Reply To: About Meat

[Michelle Maier]

I appreciate that you bring up the CHOICE that a human being has, in contrast to a CHOICE that an animal does not have.
So on this specific choice; does the human being have a choice of how his physiology functions, different than what an animal has? I think the answer is no. Because to say differently would be to rail against the physical reality of ourselves- a reality that is just as important as the spiritual. Whatever arguments about what may in fact, be necessary for human physiology aside; we can definitely ascertain that we do not have a CHOICE about it.

And as has been mentioned before, if Anastasia said that milk and eggs are nutritious and necessary; a loving gift from animals to humans, then husbandry and all the necessary attributes of husbandry are good as well. It would be a contradiction to say that a goat giving milk to the human is good but a human giving food, shelter, protection and intentional management to the goat is not good.

I am not of the opinion that suffering is bad. But to assume that it is bad; it cannot be that husbandry causes suffering. What is left is the moment of death- or anticipation of death- that could be the cause of unnecessary suffering. We already know that the effects of a death cannot be suffering, because intentional management is good; these are the same things. We are left, then, with only the questions about which the human has a CHOICE; the suffering of anticipation of death.

Because death itself is *not* suffering- and it can never be prevented- so there is no choice surrounding this issue. But the suffering of anticipation of death certainly is a just and moral consideration that we should all take seriously.

Animals- and especially lower animals- have no sense of anticipating death. They cannot suffer that particular ordeal. Human beings are the only animal on Earth that can anticipate death, and suffer thereby. What animals may suffer from *is physical, moral or emotional stress caused by humans *because* we tend to devalue the experience of the animal. This is a human mistake. And one easily corrected.

Steiner said that animals have a group soul- and I really do believe this is a foundational truth about mammals in particular. I have farmed goats and cows, chickens, rabbits, pigs, over many years and for many generations. There is a spirit that guides each species, *but not each animal*, as we would tend to think for humans beings. Humans are individually ensouled. Animals are ensouled as a group.

And so, when a particular individual animal is to die, it is literally abandoned by the others. They will leave it and not go back to it; that individual will likewise *not* seek community. In essence, I believe the soul has already left that one. Intentional husbandry can easily spot this distinct and obvious truth.

So what is left for the farmer? To simply choose with intention and respect those animals whose time it is to die, and merely perform with the reality of what is already occurring. One may as well, as one grows in deeper connection to both the land and the stock, see into the future and plan a more fruitful family for the animals- by selective breeding, culling, choosing to hold back or fulfill any of the roles of an intentional husbandry. Not to say that the specific task of creating the environment where one is sure to never disregard the individual animal’s experience, and to be perceptive to the needs of the group as a whole is easy- but the conceptual cure is very clear.

Human beings were meant to be placed *in* and *over* the other kingdoms; not to be a separate bystander. We are here to manage and nurture them in ways that will bring them up and help their development, just as the Angels are here to guide and nurture the development of humanity.

And so, it is not actually a CHOICE that we are to perform these tasks.

I wager, then, it is merely the act of eating the body of the animal that is or is not desirable in a spiritual sense. I tend to think that the animals that I have managed on my land over many generations have a quality of nourishment that cannot be had by any other means.

Cheers.