WEBVTT 00:00:00.170 --> 00:00:03.290 Welcome to The Vegan Report, my name is Ryan 00:00:03.290 --> 00:00:07.410 and today we are discussing the role of spirituality 00:00:07.410 --> 00:00:12.449 in the vegan movement. According to a 2017 survey, 00:00:13.289 --> 00:00:19.070 73 % of vegans self -identify as atheists or 00:00:19.070 --> 00:00:23.570 agnostics. That's why I know this might not be 00:00:23.570 --> 00:00:28.399 the most popular opinion But I deeply believe 00:00:28.399 --> 00:00:32.100 that leading a spiritual practice is not only 00:00:32.100 --> 00:00:35.659 a powerful way to deal with the struggle of being 00:00:35.659 --> 00:00:39.640 an outspoken vegan in a non -vegan world, but 00:00:39.640 --> 00:00:44.859 also an essential part of a happy, healthy life. 00:00:45.979 --> 00:00:49.600 To discuss the power of spirituality, I'm joined 00:00:49.600 --> 00:00:53.969 by Victoria Moran. Victoria is a longtime animal 00:00:53.969 --> 00:00:57.170 activist, successful author, she has written 00:00:57.170 --> 00:01:02.049 more than 13 books, a fellow podcaster, she is 00:01:02.049 --> 00:01:05.450 the host of the Main Street Vegan podcast, go 00:01:05.450 --> 00:01:09.849 check it out, and yogi. During the interview, 00:01:10.049 --> 00:01:13.909 Victoria references many great resources to kickstart 00:01:13.909 --> 00:01:17.450 your spiritual journey. Visit the episode's notes 00:01:17.450 --> 00:01:22.000 to access each of her recommendations, and connect 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:26.140 with her. As always, I invite you to follow the 00:01:26.140 --> 00:01:30.540 show, share the podcast with the staunch atheist 00:01:30.540 --> 00:01:34.019 you know, and spark an interesting conversation. 00:01:34.640 --> 00:01:37.840 Leave a good review. Every gesture of support 00:01:37.840 --> 00:01:50.659 is appreciated. Thank you. Thinking about the 00:01:50.659 --> 00:01:54.379 conversation we were about to have, what came 00:01:54.379 --> 00:01:59.260 to mind were multiple conversations, starting 00:01:59.260 --> 00:02:03.159 with one I had with Gary Yourofsky. So he has 00:02:03.159 --> 00:02:07.420 been a very polemic figure these past few weeks 00:02:07.420 --> 00:02:12.520 since his return from retirement. I had the exclusive 00:02:12.520 --> 00:02:17.629 interview with him, you know, little... time 00:02:17.629 --> 00:02:20.750 after, you know, he announced that he was back. 00:02:22.189 --> 00:02:25.370 People highlighted many parts of that interview, 00:02:25.370 --> 00:02:30.830 but I guess the one part of the interview that 00:02:30.830 --> 00:02:34.710 truly stayed with me was the beginning where 00:02:34.710 --> 00:02:39.610 he talked about his struggle as a long time animal 00:02:39.610 --> 00:02:44.530 rights activist, how he hasn't had a good night 00:02:44.530 --> 00:02:52.219 of sleep in years. how he has those intrusive 00:02:52.219 --> 00:02:56.479 thoughts all the time, and the list goes on. 00:02:57.080 --> 00:03:03.719 And that felt like a great encapsulation of many 00:03:03.719 --> 00:03:06.919 other conversations I had with many other animal 00:03:06.919 --> 00:03:11.219 rights activists, how their activism and what 00:03:11.219 --> 00:03:15.419 they've been through being just vegan has been 00:03:15.419 --> 00:03:19.840 haunting them. And every time I'm confronted 00:03:19.840 --> 00:03:25.000 with that experience, all I want to do is to 00:03:25.000 --> 00:03:29.360 say, you should, you should become spiritual. 00:03:29.419 --> 00:03:32.879 You should find, you know, some kind of spiritual 00:03:32.879 --> 00:03:38.080 tradition or religious tradition, because, and 00:03:38.080 --> 00:03:41.689 it's my personal bias, you know, it Has brought 00:03:41.689 --> 00:03:44.830 me so much in my life it hasn't rich my life 00:03:44.830 --> 00:03:49.610 and it has protected me against. The harm that 00:03:49.610 --> 00:03:53.169 they are experiencing but i can't say that to 00:03:53.169 --> 00:03:58.009 them you can't just you know. Cold call you know 00:03:58.009 --> 00:04:01.629 a pitch a spiritual life to two people like that 00:04:01.629 --> 00:04:04.930 i feel people are not really receptive to that 00:04:04.930 --> 00:04:10.439 they take it as a joke and so. What is your opinion 00:04:10.439 --> 00:04:15.439 on on that whole issue? I think that you can 00:04:15.439 --> 00:04:18.560 say anything as long as you keep it an eye message. 00:04:19.100 --> 00:04:21.500 Now if somebody was telling me that they were 00:04:21.500 --> 00:04:26.860 in that kind of distress, I would say it's really 00:04:26.860 --> 00:04:32.040 tough. Something that I do is meditate or you 00:04:32.040 --> 00:04:35.699 know, whatever, and and see how they take it. 00:04:35.860 --> 00:04:39.670 But I think People need different things. I mean, 00:04:39.930 --> 00:04:44.569 one of the people I admire the most who has done 00:04:44.569 --> 00:04:47.170 so much for animals is Ingrid Newkirk. And she 00:04:47.170 --> 00:04:51.029 is famously atheistic, which doesn't mean she's 00:04:51.029 --> 00:04:52.810 not spiritual. She might not think of herself 00:04:52.810 --> 00:04:57.569 as spiritual, but she is. She has a spirit of 00:04:57.569 --> 00:05:01.319 love. And certainly in the judeo christian tradition 00:05:01.319 --> 00:05:04.500 god is love and if you got that it doesn't matter 00:05:04.500 --> 00:05:06.800 if you have the god part you got the love part 00:05:06.800 --> 00:05:10.620 so you pretty much got both i think that people 00:05:10.620 --> 00:05:18.519 are different. And that some people. Do fine 00:05:18.519 --> 00:05:21.560 without something that they call a spiritual 00:05:21.560 --> 00:05:25.670 life maybe they are. very very involved in life 00:05:25.670 --> 00:05:29.009 on earth maybe in addition to their animal activism 00:05:29.009 --> 00:05:32.689 they have some kind of passion for music or something 00:05:32.689 --> 00:05:36.230 like that that really keeps them balanced and 00:05:36.230 --> 00:05:40.329 kind of fired up but i think all these things 00:05:40.329 --> 00:05:46.149 can be considered spiritual i think for myself 00:05:46.149 --> 00:05:49.389 maybe because i've been around this movement 00:05:49.389 --> 00:05:54.730 so long and i went vegetarian in nineteen sixty 00:05:54.730 --> 00:05:58.529 nine and was doing protests and things in the 00:05:58.529 --> 00:06:02.170 early seventies in fact i had a funny experience 00:06:02.170 --> 00:06:06.350 a couple years ago previous dog had a really 00:06:06.350 --> 00:06:10.029 hard time with fireworks and so on the fourth 00:06:10.029 --> 00:06:14.790 of july we would find an old hotel. in Midtown 00:06:14.790 --> 00:06:17.709 Manhattan that has these really thick walls and 00:06:17.709 --> 00:06:20.449 you can't hear the fireworks. So we were at one 00:06:20.449 --> 00:06:22.269 of these hotels and I was just there with the 00:06:22.269 --> 00:06:25.110 dog and I was bored and I decided to look up 00:06:25.110 --> 00:06:28.269 my maiden name, myself with my maiden name, and 00:06:28.269 --> 00:06:34.790 I married my first husband in 1977. So that name 00:06:34.790 --> 00:06:38.490 was, you know, way back, but it came up and it 00:06:38.490 --> 00:06:42.209 came up. with these animal rights demonstrations, 00:06:42.209 --> 00:06:45.790 because it was so unusual, like particularly 00:06:45.790 --> 00:06:49.389 the ones that we did at a livestock and horse 00:06:49.389 --> 00:06:53.230 show in Kansas City, my hometown. So I've been 00:06:53.230 --> 00:06:58.009 around it a long time. And I think then it was 00:06:58.009 --> 00:07:06.230 so weird and so out there that I don't think 00:07:06.230 --> 00:07:16.439 we got as heartbroken because it was just so 00:07:16.439 --> 00:07:19.560 new. It's like, of course, nobody understands 00:07:19.560 --> 00:07:23.300 this because nobody knows about it. And now we're 00:07:23.300 --> 00:07:26.980 in a place where the term animal rights is out 00:07:26.980 --> 00:07:30.699 there. The word vegan is out there. There are 00:07:30.699 --> 00:07:33.779 videos all over social media. A lot of people 00:07:33.779 --> 00:07:37.220 have seen stuff and most choose to ignore it. 00:07:37.420 --> 00:07:42.660 So I think there is more cause for grief, maybe 00:07:42.660 --> 00:07:46.040 for people coming into the movement now, even 00:07:46.040 --> 00:07:50.139 though we've made so much progress. I agree. 00:07:50.160 --> 00:07:53.800 And thank you so much for mentioning that you 00:07:53.800 --> 00:07:57.600 can be an atheist and absolutely have a spiritual 00:07:57.600 --> 00:08:00.899 life. There is this concept. I don't know who 00:08:00.899 --> 00:08:06.209 is it from, but that there is a transcendent 00:08:06.209 --> 00:08:10.670 spirituality, which would be the Y axis, I think, 00:08:10.990 --> 00:08:16.870 and then a more horizontal spirituality, which 00:08:16.870 --> 00:08:20.970 is more about the way we relate to others and 00:08:20.970 --> 00:08:25.329 what connects us. And by others, let's include 00:08:25.329 --> 00:08:29.589 animals too. Absolutely. Well, for me, it's a 00:08:29.589 --> 00:08:32.870 lot about, you know, there's God transcendent 00:08:32.870 --> 00:08:35.490 we have a degree in comparative religion so i 00:08:35.490 --> 00:08:38.330 love these terms but so many of the religious 00:08:38.330 --> 00:08:40.389 traditions would talk about god transcendent 00:08:40.389 --> 00:08:46.049 god imminent and to me the eminent thing is really 00:08:46.049 --> 00:08:49.070 really important because i think that's how we're 00:08:49.070 --> 00:08:54.070 connected to everybody else all species. All 00:08:54.070 --> 00:08:59.309 nature probably all atoms and. i'm reading a 00:08:59.309 --> 00:09:01.830 book now it's so funny this book was recommended 00:09:01.830 --> 00:09:05.429 to me in my twenties. And i must have leafed 00:09:05.429 --> 00:09:07.789 through it at some point at that time and just 00:09:07.789 --> 00:09:10.350 thought oh it's not for me and now i've found 00:09:10.350 --> 00:09:14.309 it again it's called the impersonal life and 00:09:14.309 --> 00:09:17.649 you would call it channel because it's i guess 00:09:17.649 --> 00:09:20.149 kind of like conversations with god which i never 00:09:20.149 --> 00:09:25.330 read but it's it's as if god is is speaking but. 00:09:25.519 --> 00:09:28.399 What is being said and this book was written 00:09:28.399 --> 00:09:32.399 in nineteen fourteen written by or coming through 00:09:32.399 --> 00:09:36.059 however you wanna look at it protestant clergy 00:09:36.059 --> 00:09:42.379 person and the idea is. That that god or the 00:09:42.379 --> 00:09:47.059 divine or whatever you wanna call it is within 00:09:47.059 --> 00:09:51.929 us is really. All that is and what we're called 00:09:51.929 --> 00:09:56.070 upon to do is know that and express that and 00:09:56.070 --> 00:09:59.870 that was a beautiful concept for me because I'm 00:09:59.870 --> 00:10:04.690 also very interested in yoga philosophy and That's 00:10:04.690 --> 00:10:07.970 what that is all about as well. It's the idea 00:10:07.970 --> 00:10:12.070 that Enlightenment certainly in Vedanta and and 00:10:12.070 --> 00:10:17.370 some schools of yoga is to know that we are that 00:10:17.690 --> 00:10:21.289 And to me, when we're doing something like animal 00:10:21.289 --> 00:10:25.830 rights activism, we're coming from that inner 00:10:25.830 --> 00:10:28.970 essence, whether we acknowledge it or not, but 00:10:28.970 --> 00:10:32.950 we're propelled to do things that we wouldn't 00:10:32.950 --> 00:10:36.970 ordinarily have the strength or the courage to 00:10:36.970 --> 00:10:42.509 do. We're able to go places that aren't uplifting, 00:10:42.870 --> 00:10:48.049 that are heartbreaking, if necessary, to do What 00:10:48.049 --> 00:10:53.330 needs to be done? And I mean, that's why to me 00:10:53.330 --> 00:10:56.009 somebody like Ingrid Newkirk is an atheist, but 00:10:56.009 --> 00:10:59.210 she's also a saint It's like those those two 00:10:59.210 --> 00:11:04.529 things can can exist in the same place Then how 00:11:04.529 --> 00:11:08.509 do you explain the fact that most vegan activists 00:11:08.509 --> 00:11:14.009 I come across have no semblance of like spiritual 00:11:14.009 --> 00:11:17.710 life, they define themselves as, like you said, 00:11:18.049 --> 00:11:22.370 like Ingrid defines herself, atheist, secular, 00:11:22.710 --> 00:11:26.529 don't talk to me about meditation or whatever. 00:11:26.690 --> 00:11:32.309 Well, I think part of it is that we do have spirituality 00:11:32.309 --> 00:11:35.730 and religion very tied when we talk about it. 00:11:35.730 --> 00:11:38.690 And people who grew up in a religion or who didn't, 00:11:38.730 --> 00:11:43.610 but just heard about religion as this odd thing 00:11:43.610 --> 00:11:46.789 where there's some kind of god off there somewhere 00:11:46.789 --> 00:11:51.450 that rewards and punishes people and is supposed 00:11:51.450 --> 00:11:57.129 to be love but you know in many scriptures did 00:11:57.129 --> 00:12:00.149 some pretty awful things and so i think a lot 00:12:00.149 --> 00:12:03.289 of people are like no no no and that's the one 00:12:03.519 --> 00:12:07.600 that allows this to happen to animals so i think 00:12:07.600 --> 00:12:10.779 the big argument is you know you just go where 00:12:10.779 --> 00:12:13.259 you want to go with your spirituality as long 00:12:13.259 --> 00:12:15.919 as animals are being treated the way they are 00:12:15.919 --> 00:12:19.899 there is no kind of divine whatever in in the 00:12:19.899 --> 00:12:26.039 universe but i think we can do that and then 00:12:26.039 --> 00:12:30.379 we're just kind of alone and bereft with it and 00:12:30.379 --> 00:12:33.830 i certainly don't Understand animal suffering 00:12:33.830 --> 00:12:40.529 i think that my studies into spirituality and 00:12:40.529 --> 00:12:44.450 i studied the religions of the world academically 00:12:44.450 --> 00:12:48.169 but the two that are really prominent within 00:12:48.169 --> 00:12:51.250 me are christianity cuz that's what i grew up 00:12:51.250 --> 00:12:54.830 in and of the danta and yoga philosophy because 00:12:54.830 --> 00:12:57.230 that's what i found as a young person and have 00:12:57.230 --> 00:13:01.669 been exploring ever since so. On my altar which 00:13:01.669 --> 00:13:04.769 I'm looking at right now right in the center 00:13:04.769 --> 00:13:07.269 is this picture and you can find it online and 00:13:07.269 --> 00:13:12.409 you can order one from eBay, but it's Jesus in 00:13:12.409 --> 00:13:15.590 the Himalayas or you could put in Jesus meditating 00:13:15.590 --> 00:13:18.610 with animals and it's this beautiful beautiful 00:13:18.610 --> 00:13:23.649 picture of Jesus supposedly supposedly drawn 00:13:23.649 --> 00:13:26.169 from life when he was in the himalayas during 00:13:26.169 --> 00:13:29.350 his last years i don't know about that part but 00:13:29.350 --> 00:13:32.350 he's he's in the lotus position and there are 00:13:32.350 --> 00:13:35.110 birds around him and there are little little 00:13:35.110 --> 00:13:37.970 bunny little lizard crawling on him and there's 00:13:37.970 --> 00:13:42.309 a tiger sleeping beside him and it's this beautiful 00:13:42.309 --> 00:13:44.789 image to me of what i think you and i are talking 00:13:44.789 --> 00:13:49.240 about spirituality and how it brings so much 00:13:49.240 --> 00:13:53.700 love for these animals. Another interesting historical 00:13:53.700 --> 00:13:59.200 tidbit around Christianity is that in the early 00:13:59.200 --> 00:14:02.799 Christian era, the first 200 years before the 00:14:02.799 --> 00:14:06.820 Council of Constantinople probably, I think I 00:14:06.820 --> 00:14:10.659 said that wrong. Yeah, Council of Constantinople. 00:14:10.740 --> 00:14:15.539 I think that's right. But anyway, the first couple 00:14:15.539 --> 00:14:20.820 of hundred years there were so many vegetarians 00:14:20.820 --> 00:14:23.879 and they were probably vegan because at that 00:14:23.879 --> 00:14:26.960 time in history the idea that you would raise 00:14:26.960 --> 00:14:29.620 an animal for so -called byproducts I don't think 00:14:29.620 --> 00:14:33.379 that would have computed so they were vegan or 00:14:33.379 --> 00:14:37.799 certainly vegetarian and We certainly don't have 00:14:37.799 --> 00:14:42.620 in the gospels jesus talking about being vegetarian 00:14:42.620 --> 00:14:45.379 there's the one mention of after the resurrection 00:14:45.379 --> 00:14:48.840 that he may have eaten a piece of fish i don't 00:14:48.840 --> 00:14:53.759 know but what i do know historically. Is that 00:14:53.759 --> 00:14:57.919 a huge percentage of the early christians. were 00:14:57.919 --> 00:15:01.879 vegetarian on purpose and even saint paul talks 00:15:01.879 --> 00:15:05.899 about that in in his letters would you guys just 00:15:05.899 --> 00:15:09.620 stop the thing with all talking about your your 00:15:09.620 --> 00:15:13.000 diet there are more important things because 00:15:13.000 --> 00:15:16.320 he was you know we made but there were so many 00:15:16.320 --> 00:15:19.700 there's a beautiful book called vegetarian christian 00:15:19.700 --> 00:15:24.039 saints by uh... holly roberts interesting woman 00:15:24.039 --> 00:15:28.610 uh... medical doctor She's Jewish and interested 00:15:28.610 --> 00:15:30.570 in Christianity and you know, I just love it 00:15:30.570 --> 00:15:33.590 when people have all these all these things combined 00:15:33.590 --> 00:15:37.570 But it's so interesting to me. And when I think 00:15:37.570 --> 00:15:42.009 about that It wasn't an edict of this fledgling 00:15:42.009 --> 00:15:47.629 church but I think when somebody like Jesus if 00:15:47.629 --> 00:15:50.929 he is at all who people think that he was who 00:15:50.929 --> 00:15:56.120 I think that he was They bring so much love that 00:15:56.120 --> 00:16:01.860 that love remains on earth energetically. And 00:16:01.860 --> 00:16:06.700 when you are vibrating in tune with that, you 00:16:06.700 --> 00:16:11.980 can't harm, you can't kill. And I think that 00:16:11.980 --> 00:16:15.019 is actually why there were so many vegetarians. 00:16:15.519 --> 00:16:22.000 And so to me, as spiritual vegans, we can work 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:25.090 alongside the vegan activists who don't have 00:16:25.090 --> 00:16:27.690 any interest in spirituality, but we can bring 00:16:27.690 --> 00:16:30.789 that other part. We can bring that uplift. We 00:16:30.789 --> 00:16:36.210 can bring that kind of healing energy. And yes, 00:16:36.210 --> 00:16:40.889 what happens to animals is unspeakable. And so 00:16:40.889 --> 00:16:46.429 we are doing on every level what we can do and 00:16:46.429 --> 00:16:48.649 trusting that more people will come along and 00:16:48.649 --> 00:16:51.850 more will be done and we'll get through this 00:16:51.850 --> 00:16:55.340 thing. We'll see animal liberation, not in our 00:16:55.340 --> 00:16:59.779 lifetime, perhaps, but at some point before too 00:16:59.779 --> 00:17:06.740 terribly long. Let me get back to that argument 00:17:06.740 --> 00:17:11.599 the secular atheist vegans make, which is religion 00:17:11.599 --> 00:17:15.500 is responsible for animal exploitation. I do 00:17:15.500 --> 00:17:21.079 think there is some truth in that. But then when 00:17:21.079 --> 00:17:24.220 you just, you know, scratch the surface, there's 00:17:24.220 --> 00:17:28.359 so much evidence, so many passages from holy 00:17:28.359 --> 00:17:32.099 scriptures that support and from all religions 00:17:32.099 --> 00:17:37.000 that support the vegan lifestyle. And, and so 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:42.740 why aren't, you know, religious people more in 00:17:42.740 --> 00:17:48.930 tune with the vegan message? Yeah. In 2019, My 00:17:48.930 --> 00:17:53.789 husband, who was 67 at the time, walked into 00:17:53.789 --> 00:17:57.950 this room where I was working and he said, I'm 00:17:57.950 --> 00:18:01.289 going to go back to school. Which was, well, 00:18:01.289 --> 00:18:04.970 OK, I mean, people do that at all ages. And then 00:18:04.970 --> 00:18:08.450 he said, I'm going to study theology. And then 00:18:08.450 --> 00:18:11.670 I almost fell off the chair because I've always 00:18:11.670 --> 00:18:16.130 been very much into spirituality. And he was 00:18:16.130 --> 00:18:18.680 always very accepting. You know, that's Victoria. 00:18:18.700 --> 00:18:22.380 That's what she does. That's fine. I don't disregard 00:18:22.380 --> 00:18:27.039 it. It's just not me. And he said, I want to 00:18:27.039 --> 00:18:31.180 understand how the religions of the world have 00:18:31.180 --> 00:18:36.259 so missed out on God's other creatures. So he 00:18:36.259 --> 00:18:40.339 ended up at the one spirit seminary and became 00:18:40.339 --> 00:18:45.539 ordained as a minister, interfaith minister. 00:18:45.980 --> 00:18:50.380 And I think that's really at the center of it, 00:18:50.640 --> 00:18:56.359 that people see what religions have done and 00:18:56.359 --> 00:18:59.380 have not done. And I think the main thing with 00:18:59.380 --> 00:19:06.140 animals is they've been used throughout history 00:19:06.140 --> 00:19:10.039 for human needs. And one could argue that there 00:19:10.039 --> 00:19:14.079 was a time when there was no other option for 00:19:14.079 --> 00:19:18.809 humans to get around to have food, clothing, 00:19:19.309 --> 00:19:22.450 whatever. We live now. So what people had to 00:19:22.450 --> 00:19:25.509 do at some other time or some other place, I 00:19:25.509 --> 00:19:30.950 don't know if it's all that relevant. But I think 00:19:30.950 --> 00:19:34.890 and it depends also on the religion and how animal 00:19:34.890 --> 00:19:43.750 lives are regarded. It's not hatred. It's it's 00:19:43.819 --> 00:19:47.759 Not a focus you know it's like so many other 00:19:47.759 --> 00:19:50.819 things in life you know if you have a history 00:19:50.819 --> 00:19:53.980 if you really into a certain kind of music or 00:19:53.980 --> 00:19:57.359 a certain pastime and it's just all absorbing 00:19:57.359 --> 00:19:59.660 to you and somebody else's never even heard of 00:19:59.660 --> 00:20:04.400 it can you think huh and yet you know they have 00:20:04.400 --> 00:20:08.200 it i mean. I met a cardiologist recently who 00:20:08.200 --> 00:20:10.559 had never heard of Dean Ornish. And to me, that's 00:20:10.559 --> 00:20:13.079 like an infectious disease doctor that's never 00:20:13.079 --> 00:20:16.220 heard of Louis Pasteur. But they're out there. 00:20:16.740 --> 00:20:19.680 Now, interestingly enough, this cardiologist 00:20:19.680 --> 00:20:23.759 is quite young. And I think that the vegan activists 00:20:23.759 --> 00:20:26.539 that you're talking about for the most part are 00:20:26.539 --> 00:20:30.420 also quite young. Because when I became vegan, 00:20:31.019 --> 00:20:36.140 It was very much about spirituality for a great 00:20:36.140 --> 00:20:39.700 many people, because if you look historically 00:20:39.700 --> 00:20:44.259 at vegetarianism around the world, it was almost 00:20:44.259 --> 00:20:47.839 always tied to a religion. So the big surge, 00:20:47.839 --> 00:20:52.740 of course, was with the British first trade relationship 00:20:52.740 --> 00:20:55.980 and then colonization of India. And so there 00:20:55.980 --> 00:21:01.450 was this exchange of cultures. And people in 00:21:01.450 --> 00:21:04.529 england and people who could read english learned 00:21:04.529 --> 00:21:08.869 about the ideas of hinduism buddhism jainism 00:21:08.869 --> 00:21:13.349 the him so religions they learned about vegetarianism 00:21:13.349 --> 00:21:16.349 reincarnation all this stuff was widely known 00:21:16.349 --> 00:21:20.369 in in england and other places in the seventeen 00:21:20.369 --> 00:21:24.529 eighteen hundreds i mean the history in colonial 00:21:24.529 --> 00:21:29.119 america. was utterly fascinating. Do you know, 00:21:29.220 --> 00:21:34.319 for example, of a French Jesuit missionary named 00:21:34.319 --> 00:21:37.380 Sebastian Rail? Is that a familiar name? No. 00:21:37.539 --> 00:21:39.500 Well, I learned this because there's this very 00:21:39.500 --> 00:21:43.640 cool woman in Maine who researches vegetarian 00:21:43.640 --> 00:21:48.920 history of New England. So anyway, Father Sebastian 00:21:48.920 --> 00:21:53.740 came over to make all the native people become 00:21:53.740 --> 00:21:57.700 Catholic. But when he got here and when he met 00:21:57.700 --> 00:22:00.480 the native people, he realized that he had as 00:22:00.480 --> 00:22:03.299 much to learn from them as they did from him. 00:22:03.480 --> 00:22:08.039 He learned their language. He actually was killed 00:22:08.039 --> 00:22:11.019 in a skirmish when he took the side of the native 00:22:11.019 --> 00:22:14.359 people against the Europeans. But here's what's 00:22:14.359 --> 00:22:18.640 interesting. He was vegan. He was vegan in France. 00:22:18.660 --> 00:22:23.539 He was vegan when he came to America and wrote 00:22:23.539 --> 00:22:27.019 about that. And you find these people, I just 00:22:27.019 --> 00:22:30.279 wrote a blog post that I called 13 million points 00:22:30.279 --> 00:22:34.519 of light, that as vegans, that's what we are. 00:22:35.140 --> 00:22:39.380 That we're these beautiful radiant centers of 00:22:39.380 --> 00:22:44.400 hope and possibility. And for people in the Judeo 00:22:44.400 --> 00:22:48.579 -Christian tradition, anybody who's vegan and 00:22:48.579 --> 00:22:54.700 has a vegan home has recreated Eden. Because 00:22:54.700 --> 00:22:57.980 even was vegan everybody was vegan all the now 00:22:57.980 --> 00:23:01.400 carnivorous animals in in the Genesis creation 00:23:01.400 --> 00:23:05.579 story were vegan I mean at even after the fall 00:23:05.579 --> 00:23:08.900 Adam and Eve all the human they were still vegan 00:23:08.900 --> 00:23:11.519 although they were now you know in a place where 00:23:11.519 --> 00:23:13.519 there's gonna be sickness and death and trouble 00:23:13.519 --> 00:23:17.539 and all that and The story goes that God said 00:23:17.539 --> 00:23:21.039 okay, you know now That he didn't say it like 00:23:21.039 --> 00:23:23.619 this but the way i say it is the hawaiian vacation 00:23:23.619 --> 00:23:25.700 diet the fruits and the nuts that's not going 00:23:25.700 --> 00:23:29.019 to do it for you. You gotta have some kale and 00:23:29.019 --> 00:23:32.920 so you know the foods that before only animals 00:23:32.920 --> 00:23:36.599 not human animals had eaten where then. Allowed 00:23:36.599 --> 00:23:39.140 for humans and interestingly enough even after 00:23:39.140 --> 00:23:41.940 the fall according to the story and i'm not saying 00:23:41.940 --> 00:23:44.619 that i'm a biblical literalist but i just find 00:23:44.619 --> 00:23:48.950 these parallels so fascinating that. Adam and 00:23:48.950 --> 00:23:52.009 Eve and family were no longer in Eden. They were 00:23:52.009 --> 00:23:56.869 gonna die, but Everybody lived a really really 00:23:56.869 --> 00:24:00.990 long time until the flood when there was a Dispensation 00:24:00.990 --> 00:24:04.670 for eating animals and and there you go, but 00:24:04.670 --> 00:24:11.410 I think that these kinds of influences brought 00:24:11.410 --> 00:24:16.890 the idea of a himsa coming from from India and 00:24:16.730 --> 00:24:22.170 And the idea of this reverence for life, it really 00:24:22.170 --> 00:24:27.329 pushed it out into the world. And so you had 00:24:27.329 --> 00:24:29.930 people like through something called the Bible 00:24:29.930 --> 00:24:32.730 Christian Church. It was really big in England, 00:24:32.910 --> 00:24:36.549 early eighteen hundreds came to America. They 00:24:36.549 --> 00:24:38.670 settled in Pennsylvania because that was, you 00:24:38.670 --> 00:24:42.049 know, the big freedom of religion state and. 00:24:42.599 --> 00:24:45.559 And there were just so many others and then you 00:24:45.559 --> 00:24:48.079 get like the seventh day Adventists who are still 00:24:48.079 --> 00:24:52.480 with us and so what happens when you're a vegan 00:24:52.480 --> 00:24:57.519 is to speak biblically you are recreating Eden 00:24:57.519 --> 00:25:01.920 you are bringing to life that Isaiah prophecy 00:25:01.920 --> 00:25:05.400 of the peace on earth when everybody lives harmoniously 00:25:05.400 --> 00:25:08.980 together. And it's not the whole planet right 00:25:08.980 --> 00:25:12.869 now and it's not. whole countries or whole cities. 00:25:13.710 --> 00:25:17.970 But every vegan household, whatever it looks 00:25:17.970 --> 00:25:22.670 like, is that little Eden. And there's something 00:25:22.670 --> 00:25:26.789 very powerful about that. And whether people 00:25:26.789 --> 00:25:28.890 want to say they're spiritual or not, that's 00:25:28.890 --> 00:25:34.250 a spiritual thing to do. And I just feel that 00:25:34.250 --> 00:25:38.069 overall, there's certainly a lot less religion 00:25:38.069 --> 00:25:40.809 in younger people that in older people and you 00:25:40.809 --> 00:25:43.190 know there's less in my generation and my grandparents 00:25:43.190 --> 00:25:47.910 generation. But i do think the possibility for. 00:25:48.750 --> 00:25:54.230 For spirituality because we really can find one 00:25:54.230 --> 00:25:57.569 that fits or craft something that works or combine 00:25:57.569 --> 00:26:00.049 things together it's like there's there's no 00:26:00.049 --> 00:26:04.230 law that you have to put your spirituality in 00:26:04.230 --> 00:26:09.200 into some very. rigorous rule -bound structure, 00:26:09.299 --> 00:26:11.460 although you can, and that works brilliantly 00:26:11.460 --> 00:26:17.559 for some people. That, uh, Sebastian fellow reminds 00:26:17.559 --> 00:26:23.539 me of Al Marri, who was this, uh, poet and a 00:26:23.539 --> 00:26:27.180 literary genius who lived in Syria, who was vegan, 00:26:27.359 --> 00:26:31.259 who wrote poems about his veganism. Interestingly 00:26:31.259 --> 00:26:35.440 enough, he is Usually described as an atheist, 00:26:35.859 --> 00:26:39.579 but he was not you know, he would sleep on his 00:26:39.579 --> 00:26:45.119 prayer mat. He was a true believer. It's just 00:26:45.119 --> 00:26:50.519 that he practiced in his own terms and I do find 00:26:50.519 --> 00:26:56.059 that a lot of now among vegan. you know, people 00:26:56.059 --> 00:27:00.519 who are religious and spiritual, they are heterodox 00:27:00.519 --> 00:27:03.640 in their approach to religion and spirituality. 00:27:04.380 --> 00:27:08.119 Yes. Well, that makes sense because we have to 00:27:08.119 --> 00:27:12.339 be free thinkers or we wouldn't be vegan. It's 00:27:12.339 --> 00:27:16.119 still very unusual. We're a small percentage 00:27:16.119 --> 00:27:19.819 of the population. People still think we eat 00:27:19.819 --> 00:27:24.039 funny. It's still hard for a lot of people to 00:27:24.039 --> 00:27:27.680 celebrate holidays with their families so we're 00:27:27.680 --> 00:27:31.059 kinda out there and so the idea that we have 00:27:31.059 --> 00:27:33.880 that kind of character and then we're gonna walk 00:27:33.880 --> 00:27:36.839 up to really any religion and say give me the 00:27:36.839 --> 00:27:39.359 rules i wanna follow every single one of them 00:27:39.359 --> 00:27:42.079 that's probably not gonna be the case with most 00:27:42.079 --> 00:27:49.880 vegans. No indeed i want to get back for a second 00:27:49.880 --> 00:27:53.680 on. the point about why aren't more religious 00:27:53.680 --> 00:27:58.299 people vegan. Okay. Do you think there is a bias 00:27:58.299 --> 00:28:03.039 among, uh, in the vegan movement, uh, an anti 00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:07.880 -religion bias that stops us from talking about 00:28:07.880 --> 00:28:11.319 veganism in religious terms to religious people? 00:28:11.319 --> 00:28:15.500 So it's talking in their language, uh, because 00:28:15.500 --> 00:28:19.799 we have this defeatist attitude, you know, um, 00:28:20.519 --> 00:28:23.599 those religions or those religious people just 00:28:23.599 --> 00:28:26.920 would not understand our way of life. Not only 00:28:26.920 --> 00:28:30.019 that, but they are part of the problem. And so 00:28:30.019 --> 00:28:34.240 why would I waste time talking about veganism 00:28:34.240 --> 00:28:37.519 or convincing them to consider a vegan lifestyle? 00:28:38.660 --> 00:28:41.500 That's not the movement that I'm seeing. And 00:28:41.500 --> 00:28:44.799 again, I think it's generational because for 00:28:44.799 --> 00:28:49.559 me, Well, when I became vegan, the American Vegan 00:28:49.559 --> 00:28:53.700 Society magazine was called Ahimsa, coming from 00:28:53.700 --> 00:28:58.019 the yogic term for nonviolence. Jay Dinshah, 00:28:58.319 --> 00:29:02.700 the founder, the late founder, was very interested 00:29:02.700 --> 00:29:07.079 in Gandhi and this whole idea of peace and Gandhi, 00:29:07.279 --> 00:29:10.339 of course, being vegetarian. He wanted to be 00:29:10.339 --> 00:29:14.380 vegan. Evidently, he had very messed up Stomach 00:29:14.380 --> 00:29:18.059 and so his doctors, you know at that time things 00:29:18.059 --> 00:29:20.019 were limited and they told him he had to have 00:29:20.019 --> 00:29:25.700 goat's milk and It is said that It and he only 00:29:25.700 --> 00:29:28.339 would drink the milk of his own goat that he 00:29:28.339 --> 00:29:30.880 know that she's with the kid and everybody's 00:29:30.880 --> 00:29:33.500 gonna be okay I mean it must have been very complicated 00:29:33.500 --> 00:29:37.799 but at one point shortly before his death He 00:29:37.799 --> 00:29:40.859 said he called having to eat this goats drink 00:29:40.859 --> 00:29:45.200 this goat's milk the tragedy of my life. This 00:29:45.200 --> 00:29:49.700 was after India split into India and Pakistan. 00:29:50.160 --> 00:29:53.859 And for somebody that was so interested in peace 00:29:53.859 --> 00:29:57.480 and harmony and oneness, and he had devoted his 00:29:57.480 --> 00:30:00.119 life to freeing his country from colonial rule, 00:30:00.400 --> 00:30:02.839 and then that happens, you would think that would 00:30:02.839 --> 00:30:05.700 be the tragedy of his life. But he said it was 00:30:05.700 --> 00:30:07.980 taking the milk from the goat. So there was this 00:30:07.980 --> 00:30:12.640 very spiritual Emphasis in fact my own first 00:30:12.640 --> 00:30:15.660 book compassion the ultimate ethic and exploration 00:30:15.660 --> 00:30:19.640 of veganism which i think maybe the first book 00:30:19.640 --> 00:30:22.420 on vegan philosophy and practice to come from 00:30:22.420 --> 00:30:24.960 an actual publisher came out in nineteen eighty 00:30:24.960 --> 00:30:31.049 five that was written. as a fellowship project 00:30:31.049 --> 00:30:34.289 for my bachelor's degree in comparative religions. 00:30:34.289 --> 00:30:36.789 If you hear funny little noises in the background, 00:30:36.970 --> 00:30:40.390 this is my dog snoring. So we're all vegans here. 00:30:40.529 --> 00:30:43.369 I think we can handle the dogs. It's very cute. 00:30:43.630 --> 00:30:51.319 My apologies. So yeah, and so What i did when 00:30:51.319 --> 00:30:53.640 i knew i had this fellowship and it was for foreign 00:30:53.640 --> 00:30:56.619 study i had to leave north america to study anything 00:30:56.619 --> 00:31:00.200 that had to do with my major so i went to the 00:31:00.200 --> 00:31:03.819 uk to study vegans because at that time. There 00:31:03.819 --> 00:31:06.240 are more vegans there and it was a smaller land 00:31:06.240 --> 00:31:09.019 mass and i could just do it better but i was 00:31:09.019 --> 00:31:13.420 looking at them in a religious spiritual perspective 00:31:13.420 --> 00:31:15.400 that made all kinds of sense in fact it made 00:31:15.400 --> 00:31:18.920 so much sense that my college gave me money. 00:31:19.230 --> 00:31:23.390 to go do this when veganism was hardly known 00:31:23.390 --> 00:31:27.769 in the world much much less in in america and 00:31:27.769 --> 00:31:34.230 today my husband used that ordination that he 00:31:34.230 --> 00:31:37.829 has to found with another interfaith minister 00:31:37.829 --> 00:31:40.470 reverend sarah bowen and myself something called 00:31:40.470 --> 00:31:43.690 the compassion consortium which is an interfaith 00:31:43.690 --> 00:31:47.970 spiritual center for animal advocates so we're 00:31:47.970 --> 00:31:51.490 interfaith which means anybody from any tradition 00:31:51.490 --> 00:31:56.009 or none is welcome. And we're interspecies, which 00:31:56.009 --> 00:32:00.390 means that we believe that animals have spiritual 00:32:00.390 --> 00:32:06.569 lives. No, maybe not with sacraments and commandments 00:32:06.569 --> 00:32:10.690 and things like that. But there is something 00:32:10.690 --> 00:32:16.630 very etheric about them as well. And then we 00:32:16.630 --> 00:32:21.140 are Inter spiritual meaning that we bring in 00:32:21.140 --> 00:32:25.200 traditions from around the world for meditation 00:32:25.200 --> 00:32:28.019 practices and so on and so forth so i'm part 00:32:28.019 --> 00:32:30.980 of that i'm also part of the interface vegan 00:32:30.980 --> 00:32:34.259 coalition which reaches out to all different 00:32:34.259 --> 00:32:39.380 kinds of religions they have packets for broad 00:32:39.380 --> 00:32:42.400 religious bodies and in some of the ones that 00:32:42.400 --> 00:32:47.380 are more. Prevalent in north america like christian 00:32:47.380 --> 00:32:49.619 denominations for instance they'll get them down 00:32:49.619 --> 00:32:54.299 even to denominational kinds of of packets and 00:32:54.299 --> 00:32:58.079 then there is the vegan spirituality which was. 00:32:59.759 --> 00:33:04.539 Also a way to find begins to have spiritual lives 00:33:04.539 --> 00:33:06.160 and want to have a spiritual lives and bring 00:33:06.160 --> 00:33:09.779 them together and i was also lead producer of 00:33:09.779 --> 00:33:13.039 the documentary a prayer for compassion. which 00:33:13.039 --> 00:33:18.119 was produced in 2019. You can find it on Vimeo 00:33:18.119 --> 00:33:22.519 and elsewhere. And that's about spirituality 00:33:22.519 --> 00:33:27.400 and food choices. And again, to me, it made perfect 00:33:27.400 --> 00:33:33.940 sense. So it was probably 2016 when the filmmaker, 00:33:34.519 --> 00:33:38.519 Thomas Jackson, called into my at that time radio 00:33:38.519 --> 00:33:41.240 show my main street vegan podcast started out 00:33:41.240 --> 00:33:44.400 as internet radio as well as a podcast and we 00:33:44.400 --> 00:33:47.500 can take callers and he called in and asked if 00:33:47.500 --> 00:33:51.200 i would like to produce his documentary and you 00:33:51.200 --> 00:33:53.420 know my first thought is i don't know how to 00:33:53.420 --> 00:33:56.410 produce a documentary But then he said, it's 00:33:56.410 --> 00:33:59.210 going to be about veganism and spirituality. 00:33:59.210 --> 00:34:01.930 And it's like, yes, I will learn how to produce 00:34:01.930 --> 00:34:04.869 a documentary because those are my two passions. 00:34:05.609 --> 00:34:07.670 But but there is that stuff out there. There's 00:34:07.670 --> 00:34:11.809 also a wonderful group in the UK called the Animal 00:34:11.809 --> 00:34:15.789 Interfaith Alliance, where some very high level 00:34:15.789 --> 00:34:21.250 people in established religious bodies gather 00:34:21.250 --> 00:34:25.920 to try to change. some of the things that is 00:34:25.920 --> 00:34:30.059 being done in the name of their religion or others. 00:34:30.619 --> 00:34:34.179 So there are people who care. It's so interesting 00:34:34.179 --> 00:34:37.900 that you seem to be seeing a lot of vegans who 00:34:37.900 --> 00:34:40.079 aren't interested in spirituality, and I'm seeing 00:34:40.079 --> 00:34:42.860 a lot who are. I don't know who's got the most 00:34:42.860 --> 00:34:47.699 numbers, probably you, but we're certainly here. 00:34:47.719 --> 00:34:50.139 If there's somebody listening to this who's like, 00:34:50.380 --> 00:34:52.079 well, I'd like to be a spiritual vegan, but I 00:34:52.079 --> 00:34:54.449 don't know any. Well, there are all these these 00:34:54.449 --> 00:34:59.210 places you can look and find your people. I don't 00:34:59.210 --> 00:35:03.929 know. I wonder if this has been studied. It's 00:35:03.929 --> 00:35:06.329 just, you know, I guess my personal experience 00:35:06.329 --> 00:35:10.170 and exchanges I've had and every time I produce 00:35:10.170 --> 00:35:15.030 a podcast about focusing on religion, I get so 00:35:15.030 --> 00:35:19.480 much. pushback and so many negative comments, 00:35:19.920 --> 00:35:24.179 which I simply don't understand because I have 00:35:24.179 --> 00:35:28.440 the same vision that aligns with, with yours, 00:35:28.440 --> 00:35:32.800 Victoria. Well, I think a lot of people have 00:35:32.800 --> 00:35:36.780 been religiously injured. No, they, they either 00:35:36.780 --> 00:35:39.780 had a religion pushed on them that didn't make 00:35:39.780 --> 00:35:44.420 any sense or if they were gay or in some other 00:35:44.420 --> 00:35:48.960 way, knowing that who they were was something 00:35:48.960 --> 00:35:53.519 that that particular religion was disregarding 00:35:53.519 --> 00:35:56.019 even condemning you know that kind of stuff is 00:35:56.019 --> 00:35:58.679 very difficult and we know there's been clergy 00:35:58.679 --> 00:36:03.199 abuse of children and things like that so I understand 00:36:03.199 --> 00:36:07.719 you know where some of it comes from and yet 00:36:07.719 --> 00:36:12.280 when we think about how spirituality can be so 00:36:12.280 --> 00:36:15.539 personal and you can have all the joys of it. 00:36:15.639 --> 00:36:19.659 You know, it would be like saying, I hate music 00:36:19.659 --> 00:36:22.659 if the only music I had ever heard was marching 00:36:22.659 --> 00:36:27.019 bands. And I don't know anything about classic 00:36:27.019 --> 00:36:30.900 rock or Mozart. All I know is marching bands 00:36:30.900 --> 00:36:36.039 and I don't like it. And so I think this whole 00:36:36.039 --> 00:36:39.099 realm of spirituality, it's so big. And the other 00:36:39.099 --> 00:36:43.980 thing that it does for animal activists and animal 00:36:43.980 --> 00:36:49.880 advocates is it can help us deal with how hard 00:36:49.880 --> 00:36:54.380 it is. You know, just knowing what goes on, it 00:36:54.380 --> 00:36:58.880 is very difficult. And so the idea that there 00:36:58.880 --> 00:37:02.860 is something more, that there is a way to get 00:37:02.860 --> 00:37:06.500 some kind of comfort so that we can just keep 00:37:06.500 --> 00:37:10.519 going knowing what we do. And I know people who 00:37:10.519 --> 00:37:13.289 are not interested in spirituality would probably 00:37:13.289 --> 00:37:15.469 just say, well, what a lightweight you are, you 00:37:15.469 --> 00:37:18.710 know, I just do it on my own. But I feel like 00:37:18.710 --> 00:37:23.269 anybody who is aware of great suffering needs 00:37:23.269 --> 00:37:27.630 some kind of help in dealing with that. And, 00:37:28.010 --> 00:37:31.610 you know, maybe there is just great personal 00:37:31.610 --> 00:37:35.650 strength that they can draw on. But I really 00:37:35.650 --> 00:37:41.289 like the idea of spirituality. And then, you 00:37:41.289 --> 00:37:44.090 know, I don't feel the need to turn to anything 00:37:44.090 --> 00:37:47.750 damaging because I can turn to this idea that 00:37:47.750 --> 00:37:51.769 I don't know anything about the great beyond 00:37:51.769 --> 00:37:54.309 and anybody who says for absolute certain that 00:37:54.309 --> 00:37:58.710 they do, I think is kind of full of themselves. 00:37:59.110 --> 00:38:05.409 But I think we all have to create some sort of 00:38:05.409 --> 00:38:11.679 livable vision for Getting through this life 00:38:11.679 --> 00:38:18.059 and for me spiritual teachings are just they're 00:38:18.059 --> 00:38:21.260 just Part of it. They're just so much a part 00:38:21.260 --> 00:38:25.880 of it. I think about when I was researching compassion 00:38:25.880 --> 00:38:30.000 the ultimate ethic in in England Scotland and 00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:34.469 Ireland and there was one woman that I met and 00:38:34.469 --> 00:38:37.769 she had a bed and breakfast in Northern Scotland 00:38:37.769 --> 00:38:42.969 in Inverness. And she told me that she'd always 00:38:42.969 --> 00:38:47.630 considered herself a devout Christian, a member 00:38:47.630 --> 00:38:52.690 of the Church of Scotland. And then she had this 00:38:52.690 --> 00:38:56.889 experience where she said, thou shalt not kill 00:38:56.889 --> 00:39:01.570 rang through my ears for a fortnight. And I went 00:39:01.570 --> 00:39:05.650 to this Church of Scotland clergy and he said 00:39:05.650 --> 00:39:08.210 you know don't don't worry about don't worry 00:39:08.210 --> 00:39:10.269 about animals you know don't worry about what 00:39:10.269 --> 00:39:13.869 you eat it's like just you know get some rest 00:39:13.869 --> 00:39:18.190 and you know you'll get over it basically but 00:39:18.190 --> 00:39:22.329 but once she committed that she was going to 00:39:22.329 --> 00:39:26.710 be vegan it stopped and she wasn't losing her 00:39:26.710 --> 00:39:31.159 mind or anything but That was a spiritual experience 00:39:31.159 --> 00:39:35.659 that made one person vegan. And she is one of 00:39:35.659 --> 00:39:41.280 many thousands throughout history that something 00:39:41.280 --> 00:39:47.019 in their soul pushed them, moved them in this 00:39:47.019 --> 00:39:50.440 direction. And I think for people who are more 00:39:50.440 --> 00:39:53.139 scientific and more, you know, they're engineers 00:39:53.139 --> 00:39:56.280 and mathematicians and people like that, there 00:39:56.280 --> 00:40:00.599 are spiritual traditions that are just made for 00:40:00.599 --> 00:40:04.539 that kind of temperament. And I think of Vedanta, 00:40:04.800 --> 00:40:08.260 Advaita Vedanta, the idea that you and the divine 00:40:08.260 --> 00:40:12.300 are one and your job is to, you know, determine 00:40:12.300 --> 00:40:16.679 that. There's a wonderful novel from the 1930s 00:40:16.679 --> 00:40:20.119 by Somerset Mom, The Razor's Edge, which is based 00:40:20.119 --> 00:40:22.679 on those teachings. And there was a great old 00:40:22.679 --> 00:40:25.599 movie, if you like, old movies made from the 00:40:25.599 --> 00:40:30.150 book. And so it's just like there really is something 00:40:30.150 --> 00:40:33.710 for everybody if you want it and if you need 00:40:33.710 --> 00:40:40.650 it. And to me. The power has been shown. I mean, 00:40:40.650 --> 00:40:44.530 I think perhaps most recently in history is the 00:40:44.530 --> 00:40:49.090 12 step programs, because before Bill Wilson 00:40:49.090 --> 00:40:53.110 had a spiritual experience that got him to stop 00:40:53.110 --> 00:40:57.010 drinking. alcoholics died or were locked up. 00:40:57.150 --> 00:40:59.550 That was the only hope. You are going to die 00:40:59.550 --> 00:41:02.070 or you're going to be locked up forever, throw 00:41:02.070 --> 00:41:05.130 away the key. That's it. Because there was no 00:41:05.130 --> 00:41:10.590 help and no hope. And then he had this literally 00:41:10.590 --> 00:41:14.010 spiritual experience. He saw a light in his hospital 00:41:14.010 --> 00:41:18.989 room and the desire to drink was taken away. 00:41:19.469 --> 00:41:22.429 And other people you know it's not that simple 00:41:22.429 --> 00:41:25.150 the desire isn't taken away but the ability to 00:41:25.150 --> 00:41:28.170 show up a day at a time and not not give into 00:41:28.170 --> 00:41:32.329 it is and that's a completely spiritual program 00:41:32.329 --> 00:41:35.929 you know it can be. Any any you know that they 00:41:35.929 --> 00:41:38.570 were back in the thirties saying you know god 00:41:38.570 --> 00:41:41.610 of your understanding and they would say if you 00:41:41.610 --> 00:41:44.269 can't do god then make the group your higher 00:41:44.269 --> 00:41:48.710 power it just has to be something. that isn't 00:41:48.710 --> 00:41:52.730 your own ego and you know there are thousands 00:41:52.730 --> 00:41:55.510 of people walking around hundreds of thousands 00:41:55.510 --> 00:41:59.590 who have gotten over all kinds of addiction because 00:41:59.590 --> 00:42:01.550 of this spiritual program and it doesn't make 00:42:01.550 --> 00:42:04.570 them religious fanatics doesn't make them pushy 00:42:04.570 --> 00:42:09.690 people who are you know closed -minded and can't 00:42:09.690 --> 00:42:13.630 stand people who are different from them it's 00:42:13.630 --> 00:42:16.050 it's just another thing you know and it's sort 00:42:16.050 --> 00:42:19.820 of like i think In the world of people who are 00:42:19.820 --> 00:42:22.840 not interested in spirituality, there are those 00:42:22.840 --> 00:42:26.599 who are wonderful, kind, giving, gracious, funny, 00:42:26.719 --> 00:42:29.659 you love them to pieces. And then there are religious 00:42:29.659 --> 00:42:32.739 people who are kind, funny, gracious, you love 00:42:32.739 --> 00:42:35.039 them to pieces. And there are religious people 00:42:35.039 --> 00:42:38.260 that you just want to, you know, push them and 00:42:38.260 --> 00:42:42.480 their holy scripture out the door and close it, 00:42:42.519 --> 00:42:47.300 lock it. And there are, you know, Non spiritual 00:42:47.300 --> 00:42:50.880 people who are like that too. So I think we need 00:42:50.880 --> 00:43:00.079 to just be open to what gives other people peace 00:43:00.079 --> 00:43:07.280 and Accept that if you're not a believer Those 00:43:07.280 --> 00:43:09.320 people at least have something that helps get 00:43:09.320 --> 00:43:13.179 them through life. And if you are one to know 00:43:13.179 --> 00:43:15.440 that we don't know everything. We don't know 00:43:15.440 --> 00:43:19.679 how it all works. So, you know, God bless them 00:43:19.679 --> 00:43:21.820 too, even if you don't want to say it too loud. 00:43:23.980 --> 00:43:28.519 Yes, I, I was thinking about this conversation, 00:43:28.519 --> 00:43:31.739 and I was wondering, how, how would you define 00:43:31.739 --> 00:43:36.119 spirituality? And in the context of this discussion, 00:43:36.179 --> 00:43:41.710 and I was thinking about, you know, many activists 00:43:41.710 --> 00:43:47.929 being too close to the fire, too close to this 00:43:47.929 --> 00:43:53.210 horrific thing that animal exploitation is and 00:43:53.210 --> 00:43:57.010 spirituality could allow them to take some distance, 00:43:57.230 --> 00:44:02.130 to have a sense of a bigger picture. And I do 00:44:02.130 --> 00:44:06.369 believe that adopting that attitude would also 00:44:06.369 --> 00:44:11.619 make them better. animal activists, just because, 00:44:11.800 --> 00:44:15.840 you know, for one reason, they will be able to 00:44:15.840 --> 00:44:19.340 sustain that activism for a longer time and not 00:44:19.340 --> 00:44:26.099 be burnt out by their actions. Well, that's certainly 00:44:26.099 --> 00:44:31.940 how I see it. And I know that everybody has to 00:44:31.940 --> 00:44:34.159 follow their own path and follow their own light 00:44:34.159 --> 00:44:38.400 and I guess to me, that's really what spirituality 00:44:38.400 --> 00:44:44.679 is. Spirituality is acknowledging that somewhere 00:44:44.679 --> 00:44:51.780 within me, there is this pure, perfect light. 00:44:52.679 --> 00:44:57.500 And that's what I need to follow. And of course, 00:44:57.800 --> 00:45:00.639 oftentimes I don't because I'm human and I mess 00:45:00.639 --> 00:45:05.719 up, but to just know that that's there and that's 00:45:05.719 --> 00:45:11.659 the essence. And I think too, sometimes like 00:45:11.659 --> 00:45:14.000 there's that phrase, the world is too much with 00:45:14.000 --> 00:45:18.719 us. We look at what we've got right here. And 00:45:18.719 --> 00:45:21.539 it's this infinite amount of time. And I know 00:45:21.539 --> 00:45:24.260 that When you're young it's supposed to seem 00:45:24.260 --> 00:45:26.639 like forever because you wouldn't do all the 00:45:26.639 --> 00:45:30.199 work that it took to establish yourself in you 00:45:30.199 --> 00:45:32.099 know home and family and all that stuff even 00:45:32.099 --> 00:45:33.940 if you're not trying to save the world you know 00:45:33.940 --> 00:45:36.599 it's a big deal to make a life and get through 00:45:36.599 --> 00:45:41.820 life. But as i look at it from my age now seventy 00:45:41.820 --> 00:45:46.829 five. You know, this is a beautiful book by Joel 00:45:46.829 --> 00:45:50.250 Goldsmith, a parenthesis in eternity, one of 00:45:50.250 --> 00:45:53.230 my favorite book titles. But this really is a 00:45:53.230 --> 00:46:00.769 parenthesis in eternity. And so the idea that 00:46:00.769 --> 00:46:09.170 our lives only matter if we can Can change this 00:46:09.170 --> 00:46:12.449 thing right now and I mean of course we all want 00:46:12.449 --> 00:46:15.030 to change it right now good heavens I mean that 00:46:15.030 --> 00:46:17.849 would just be the most amazing thing in the world 00:46:17.849 --> 00:46:22.750 and yet we're in this movement and We don't know 00:46:22.750 --> 00:46:27.030 historically Where we are in it so for example 00:46:27.030 --> 00:46:30.510 if you were looking at slavery in the United 00:46:30.510 --> 00:46:33.530 States And you were an abolitionist and you were 00:46:33.530 --> 00:46:36.610 putting your whole life into getting rid of human 00:46:36.610 --> 00:46:41.630 slavery in this country. What year is it? Is 00:46:41.630 --> 00:46:50.289 it 1620? Is it 1750? Is it 1862? I mean we don't 00:46:50.289 --> 00:46:53.090 know where we are is in the animal rights movement 00:46:53.090 --> 00:46:55.610 and you know there's kind of backwards and forwards 00:46:55.610 --> 00:46:57.230 and up and down and we think we're making a lot 00:46:57.230 --> 00:46:59.949 of progress and then we have some backsliding 00:46:59.949 --> 00:47:04.130 and which I guess happens in every kind of liberation 00:47:04.130 --> 00:47:09.690 movement like this. And this may also be the 00:47:09.690 --> 00:47:13.630 most revolutionary revolution that's ever taken 00:47:13.630 --> 00:47:18.050 place on earth, because it's the only one that 00:47:18.050 --> 00:47:24.900 has been for others who cannot participate. who 00:47:24.900 --> 00:47:28.400 can't speak i mean you know we're talking about 00:47:28.400 --> 00:47:31.039 slavery in america there is the underground railroad 00:47:31.039 --> 00:47:33.079 there is harriet tubman and there are all these 00:47:33.079 --> 00:47:36.179 people who were enslaved or had been enslaved 00:47:36.179 --> 00:47:40.360 that were part of the cause and with the other 00:47:40.360 --> 00:47:44.019 inhuman animals i mean they can be in sanctuaries 00:47:44.019 --> 00:47:47.599 being ambassadors and participating in that way 00:47:47.599 --> 00:47:50.699 but this is huge i mean what we're trying to 00:47:50.699 --> 00:47:56.719 do it has to do. With people's diet and I mean 00:47:56.719 --> 00:47:58.639 trying to get somebody to change what they eat 00:47:58.639 --> 00:48:02.059 even if it's not like veganism Just getting somebody 00:48:02.059 --> 00:48:04.820 to you know, not eat desserts or something. I 00:48:04.820 --> 00:48:09.099 mean, it's like ah You know, this is just really 00:48:09.099 --> 00:48:13.559 very very difficult We're also talking about 00:48:13.559 --> 00:48:17.840 getting people to change their attitude and step 00:48:17.840 --> 00:48:23.030 down from their super privileged position of 00:48:23.030 --> 00:48:27.630 we are human we are above everybody and come 00:48:27.630 --> 00:48:31.190 to more of a yeah we've got a big brain and an 00:48:31.190 --> 00:48:35.090 opposing thumb but we're really an animal like 00:48:35.090 --> 00:48:39.050 everybody else you know these are just huge things 00:48:39.050 --> 00:48:42.590 that we're asking of people so when we look out 00:48:42.590 --> 00:48:46.409 at our progress and get discouraged by how slow 00:48:46.409 --> 00:48:50.119 it is and certainly it's As long as any animal 00:48:50.119 --> 00:48:52.900 is suffering, the progress is too slow. But on 00:48:52.900 --> 00:48:56.340 the other hand, we've got to give ourselves a 00:48:56.340 --> 00:49:01.059 break to understand what a huge undertaking this 00:49:01.059 --> 00:49:04.280 is. And maybe if we really saw how big it was, 00:49:04.760 --> 00:49:09.340 we would be overjoyed at the progress we're making. 00:49:11.760 --> 00:49:17.699 Absolutely. And beautifully said. I want to address 00:49:17.699 --> 00:49:22.719 the the question of animal exploitation itself 00:49:22.719 --> 00:49:26.119 in many religious traditions there is this idea 00:49:26.119 --> 00:49:31.340 of evil do you believe that what we're fighting 00:49:31.340 --> 00:49:35.719 is a form of that of of evil and do you even 00:49:35.719 --> 00:49:40.619 believe in that concept of of evil maybe not 00:49:40.619 --> 00:49:46.519 as a you know a real entity but as a as a force 00:49:46.519 --> 00:49:51.539 of Darkness in this world. Well, there certainly 00:49:51.539 --> 00:49:55.079 seems to be that a force of darkness in this 00:49:55.079 --> 00:49:59.360 world and I'm always so surprised when people 00:49:59.360 --> 00:50:04.360 go there and even outside the animal situation, 00:50:04.360 --> 00:50:09.139 but You know where people just choose to steal 00:50:09.139 --> 00:50:12.840 something from somebody. It's like What you know 00:50:12.840 --> 00:50:16.599 why I mean, it's just it's absolutely fascinating 00:50:16.599 --> 00:50:22.500 to me and So I I don't believe in evil as a force 00:50:22.500 --> 00:50:28.139 I Grew up I was supposed to be Roman Catholic 00:50:28.139 --> 00:50:32.119 But it never really resonated with me very much 00:50:32.119 --> 00:50:35.539 and I had this nanny It was very eclectically 00:50:35.539 --> 00:50:38.760 spiritual and she ended up in unity which is 00:50:38.760 --> 00:50:41.760 a kind of progressive Christian denomination, 00:50:41.960 --> 00:50:45.940 which was actually founded by a couple of very 00:50:45.940 --> 00:50:49.460 strict vegetarians in the 1890s. Now they weren't 00:50:49.460 --> 00:50:52.380 vegan because that concept just wasn't around 00:50:52.380 --> 00:50:56.760 then, but they absolutely did not eat meat and 00:50:56.760 --> 00:50:59.559 they didn't wear leather. They had a publishing 00:50:59.559 --> 00:51:02.559 company and they printed their Bibles and all 00:51:02.559 --> 00:51:05.840 their other books with this faux leather that 00:51:05.840 --> 00:51:08.960 was available in the 1890s. It's like, who knew? 00:51:10.039 --> 00:51:13.739 So, uh, and they recommended vegetarianism after 00:51:13.739 --> 00:51:16.599 they died. And, you know, a son took over that 00:51:16.599 --> 00:51:20.199 kind of fell away, but that influence, you know, 00:51:20.219 --> 00:51:25.139 was, was part of my childhood. And now I have 00:51:25.139 --> 00:51:27.880 gone so off on a story that I've forgotten what 00:51:27.880 --> 00:51:31.820 we're talking about. Evil. Evil. Yeah. Evil. 00:51:32.000 --> 00:51:35.150 Okay. So in in unity and in all the what they 00:51:35.150 --> 00:51:39.070 called new thought traditions religious science 00:51:39.070 --> 00:51:43.329 divine science even christian science to a degree 00:51:43.329 --> 00:51:48.170 it's the idea there is like this is a unity thing 00:51:48.170 --> 00:51:54.110 there is one power and one presence in all the 00:51:54.110 --> 00:51:59.010 universe god the good omnipotent now that is 00:51:59.010 --> 00:52:03.000 really hard to say and believe when you were 00:52:03.000 --> 00:52:06.599 looking at an animal being abused or a child 00:52:06.599 --> 00:52:09.159 being abused or something else happening that 00:52:09.159 --> 00:52:13.099 just totally should not be happening. And so 00:52:13.099 --> 00:52:18.860 it requires the idea that there's facts, there 00:52:18.860 --> 00:52:23.420 are facts. And among the many facts of this world 00:52:23.420 --> 00:52:26.380 is that things are happening and have happened 00:52:26.380 --> 00:52:30.940 throughout history that were just wrong. That 00:52:30.940 --> 00:52:34.980 if there is a god very much removed from god 00:52:34.980 --> 00:52:39.139 Just just wrong and i think in our own lives 00:52:39.139 --> 00:52:41.679 we can look at things that we did and i was like 00:52:41.679 --> 00:52:44.699 oh my oh my goodness can't believe i did that 00:52:44.699 --> 00:52:47.400 and we learn and we change and you know go on 00:52:47.400 --> 00:52:49.699 and i think that that's what we're supposed to 00:52:49.699 --> 00:52:52.659 do is a society to one of my early spiritual 00:52:52.659 --> 00:52:55.579 teachers used to talk about the upward progression 00:52:55.579 --> 00:52:57.500 of the universe. We're supposed to be part of 00:52:57.500 --> 00:53:00.280 this upward progression. And I think that that's 00:53:00.280 --> 00:53:02.239 what we're doing in the animal rights movement. 00:53:03.659 --> 00:53:09.699 So whether evil is a force, a satanic kind of 00:53:09.699 --> 00:53:12.800 force, I guess I would say no, because when I 00:53:12.800 --> 00:53:16.619 think of a force, I think of a creative power. 00:53:16.619 --> 00:53:24.860 And I don't see evil creating life. But I do 00:53:24.860 --> 00:53:27.519 see things that are really bad and you can call 00:53:27.519 --> 00:53:30.920 it evil or you can call it wrong or sick or Misguided 00:53:30.920 --> 00:53:33.320 or whatever kind of word you want to give to 00:53:33.320 --> 00:53:37.579 it, but I do think it's our responsibility anytime 00:53:37.579 --> 00:53:44.639 we can Step in for someone who's powerless and 00:53:44.639 --> 00:53:48.920 certainly that's the case for animals in agriculture 00:53:48.920 --> 00:53:53.119 and experimentation and in so many other places 00:53:53.119 --> 00:53:57.260 where they should not be. I don't know about 00:53:57.260 --> 00:54:01.699 your position on the supernatural and its manifestations, 00:54:02.079 --> 00:54:04.800 for instance, you know, angels, ghosts and all 00:54:04.800 --> 00:54:10.420 of that. But that is a question I raised to Akiva 00:54:10.420 --> 00:54:16.159 Gersh, also known as the vegan rabbi. I asked 00:54:16.159 --> 00:54:20.719 him, you know, point blank, where is God right 00:54:20.719 --> 00:54:26.099 now? Why is he not stopping this animal exploitation 00:54:26.099 --> 00:54:30.559 business? Why is he not intervening? What do 00:54:30.559 --> 00:54:35.599 you make of that question? Well, I think that 00:54:35.599 --> 00:54:41.039 there are two ways to believe in the traditional 00:54:41.039 --> 00:54:46.880 Judeo -Christian kind of God, and one is to believe 00:54:46.880 --> 00:54:50.519 that He and I'll just say he because we're going 00:54:50.519 --> 00:54:52.440 to be that traditional we may as well keep the 00:54:52.440 --> 00:54:58.760 pronoun. It can't can be changed or moved to 00:54:58.760 --> 00:55:02.059 come in and do something you know stop something 00:55:02.059 --> 00:55:05.380 and there's another view I think it's called 00:55:05.380 --> 00:55:09.960 deism that there is a God who created everything 00:55:09.960 --> 00:55:14.239 and set it into motion and gave humans free will. 00:55:14.599 --> 00:55:17.599 And we're supposed to be taking care of this 00:55:17.599 --> 00:55:26.420 stuff and. I do believe that sometimes. There 00:55:26.420 --> 00:55:32.840 are. Remarkable things that happen and the timing 00:55:32.840 --> 00:55:38.480 like even in my own life I was. I got into this 00:55:38.480 --> 00:55:43.420 Peter thing. Saw a bunch of video of animals 00:55:43.420 --> 00:55:48.239 abused. But I'd already been vegan for over 30 00:55:48.239 --> 00:55:51.260 years. I mean, I'd seen footage like that forever. 00:55:51.400 --> 00:55:54.460 It wasn't like it was new, but my heart was extra 00:55:54.460 --> 00:55:58.059 open that night. And so going home in the subway, 00:55:58.139 --> 00:56:01.380 I was kind of talking to God because I'm comfortable 00:56:01.380 --> 00:56:05.139 with the G word and like, well, why can't I just 00:56:05.139 --> 00:56:08.539 give them a hundred thousand dollars? And the 00:56:08.539 --> 00:56:11.860 response was, well, here's what you can do. And 00:56:11.860 --> 00:56:15.719 it was literally inspiration. Your next book 00:56:15.719 --> 00:56:19.880 needs to be Main Street Vegan. It needs to have 00:56:19.880 --> 00:56:23.440 40 short chapters because people don't have long 00:56:23.440 --> 00:56:26.159 attention spans. It needs to have a recipe at 00:56:26.159 --> 00:56:28.300 the end of each chapter because people really 00:56:28.300 --> 00:56:31.340 like recipes and it needs to be geared to that 00:56:31.340 --> 00:56:34.760 young woman that you were in Wheaton, Illinois 00:56:34.760 --> 00:56:38.980 in 1983 when you went from vegetarian to vegan. 00:56:39.179 --> 00:56:43.239 And that was so clear. It was almost like I just 00:56:43.239 --> 00:56:46.559 take notes like okay check got that got that 00:56:46.559 --> 00:56:51.719 and so i told my agent i wrote a proposal we 00:56:51.719 --> 00:56:54.239 got a really good publisher torture penguin. 00:56:55.019 --> 00:56:58.400 But then the first time i talk to my editor she 00:56:58.400 --> 00:57:00.599 said we're so happy to have you we don't have 00:57:00.599 --> 00:57:04.639 a book on veganism yet but then she said we hate 00:57:04.639 --> 00:57:08.260 main street. And i knew that was my title and 00:57:08.260 --> 00:57:10.320 i couldn't very well say to her but that has 00:57:10.320 --> 00:57:13.559 to be the title cuz. God gave it to me. So it 00:57:13.559 --> 00:57:15.599 was just like, OK, they bought it. You know, 00:57:15.619 --> 00:57:17.079 I'm going to have to come up with another title. 00:57:17.239 --> 00:57:19.179 And I was trying and I was trying to write the 00:57:19.179 --> 00:57:21.260 book and come up with a title and nothing sounded 00:57:21.260 --> 00:57:24.739 good. And so my husband and I are walking up 00:57:24.739 --> 00:57:28.119 Broadway after a movie and there is Michael Moore 00:57:28.119 --> 00:57:30.699 and he had liked another book that I'd written. 00:57:30.960 --> 00:57:33.599 So I gave my card to this woman who was with 00:57:33.599 --> 00:57:35.820 him. He was talking to some fans and we went 00:57:35.820 --> 00:57:40.480 on Broadway and then I hear Victoria. It's Michael 00:57:40.480 --> 00:57:45.280 Moore. And we started talking. And he said, we 00:57:45.280 --> 00:57:48.059 need to talk about food. I'll call you. Well, 00:57:48.320 --> 00:57:51.000 miraculously, he did. And one night we're talking 00:57:51.000 --> 00:57:55.380 about food. And I told him this book I'm writing 00:57:55.380 --> 00:57:58.019 is supposed to be called Main Street Vegan. Publisher 00:57:58.019 --> 00:58:01.260 doesn't like that. He said, they're wrong. Everybody 00:58:01.260 --> 00:58:04.219 wants to be Main Street. Let me talk to them. 00:58:05.159 --> 00:58:07.519 So I had this three -way call with an Academy 00:58:07.519 --> 00:58:10.309 Award winner, my editor and me. He convinced 00:58:10.309 --> 00:58:13.429 her. She convinced the higher ups. I got my title. 00:58:13.869 --> 00:58:18.150 And as soon as she called me and said, OK, the 00:58:18.150 --> 00:58:20.969 book will be called Main Street Vegan, I'm getting 00:58:20.969 --> 00:58:23.750 all these like bubbles like, oh, there should 00:58:23.750 --> 00:58:26.369 be a Main Street Vegan podcast. And in those 00:58:26.369 --> 00:58:28.730 days, there were only four vegan podcasts. I 00:58:28.730 --> 00:58:32.389 was number five. So the idea that was kind of 00:58:32.389 --> 00:58:35.440 revolutionary. There needs to be Main Street 00:58:35.440 --> 00:58:38.539 Vegan Productions. There needs to be a Main Street 00:58:38.539 --> 00:58:42.280 Vegan Academy training and certifying vegan lifestyle 00:58:42.280 --> 00:58:46.559 coaches and educators. And it's like, yeah. And 00:58:46.559 --> 00:58:50.699 all that has happened. And it wouldn't have happened 00:58:50.699 --> 00:58:54.119 if we hadn't run into Michael Moore on Broadway. 00:58:54.920 --> 00:58:59.260 I mean, huh? Now, that's not like parting the 00:58:59.260 --> 00:59:04.500 Red Sea, but I consider it a vegan miracle. And 00:59:04.500 --> 00:59:08.480 I think it's important to look for them because 00:59:08.480 --> 00:59:13.860 I believe this is the time in history when it's 00:59:13.860 --> 00:59:18.219 time for the animals. I've seen a lot of liberation 00:59:18.219 --> 00:59:23.059 in my life. I've seen a lot of people, women 00:59:23.059 --> 00:59:29.010 and minorities of various kinds. Not get to perfection 00:59:29.010 --> 00:59:31.809 not get to the ultimate where it ought to be 00:59:31.809 --> 00:59:36.829 but make tremendous tremendous strides that were 00:59:36.829 --> 00:59:39.969 unbelievable would just just wouldn't have believed 00:59:39.969 --> 00:59:43.929 it like when I was a kid and so I think so much 00:59:43.929 --> 00:59:49.289 can happen for animals and if there is something 00:59:49.289 --> 00:59:56.239 like divine appointment and serendipity and a 00:59:56.239 --> 01:00:01.039 little bit of extra help from what some people 01:00:01.039 --> 01:00:04.420 would call the spirit world. I'll take it. I'll 01:00:04.420 --> 01:00:06.780 take whatever I can get to save these animals. 01:00:08.179 --> 01:00:11.440 I love those stories. By the way, I don't know 01:00:11.440 --> 01:00:16.619 if it happens to you, but many times when I talk 01:00:16.619 --> 01:00:20.820 to atheists who just hate the idea of God, don't 01:00:20.820 --> 01:00:24.539 talk to me about religion. They know you're into 01:00:24.539 --> 01:00:27.159 spirituality, and so they will at some point 01:00:27.159 --> 01:00:31.440 whisper, hey, I have a story. I was visited by 01:00:31.440 --> 01:00:34.820 a ghost once. I'm telling you this, but take 01:00:34.820 --> 01:00:38.300 it with a grain of salt. And I had this dream, 01:00:38.639 --> 01:00:42.519 which was a prophetic dream. And so, yeah, it's 01:00:42.519 --> 01:00:47.519 always funny when that happens. I think even 01:00:47.519 --> 01:00:51.659 the scientists that study the brain they've found 01:00:51.659 --> 01:00:54.619 some section that, you know, I don't know if 01:00:54.619 --> 01:00:57.659 they call it the God spot or something, that 01:00:57.659 --> 01:01:02.239 it's, we're wired to be spiritual. Now does that 01:01:02.239 --> 01:01:06.559 absolutely mean, yes, there is some, you know, 01:01:07.039 --> 01:01:12.940 God, Brahman, Ahura Mazda? I don't know, but 01:01:12.940 --> 01:01:18.300 I know we're wired for it. And so it kind of 01:01:18.300 --> 01:01:25.590 seems like it's not it's not that far off and 01:01:25.590 --> 01:01:29.590 you know in a way i kind of admire people who 01:01:29.590 --> 01:01:32.869 can get through life and stay sane and remain 01:01:32.869 --> 01:01:37.769 effective and not believe in anything because 01:01:37.769 --> 01:01:42.849 i couldn't i mean life can get really really 01:01:42.849 --> 01:01:48.489 hard sometimes and i think this is why So often 01:01:48.489 --> 01:01:51.510 people who have not been close to any kind of 01:01:51.510 --> 01:01:54.690 religion or anything You know, they have a funeral 01:01:54.690 --> 01:01:59.869 they have you know there's just When you're looking 01:01:59.869 --> 01:02:05.630 at coming to earth and leaving earth It all gets 01:02:05.630 --> 01:02:13.739 very kind of hmm Is this parenthesis all there 01:02:13.739 --> 01:02:16.800 is and one thing for me I was kind of a weird 01:02:16.800 --> 01:02:20.659 little kid. I always knew I was somewhere before 01:02:20.659 --> 01:02:24.820 this so I would hear adults talk about life after 01:02:24.820 --> 01:02:28.840 death. And I would be thinking what's the big 01:02:28.840 --> 01:02:31.260 deal I mean of course there's life after death 01:02:31.260 --> 01:02:35.019 because I was just there and. Then I've heard 01:02:35.019 --> 01:02:38.219 this story. It's probably an urban myth, but 01:02:38.219 --> 01:02:41.059 it's a good story of the little boy who goes 01:02:41.059 --> 01:02:44.139 into his baby sister's room and says, Tell me 01:02:44.139 --> 01:02:47.400 about God I'm beginning to forget. And I think 01:02:47.400 --> 01:02:53.739 maybe that happens. It's not. It's more common 01:02:53.739 --> 01:02:56.579 than than you think that you might think. There 01:02:56.579 --> 01:03:02.659 is a whole subreddit online of parents. And guardians 01:03:02.659 --> 01:03:06.679 you know freaking out from interactions with 01:03:06.679 --> 01:03:11.000 children who talk about their past life who described 01:03:11.000 --> 01:03:14.860 things in details who often. Share that they 01:03:14.860 --> 01:03:18.059 have been the relative of the guardian or the 01:03:18.059 --> 01:03:20.920 parent you know there I was your aunt you don't 01:03:20.920 --> 01:03:25.400 remember me or I was your father weird weird 01:03:25.400 --> 01:03:28.800 interactions and. It comes from families from 01:03:28.800 --> 01:03:31.519 everywhere in the world, from every religion. 01:03:32.840 --> 01:03:37.619 For me, reincarnation is such a compelling concept. 01:03:38.659 --> 01:03:43.699 I really don't know why people take it as a joke 01:03:43.699 --> 01:03:48.639 or as a non -serious idea. I don't know if it 01:03:48.639 --> 01:03:52.920 was Thoreau, but some one of those folks said, 01:03:53.670 --> 01:03:57.010 I don't think it is any more remarkable to be 01:03:57.010 --> 01:04:00.869 born twice than it is to be born once. So, and 01:04:00.869 --> 01:04:04.210 again, I was raised with it, you know, this incredible 01:04:04.210 --> 01:04:06.989 nanny, you know, brought me up with reincarnation, 01:04:07.230 --> 01:04:09.769 which, you know, it makes more sense. You know, 01:04:09.769 --> 01:04:13.889 I think we're always just trying to understand 01:04:13.889 --> 01:04:21.449 probably the inexplicable, but it makes more 01:04:21.449 --> 01:04:27.469 sense than one and done. And I may not know exactly 01:04:27.469 --> 01:04:31.030 how it works or the ins and outs or, you know, 01:04:31.170 --> 01:04:33.510 where are you in between or how long are you 01:04:33.510 --> 01:04:37.429 there? And, you know, I don't know. But it's 01:04:37.429 --> 01:04:39.829 just it's my worldview. It's how I see things. 01:04:40.309 --> 01:04:43.210 When I was not quite three, because we moved 01:04:43.210 --> 01:04:47.349 on my third birthday. So I know it wasn't I wasn't 01:04:47.349 --> 01:04:52.079 three. And my nanny took me out at night. And 01:04:52.079 --> 01:04:55.340 it was late enough that it was completely dark 01:04:55.340 --> 01:04:58.340 and there were lots of stars in the sky. And 01:04:58.340 --> 01:05:01.579 I'm in my stroller looking up at the stars and 01:05:01.579 --> 01:05:06.500 thinking, okay, I mean, that's home. I'm here. 01:05:06.840 --> 01:05:11.380 I'm doing this thing. It's okay. But it is not 01:05:11.380 --> 01:05:14.500 home. And I remember that so clearly, which is, 01:05:14.739 --> 01:05:17.559 I think when I decided, okay, I'm going to do 01:05:17.559 --> 01:05:20.559 this, I'm going to stick this thing out. And 01:05:22.329 --> 01:05:27.250 So, you know, maybe some people are just a little 01:05:27.250 --> 01:05:36.070 bit more wired that way from an early age. I 01:05:36.070 --> 01:05:38.590 know it helps me. It helps me be a better person. 01:05:39.050 --> 01:05:44.050 It helps me get through things that are difficult. 01:05:44.389 --> 01:05:48.230 And it helps me be a better animal advocate. 01:05:50.329 --> 01:05:53.250 You know, I'll stand with anybody who's an animal 01:05:53.250 --> 01:05:55.289 advocate, whether they have that piece going 01:05:55.289 --> 01:06:01.590 or not. Beautiful. Let me end this conversation 01:06:01.590 --> 01:06:09.630 with this question then. You mentioned how you 01:06:09.630 --> 01:06:13.130 were inspired, you know, the idea of the book 01:06:13.130 --> 01:06:16.849 was an inspiration. And this isn't old ancient 01:06:16.849 --> 01:06:21.769 idea you know of the muse or the diamond I think 01:06:21.769 --> 01:06:25.170 from what's the name of that I should not forget 01:06:25.170 --> 01:06:30.789 his name the philosopher who Socrates yes he 01:06:30.789 --> 01:06:36.889 had that daemon or demon however you want to 01:06:36.889 --> 01:06:41.590 pronounce it and and he was the one you know 01:06:41.590 --> 01:06:47.250 giving him inspiration for his philosophy How 01:06:47.250 --> 01:06:55.590 do we summon that spirit? How do we bring up 01:06:55.590 --> 01:07:01.650 those new and innovative and groundbreaking ideas? 01:07:01.869 --> 01:07:05.389 Is there even a way? Is it out of our control? 01:07:05.949 --> 01:07:08.449 And if there is, what are your thoughts on it? 01:07:08.949 --> 01:07:11.670 Okay. Well, I don't think you can order it up. 01:07:12.510 --> 01:07:17.980 I'll have a veggie burger and a salad, but I 01:07:17.980 --> 01:07:22.650 think you can create the place where it might 01:07:22.650 --> 01:07:25.230 come. So for example when my daughter and her 01:07:25.230 --> 01:07:28.309 husband bought their condo in New York City and 01:07:28.309 --> 01:07:31.510 it had a yard, nobody has a yard in Manhattan, 01:07:32.250 --> 01:07:35.309 so they were really looking for the kinds of 01:07:35.309 --> 01:07:37.889 plants they could plant that would attract bees. 01:07:38.349 --> 01:07:40.469 And I think that's what we need to do. We need 01:07:40.469 --> 01:07:43.889 to live a kind of life that attracts inspiration. 01:07:44.570 --> 01:07:48.130 So there are all different ways to live a spiritual 01:07:48.130 --> 01:07:51.289 life. It's not, you know, one size fits all. 01:07:51.590 --> 01:07:57.110 But generally speaking, in many traditions, some 01:07:57.110 --> 01:08:01.329 of the things that come across are that you get 01:08:01.329 --> 01:08:04.409 up early. Like in yoga, for example, there's 01:08:04.409 --> 01:08:07.949 this time of day called Brahma Mahurta, which 01:08:07.949 --> 01:08:10.690 is I think technically it's like two hours and 01:08:10.690 --> 01:08:14.820 40 minutes before sunrise. But even just six 01:08:14.820 --> 01:08:18.520 o 'clock you know you get up when it's quiet 01:08:18.520 --> 01:08:22.720 and when it's just easier to access you know 01:08:22.720 --> 01:08:28.100 that kind of peace and so you meditate and maybe 01:08:28.100 --> 01:08:30.600 you journal journaling is a great way to bring 01:08:30.600 --> 01:08:32.500 about inspiration because you're just writing 01:08:32.500 --> 01:08:34.279 and writing and writing and then all of a sudden 01:08:34.279 --> 01:08:37.399 you write something like what did i say that 01:08:37.399 --> 01:08:39.979 and it's like well maybe it was me and maybe 01:08:39.979 --> 01:08:42.859 it wasn't but it's good i'm gonna follow with 01:08:42.859 --> 01:08:47.699 that thing And, you know, being with people who 01:08:47.699 --> 01:08:53.359 are uplifting, being in nature, just being an 01:08:53.359 --> 01:08:57.020 animal activist and yoga parlance is karma yoga, 01:08:57.479 --> 01:08:59.899 that selfless service that's doing something 01:08:59.899 --> 01:09:04.319 for someone with no thought of any benefit to 01:09:04.319 --> 01:09:08.199 yourself. That's, you know, that's a spiritual 01:09:08.199 --> 01:09:12.479 practice. And I think the more of that that we 01:09:12.479 --> 01:09:17.140 can incorporate into our lives, the more effective 01:09:17.140 --> 01:09:22.840 we'll be and also happier and more content. Because 01:09:22.840 --> 01:09:26.140 the truth is a lot of people, even ethical vegans, 01:09:26.279 --> 01:09:29.000 even ethical vegans who have done animal activism, 01:09:29.500 --> 01:09:32.920 we lose them. And we know our recidivism rate 01:09:32.920 --> 01:09:38.329 is, gosh, you know, worse than a lot of shrinking 01:09:38.329 --> 01:09:42.949 religions that will go unnamed. And so we need 01:09:42.949 --> 01:09:49.850 to nourish our fellow animal advocates. And one 01:09:49.850 --> 01:09:52.869 way we can do that is by being at peace ourselves, 01:09:53.329 --> 01:09:59.350 being a peaceful presence. And if anybody's interested, 01:10:00.050 --> 01:10:02.250 you know, sometimes people will say like, oh, 01:10:02.350 --> 01:10:05.260 gosh, you seem so peaceful. What do you do? And 01:10:05.260 --> 01:10:07.340 it's like, well, you caught me on a good day, 01:10:07.439 --> 01:10:10.079 but here's what I do so that I have the good 01:10:10.079 --> 01:10:15.020 days. Beautifully said, Victoria, did you want 01:10:15.020 --> 01:10:17.479 to add something before we end this recording? 01:10:17.899 --> 01:10:21.380 Well, I'm just so happy that you have this podcast. 01:10:21.420 --> 01:10:27.600 And I love the idea that veganism, if we're going 01:10:27.600 --> 01:10:30.979 to save all the animals, we need all the people. 01:10:31.119 --> 01:10:35.010 So that means People who have no interest in 01:10:35.010 --> 01:10:39.050 spirituality and people who are just regular 01:10:39.050 --> 01:10:42.409 conventional Whatever you grew up as kind of 01:10:42.409 --> 01:10:45.409 religious who knows people who are really into 01:10:45.409 --> 01:10:48.609 meditation and enlightenment and all we need 01:10:48.609 --> 01:10:55.989 the entire spectrum and so to address part of 01:10:55.989 --> 01:11:00.590 that spectrum is to to broaden it mean the way 01:11:00.890 --> 01:11:07.909 I envision the world is that whether it's a Baptist 01:11:07.909 --> 01:11:13.970 funeral or a Hindu wedding or whatever it is, 01:11:14.189 --> 01:11:19.550 it's going to be vegan because that's what people 01:11:19.550 --> 01:11:23.829 of faith do. And because it's such a good thing 01:11:23.829 --> 01:11:27.890 to do, everybody's going to pick up on it. And 01:11:27.890 --> 01:11:30.729 then we're going to have a vegan world. So that's 01:11:30.729 --> 01:11:34.210 my vision. And I think that your podcast and 01:11:34.210 --> 01:11:36.369 all that you do in the world is helping us get 01:11:36.369 --> 01:11:40.430 there. So thank you. Thank you to you, Victoria, 01:11:40.649 --> 01:11:43.470 for all the great work you have done throughout 01:11:43.470 --> 01:11:47.250 the years. I would not have been here if it wasn't 01:11:47.250 --> 01:11:52.069 for you. I'm sure of that. So, yeah, like the 01:11:52.069 --> 01:11:53.970 saying goes, you know, standing on the shoulders 01:11:53.970 --> 01:11:58.300 of giants. So thank you so much, Victoria. Thank 01:11:58.300 --> 01:12:02.100 you for having answered my questions and thank 01:12:02.100 --> 01:12:06.819 you for your voice. My pleasure. Thank you everyone 01:12:06.819 --> 01:12:09.979 for listening. I kindly invite you to share this 01:12:09.979 --> 01:12:12.859 podcast with the vegans you know. Let's encourage 01:12:12.859 --> 01:12:16.800 more people to take action. Again, thank you 01:12:16.800 --> 01:12:19.779 so much for caring and I will see you next Tuesday 01:12:19.779 --> 01:12:21.300 for a new episode.