Gurdjieff on animal abuse

In Gurdjieff's magnum opus, Beelzebub's Tales, are several passages which depict the suffering of animals and their liberation from human slaughter for food and in particular sacrifice. Although the words are ostensibly from characters within Gurdjieff's fictional book, they presumably bear some relation to his opinions.

Some of Gurdjieff's students use a grace before meals which condones eating meat - the author is not known. There are anecdotal accounts of Gurdjieff cooking meat. Osho stated Gurdjieff insisted his vegetarian students eat meat. However, another of Osho's statements about Gurdjieff contradicts a statement by Gurdjieff himself.

From Beelzebub's Tales:

Chapter 1. The Arousing of Thought

(A dog saved from the municipal dog-catcher.)

My friend was just about to throw his net, when suddenly the bells of a neighboring church rang out, calling the people to early morning prayers. At such an unexpected ringing in the morning quiet, the dog took fright and springing aside flew off like a shot down the empty street at his full canine velocity.

Then the barber-surgeon so infuriated by this that his hair, even beneath his armpits, stood on end, flung his net on the pavement and spitting over his left shoulder, loudly exclaimed: ‘Oh, Hell! What a time to ring!’

Chapter 19. Beelzebub's Second Descent on to Earth

(On animal slaughter and sacrifice.)

One form of beings created by Him, in whose presences He has placed all His hopes and expectations for the future welfare of Everything Existing, taking advantage of their superiorities, lord it over other forms and destroy their existence right and left and, what is more, they do so presumably “in His name.”

The whole terror of it is that although such phenomenal anti-God acts take place here in every house and on every square, nevertheless it never enters the head of any of these unfortunates that these beings whose existence I or we are now destroying are equally dear to that ONE, Who has created them, and that if He created these other forms of beings as well as ourselves, it must also have been for some purpose.

... I am quite sure that if any one of them should become aware that in destroying another’s existence he is not only committing an evil deed against the true GOD and every real Saint, but is even causing them, in their essences, sorrow and grief that there should exist in the great Universe ”in-the-likeness-of-God” beings-monsters who can manifest towards other creations of our COMMON CREATOR so consciencelessly and pitilessly; I repeat, if any of them should become aware of this, then certainly not one among them could with all his heart ever again destroy the existence of beings of other forms for Sacrificial-Offerings.

Chapter 21. The First Visit of Beelzebub to India

(A section describing practices similar to the vegetarian Jain religion.)

... your favorites so greatly changed their essence-relations towards the beings of other forms, that they not only ceased to destroy the existence of these beings for their famous Sacrificial-Offerings, but even began very sincerely with the whole of their being to regard these beings of other forms as beings like themselves.

If only it had all continued like that, it would have been very good; but here as well, just as in the country Maralpleicie, they soon began, as is proper to them, to wiseacre and to manifest all kinds of comical aspects of their Havatvernoni.

For instance, only a quarter of their year after the commencement of my preaching, you could see when strolling down the street of the city Kaimon, almost at every step, beings there walking on what are called ‘stilts.’

And they walked on stilts in order not to risk crushing some insect or other, a ‘little being,’ as they thought, just like themselves.

Many of them were afraid to drink water that had not been freshly taken from a spring or stream, because they thought that if the water had been a long time out of the spring or stream, ‘little-beings’ might have got into the water, and without seeing them, they might suddenly swallow these ‘poor-little-creatures-like-themselves.’

Many of them took the precaution to wear what are called Veils,’ lest poor-little-beings-like-themselves in the air might chance to enter mouths or noses, and so on and so forth.

From that time on, various societies began to arise there in Pearl-land in the city of Kaimon and its outskirts, whose aim was to protect ‘defenseless’ beings of various forms, both those existing among them and those they called ‘wild.’

Rules existed in all such societies prohibiting not only their destruction for Sacrificial-Offerings, but also the use of their planetary bodies for the ‘first-being-food.’

Chapter 42. Beelzebub in America

(On vegetarianism and will power.)

The famous dispute between the great Hertoonano and Veggendiadi arose on the following occasion.

The philosopher Veggendiadi, it seems, occupied two days in affirming and proving that it was absolutely necessary to spread among all the followers of the teachings of Jesus the notion that to kill animals for the purpose of consuming their flesh for food was the greatest sin, and moreover that such flesh was very harmful to the health ...

Hertoonano with measured dignity slowly mounted the rostrum and spoke in the manner proper to him, clearly and calmly.

"... to cut short other lives merely to stuff one’s own belly is an infamy of infamies such as only man is capable of.

"... hasten back to your towns, and there in the public squares to cry aloud: ‘Stop! Stop! People! Consume no more meat for food! This practice of yours is not only contrary to all the commandments of God, but is the cause of all your diseases.’

"As you see, I do not do this now. And I do not do so only because during my long years of unremitting study of this question I have, as I have already told you, arrived at an entirely different definite conclusion.

"... But if we cannot now be certain that at some time or other all people on Earth will abstain from meat, then we must now, as regards the consumption of meat, take quite other more practicable measures, because if one part of mankind consumes meat and the other part does not, then according to the results of my experimental investigations, the greatest of evils—than which nothing could
be worse—would befall the people who did not consume meat.

"Namely, as my detailed experiments have shown me, among people who do not consume meat but who nevertheless live among those who do, the formation ceases of what is called ‘will power.’

"My experiments proved to me that although when they abstain from meat people’s bodily health improves, nevertheless, when such abstainers find themselves mixing with those who consume meat, their psychic state inevitably grows worse, in spite of the fact that the state of their organism may at the same time sometimes improve.

"Thus, a good result for people who abstain from meat can be obtained exclusively only if they live always in complete isolation.

"As regards the people who constantly consume meat or those products which contain the element called ’Eknokh,’ although the appearance of the state of their organism undergoes no change, nevertheless their psyche, especially its chief feature which is sometimes designated by the general word the ‘character’ of man, gradually changes in regard to positiveness and morality for the
worse, beyond all recognition.

"... Well then, when, thanks to these experimental researches of mine, I became clearly convinced that if people continue to consume meat for their food it will be very bad for them ...