SUMMARY (Ridvan Askin, edited Deborah Madsen):

According to Allen, these are automatic writings, penned in a state of involuntary inspiration, while he was overcome by divine powers (3). They are spiritualist teachings advocating a life lived in unison with these higher powers. Among a plethora of observations pertaining to the advancement of “universal peace, purity and progress, health, harmony and happiness” (4),  that are not to be “cramped by petty distinctions of color, race, clime, sex, or sect” (9), there are also a passages advocating against the use of animal food and in favor of ethical veg*ism:

Vulgarity and profanity emanate more from the flesh-pots of modern cookery than from spiritual depravity, aside from physical causes. The juices of animals, low and gross in their nature, permeating, as they do, almost every article of food placed upon civilized tables at the present day, are vastly more responsible for the low aspirations of humanity in general than we have been accustomed to consider. The pig, in his spiritual entity, is a low being. Gross, filthy, ugly, unattractive as he is, there are yet found persons who are willing to (and even think they must) imbibe year after year, constantly and habitually, the very "soul-essence" of the animal, by partaking of his flesh and blood and brains! His feet and ears are considered to be delicate morsels, to be rolled under the tongue of man, created in the image of God, and “a little lower than the angels”! A pig-sty in Paradise, we might almost think some would desire—their bodies and spirits have become so completely saturated with the deliciousness of pigosity (51-52).

In a list of rules “for the maintenance of health” (63), Allen prominently includes abstention from meat, advocating for a purely plant-based diet:

Subsist upon fruits (best in their natural state), nuts, grains and other productions of the plant kingdom. Use nothing that necessitates slaughter; do not "cannibalize" by devouring the dead bodies of your fellow creatures. Avoid (a) all stimulants and narcotics—such as the flesh of animals, strong drinks, tobacco, etc.; (b) animal fats derived from flesh; (c) chemical preparations for fermenting bread; (d) bolted flour (64).

Dietary choice is not only a matter of health, but is a highly ethical choice. Purity in food is proportionate to purity in mind. Conversely, “grossness (of food, drink, air, etc.) induces grossness correspondent of mind, or at least of its manifestations” (52).

For the same reason, Allen advocates for the proper education of women (12-14). In fact, in the educational reform Allen envisages, “no soul desiring development will be denied access to the means on account of sex, race, or station” (14). For Allen, all are equal before God and hence “all jealousy of race must be discarded, and color be no longer a pretext for enslavement, persecution, despisement, or neglect” (35). “Spiritualism,” Allen is convinced, “destroys the prejudices of race, color and nationality” (35-36). All reform efforts are “heralds of Progress” intended to do away with “the evils of human society and human governments, and to establish the era of Peace and Harmony, Wisdom and Unity, o'er all the earth” (37). Hence along with veg*ism and Abolitionism, Allen advocates for dress reform (66-78) and other reform movements. As in Figs or Pigs? Fruit or Brute?, to which he refers in passing, his ethical veg*ism in these essays is part of a wider, intersectional understanding of the good life.