Refs supporting the idea that one ideally needs to be vegetarian in ones approach to the 1^st initiation, and then to continue with the practices from there on.

We have been told that the vehicles of a 4^th degree initiate are 100% atomic matter, which in turn suggests levitation is a natural ability of any 4^th degree initiate. Seeing as a 4^th degree initiate also has the power to create the mayavirupa, it makes absolutely no sense that he would have any need to utilize either animal or vegetable matter as food. He would draw his energy from the surrounding ethers.

(EPI 327) It is an interesting side-light thrown upon the phenomena of aspiration that the power to levitate the body, which is so oft today the subject of psychic interest and research, is dependent upon having produced a peculiar alignment of the personality through aspiration and an act of the will. It presupposes in the three bodies a certain percentage of atoms of the adequate vibrations and lightness.

(EOH 509) e. They will teach humanity how rightly to nourish the body and to draw from the surrounding ethers the requisite food. Man will concentrate his attention upon the etheric body and the work and health of the physical body will become increasingly automatic.

In terms of the time element, the seven year cycle,( the time it takes for Saturn to square its position), is an important factor when purifying the physical vehicle. That is, we can look for results after seven years.

(WM 262) Add to the two above, physical plane purity as to food and manner of life, and in seven years time the man has built for himself three new bodies around the permanent atoms.

To build bodies of the finest matter “will involve discipline, pain, self-abnegation and abstinence.”-its worth remembering that the phenomena of initiation is a forcing process, and does not therefore come about without much effort.

(WM 182) Later two new methods will be employed which will facilitate the transmission of truth from the inner side to the outer plane. Precipitated writing will be given to those who can be trusted, but the time is not yet for its general use. It will be necessary to wait until the work of the esoteric schools has reached a more definite phase of development. Conditions as yet are not appropriate, but humanity is urged to be ready and open-minded and prepared for this development. Later will come the power to materialize thought-forms. People will come into incarnation who will have the ability temporarily to create and vitalize these thought-forms, and [Page 182] so enable the general public to see them. The time, however, is not yet. There is too much fear, and not enough experience of truth in the world. More knowledge must be acquired as to the nature of thought and of matter, and this must be followed experimentally by those with acute trained minds, a high rate of vibration, and bodies built of the finest matter. The attainment of this will involve discipline, pain, self-abnegation and abstinence. See you to it.

This is the only reference in all the books which implicity states that the physical disciplines, one of which is vegetarianism, should be imposed from the time of the 1^st initiation. Clearly this is the ideal we should all strive for.

(RI 579) …………..a very large group of aspirants (far larger than is realised) will pass through the experience of the second initiation, that of the purifying Baptism. These are the people who express the essential qualities of ideological recognition, devoted adherence to truth as sensed, profound reaction to the physical disciplines (imposed since they participated in the first initiation many lives earlier)……..

The 3^rd secret of the builders of the vegetable kingdom makes it clear why man should be vegetarian-

(CF 932) Second. The builders of the vegetable kingdom……With them is hidden three secrets…………and the third is connected with the history of the second round; this secret when revealed will make clear why man (under the law) should be a vegetarian and not carnivorous…….The third secret will not be indicated more clearly till the sixth race is living upon earth.

Meat clogs the lower nature when included in the diet.

(HIS 196) ………….each disciple that he be strictly vegetarian. The lower nature becomes clogged and heavy……….when meat is included in the diet. This is a drastic rule for applicants, and may not be violated.

Some dangers arising through lack of purity.

(CF 126) ……….Should a man, by the power of will or through an over-development of the mental side of his character, acquire the power to blend these fires of matter and to drive them forward, he stands in danger of obsession, insanity, physical death, or of dire disease in some part of his body, and he also runs the risk of an over-development of the sex impulse through the driving of the force in an uneven manner upwards, or in forcing its radiation to undesirable centres. The reason of this is that the matter of his body is not pure enough to stand the uniting of the flames, that the channel up the spine is still clogged and blocked, and therefore acts as a barrier, turning the flame backwards and downwards, and that the flame (being united by the power of mind and not being accompanied by a simultaneous downflow from the plane of spirit), permits the entrance, through the burning etheric, of undesirable and extraneous forces, currents, and even entities. These wreck and tear and ruin what is left of the etheric vehicle, of the brain tissue and even of the dense physical body itself.

(OM 334) for all applicants for initiation meat, fish, and fermented liquors of all kinds, as well as the use of tobacco, are absolutely forbidden.

It takes many lives of vegetarian diet to raise the vibration of the physical atoms-Presumably, eating meat during the period between the 1^st and 2^nd initiations would be counterproductive for those seeking to take the 2^nd and 3^rd initiations. (CF 993) Physical Purity. This is a thing not easily to be acquired, but entailing many lives of strenuous effort. Through abstinence, right continence, clean living, vegetarian diet, and rigid self-control, the man gradually raises the vibration of his physical atoms, builds a body of ever greater resistance and strength, and succeeds in "manifesting" forth in a sheath of greater refinement.

Vegetariansim helps purify the physical vehicle, and therefore aids contact with the Solar Angel.

(OM 334) …….it is impossible for those with coarse bodies to contact high vibration…….Hence the refinement of the physical body is an essential………..

If the atomic vibration of the atoms of the physical body are not high enough over-stimulation may occur.

(CF 993) ……….All those who seek to work consciously with the forces of manifestation, and who endeavour to control the Energies of all that is seen, need the strong protection of purity…….If a man's bodies are not sufficiently purified and their atomic vibration is not sufficiently high, he is in danger of over-stimulation when brought in contact with the forces of nature, and this inevitably entails the destruction and disintegration of one or other of his bodies. At times it may entail the destruction of two or more, and when this is the case, it involves a definite setback to egoic unfoldment, for it requires, in such cases, a much longer interval between incarnations, owing to the difficulty of assembling the needed materials in the sheaths.

Esoterically, the animal is not available as food for human consumption because it gains nothing from the process of being consumed whereas the vegetable kingdom evolves by being consumed by humans and animals.

(CF 645) ……. The transmutation of vegetable life takes place necessarily on the physical plane. Hence its availability as food. The transmutation of the life of the animal into the human kingdom takes place on kamamanasic levels. Hence the non-availability, esoterically understood, of the animal as food for man. This is an argument for vegetarian living which needs due consideration.

(OM 334) for all applicants for initiation meat, fish, and fermented liquors of all kinds, as well as the use of tobacco, are absolutely forbidden. For those who can stand it, eggs and cheese are sometimes better eliminated from the diet, but this is not in any way compulsory.

(OM 334) It is advisable always that those who are in process of developing psychic faculties of any kind should not permit themselves to eat eggs and very little cheese. Milk and butter come under a different category, and most initiates and applicants find it necessary to retain them in the diet……

(OM 334) …….it is impossible for those with coarse bodies to contact high vibration…….Hence the refinement of the physical body is an essential………..

(CF 811)It will come when the medical profession concentrates upon preventative action, substituting sunshine, a vegetarian diet, and the application of the laws of magnetic vibration and vitality for the present regimen of drugs and surgical operations. Then will come the time when finer and better human beings will manifest on earth.

To accurately read the akashic records and past lives one must have been strictly vegetarian for ten years.

(EPI 241) …………Those who seek to read the akashic records, or who endeavour to work upon the astral plane with impunity, and there to study the reflection of events in the astral light correctly, have perforce and without exception to be strict vegetarians. It is this ancient Atlantean lore which lies behind the vegetarian's insistence upon the necessity for a vegetarian diet, and which gives force and truth to this injunction. It is the failure to conform to this wise rule which has brought about the misinterprertions of the astral and akashic records by many of the psychics of the present time, and has given rise to the wild and incorrect reading of past lives. Only those who have been for ten years strict vegetarians can work thus in what might be called the "record aspect of the astral light"…………But unless the goal of a vegetarian diet is this field of service, the arguments for its following and for that form of diet are usually futile and of no real moment………..