Charles Fillmore
Charles Fillmore
Co-founder of Unity Society of Practical Christianity, on Diet, Health, and
Vegetarianism
(1854-1948)
…”If we are eating aggregations of life ideas hid within the material
forms, we should use discrimination in choosing those forms. Our food should
be full of life in its purity and vigor. There should be no idea of death
and decay connected with it in any degree. The vegetable should be fresh and
the fruit radiant in its sunny perfection.”
- from “As to Meat Eating” – 1903
…”I was shown that the food that entered the organism had to pass through
a process of regeneration every day before it was in condition to be built
into the new body of Christ.”
- from “As to Meat Eating” – 1903
…”We eat the flesh of the animal for the life it contains, yet the fact
is that life has disappeared in its highest degree---there is left only a
lot of corpse cells in various stages of corruption and decay. These are
really a burden to the organism…Yet ignorant man loads his system with these
elements of discord and decay and expects to get life out of them.”
- from “As to Meat Eating” – 1903
…”The master on the spiritual plane is not a slave driver…He must love
every creature…His love must flow forth in protecting streams when any
creature is in danger of violence or destruction. He must recognize all life
as God’s life…Thus he cannot in any way sanction the killing of animals for
food, nor can he give passive assent by eating the flesh of those slain by
the hands of ignorant man.”
- from “Flesh-Eating Metaphysically Considered” – 1910
…”He who eats the flesh of animals is, by and through that process,
taking into his consciousness all the passions, desires, and emotions of
animals. Do not deceive yourself…that it makes no difference what you eat.
There is no absence of life, substance, or intelligence anywhere.”
- from “Flesh-Eating Metaphysically Considered” – 1910
…”In eating the flesh of animals, we are feeding and stimulating the
animal mentality that pervades our bodies. Instead of transforming the flesh
consciousness into Spirit, we are adding to its power to bind us to the
plane of sensation.”
- from “Flesh-Eating Metaphysically Considered” – 1910
…”It was the custom of Jesus to use familiar things for his
illustrations, and as the people he worked among were fishermen, it was but
natural that fish should figure prominently as illustrations in this
teaching. Instead of trying to change the customs of the people, he laid
down certain universal principles which would lead the people themselves to
change their customs. He knew that mere outward conformity to righteousness
did not fulfill the divine Law which requires man to choose for himself the
principles of Truth and work them out in his own life. One of these
principles is Love Universal.”
- from “Vegetarianism” – 1915
…”On one occasion, Jesus said to his disciples, ‘I have many things to
say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now.’ When he was in Palestine, the
race was not ready for the great revolution that was to accompany the
ushering in of the new race and the earth…He did not try to explain to them
the detail of ‘the restitution of all things’…Now the understanding that
life and love are to be demonstrated is becoming general…Therefore, in the
light of the Truth that God is love, and that Jesus came to make his love
manifest in the world, we cannot believe it is his will for men to eat meat,
or to do anything else that would cause suffering to the innocent and
helpless.”
- from “Vegetarianism” – 1915
…”Spirit has shown me repeatedly that I could not refine my body and make
it a harmonious instrument for the soul, so long as I continued to fill it
with the cells of dead animals.”
- from “The Vegetarian” – 1920
…”Undoubtedly the next great step forward in the reformation and
refinement of humanity will be the elimination of flesh food. We do not
anticipate a world-wide prohibition but a gradual adaptation of the best
foods by progressive people.”
- from “The Vegetarian” – 1920
…”We need never look for universal peace on this earth until men stop
killing animals for food. The lust for blood has permeated the race thought
and the destruction of life will continue to repeat its psychology, the
world round, until men willingly observe the law in all phases of life,
‘Thou shalt not kill.’ ”
- from “The Vegetarian” – 1920
…”Physiologists tell us that beefsteak is a stimulant, and that people
get intoxicated with meat eating. Some persons become intoxicated with
coffee and tea; others with cocoa. All these things have an intoxicating
effect, and the system, if you cultivate it in that direction, will keep
calling more for such stimulants.”
- from “Eating and Drinking” – 1931
…”The invisible psychic agony of millions of cruelly slaughtered animals
saturates our earth’s atmosphere and the whole race suffers in sympathy. We
make intimate mental contact with these psychic terrors of our little
sisters and brothers of the animal world when we devour their fear-shattered
bodies. Out vague fear of impending danger, our troubled sleep, our dread of
the future, and numerous other unidentified mental complexes may and often
are the echo fears of the brutes whose flesh we have entombed in our
stomach.”
- from “Eating and Drinking” – 1931
…”If you find that you are a victim of the desire for stimulant in any of
its forms, say to the appetite: ‘I no longer desire those things; I am no
longer hypnotized or mesmerized by sense appetite…My stimulant is Spirit,
and I desire the stimulants of Spirit only. I live in the life, the
quickening energy, and the power of the Spirit.’
- from “Eating and Drinking” – 1931
…”We know that the drinking of intoxicants and the using of tobacco in
any form are dissipations of force. The natural energies of man are set
aside when he looks to stimulants of any kind as the source of life.”
- from “Eating and Drinking” – 1931
