38.18  Since it is an all-outshining fact that eating animal food is not a vital necessity for human beings, but that on the contrary they can get illnesses and disorders in their organism from this coarse diet, it is not so surprising that illness is rife the world over. Matters are not improved when people at the same time have no hesitation in putting all sorts of poisonous substances – alcohol, nicotine, drugs and the like – into their organism. An exceedingly great number of ill people the world over, indeed, millions upon millions of people, fill large hospitals very often to capacity because of organic illnesses caused by unnatural food and unnatural drink. Many of these illnesses stem from people's consumption of animal food and other unnatural indulgences. But this is so to speak quite unconscious for the masses themselves. They are firmly held in the grips of the mass suggestion of flock consciousness, which almost unshakeably holds people bound to the bloody and killing principle of animal food. As regards diet, people are intimately related to the lion, the tiger, the hyena and the snake. To this must be added the great effort it costs mankind to keep millions of people who are trained as doctors and nurses and other co-workers in hospitals bound up in nursing, solely in order to look after the millions of people who are ill because of their mistaken care and nurture of their own organism. It is of course divine that all these people can be helped, nursed and cared for and perhaps cured. And one must sincerely admire the many people who, within mankind's great sphere of illness, sacrifice their time and love in order to help those people who have been so severely affected by fate. But imagine what a burden would be lifted from mankind if every single human being became interested in studying its own organism and the food, drink and stimulants it consumes, thereby making itself live in contact with the law of love towards the microscopic life units or living beings within its organism! Here too the great commandment "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself" (Matt. 22:39) holds true, and likewise the fifth commandment "Thou shalt not kill" (Exod. 20:13).
      The intention of life is not that millions upon millions of mankind's individuals should be bound to a sickbed and thereby cut off from being able to experience the normal pleasure and joy of daily life. It is not merely that they cannot fend for themselves, but also that they require the labour and exertion of millions of other people in order to be nursed and cared for and perhaps healed. And it is of course wonderful that there are people who are interested in nursing, caring for and healing the sick, but this is not the ultimate purpose of people's daily experience of life. Mankind's entire sphere of illness exists only on the basis of derailment, ignorance and a mistaken view of life and the mistaken habits of life that ensue from this.