Transcendent Spirituality: Why the Change from Veganism?

At Direct Action Great Turning (DAGT), there is an emphasis on expanding the philosophical  and spiritual basis of the vegan movement. But why do this? Is not the term vegan adequate enough at the current time? Let us have some discussion of this issue.

Traditionally, veganism is thought in popular culture to be about food choices, and indeed it is and so much more. Those people in the movement are aware that it is about animal-rights and social justice, and the commitment to these values simply deepens the commitment to human rights by recognizing the common, universal needs of different species and seeing them as beings in their own right.  When there is an empathy for animal suffering, the consciousness of human suffering naturally becomes even greater. Veganism therefore is a natural boost to human spiritual development and the promotion of human rights.

But why go beyond these traditional notions of veganism, and even jump to a new term? Well, in practical terms, there are some problems with public relations in the vegan movement.  Some of this has to do with the extremist portrayals of and cultural operations against vegans/animal-rights advocates perpetrated by the national and corporate security complexes of the United States. There has also been some damage inflicted by vegans themselves who do not always portray their values as flowing out of a stable, well-thought out philosophy and moral code.

But other aspects of this public relations problem  have to do with how the vegan movement has too often been co-opted by corporate interests to create a bigger market for artificial foods, such as Beyond Meet, which is plant-based but certainly not organic or natural.  There is also the problem of corporate funding of animal rights groups, which harass organic farmers due to their livestock husbandry.  This aids the current corporate class warfare against small farmers and businesses, so there can be monopoly ownership of land and food production to the detriment of families and small businesses.  The cluelessness of this in the vegan movement on these issues is troubling, but there also is an opportunity here to help common people better understand vegan values by vegans themselves rallying to aid family farmers and small businesses in this struggle against corporate and oligarchical takeovers of land and landholdings, all forms of private property, and small businesses in their attempts to effect Agenda 2030.  There is a need to rethink the vegan movement in this context and other contexts.

One of those contexts is the scholarly recognition humanity is now hurtling into a transhumanist age where the evolution of the human species will merge with machines and human biological functioning will be controlled by gene editing and nanotechnology.  In essence, human being are to become extinct, or at least as the proponents of transhumanism hope.  At the same time, ubiquitous Internet telecommunications have allowed for access to information about all of humanity’s philosophical and spiritual developments, and have made knowledge of them available to common people.  There is a big impetus in transhumanism towards totalitarianism, which now is seemingly being implemented around the world under the guise of human health concerns brought about the purported COVID-19 pandemic.  Common people and small businesses are being crushed by lock downs and vaccine mandates (job loss if the vaccine mandates are refused by individuals).  Though there is much social chaos and crises for individuals and nations, there is great opportunity here for alternatives to transhumanism and its current totalitarian impulses, inclusive of a loss of bodily autonomy regarding medical care (vaccine injections are becoming mandatory in Austria), essential human rights,  privacy, and freedom of movement amongst other losses.  See the video clip of Klauss Schwab, oligarch and founder of the World Economic Forum, if these statements seem too fantastic to be believed.  Further discussion of these impulses towards totalitarian states will be described and documented in posts the first week of 2022 (please review the video clips of state violence in the Netherlands perpetrated against vaccine horrors and lockdowns, if there is any doubt about totalitarian regimes being birthed around the globe).

Now at this crossroads, the emergence of a free-flowing form of spirituality could really stand in the gap between transhumanism and restrictive ideologies such as veganism, which has not always “played well” with patriachically-oriented faith traditions, such as Islam, Judaism, and Christianity, and has been associated with leftist/liberal ideologies, which makes its consideration by people with more conservative ideologies harder to do. This is not a call for vegans to compromise their beliefs, but it is a call for vegans to find a common ground for action with people of more conservative ideologies.   Could there ever be a better time for conservatives, libertarians, leftists, liberals, “red” and “blue” state people to join together?  Certainly not given that under a totalitarian threat all peoples must “hang together” or otherwise will “hang separately,” when under a great threat like America’s early colonists were under from the colonialism of the British Empire.

Vegans have to transcend their spiritual paths and political ideologies and unite with people of different backgrounds to push back and defeat this threat of transhumanist totalitarianism.  Once the infrastructure of the Fourth Industrial Revolution is fully established during the Great Reset, digital identities will be establish in which all the activities of individuals and groups of individuals will be able to be tracked and controlled through digital devices, telecommunications, and sensor infrastructures.

A core paradigm of veganism are the spiritual principles of ahimsa, which are to do no harm by hand, by words, or pattern of actions to other sentient beings.  This paradigm once fully realized in an individual sets off an endless flow of thought forms, creativity, and right actions that logically have to confront anything that creates suffering in any being of any species.  At this point in human history, this kind of mind set is never more needed to help counteract the transhumanist totalitarian movement, which is an evolution of humankind’s impulses towards social privilege, power hierarchies, and wealth to the detriment of all beings of any species and planet Earth itself as a living organism.  Never in human history has the paradigm of violence, death, power hierarchies, wealth extraction, and social privilege for a few needed to be replaced by a paradigm of community, blessing, doing no harm, and invigorating all life ecologically. 

Veganism states its cause to stop the suffering of any species best when it unites with the oppressed and the suffering of other beings against whatever is causing that suffering.  As Shaun Monson notes in his documentary film Earthlings, the relationship between humans and animals is all about power between the beings who have it and those beings who lack it.  Totalitarianism is all about power over humans and all species and their common enslavement to serve the needs of an elite few.  Never has there been a more important time for vegans to manifest transcendent spirituality, a spirituality where they go beyond themselves to stop suffering in any species, while teaching the graces that all species and individuals of species have worth, do not need to demonstrate a monetary value to justify their existence, have an individual life and consciousness that seeks a suitable habitat, has needs for movement, sensory input, has their own life that is psychologically their own, and a need to avoid pain, all the while sharing the mysteries and wonders of consciousness in a complex universe.

Indigenous cultures have always warned Western cultures of organizing society around the wealth extraction of the natural world and power hierarchies, and received nothing but forms of genocide in return for those warnings; and now the proposed solution is a global totalitarian state where human rights are not inalienable and can only be obtained by offering some form of profit to its economic system which socializes risks but privatizes profits to the control of a few elites.

Vegans, it is time to best teach feeling outside of  ourselves for the sacredness of all life and each being by joining the besieged human ones in defending human rights and freedoms, and by serving, blessing, and helping to heal them.  It is time transcend differences and come together with other kinds of people to preserve human freedoms.  Red and blue voters working together for common ends will help halt the abuse of power we see so commonly now.

Admittedly, there are many other issues that need to be discussed, so look for future posts to cover these topics.