Bramwell Booth, the Chief
36:45
Speaker 1: of the Salvation Army, has issued a pronunciamento upon the
36:49
Speaker 1: subject of vegetarianism, in which he speaks strongly and decidedly
36:54
Speaker 1: in its favor, giving a list of no less than
36:57
Speaker 1: nineteen good reasons why men should abstain from the eating
37:00
Speaker 1: of flesh. He insists that a vegetarian diet is necessary
37:05
Speaker 1: to purity, to chastity, and to the perfect control of
37:08
Speaker 1: the appetites and passions which are so often the source
37:12
Speaker 1: of great temptation. He remarks that the growth of meat
37:16
Speaker 1: eating among the people is one of the causes of
37:19
Speaker 1: the increase of drunkenness, and that it also favors indolence, sleepiness,
37:25
Speaker 1: want of energy, indigestion, constipation, and other like miseries and degradations.
37:33
Speaker 1: He also states that exema, piles, worms, dysentery, and severe
37:39
Speaker 1: headaches are frequently brought on by flesh diet, and that
37:43
Speaker 1: he believes the great increase in consumption and cancer during
37:46
Speaker 1: the last hundred years to have been caused by the
37:49
Speaker 1: corresponding increase in the use of animal food end of
37:54
Speaker 1: section six, Section seven six, because the vegetable diet is
38:02
Speaker 1: in every way cheaper as well as better than flesh.
38:07
Speaker 1: In the encyclical just mention, mister Booth gives as one
38:10
Speaker 1: of his reasons for advocating it that a vegetarian diet
38:14
Speaker 1: of wheat, oats, maize, and other grains lentils, peas, beans, nuts,
38:20
Speaker 1: and similar food is more than ten times as economical
38:25
Speaker 1: as a flesh diet. Meat contains half its weight in water,
38:29
Speaker 1: which has to be paid for as though it were meat.
38:33
Speaker 1: A vegetable diet, even if we allow cheese, butter and milk,
38:37
Speaker 1: will cost only about a quarter as much as a
38:39
Speaker 1: mixed diet of flesh and vegetables. Tens of thousands of
38:44
Speaker 1: our poor people, who have now the greatest difficulty to
38:47
Speaker 1: make ends meat after buying flesh food, would buy the
38:51
Speaker 1: substitution of fruit and vegetables and other economical foods be
38:55
Speaker 1: able to get along in comfort. There is also an
38:59
Speaker 1: economical side of this question which must not be ignored.
39:03
Speaker 1: Note how many more men could be supported by a
39:06
Speaker 1: certain number of acres of land which were devoted to
39:09
Speaker 1: the growing of wheat than by the same amount of
39:12
Speaker 1: land which was laid out in pasture. Think too, for
39:16
Speaker 1: how many more men healthily work upon the land would
39:20
Speaker 1: be found in the former case than in the latter.
39:23
Speaker 1: And I think you will begin to see that there
39:25
Speaker 1: is a great deal to be said from this point
39:28
Speaker 1: of view. Also end of section seven, Section eight, the
39:34
Speaker 1: sin on slaughter. Hitherto we have been speaking of what
39:39
Speaker 1: we have called the physical and selfish considerations which should
39:42
Speaker 1: make a man give up the eating of this dead flesh,
39:45
Speaker 1: and turn him, even though only for his own sake,
39:49
Speaker 1: to a purer diet. Let us now think for a
39:52
Speaker 1: few moments of the moral and unselfish considerations connected with
39:57
Speaker 1: his duty towards others. The first of these, and this
40:01
Speaker 1: does seem to me a most terrible thing, is the
40:05
Speaker 1: awful sin of unnecessarily murdering these animals. Those who live
40:10
Speaker 1: in Chicago know well how this ghastly, ceaseless slaughter goes
40:14
Speaker 1: on in their midst, how they feed the greater part
40:17
Speaker 1: of the world by wholesale butchery, and how the money
40:20
Speaker 1: made in this abominable business is stained with blood, every
40:25
Speaker 1: coin of it. I have shown clearly, upon irreproachable testimony,
40:30
Speaker 1: that all this is unnecessary, and if it is unnecessary,
40:35
Speaker 1: it is a crime. The destruction of life is always
40:38
Speaker 1: a crime. There may be certain cases in which it
40:42
Speaker 1: is the lesser of two evils, but here it is
40:45
Speaker 1: needless and without a shadow of justification. For it happens
40:49
Speaker 1: only because of the selfish, unscrupulous greed of those who
40:53
Speaker 1: coin money out of the agonies of the animal kingdom
40:57
Speaker 1: in order to pander to the perverted tastes of those
41:00
Speaker 1: who are sufficiently depraved to desire such loathsome ailment. Remember,
41:06
Speaker 1: it is not only those who do the obscene work,
41:09
Speaker 1: but those who, by feeding up on this dead flesh,
41:13
Speaker 1: encourage them and make their crime remunerative, who are guilty
41:17
Speaker 1: before God of this awful thing. Every person who partakes
41:21
Speaker 1: of this unclean food has his share in the indescribable
41:24
Speaker 1: guilt and suffering by which it has been obtained. It
41:28
Speaker 1: is universally recognized in law that cay facet per alien
41:33
Speaker 1: facet per se. Whatsoever a man does through another, he
41:38
Speaker 1: does himself. A man will often say, but it would
41:42
Speaker 1: make no difference to all this horror if I alone
41:45
Speaker 1: cease to eat meat that is untrue and disingenious. First,
41:51
Speaker 1: it would make a difference, for although you may consume
41:54
Speaker 1: only a pound or two each day, that would in
41:57
Speaker 1: time amount to the weight of an animal. Secondly, it
42:01
Speaker 1: is not a question of amount, but of complicity in
42:04
Speaker 1: a crime. And if you partake of the results of
42:07
Speaker 1: a crime, you are hoping to make it remunerative, and
42:11
Speaker 1: so you share in the guilt. No honest man can
42:14
Speaker 1: fail to see that this is so. But when men's
42:18
Speaker 1: lower lusts are concerned, they are usually dishonest in their
42:21
Speaker 1: view and decline to face the plain facts. There surely
42:26
Speaker 1: can be no difference of opinion as to the proposition
42:30
Speaker 1: that all this horrible, unnecessary slaughter is indeed a terrible crime.
42:35
Speaker 1: Another point to be remembered is that there is dreadful
42:38
Speaker 1: cruelty connected with the transport of these miserable animals, both
42:43
Speaker 1: by land and sea, and there is often dreadful cruelty
42:47
Speaker 1: in the slaughtering itself. Those who seek to justify these
42:51
Speaker 1: lowsome crimes will tell you that an endeavor is made
42:54
Speaker 1: to murder the animals as rapidly and painlessly as possible.
42:59
Speaker 1: But you have only to read the reports to see
43:02
Speaker 1: that in many cases these intentions are not carried out,
43:06
Speaker 1: and appalling suffering ensues. End of Section eight, Section nine
43:13
Speaker 1: the degradation of the slaughter man. Yet another point to
43:18
Speaker 1: be considered is the wickedness of causing degradation and sin
43:22
Speaker 1: and other men. If you yourselves had to use the
43:26
Speaker 1: knife or the pole axe and slaughter the animal before
43:30
Speaker 1: you so you could feed upon its flesh, you would
43:33
Speaker 1: realize the sickening nature of the task and would soon
43:37
Speaker 1: refuse to perform. It would the delicate ladies who devour
43:41
Speaker 1: sanguinary beefsteaks like to see their sons working as slaughtermen.
43:46
Speaker 1: If not, then they have no right to put this
43:49
Speaker 1: task upon some other woman's son. We have no right
43:52
Speaker 1: to impose upon a fellow citizen work which we ourselves
43:56
Speaker 1: should decline to do. It may be said that we
44:00
Speaker 1: force no one to undertake this abominable means of livelihood,
44:05
Speaker 1: but that is a mere trigivisation, for in eating this
44:08
Speaker 1: horrible food, we are making a demand that someone shall
44:12
Speaker 1: brutalize himself, that someone shall degrade himself below the level
44:16
Speaker 1: of humanity. You know that a class of men has
44:20
Speaker 1: been created by the demand for this food, a class
44:23
Speaker 1: of men which has an exceedingly bad reputation. Naturally, those
44:28
Speaker 1: who are brutalized by such unclean work as this prove
44:32
Speaker 1: themselves brutal and other relations as well. They are savage
44:37
Speaker 1: in their disposition and bloodthirsty in their quarrels. And I
44:41
Speaker 1: have heard it stated that in many a murder case,
44:44
Speaker 1: evidence has been found that the criminal employed the particular
44:48
Speaker 1: twist of the knife which is characteristic of the slaughter man.
44:53
Speaker 1: You must surely recognize that here is an unspeakably horrible work,
44:57
Speaker 1: and that if you take any part in this terrible business,
45:01
Speaker 1: even that of helping to support it, you are putting
45:04
Speaker 1: another man in the position of doing, not in the
45:07
Speaker 1: least for your need, but merely for the gratification of
45:10
Speaker 1: your lusts and passions, work that you would, under no circumstances,
45:15
Speaker 1: consent to do yourself. Then we should surely remember that
45:19
Speaker 1: we are all of us hoping for the time of
45:22
Speaker 1: universal peace and kindness, a golden age when war shall
45:26
Speaker 1: be no more, a time when man shall be so
45:29
Speaker 1: far removed from strife and anger that the whole conditions
45:33
Speaker 1: of the world will be different from those which now prevail.
45:37
Speaker 1: Do you not think that the animal kingdom will also
45:40
Speaker 1: have its share in that good time coming, that this
45:43
Speaker 1: horrible nightmare of wholesale slaughter will be removed from it?
45:48
Speaker 1: The really civilized nations of the world know far better
45:51
Speaker 1: than this. It is only that we of the West
45:55
Speaker 1: are as yet a young race, and still have many
45:58
Speaker 1: of the crudities of youth. Otherwise we could not bear
46:02
Speaker 1: these things amongst us even for a day. Beyond all question,
46:07
Speaker 1: the future is with the vegetarian. It seems certain that
46:11
Speaker 1: in the future, and I hope it may be in
46:13
Speaker 1: the near future, we shall be looking back upon this
46:16
Speaker 1: time with disgust and with horror, in spite of all
46:20
Speaker 1: its wonderful discoveries, in spite of its marvelous machinery, in
46:25
Speaker 1: spite of the enormous fortunes that had been made in it.
46:28
Speaker 1: I am certain that our descendants will look back upon
46:31
Speaker 1: this age as one of only partial civilization, and in fact,
46:36
Speaker 1: but little removed from savagery. One of the arguments by
46:41
Speaker 1: which they will prove this will assuredly be that we
46:44
Speaker 1: allowed among us this wholesale, unnecessary slaughter of innocent animals,
46:50
Speaker 1: that we actually battened on it and made money out
46:53
Speaker 1: of it, and that we even created a class of
46:56
Speaker 1: beings who did this dirty work for us, And that
46:59
Speaker 1: we are not a shame to profit by the result
47:02
Speaker 1: of their degradation. All of these are considerations referring only
47:07
Speaker 1: to the physical plane. Now let me tell you something
47:10
Speaker 1: of the occult side of all this. Up to the present,
47:14
Speaker 1: I have made to you many statements strong and definite,
47:18
Speaker 1: I hope, But every one of them statements which you
47:21
Speaker 1: can prove for yourself. You can read the testimony of
47:24
Speaker 1: well known doctors and scientific men. You may test for
47:28
Speaker 1: yourselves the economic side of the question. You may go
47:32
Speaker 1: and see, if you will, how all these different types
47:35
Speaker 1: of men contrive to live so well upon vegetarian diet.
47:41
Speaker 1: All that I have said hitherto is thus within your reach.
47:45
Speaker 1: But now I am abandoning the field of ordinary physical
47:48
Speaker 1: reasoning and taking you up to the level where you
47:51
Speaker 1: have naturally to take the word of those who have
47:54
Speaker 1: explored these higher realms. Let us then turn now to
47:59
Speaker 1: the hidden side of all of this, the occult end
48:04
Speaker 1: of Section nine, Section ten occult reasons. Under this heading,
48:12
Speaker 1: also we shall have two sets of reasons, those which
48:15
Speaker 1: refer to ourselves and our own development, and those which
48:19
Speaker 1: refer to the great scheme of evolution and our duty
48:23
Speaker 1: towards it, so that once more we may classify them
48:27
Speaker 1: as selfish and unselfish, although at a much higher level
48:31
Speaker 1: than before. I have I hope clearly shown in the
48:36
Speaker 1: earlier part of this lecture that there is simply no
48:39
Speaker 1: room for discussion in regard to this question of vegetarianism.
48:44
Speaker 1: The whole of the evidence and of the considerations are
48:48
Speaker 1: entirely on one side, and there is absolutely nothing to
48:52
Speaker 1: be said in opposition to them. This is even more
48:56
Speaker 1: strikingly the case when we come to consider the occult
48:59
Speaker 1: part of our agree There are some students hovering around
49:03
Speaker 1: the fringes of occultism who are not yet prepared to
49:07
Speaker 1: follow its dictates to the uttermost, and therefore do not
49:12
Speaker 1: accept its teaching when it interferes with their personal habits
49:15
Speaker 1: and desires. Some such have tried to maintain that the
49:19
Speaker 1: question of food can make little difference from the occult standpoint.
49:24
Speaker 1: But the unanimous verdict of all of the great schools
49:27
Speaker 1: of Occultism, both ancient and modern, has been definite on
49:32
Speaker 1: this point, and has asserted that for all true progress,
49:36
Speaker 1: purity is necessary, even on the physical plane and in
49:40
Speaker 1: matters of diet, as well as in far higher matters.
49:45
Speaker 1: In many books and lectures, I have already explained the
49:48
Speaker 1: existence of the different planes of nature and of the
49:51
Speaker 1: vast unseen world all about us, And I have also
49:55
Speaker 1: had occasion to refer often to the fact that man
49:59
Speaker 1: has with hind in himself matter belonging to all these
50:02
Speaker 1: higher planes, so that he is furnished with a vehicle
50:06
Speaker 1: corresponding to each of them, through which he can receive
50:10
Speaker 1: impressions and by means of which he can act. Can
50:14
Speaker 1: these higher bodies of man be in any way affected
50:18
Speaker 1: by the food which enters into the physical body with
50:21
Speaker 1: which they are so closely connected. Assuredly they can, and
50:26
Speaker 1: for this reason, the physical matter in man is in
50:30
Speaker 1: close touch with the astral and mental matter, so much
50:34
Speaker 1: so that each is, to a great extent a counterpart
50:38
Speaker 1: of the other. There are many types and degrees of
50:41
Speaker 1: density among astral matter, for example, so that it is
50:46
Speaker 1: possible for one man to have an astral body built
50:49
Speaker 1: of coarse and gross particles, while another may have one
50:53
Speaker 1: which is much more delicate and refined. As the astral
50:57
Speaker 1: body is the vehicle of the emotions, passions, and sensations,
51:02
Speaker 1: it follows that the man whose astral body is of
51:05
Speaker 1: the grosser type will be chiefly amenable to the grosser
51:10
Speaker 1: varieties of passion and emotion, whereas the man who has
51:14
Speaker 1: a finer astral body will find that its particles most
51:18
Speaker 1: readily vibrate in response to higher and more refined emotions
51:22
Speaker 1: and aspirations. The man, therefore, who builds gross and undesirable
51:28
Speaker 1: matter into his physical body is thereby drawing into his
51:32
Speaker 1: astral body matter of a coarse and unpleasant type as
51:37
Speaker 1: its counterpart. We all know that on the physical plane,
51:41
Speaker 1: the effect of over indulgence in dead flesh is to
51:45
Speaker 1: produce a coarse, gross appearance in the man. That does
51:49
Speaker 1: not mean that it is only the physical body which
51:53
Speaker 1: is in an unlovely condition. It means also that those
51:57
Speaker 1: parts of the man which are in visible to our
52:00
Speaker 1: ordinary sight, the astral and the mental bodies, are not
52:04
Speaker 1: in good condition either. Thus, a man who is building
52:08
Speaker 1: himself a gross and impure physical body is building for
52:12
Speaker 1: himself at the same time coarse and unclean astral and
52:16
Speaker 1: mental bodies as well. That is visible at once to
52:20
Speaker 1: the eye of the developed clairvoyant. The man who learns
52:24
Speaker 1: to see these higher vehicles sees at once the effects
52:27
Speaker 1: on the higher bodies produced by impurity in the lower.
52:31
Speaker 1: He sees at once the difference between the man who
52:34
Speaker 1: feeds his physical vehicle with pure food and the man
52:38
Speaker 1: who puts into it this loathsome decaying flesh. Let us
52:43
Speaker 1: see how this difference will affect the man's evolution. End
52:48
Speaker 1: of Section ten, Section eleven impure vehicles. It is clear
52:56
Speaker 1: that a man's duty with regard to himself is to
53:00
Speaker 1: develop all his different vehicles as far as possible, in
53:04
Speaker 1: order to make them finished instruments for the use of
53:07
Speaker 1: the soul. There is a still higher stage in which
53:11
Speaker 1: that soul itself is being trained to be a fit
53:14
Speaker 1: instrument in the hands of the deity, a perfect channel
53:18
Speaker 1: for the divine grace. But the first step towards this
53:22
Speaker 1: high aim is that the soul itself shall learn thoroughly
53:26
Speaker 1: to control the lower bodies, so that there shall be
53:29
Speaker 1: in them no thought or feeling except those which the
53:33
Speaker 1: soul allows. All these vehicles therefore should be in the
53:38
Speaker 1: highest possible condition of efficiency. All should be pure and
53:42
Speaker 1: clean and free from taint. And it is obvious that
53:46
Speaker 1: this part never be so long as the man absorbs
53:49
Speaker 1: into the physical encasement such undesirable constituents. Even the physical
53:56
Speaker 1: body and its sense perceptions can never be at their
53:59
Speaker 1: best est unless the food is pure. Any One who
54:03
Speaker 1: adopts vegetarian diet will speedily begin to notice that his
54:08
Speaker 1: sense of taste or smell is far keener than it
54:12
Speaker 1: was when he fed upon flesh, and that he is
54:15
Speaker 1: now able to discern a delicate difference of flavors in
54:19
Speaker 1: foods which before he had thought of as tasteless, such
54:23
Speaker 1: as rice and wheat. The same thing is true to
54:26
Speaker 1: a still greater extent with regard to the higher bodies.
54:31
Speaker 1: Their senses also cannot be clear. If impure in coarse
54:35
Speaker 1: matter is drawn into them. Anything of this nature clogs
54:39
Speaker 1: and dulls them, so that it becomes more difficult for
54:42
Speaker 1: the soul to use them. This is a fact which
54:46
Speaker 1: has always been recognized by the student of occultism. You
54:50
Speaker 1: will find that all those who in ancient days entered
54:53
Speaker 1: upon the mysteries were men of the utmost purity, and
54:57
Speaker 1: of course invariably vegetarian. Canivorous diet is fatal to anything
55:03
Speaker 1: like real development, and those who adopt it are throwing
55:07
Speaker 1: serious and unnecessary difficulties in their own way. I am
55:12
Speaker 1: well aware that there are other and still higher considerations
55:16
Speaker 1: which are of greater weight than anything upon the physical plane,
55:20
Speaker 1: and that the purity of the heart and of the
55:22
Speaker 1: soul is more important to a man than that of
55:26
Speaker 1: the body. Yet there is surely no reason why we
55:29
Speaker 1: should not have both. Indeed, the one suggests the other,
55:34
Speaker 1: and the higher should include the lower. There are quite
55:37
Speaker 1: enough difficulties in the way of self control and self development.
55:41
Speaker 1: It is surely worse than foolish to go out of
55:44
Speaker 1: our way to add another and very considerable one to
55:47
Speaker 1: the list. Although it is true that a pure heart
55:51
Speaker 1: will do more for us than a pure body, yet
55:54
Speaker 1: the latter can certainly do a great deal. And we
55:57
Speaker 1: are none of us so far advanced along the road
56:00
Speaker 1: towards spirituality that we can afford to neglect the great
56:03
Speaker 1: advantage that it gives us. Anything that makes our path
56:07
Speaker 1: harder than it need be is emphatically something to be
56:11
Speaker 1: avoided in all cases. This flesh food undoubtedly makes the
56:16
Speaker 1: physical body a worse instrument and puts difficulties in the
56:20
Speaker 1: way of the soul by intensifying all the undesirable elements
56:24
Speaker 1: and passions belonging to these lower planes. Nor is this
56:29
Speaker 1: serious effect during physical life the only one of which
56:32
Speaker 1: we have to think. If through introducing losome impurities into
56:37
Speaker 1: the physical body, the man builds himself a coarse and
56:41
Speaker 1: unclean astral body, we have to remember that it is
56:45
Speaker 1: in this degraded vehicle that he will have to spend
56:47
Speaker 1: the first part of his life after death, because of
56:51
Speaker 1: the gross matter which he has built into it. All
56:54
Speaker 1: sorts of undesirable entities will be drawn into association with him,
56:59
Speaker 1: and will make his vehicles their home, and find a
57:02
Speaker 1: ready response within him to their lower passions. It is
57:06
Speaker 1: not only that his animal passions are more easily stirred
57:10
Speaker 1: here on earth, but in addition to this, he will
57:13
Speaker 1: suffer acutely from the working out of these desires after death. Here, again,
57:19
Speaker 1: looked at, even from the selfish point of view, we
57:22
Speaker 1: see that occult considerations confirm the straightforward common sense of
57:27
Speaker 1: the arguments on the physical plane. The higher sight, when
57:32
Speaker 1: brought to bear upon this problem, shows us still more
57:35
Speaker 1: vividly how undesirable is the devouring of flesh, since it
57:40
Speaker 1: intensifies within us that from which we need to be free,
57:44
Speaker 1: And therefore, from the point of view of progress, that
57:48
Speaker 1: habit is a thing to be cast out at once
57:51
Speaker 1: and forever. End of Section eleven. Section twelve. Man's duty
57:59
Speaker 1: towards name. Then there is the far more important, unselfish
58:04
Speaker 1: side of the question, that of man's duty towards nature.
58:09
Speaker 1: Every religion has taught that man should put himself always
58:13
Speaker 1: on the side of the will of God in the world,
58:16
Speaker 1: on the side of good as against evil, of evolution
58:19
Speaker 1: as against retrogression. The man who ranges himself on the
58:24
Speaker 1: side of evolution realizes the wickedness of destroying life. He
58:30
Speaker 1: knows that just as he is here in this physical
58:33
Speaker 1: body in order that he may learn the lessons of
58:35
Speaker 1: this plane, so is the animal occupying his body for
58:40
Speaker 1: the same reason, and that through it he may gain
58:43
Speaker 1: experience at his lower stage. He knows that the life
58:47
Speaker 1: behind the animal is the divine life, that all life
58:51
Speaker 1: in the world is divine, That animals, therefore are truly
58:56
Speaker 1: are brothers, even though they may be younger brothers, And
59:00
Speaker 1: we have no sort of right to take their lives
59:03
Speaker 1: for the gratification of our perverted tastes, no right to
59:08
Speaker 1: cause them untold agony and suffering merely to satisfy are
59:12
Speaker 1: degraded and detestable us. We have brought things to such
59:17
Speaker 1: a pass with our miscalled sport and our wholesale slaughterings,
59:22
Speaker 1: that all wild creatures fly from the sight of us.
59:26
Speaker 1: Does that seem like the universal brotherhood of God's creatures?
59:31
Speaker 1: Is that your idea of the golden age of the
59:33
Speaker 1: world wide kindliness? That is to come a condition when
59:37
Speaker 1: every living thing flees from the face of man because
59:41
Speaker 1: of his murderous instincts. There is an influence flowing back
59:46
Speaker 1: upon us from all this, an effect which you can
59:49
Speaker 1: hardly realize unless you are able to see how it
59:52
Speaker 1: looks when regarded with the sight of the higher plane.
59:57
Speaker 1: Every one of these creatures, which you so ruthless murder
1:00:00
Speaker 1: in this way, has its own thoughts and feelings with
1:00:04
Speaker 1: regard to all this. It has horror, pain, and indignation,
1:00:09
Speaker 1: and an intense but unexpressed feeling of the hideous injustice
1:00:13
Speaker 1: of it. All. The whole atmosphere about us is full
1:00:17
Speaker 1: of it. Twice lately I have heard from psychic people
1:00:22
Speaker 1: that they felt the awful aura or surroundings of Chicago,
1:00:26
Speaker 1: even many miles away from it. Missus Besant herself told
1:00:31
Speaker 1: me the same thing years ago in England, that long
1:00:34
Speaker 1: before she came in sight of Chicago, she felt the
1:00:37
Speaker 1: horror of it and the deadly pall of depression descending
1:00:40
Speaker 1: upon her, and asked, where are we and what is
1:00:45
Speaker 1: the reason that there should be this terrible feeling in
1:00:48
Speaker 1: the air. To sense the effect as clearly as this
1:00:52
Speaker 1: is beyond the reach of the person who has not developed.
1:00:55
Speaker 1: But though all the inhabitants may not be directly conscious
1:00:59
Speaker 1: of it, and wretched ignize it, as Missus Besant did.
1:01:02
Speaker 1: They may be sure that they are suffering from it unconsciously,
1:01:06
Speaker 1: and that that terrible vibration of horror and fear and
1:01:10
Speaker 1: injustice is acting upon every one of them, even though
1:01:15
Speaker 1: they do not know it. End of Section twelve, Section thirteen.
1:01:21
Speaker 1: Ghastly unseen results. The feelings of nervousness and profound depression
1:01:28
Speaker 1: which are so common, are largely due to that awful
1:01:32
Speaker 1: influence which spreads over the city like a plague cloud.
1:01:36
Speaker 1: I do not know how many thousands of creatures are
1:01:39
Speaker 1: killed every day, but the number is very large. Remember
1:01:43
Speaker 1: that every one of these creatures is a definite entity,
1:01:47
Speaker 1: not a permanent, reincarnating individuality like yours or mine, but
1:01:52
Speaker 1: still an entity which has its life upon the astral
1:01:56
Speaker 1: plane and persists there for a considerable time. Remember that
1:02:01
Speaker 1: every one of these remains to pour out his feelings
1:02:04
Speaker 1: of indignation and horror at all the injustice and torment
1:02:08
Speaker 1: which has been afflicted upon him. Realize for yourself the
1:02:13
Speaker 1: terrible atmosphere which exists about those slaughter houses. Remember that
1:02:18
Speaker 1: a clairvoyant can see the vast hosts of animal souls,
1:02:22
Speaker 1: that he knows how strong are their feelings of horror
1:02:25
Speaker 1: and resentment, and how these recoil at all points upon
1:02:29
Speaker 1: the human race. They react most of all upon those
1:02:34
Speaker 1: who are least able to resist them, upon the children,
1:02:38
Speaker 1: who are more delicate and sensitive than the hardened adult.
1:02:42
Speaker 1: That city is a terrible place in which to bring
1:02:44
Speaker 1: up children, a place where the whole atmosphere, both physical
1:02:49
Speaker 1: and psychic, is charged with fumes of blood, and with
1:02:53
Speaker 1: all that that means. I read an article only the
1:02:56
Speaker 1: other day in which it was explained that the nauseating
1:03:00
Speaker 1: stench which rises from those Chicago slaughter houses and settles
1:03:05
Speaker 1: like a fatal miasma over the city is by no
1:03:08
Speaker 1: means the most deadly influence that comes up from that
1:03:11
Speaker 1: Christian hell for animals, though it is the breath of
1:03:14
Speaker 1: certain death to many a mother's darling. The slaughter houses
1:03:19
Speaker 1: make not only a pest hole for the bodies of children,
1:03:22
Speaker 1: but for their souls as well. Not only are the
1:03:26
Speaker 1: children employed in the most revolting and cruel work, but
1:03:29
Speaker 1: the whole trend of their thoughts is directed towards killing. Occasionally,
1:03:34
Speaker 1: one is found too sensitive to endure the sights and
1:03:37
Speaker 1: sounds of that ceaseless, awful battle between man's cruel lust
1:03:42
Speaker 1: and the inalienable right of every creature to its own life.
1:03:47
Speaker 1: I read how one boy for whom a minister had
1:03:50
Speaker 1: secured a place in the slaughter house, returned day after
1:03:54
Speaker 1: day pale and sick and unable to eat or sleep,
1:03:57
Speaker 1: and finally came to that minister of the gods gospel
1:04:00
Speaker 1: of the Compassionate Christ, and told him that he was
1:04:03
Speaker 1: willing to starve if necessary, but that he could not
1:04:07
Speaker 1: wait in blood another day. The horrors of the slaughter
1:04:10
Speaker 1: had so affected him that he could no longer sleep.
1:04:15
Speaker 1: Yet this is what many a boy is doing and
1:04:17
Speaker 1: seeing from day to day, until he becomes hardened to
1:04:20
Speaker 1: the taking of life, and then some day, instead of
1:04:24
Speaker 1: cutting the throat of a lamb or a pig, he
1:04:27
Speaker 1: kills a man, and straightway we turn our lust for
1:04:30
Speaker 1: slaughter upon him in turn, and think that we have
1:04:34
Speaker 1: done justice. I read that a young woman who does
1:04:38
Speaker 1: much philanthropic work in the neighborhood of these pest houses,
1:04:42
Speaker 1: declares that what most impresses her about the children is
1:04:46
Speaker 1: that they seem to have no games except games of killing,
1:04:50
Speaker 1: that they have no conception of any relation to animals
1:04:53
Speaker 1: except the relation of the slaughterer to the victim. This
1:04:57
Speaker 1: is the education which so called Christians are giving to
1:05:01
Speaker 1: the children of the slaughter house, a daily education and murder.
1:05:05
Speaker 1: And then they express surprise at the number and brutality
1:05:09
Speaker 1: of the murders in that district. Yet your Christian public
1:05:14
Speaker 1: goes on serenely saying its prayers and singing its psalms
1:05:17
Speaker 1: and listening to its sermons, as if no such outrages
1:05:22
Speaker 1: were being perpetrated against God's children in that sink whole
1:05:26
Speaker 1: of pestilence and crime. Surely the habit of eating dead
1:05:30
Speaker 1: flesh has produced a moral apathy among us. Are you
1:05:34
Speaker 1: doing well? Do you think in rearing your future citizens
1:05:38
Speaker 1: among surroundings of such utter brutality as this? Even on
1:05:43
Speaker 1: the physical plane, this is a terribly serious matter, and
1:05:46
Speaker 1: from the occult point of view, it is unfortunately far
1:05:49
Speaker 1: more serious still, for the occultists sees the psychic result
1:05:53
Speaker 1: of all this, sees how these forces are acting upon
1:05:57
Speaker 1: the people, and how they intensify brutality and unscrupulousness. He
1:06:02
Speaker 1: sees what a center of vice and of crime you
1:06:05
Speaker 1: have created, and how from it the infection is gradually
1:06:09
Speaker 1: spreading until it affects the whole country and even the
1:06:13
Speaker 1: whole world of what is called civilized humanity. The world
1:06:17
Speaker 1: is being affected by it in many ways which most
1:06:20
Speaker 1: people do not in the least realize. There are constant
1:06:24
Speaker 1: feelings of causeless terror in the air. Many of your
1:06:28
Speaker 1: children are unnecessarily and inexplicably afraid. They feel terror of
1:06:33
Speaker 1: They know not what, terror of the dark, or when
1:06:37
Speaker 1: they are alone for a few moments, strong forces are
1:06:40
Speaker 1: playing about us for which you cannot account, And you
1:06:44
Speaker 1: do not realize that this all comes from the fact
1:06:47
Speaker 1: that the whole atmosphere is charged with the hostility of
1:06:50
Speaker 1: these murdered creatures. The stages of evolution are closely interrelated,
1:06:55
Speaker 1: and you cannot do wholesale murder in this way upon
1:06:59
Speaker 1: your younger brother without feeling the effect terribly among your
1:07:02
Speaker 1: own innocent children. Surely a better time shall come when
1:07:07
Speaker 1: we shall be free from this horrible blot upon our civilization,
1:07:11
Speaker 1: this awful reproach upon our compassion and our sympathy. And
1:07:16
Speaker 1: when that comes, we shall find presently that there will
1:07:19
Speaker 1: be a vast improvement in these matters, And by degrees
1:07:24
Speaker 1: we shall all rise to a higher level and be
1:07:26
Speaker 1: freed from all these instinctive terrors and hatreds end of
1:07:32
Speaker 1: Section thirteen, Section fourteen. The better time to come. We
1:07:39
Speaker 1: might all be freed from it very soon if men
1:07:42
Speaker 1: and women would only think. For the average man is not,
1:07:46
Speaker 1: after all a brute, but means to be kind, if
1:07:50
Speaker 1: only he knew how. He does not think. He goes
1:07:54
Speaker 1: on from day to day and does not realize that
1:07:57
Speaker 1: he is taking part all the time in an offer crime.
1:08:01
Speaker 1: But facts are facts, and there is no escape from them.
1:08:05
Speaker 1: Every One who is partaking of this abomination is helping
1:08:09
Speaker 1: to make this appalling thing a possibility, and undoubtedly shares
1:08:13
Speaker 1: the responsibility for it. You know that it is so,
1:08:18
Speaker 1: and you can see what a terrible thing it is.
1:08:20
Speaker 1: But you will say, what can we do to improve matters?
1:08:24
Speaker 1: We who are only tiny units in this mighty, seething
1:08:28
Speaker 1: mass of humanity. It is only by units rising above
1:08:32
Speaker 1: the rest and becoming more civilized that we shall finally
1:08:37
Speaker 1: arrive at a higher civilization of the race as a whole.
1:08:41
Speaker 1: There is a golden age to come, not only for
1:08:44
Speaker 1: man but for the lower kingdoms, a time when humanity
1:08:48
Speaker 1: will realize its duty to its younger brothers, not to
1:08:52
Speaker 1: destroy them, but to help them and train them, so
1:08:56
Speaker 1: that we may receive from them not terror and hatred,
1:09:00
Speaker 1: but love and devotion, and friendship and reasonable co operation.
1:09:06
Speaker 1: A time will come when all the forces of nature
1:09:09
Speaker 1: shall be intelligently working together towards the final end, not
1:09:13
Speaker 1: with constant suspicion and hostility, but with universal recognition of
1:09:18
Speaker 1: that brotherhood which is ours. Because we are all children
1:09:22
Speaker 1: of the same almighty father, let us at least make
1:09:26
Speaker 1: the experiment. Let us free ourselves from complicity in these
1:09:30
Speaker 1: awful crimes. Let us set ourselves to try, each in
1:09:35
Speaker 1: our own small circle, to bring nearer that time of
1:09:38
Speaker 1: peace and love, which is the dream and the earnest
1:09:42
Speaker 1: desire of every true hearted and thinking man. At least,
1:09:46
Speaker 1: we ought, surely to be willing to do a small
1:09:49
Speaker 1: thing as this to help the world onward towards that
1:09:53
Speaker 1: glorious future. We ought to make ourselves pure, our thoughts
1:09:58
Speaker 1: and our actions, as well as our food, so that
1:10:01
Speaker 1: by example as well as by precept, we may be
1:10:04
Speaker 1: doing all that in us lies to spread the gospel
1:10:08
Speaker 1: of love and of compassion, to put an end to
1:10:11
Speaker 1: the reign of brutality and terror, and to bring nearer
1:10:14
Speaker 1: the dawn of the Great Kingdom of righteousness and love,
1:10:17
Speaker 1: when the will of our Father shall be done upon
1:10:20
Speaker 1: earth as it is in heaven. End of Section fourteen.