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Advance praise for Philosophy of Psychedelics

This excellent, well-​argued, book is required reading for anyone with interests in phil-
osophy of mind, philosophy of psychology, and philosophy of psychiatry. It presents
the first book-​length argument for the effectiveness of psychedelic therapy and pro-
vides an account of how this effectiveness may be understood from within cognitive
neuroscience. Everyone should read this book!
Richard Brown, Humanities Department,
LaGuardia Community College,
CUNY & M.S. program in Cognitive Neuroscience
at the Graduate Center, CUNY

Philosophy of Psychedelics is really two books in one. It provides an easily understood,

scholarly and detailed review of psychedelic science, spanning phenomenology,
psychology, neuroscience, and medical therapeutics. But setting this book apart
from other recent books in this rapidly emerging field of inquiry, Chris Letheby takes
his philosopher's scalpel to addressing intriguing philosophical implications of psy-
chedelic research including the unsettling question of whether the claimed benefits
from psychedelic experiences require the induction of delusional beliefs. This very
readable volume should be of interest to scientists, philosophers, as well as those
simply curious about recent the renaissance in psychedelic science and therapeutics.
Roland R. Griffiths, Ph.D. Director,
Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research,
Professor, Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience,
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Philosophy of Psychedelics is a terrific, intellectually meticulous study of the nature,

meaning, and effects of psychedelic experiences. The discussion ranges over the
mind-​brain relation, transformative experiences, the ethics of psychedelic therapy,
and whether psychedelics help us to see the nature of things as they really are or just
produce uplifting and therapeutically positive hallucinations. Chris Letheby is a wise
and careful guide to the current state of psychedelic therapy and sets very high stand-
ards for philosophers who want to follow him in thinking responsibly about this in-
triguing area of research.
Owen Flanagan is James B. Duke, Professor of Philosophy
at Duke University, and the author of
*How to Do Things with Emotions* Princeton 2021.
Philosophy of Psychedelics
IN TE R N ATI ONA L PE RS PE CT IV E S IN PHILOSOPHY AND
PSYCH IAT RY
Series editors
Bill (K.W.M.) Fulford, Lisa Bortolotti, Matthew Broome, Katherine Morris,
John Z. Sadler, and Giovanni Stanghellini

Volumes in the series:

Recovery of People with Mental Illness: Philosophical and Related
Perspectives
Rudnick (ed.)
Values and Psychiatric Diagnosis
Sadler
The Oxford Handbook of Psychiatric Ethics
Sadler, Van Staden, and Fulford
Madness and Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature,
and Thought
Sass
Disembodied Spirits and Deanimated Bodies: The Psychopathology of
Common Sense
Stanghellini
Lost in Dialogue: Anthropology, Psychopathology, and Care
Stanghellini
One Century of Karl Jaspers’ Psychopathology
Stanghellini and Fuchs
Emotions and Personhood
Stanghellini and Rosfort
Essential Philosophy of Psychiatry
Thornton
The Oxford Handbook of Psychotherapy Ethics
Trachsel (ed.)
Naturalism, Hermeneutics, and Mental Disorder
Varga
The Healing Virtues: Character Ethics in Psychotherapy
Waring
Empirical Ethics in Psychiatry
Widdershoven, McMillan, Hope, and Van der Scheer (eds)
The Sublime Object of Psychiatry: Schizophrenia in Clinical and
Cultural Theory
Woods
Alternate Perspectives on Psychiatric Validation: DSM, ICD, RDoC,
and Beyond
Zachar, St. Stoyanov, Aragona, and Jablensky (eds)
 Philosophy
of Psychedelics
Chris Letheby
Lecturer in Philosophy
The University of Western Australia

1
 3
Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP,
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Acknowledgements

My deepest thanks are due to Philip Gerrans, Gerard O’Brien, and Jon Opie, without
whom this book would not have been written. I am also indebted to Lisa Bortolotti
and Thomas Metzinger for timely advice, encouragement, and assistance.
I am extremely grateful to Miri Albahari and Roland Griffiths for their generosity
in reading the entire manuscript and providing detailed comments. For reading and
commenting on sections of the manuscript, I would like to thank Sam Baron, Sascha
Fink, Owen Flanagan, Remco Heesen, Nin Kirkham, Aidan Lyon, Michael Rubin,
and Clas Weber. Needless to say, any errors that remain are my responsibility.
Finally, and with apologies to anyone I have forgotten, I would like to thank my
stellar editorial team at Oxford University Press: Martin Baum, Janine Fisher, and
Charlotte Holloway.
This research was partially supported by the Australian Government through
the Australian Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme (project
DP190101451). The views expressed herein are those of the author and are not neces-
sarily those of the Australian Government or Australian Research Council.
The epigraph at the start of Chapter 3 is reproduced from Jane Dunlap, Exploring
Inner Space: Personal Experiences under LSD-​25, p. 166. Copyright © 2003, Harcourt,
Brace & World.
The epigraph at the start of Chapter 4 is reproduced from William A. Richards,
‘Mystical and archetypal experiences of terminal patients in DPT-​assisted psycho-
therapy’, Journal of Religion and Health, 17(2), p. 120, DOI: https://​doi.org/​10.1007/​
BF01532413 Copyright © 1978, Springer Nature.
The epigraph at the start of Chapter 5 is reproduced from Huston Smith, Cleansing
the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals,
p. 15. Copyright © 2003, Sentient Publications.
The epigraph at the start of Chapter 6 is reproduced from The Poems of Emily
Dickinson: Variorum Edition, edited by Ralph W. Franklin, Cambridge, Mass.: The
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998 by the President and
Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951, 1955 by the President and Fellows of
Harvard College. Copyright © renewed 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of
Harvard College. Copyright © 1914, 1918, 1919, 1924, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1935, 1937,
1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright © 1952, 1957, 1958, 1963, 1965 by
Mary L. Hampson.
Contents

Abbreviations  ix

1. Introduction  1

2. On the need for a natural philosophy of psychedelics  8

2.1 Introduction  8
2.2 The psychedelic renaissance  8
2.3 Evidence for safety and efficacy  13
2.4 An existential medicine?  24
2.5 The Comforting Delusion Objection  27
2.6 Naturalising the Entheogenic Conception  33

3. The phenomenology of psychedelic therapy  39

3.1 Introduction  39
3.2 Perception  40
3.3 The sense of self  46
3.4 The transformative process  53
3.5 Conclusion  61

4. The mechanisms of psychedelic therapy  62

4.1 Introduction  62
4.2 Neuroplasticity theories  64
4.3 The Metaphysical Belief Theory  67
4.4 The Metaphysical Alief Theory  76
4.5 Conclusion  79

5. The role of self-​representation  81

5.1 Introduction  81
5.2 Psychological factors  82
5.3 Neural correlates  92
5.4 Neurocognitive explanation  101
5.5 Conclusion  108

6. Resetting the brain  110

6.1 Introduction  110
6.2 The Reset Theory  111
6.3 Predictive processing  113
6.4 Relaxed beliefs under psychedelics  118
6.5 Resetting beliefs under psychedelics  121
viii Contents

7. Unbinding the self  124

7.1 Introduction  124
7.2 Predictive self-​binding  126
7.3 Selfhood embodied and (temporally) extended  129
7.4 A centre of representational gravity  133
7.5 The self unbound  136
7.6 Opacity and mystical epiphanies  143
7.7 Psychedelic therapy: a two-​factor theory  146
7.8 Self and self-​consciousness  152
7.9 Conclusion  159

8. Epistemology  160
8.1 Introduction  160
8.2 Psychopharmacology and epistemology  162
8.3 Knowledge that  166
8.4 Knowledge how  172
8.5 Knowledge by acquaintance  179
8.6 New knowledge of old facts  184
8.7 Indirect epistemic benefits  191
8.8 Epistemic innocence  194

9. Spirituality  196
9.1 Introduction  196
9.2 Naturalising spirituality  197
9.3 Spirituality as unselfing  199

10. Conclusion  205

10.1 Testable predictions  205
10.2 Future directions  209
10.3 Naturalistic entheogenics  218

References  223
Index  253
Abbreviations

11D-​ASC 11 Dimensions of Altered States of Consciousness

5-​HT serotonin (5-​hydroxytryptamine)
5-​HT2A serotonin-​2a
5-​MeO-​DMT 5-​methoxy-​N,N-​dimethyltryptamine
AAQ-​II Acceptance and Action Questionnaire II
ACC anterior cingulate cortex
ACT Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
AIC anterior insular cortex
ASC altered state of consciousness
BDNF brain-​derived neurotrophic factor
CEQ Challenging Experiences Questionnaire
CTM computational theory of mind
DBT Dialectical Behavioural Therapy
DMN Default Mode network
DMT N,N-​dimethyltryptamine
DPD depersonalisation disorder
DPT dipropyltryptamine
EBI Emotional Breakthrough Inventory
EBO experience of body ownership
EEG electroencephalography
EQ Experiences Questionnaire
FDA (U.S.) Food and Drug Administration
FFMQ Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire
fMRI functional magnetic resonance imaging
HPPD hallucinogen persisting perception disorder
LSD lysergic acid diethylamide
MAAS Mindful Attention Awareness Scale
MAT Metaphysical Alief Theory
MBQ Metaphysical Belief Questionnaire
MBSR Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction
MBT Metaphysical Belief Theory
MDMA (or “Ecstasy”) 3,4-​methylenedioxymethamphetamine
MEG magnetoencephalography
MEQ Mystical Experience Questionnaire
mPFC medial prefrontal cortex
NMDA N-​methyl-​D-​aspartate
NYU New York University
OCD obsessive-​compulsive disorder
PCC posterior cingulate cortex
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x Abbreviations

PCP phencyclidine
PET positron emission tomography
PHC parahippocampal cortex
PIC posterior insular cortex
PIQ Psychological Insight Questionnaire
PMIR Phenomenal model of the intentionality relation
PP predictive processing
PSM phenomenal self-​model
RCT randomised controlled trial
REBUS RElaxed Beliefs Under pSychedelics
RSC retrosplenial cortex
SN Salience Network
SSRI selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor
TPJ temporoparietal junction
TPN task-​positive network
TRD treatment-​resistant depression
vmPFC ventromedial prefrontal cortex
1
Introduction

The unacceptability of psychedelic therapy . . . stems in part at least from

this fundamental empirical fact: Through the psychedelic experience per-
sons tend to accept beliefs which are at variance with the usual concep-
tion of the ‘scientific world view’.
Willis Harman, ‘The issue of the consciousness expanding drugs’.

Something very strange is happening in psychiatry. Clinicians and researchers are

becoming increasingly interested in a ‘new’ experimental treatment, with some sug-
gesting it might herald a ‘new paradigm’ in the treatment of disorders such as anx-
iety, depression, and addiction (Nichols et al. 2017, Schenberg 2018). If promising
initial results are borne out, this new treatment may significantly outperform existing
pharmacological and psychological therapies in terms of rapidity and efficacy. And
yet this treatment has a number of properties that, from the standpoint of mainstream
philosophy and science, can only be described as extremely weird.
First, although it is a drug treatment, there is no daily dosing regimen of the kind
familiar from existing antidepressant and antipsychotic medications. Patients receive
one dose (or very few doses) of the drug—​albeit with considerable interpersonal sup-
port and preparation—​and then, in successful cases, their symptoms dramatically de-
crease for many months; no re-​dosing required. Second, although it is in some sense
a drug treatment, it’s far from clear that the drug itself is the direct cause of clinical
improvement. Rather, it seems that the drug is merely a catalyst for a brief but intense
conscious experience, and it is this experience that causes therapeutic effects. Third,
and most weirdly, the kind of experience that seems to lead to the best outcomes is one
that patients describe as ‘mystical’ or ‘spiritual’. Many patients given this treatment re-
port transcendent experiences of ‘oneness’, ‘cosmic’ consciousness, or ‘ego dissolution’,
and evidence suggests that these patients show the greatest clinical improvement.
I am referring, of course, to psychedelic therapy: the treatment of psychiatric dis-
order by the supervised administration of ‘hallucinogenic’ serotonin-​2a agonist sub-
stances such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), psilocybin (the active ingredient in
‘magic’ mushrooms), and N,N-​dimethyltryptamine (DMT; a key psychoactive con-
stituent of the Amazonian beverage ayahuasca). Given their widespread reputation
as psychotomimetic (psychosis-​mimicking) or psychotogenic (psychosis-​generating)
chemicals, the very idea of using psychedelics to treat mental illness may seem absurd
2 Introduction

(Osmond 1957, Carhart-​Harris et al. 2016a). However, these drugs were studied and
prescribed as experimental psychiatric treatments in the 1950s and 1960s, prior to
the public controversy surrounding their use by the hippie counterculture. Promising
results were reported from this line of research, which was curtailed prematurely due
to the crackdown on psychedelics and the subsequent ‘War on Drugs’. For decades,
virtually no human psychedelic research was conducted.
Since the 1990s, this research has been slowly but steadily resuming, and the results
to date are intriguing. Although it is still relatively early days, there is now sufficient
evidence to take seriously the claims of earlier researchers. Supervised psychedelic ses-
sions may, after all, have an acceptable safety profile (dos Santos et al. 2018a) coupled
with significant and lasting psychological benefits for psychiatric patients (dos Santos
and Hallak 2020) and even for healthy volunteers (Gandy 2019). Meanwhile, neu-
roimaging studies of the psychedelic state are providing tantalising clues about the
biological bases of consciousness and self-​awareness (dos Santos et al. 2016b). If these
preliminary findings are replicated, then psychedelics may well find a place in twenty-​
first-​century psychiatry (Sessa 2005, 2012, 2018). But many questions remain. The
transformative mechanisms of psychedelic experience are incompletely understood,
and this strikingly novel type of therapeutic intervention raises many fascinating and
puzzling issues, both scientific and philosophical.
This book is organised around one specific philosophical question that relates to
the role of the mystical experience in psychedelic therapy. Patients and subjects who
show the greatest psychological benefit from psychedelic experiences tend to be those
who report a mystical experience, as defined by widely used psychometric question-
naires, and often the degree of mystical experience predicts the degree of benefit.
A mystical experience is sometimes described as an overwhelmingly powerful ap-
parent encounter with ‘ultimate reality’. Space, time, and the sense of individual self-
hood fade away, to be replaced by a sense of union with ‘another Reality that puts this
one in the shade’ (Smith 2000, p. 133). In some cases, this Reality is experienced as
a divine or cosmic consciousness that underlies and unifies the entire manifest uni-
verse, evoking philosophical doctrines such as idealism and pantheism (Shanon 2002,
p. 162). The apparent centrality of the mystical experience has led researcher Charles
Grob to describe psychedelic therapy as an ‘existential medicine’ (Grob 2007, p. 213).
But this picture of psychedelic therapy raises an obvious worry: what if the divine
universal consciousness is not real? Many philosophers and scientists today subscribe
to a broadly naturalist, materialist, or physicalist world view, according to which
mind and consciousness are not fundamental in the universe but are relatively recent
products of complex evolution. From this perspective, the mystical apprehensions of
psychedelic subjects look like ‘metaphysical hallucinations’ (Flanagan and Graham
2017, p. 294)—​subjectively compelling but ultimately misleading by-​products of ab-
errant brain activity, on a par with psychedelic subjects’ visions of walls ‘breathing’ or
kaleidoscopic fractals (cf. Roche 2010). And there seems to be something seriously
questionable about a treatment or enhancement modality that works by inducing
metaphysical hallucinations. The journalist Michael Pollan, discussing the use of
 Introduction 3

psychedelics to treat psychological distress in terminally ill patients, puts the point
forcefully: ‘Is psychedelic therapy simply foisting a comforting delusion on the sick
and dying?’ (Pollan 2015). The worry is that psychedelics bring about their salu-
tary psychosocial effects by a deceptive, epistemically (and therefore ethically) bad
mechanism.
Call this the ‘Comforting Delusion Objection’ to psychedelic therapy. There are
three popular responses. The first is that there’s no problem because the mystical ex-
perience is veridical. Far from inducing metaphysical hallucinations, psychedelics
afford subjects a direct and transformative apprehension of ultimate reality (Smith
2000, Richards 2015). The second response is that the epistemic status of psychedelic
experiences is relatively unimportant: what is more important is that they help people
live better lives (Flanagan and Graham 2017). The third response is that the epistemic
status of psychedelic experiences is very important, but also poor: we should be wary
of permitting or prescribing psychedelic therapy because it does in fact work by the
objectionable induction of comforting delusions (Lavazza 2017).
In this book, I present a fourth, relatively unexplored response to the Comforting
Delusion Objection. My central thesis is that the Objection fails. My strategy is to
start by assuming that (a) the naturalist worldview is true, so no cosmic consciousness
exists, and (b) the epistemic status of psychedelic therapy is very important. This is the
worst-​case scenario for someone seeking to answer this objection. Clearly, if a cosmic
consciousness or divine Reality exists, the objection fails (the first response above);
and, clearly, if the epistemic status of psychedelic therapy is relatively unimportant,
the objection fails (the second response above). Here I aim to show that the objection
fails even if neither of these conditions holds—​and this will show that the objection
fails, whatever is the case.
My grounds for concluding that the Comforting Delusion Objection fails, even
given assumptions (a) and (b) above, are twofold. First, the epistemic risks of psyche-
delic therapy, from a naturalistic standpoint, are less than one might suppose. Despite
first appearances, psychedelic therapy does not work by instilling comforting meta-
physical beliefs in a divine Reality. Such beliefs are sometimes acquired, but they are
not necessary for therapeutic benefits, nor do they always accompany such benefits.
The construct of a ‘mystical-​type experience’, which mediates clinical outcomes, some-
times reflects experiences as of a cosmic consciousness or divine Reality. However, it
sometimes reflects more naturalistic experiences of ‘ego dissolution’, connectedness,
emotional catharsis, and psychological insight. Psychedelics promote well-​being by
temporarily disrupting the sense of self, allowing patients to access new ways of seeing
themselves and their lives. Such existentially significant changes to self-​awareness do
not depend on changes to metaphysical beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality.
Second, psychedelic therapy is epistemically innocent, in the technical sense defined
by Lisa Bortolotti (2015). Bortolotti defines epistemically innocent imperfect cogni-
tions as those that have real epistemic flaws but also offer significant epistemic bene-
fits that are unavailable by any other means. This is the status of psychedelic therapy,
given naturalism. Psychedelic experiences can lead to knowledge acquisition, both
4 Introduction

directly and indirectly—​even if naturalism is true and the cosmic consciousness ex-
perience is a metaphysical hallucination. In the course of defending these claims, I will
deal with issues concerning the nature of conscious experience, the relations between
psychology and neuroscience, and the theory and philosophy of self-​awareness. The
second main thesis of the book is that a sustained and detailed interaction between
philosophy and psychedelic science can be mutually beneficial: I aim to show that
psychedelic science reveals phenomena of serious philosophical interest, while phil-
osophy offers valuable tools for clarifying and interpreting results from psychedelic
science.
I begin in Chapter 2 by reviewing recent scientific evidence concerning the safety,
and therapeutic and transformative efficacy, of carefully controlled psychedelic ad-
ministration. The recent wave of clinical studies suggests that psychedelics can indeed
be given safely and responsibly, without serious adverse effects, to carefully selected
and prepared subjects in carefully controlled conditions. These studies also provide
evidence for durable psychological benefits following one (or very few) psychedelic
sessions conducted in this fashion. But they also provide evidence that these benefits
are mediated, at least in part, by mystical experiences, giving rise to the Comforting
Delusion Objection. I outline the objection and my proposed response to it in more
detail. I suggest that what is needed is a natural philosophy of psychedelics: a synthetic,
big-​picture inquiry integrating multidisciplinary evidence to address philosophical
issues in a manner continuous with science and consistent with naturalism.
In the spirit of such a natural philosophy, I begin with detailed attention to the
phenomena under investigation. As such, Chapter 3 presents an overview of the phe-
nomenology of psychedelic therapy, including patients’ own impressions of the thera-
peutic mechanisms. Psychedelic experiences are notoriously variable and often held
to be ineffable. Nonetheless, significant progress has been made on identifying typical
themes from quantitative and qualitative reports. Subjects often describe an expan-
sion of consciousness, a heightening of emotional experience, strange visions and in-
sights, and a blurring of boundaries between self and world. Many subjects interpret
these experiences in non-​naturalistic terms, but many do not, instead emphasising
experiences of psychological insight, emotional catharsis, acceptance, and connect-
edness to various aspects of self and world (Carhart-​Harris et al. 2018a, Breeksema
et al. 2020). This provides our first major clue that psychedelic therapy is not a simple
matter of inducing existentially comforting metaphysical beliefs.
Although they provide suggestive evidence, we cannot assume that subjects’ im-
pressions of the therapeutic mechanisms are correct. To determine how psychedelic
therapy works, we need to examine a broader range of evidence. In Chapter 4, I survey
three different theories of how psychedelics cause lasting psychological benefits.
The first ascribes these benefits to psychedelics’ direct effects on the molecular-​level
mechanisms of neuroplasticity. On this view, psychedelic therapy is an experience-​
independent pharmacotherapy, and the remarkable phenomenology is a mere cluster
of therapeutically epiphenomenal ‘psychotomimetic’ side effects. The second and
third theories differ in detail, but both ascribe lasting benefits to non-​naturalistic
 Introduction 5

metaphysical ideations—​the transcendent vision of a ‘Joyous Cosmology’ (Watts

1962) supposedly encountered in the mystical experience.
I argue that all three theories are inadequate. The neuroplasticity theory struggles
to account for the robust correlation between measures of mystical-​type experience
and lasting benefits. This correlation suggests that the psychedelic experience itself is
causally relevant to those benefits. However, on closer examination, we find that some
subjects satisfy psychometric criteria for a ‘mystical-​type experience’ without having
a transcendent vision of cosmic consciousness. These criteria are broad enough to
capture more naturalistic experiences of ‘ego dissolution’ and connectedness as well.
Not all mystical-​type experiences in the psychometric sense are non-​naturalistic meta-
physical hallucinations. The conclusion is that the key causal factor in psychedelic
therapy is genuinely psychological—​an aspect of the experience itself—​but is not es-
sentially tied to non-​naturalistic metaphysical ideations.
In Chapter 5, I argue that the relevant psychological factor is change to the sense
of self. A few studies pinpoint experiences of psychological insight as strongly linked
to lasting benefits, and the relevant insights are often autobiographical in character.
Moreover, several studies have shown that psychedelics can induce lasting increases
in ‘mindfulness-​related capacities’ for taking an open, non-​reactive stance toward
one’s inner experience—​a stance that intrinsically involves changes to the sense of
self. These studies constitute an important experimental vindication of the old idea
that there are deep commonalities between psychedelic and meditative states (e.g.,
Huxley 1954, Watts 1962, Leary et al. 1964). Finally, neuroimaging research has con-
sistently implicated certain large-​scale brain networks, the Default Mode and Salience
networks, in psychedelics’ lasting benefits, and both networks are linked to self-​
representation by considerable independent evidence.
At this point, a question arises: how exactly do neurobiological changes, such as
modulation of the Default Mode and Salience networks, relate to psychological
changes, such as autobiographical insights and increased mindfulness-​related cap-
acities? I propose that neurocognitive theory, which attributes computational or
information-​processing functions to neural structures, provides a vital explanatory
bridge between biological and psychological accounts of the psychedelic state (cf.
Gerrans 2014). If we can specify the cognitive functions performed by the neural sys-
tems that psychedelics target, then this will allow us to explain why modulating those
networks should lead to transformative experiences of ego dissolution, connected-
ness, catharsis, and insight.
In Chapters 6 and 7, I outline such a theory: the predictive self-​binding account
of psychedelic therapy (Letheby and Gerrans 2017). According to this account, one
function of the networks targeted by psychedelics is to maintain a hierarchical pre-
dictive model of the self. This predictive self-​model acts as a ‘centre of representa-
tional gravity’: by parsing information into self-​relevant and self-​irrelevant, into ‘me’
and ‘not me’, it functions as an organising principle that governs and constrains cogni-
tive processing. In pathological conditions, detrimental forms of self-​modelling often
become rigidly entrenched. By ‘unbinding’ the self-​model, psychedelics facilitate
6 Introduction

experiences of ego dissolution and psychological insight in which pathological self-​

models can be revised. On this view, psychedelic therapy has a two-​factor structure: it
involves (a) the induction of neural and psychological plasticity at multiple levels, and
(b) the discovery and consolidation of new forms of self-​modelling.
I conclude Chapter 7 with some brief remarks on philosophical questions about
self and self-​consciousness. I have argued elsewhere that psychedelic evidence sup-
ports two controversial philosophical claims: that the self does not exist (Letheby
and Gerrans 2017), and that there can be conscious experiences lacking all forms
of self-​consciousness (Letheby 2020). However, both arguments face serious objec-
tions. For present purposes, I content myself with two weaker, but still significant,
claims: (i) there can be conscious experiences lacking anything like the ordinary sense
of self, and (ii) the kind of self that we automatically take ourselves to be does not exist.
Theoretically and existentially, this is plenty to be getting on with.
The upshot of Chapters 4–​7 is that the epistemic risks of psychedelic therapy,
given naturalism, are surprisingly small. In Chapter 8, I argue that its epistemic
benefits, given naturalism, are surprisingly large. The concept of ‘epistemic inno-
cence’ (Bortolotti 2015, 2020) encapsulates the overall epistemic status of psychedelic
therapy, given naturalism: this intervention carries non-​trivial epistemic risks, insofar
as some subjects do acquire strong beliefs in a cosmic consciousness or spirit world,
but these risks are offset by the fact that it also offers significant, often unique, epi-
stemic benefits. I survey the major proposals about psychedelic-​induced knowledge
gain that are consistent with naturalism, and argue that psychedelics offer what philo-
sophers call ‘knowledge by acquaintance’ with various often unrevealed aspects of the
human mind, including its potential for diverse and beneficial modes of attention and
cognition. This has connections with philosophical discussions of Frank Jackson’s
(1982, 1986) famous thought experiment about Mary the super-​neuroscientist.
It also justifies the increasing use of the appellation ‘psychedelic’, meaning ‘mind-​
manifesting’ or ‘mind-​revealing’ (Osmond 1957), in preference to the many available
alternatives.
At later times, subjects can re-​evoke these beneficial modes of attention and cog-
nition, at least to some extent. Therefore, psychedelics also make available ability
knowledge, or knowledge-​how. The question of factual or propositional knowledge
is more vexed. It is highly likely that psychedelics facilitate genuine psychodynamic
insights into previously unconscious or unattended mental states, but the possibility
of ‘placebo insights’ (Jopling 2001)—​spurious apparent insights with real therapeutic
benefits—​must be kept in mind. The only viable solution is for psychedelic-​induced
apparent epiphanies to be subjected to sober scrutiny during the post-​session inte-
gration period. I argue that psychedelic experiences also facilitate the acquisition of
new knowledge of old facts, allowing subjects to experience existing beliefs in more
vivid and motivating ways. Finally, I argue that psychedelic experiences have indirect
epistemic benefits consequent on their lasting psychological benefits (Letheby 2016).
In Chapter 9, I turn to the philosophical project of ‘naturalising spirituality’.
I argue that psychedelic research vindicates the claim that there are transformative
 Introduction 7

experiences and practices that (a) can legitimately be called ‘spiritual’, and (b) are
compatible with adherence to a naturalistic world view. The existential transform-
ation afforded by some psychedelic experiences provides a paradigm for naturalistic
spirituality: the temporary suspension of our default, self-​referential mode of cog-
nition, making available broader perspectives, experiences of connectedness, and
feelings of wonder and awe. This has connections to Iris Murdoch’s (1970) notion of
‘unselfing’ (cf. Kähönen 2020). There is considerable convergence between typical
features of psychedelic-​induced spiritual experiences and themes common to mul-
tiple philosophical accounts of naturalistic spirituality (Stone 2012), which provides
further support for the general approach.
Finally, in Chapter 10, I summarise the discussion and make some suggestions
for future research. My account makes several testable predictions—​for instance,
psychedelic-​induced changes to the activity of specific brain networks should cor-
relate with distinct types of ego-​dissolution experiences, and psychedelic-​induced
changes to metaphysical beliefs (e.g., about the mind–​body relation) should account
for relatively little variance in clinical outcomes. In closing, I reflect on the broader
significance of my arguments. Psychedelic science is a fast-​moving field, and this book
will be out of date in some respects before it hits the shelves—​which is a good thing.
In the coming years, we are set to learn more than ever before about these controver-
sial substances, their risks, benefits, and potential applications, and the mechanisms
underlying their remarkable effects. The philosophical discussion of psychedelics, in
particular, is in its infancy. But I think it is not premature to bet that, when psyche-
delics cause lasting therapeutic benefits, these benefits are not brought about mainly
by the induction of comforting delusions. Psychedelics can, as many have insisted,
facilitate genuine insights and spiritual experiences—​and this is a claim that even a
philosophical naturalist should endorse.
2
On the need for a natural philosophy
of psychedelics

Central to the entire LSD controversy is: ‘With how much credence should
the chemical experience be accepted?’ Should it be totally accepted as
the real reality, or is it preferable to attempt to study the state, sorting
out the veridical from the illusory? Evidently, a choice must be made. The
state must be either taken on faith without examination or it must be sub-
jected to sorting and analysis. The overgullible will be easily persuaded,
the overcritical will analyse it out of existence. Perhaps a third approach is
possible–​–​an attempt to measure without changing, to evaluate without
destroying.
Sidney Cohen, Drugs of Hallucination.

2.1 Introduction
In this chapter, I review the history of psychedelics in science and psychiatry, recent
evidence for their safety and therapeutic and transformative efficacy, and the facts
about them that give rise to the Comforting Delusion Objection. I describe the main
extant responses to the Objection, introduce my response, and outline my plan for
defending it in the subsequent chapters. Psychedelics have struck many researchers
as raising significant philosophical questions (Smythies 1953, Smith 1964, Shanon
2001), yet until recently have been largely ignored in academic philosophy. I pro-
pose that what is needed in this age of interdisciplinarity is a natural philosophy of
psychedelics: a trans-​disciplinary synthesis that integrates empirical findings with
theoretical and conceptual considerations, to address some of the fascinating and dis-
tinctively philosophical questions raised by these controversial substances.

2.2 The psychedelic renaissance

The term ‘psychedelic’, meaning, roughly, ‘mind-​manifesting’ (Osmond 1957), has
been applied to a wide variety of drugs that cause dramatic changes to perception,
emotion, and cognition (Sessa 2012). Psychedelics, thus construed, form a pharma-
cologically heterogeneous class: the Mexican psychoactive sage, Salvia Divinorum (or
 The psychedelic renaissance 9

its active principle, Salvinorin A), acts by agonism of the kappa opioid receptor in
the brain, for instance (Roth et al. 2002), while dissociative anaesthetics such as keta-
mine produce psychedelic effects at low doses by blockade of N-​methyl-​D-​aspartate
(NMDA) glutamate receptors (Krystal et al. 1994).
However, the term is sometimes reserved for a more restricted class: the ‘classic’
psychedelics, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), psilocybin (found in ‘magic’
mushrooms), mescaline (found in various cacti), and N,N-​ dimethyltryptamine
(DMT, found in various plants and animals, and a key ingredient in the Amazonian
beverage ayahuasca; Nichols 2016). These drugs, and others of this class, exert their
psychoactive effects primarily by mimicking the action of the neurotransmitter sero-
tonin (5-​HT) at a specific receptor subtype: the serotonin-​2a (5-​HT2A) receptor
(Vollenweider et al. 1998, Halberstadt 2015, Carhart-​Harris 2019). It is these seroto-
nergic (serotonin-​acting) psychedelics that are my focus in this book, and I will re-
serve the word ‘psychedelic’ for them henceforth.1
Naturally occurring psychedelics have been used for religious, spiritual, and me-
dicinal purposes for centuries, if not millennia, by various cultures around the world,
especially in the Americas (Grinspoon and Bakalar 1979, Miller et al. 2019). Western
scientists and intellectuals showed some interest in mescaline throughout the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (e.g., Mitchell 1896, Ellis 1897, Klüver 1926,
Guttmann 1936). But the story of modern psychedelic science really begins with the
Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann’s accidental discovery, in 1943, of the potent psyche-
delic effects of LSD (Hofmann 1980). Hofmann was originally investigating LSD and
related compounds for purely medicinal purposes, but he and his colleagues were
struck by the dramatic and bizarre alterations to consciousness that this new molecule
produced at utterly minute doses. In subsequent years, the similarity between the ef-
fects of LSD and mescaline was recognised. Following this, the amateur mycologist
R. Gordon Wasson (1957) confirmed that Psilocybe mushrooms were still in regular
ceremonial use in Mexico. Hofmann identified psilocybin as the active ingredient and
worked out how to synthesise it (Hofmann et al. 1958). Psychedelic science began in
earnest.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, psychedelics were studied and used in many
different ways (Grof 1975, pp. 1–​4). Early researchers were impressed by the simi-
larity between some psychedelic experiences and naturally occurring psychoses,
leading to a conception of the drugs as ‘psychotomimetic’ (psychosis-​mimicking) or
‘psychotogenic’ (psychosis-​causing). This led to two major applications: the study of
psychedelics’ mechanisms of action, in the hope of uncovering the biochemical bases
of mental illness, and the controlled ingestion of psychedelics by psychiatrists, to in-
crease their empathy with their psychotic patients (Osmond 1957). The discovery of

1 Note that the ‘entactogenic’ substance 3,4-​methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA or ‘Ecstasy’)

does not count as psychedelic on this definition: Although its effects are partly serotonergically mediated,
it differs both pharmacologically and phenomenologically from the classic psychedelics (Nichols 1986,
Roseman et al. 2014).
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are a brute, consciously acquiescing in your own happiness, at the
expense of others. Well, which are you?”
“I have not said that I belong to either.”
“There are only two halves to a whole. No, my friend, disabuse
yourself once for all of that cheap and comfortable philosophy of
shutting your eyes to what you think you can’t remedy, unless you
are willing to be labelled ‘brute.’ ‘He who is not with me is against
me,’ you know.”
“Well,” I said, “after that, perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell
me what I can do by making myself miserable over things I can’t
help?”
“I will,” he answered. “In the first place, kindly consider that you
are not living in a private world of your own. Everything you say and
do and think has its effect on everybody around you. For example, if
you feel, and say loudly enough, that it is an infernal shame to keep
larks and other wild song-birds in cages, you will infallibly infect a
number of other people with that sentiment, and in course of time
those people who feel as you do will become so numerous that
larks, thrushes, blackbirds, and linnets will no longer be caught and
kept in cages. Whereas, if you merely think: ‘Oh! this is dreadful,
quite too dreadful, but, you see, I can do nothing; therefore
consideration for myself and others demands that I shall stop my
ears and hold my tongue,’ then, indeed, nothing will ever be done,
and larks, blackbirds, etc., will continue to be caught and prisoned.
How do you imagine it ever came about that bears and bulls and
badgers are no longer baited; cocks no longer openly encouraged to
tear each other in pieces; donkeys no longer beaten to a pulp? Only
by people going about and shouting out that these things made
them uncomfortable. How did it come about that more than half the
population of this country are not still classed as ‘serfs’ under the
law? Simply because a few of our ancestors were made unhappy by
seeing their fellow-creatures owned and treated like dogs, and
roundly said so—in fact, were not ashamed to be sentimental
humanitarians like me.”
 “That is all obvious. But my point is that there is moderation in all
things, and a time for everything.”
“By your leave,” he said, “there is little moderation desirable
when we are face to face with real suffering, and, as a general rule,
no time like the present.”
“But there is, as you were saying just now, such a thing as a
sense of proportion. I cannot see that it’s my business to excite
myself about the caging of larks when there are so many much
greater evils.”
“Forgive my saying so,” he answered, “but if, when a caged lark
comes under your nose, excitement does not take hold of you, with
or against your will, there is mighty little chance of your getting
excited about anything. For, consider what it means to be a caged
lark—what pining and misery for that little creature, which only lives
for its life up in the blue. Consider what blasphemy against Nature,
and what an insult to all that is high and poetic in man, it is to cage
such an exquisite thing of freedom!”
“You forget that it is done out of love for the song—to bring it
into towns where people can’t otherwise hear it.”
“It is done for a living—and that people without imagination may
squeeze out of unhappy creatures a little gratification!”
“It is not a crime to have no imagination.”
“No, sir; but neither is the lack of it a thing to pride oneself on,
or pass by in silence, when it inflicts suffering.”
“I am not defending the custom of caging larks.”
“No; but you are responsible for its continuance.”
“I?”
“You! and all those other people who believe in minding their
own business.”
“Really,” I said; “you must not attack people on that ground. We
cannot all be busybodies!”
“The saints forbid!” he answered. “But when a thing exists which
you really abhor—as you do this—I do wish you would consider a
little whether, in letting it strictly alone, you are minding your own
business on principle, or because it is so jolly comfortable to do so.”
“Speaking for myself——”
“Yes,” he broke in; “quite! But let me ask you one thing: Have
you, as a member of the human race, any feeling that you share in
the advancement of its gentleness, of its sense of beauty and justice
—that, in proportion as the human race becomes more lovable and
lovely, you too become more lovable and lovely?”
“Naturally.”
“Then is it not your business to support all that you feel makes
for that advancing perfection?”
“I don’t say that it isn’t.”
“In that case it is not your business to stop your ears, and shut
your eyes, and hold your tongue, when you come across wild song-
birds caged.”
But we had reached my rooms.
“Before I go in,” I said, “there is just one little thing I’ve got to
say to you: Don’t you think that, for a man with your ‘sense of
proportion,’ you exaggerate the importance of beasts and their
happiness?”
He looked at me for a long time without speaking, and when he
did speak it was in a queer, abstracted voice:
“I have often thought over that,” he said, “and honestly I don’t
believe I do. For I have observed that before men can be gentle and
broad-minded with each other, they are always gentle and broad-
minded about beasts. These dumb things, so beautiful—even the
plain ones—in their different ways, and so touching in their
dumbness, do draw us to magnanimity, and help the wings of our
hearts to grow. No; I don’t think I exaggerate, my friend. Most
surely I don’t want to; for there is no disservice one can do to all
these helpless things so great as to ride past the hounds, to fly so
far in front of public feeling as to cause nausea and reaction. But I
feel that most of us, deep down, really love these furred and
feathered creatures that cannot save themselves from us—that are
like our own children, because they are helpless; that are in a way
sacred, because in them we watch, and through them we
understand, those greatest blessings of the earth—Beauty and
Freedom. They give us so much, they ask nothing from us. What can
we do in return but spare them all the suffering we can? No, my
friend; I do not think—whether for their sakes or our own—that I
exaggerate.”
When he had said those words he turned away, and left me
standing there.
 II
Reverie of a Sportsman
(From the Fortnightly Review, 1915.)

I set out one morning in late August, with some potted grouse
sandwiches in one pocket and a magazine in the other, for a tramp
toward Causdon. I had not been in that particular part of the moor
since I used to go snipe-shooting there as a boy—my first
introduction, by the way, to sport. It was a very lovely day, almost
too hot; and I never saw the carpet of the moor more exquisite—
heather, fern, the silvery white cotton grass, dark peat turves, and
green bog-moss, all more than customarily clear in hue under a very
blue sky. I walked till two o’clock, then sat down in a little scoop of
valley by a thread of stream, which took its rise from an awkward-
looking bog at the top. It was wonderfully quiet. A heron rose below
me and flapped away; and while I was eating my potted grouse I
heard the harsh cheep of a snipe, and caught sight of the twisting
bird vanishing against the line of sky above the bog. “That must
have been one of the bogs we used to shoot,” I thought; and having
finished my snack of lunch, I rolled myself a cigarette, opened the
magazine, and idly turned its pages. I had no serious intention of
reading—the calm and silence were too seductive, but my attention
became riveted by an exciting story of some man-eating lions, and I
read on till I had followed the adventure to the death of the two
ferocious brutes, and found my cigarette actually burning my fingers.
Crushing it out against the dampish roots of the heather, I lay back
with my eyes fixed on the sky, thinking of nothing.
Suddenly I became conscious that between me and that sky a
leash of snipe high up were flighting and twisting and gradually
coming lower; I appeared, indeed, to have a sort of attraction for
them. They would dash toward each other, seem to exchange ideas,
and rush away again, like flies that waltz together for hours in the
centre of a room. As they came lower and lower over me I could
almost swear I heard them whisper to each other with their long
bills, and presently I absolutely caught what they were saying: “Look
at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!”
Amazed at such an extraordinary violation of all the laws of
Nature, I began to rub my ears, when I distinctly heard the “Go-
back, go-back” of an old cock grouse, and, turning my head
cautiously, saw him perched on a heathery knob within twenty yards
of where I lay. Now, I knew very well that all efforts to introduce
grouse on Dartmoor have been quite unsuccessful, since for some
reason connected with the quality of the heather, the nature of the
soil, or the over-mild dampness of the air, this king of game birds
most unfortunately refuses to become domiciled there; so that I
could hardly credit my senses. But suddenly I heard him also: “Look
at him! Go back! The ferocious brute! Go back!” He seemed to be
speaking to something just below; and there, sure enough, was the
first hare I had ever seen out on the full of the moor. I have always
thought a hare a jolly beast, and not infrequently felt sorry when I
rolled one over; it has a way of crying like a child if not killed
outright. I confess then that in hearing it, too, whisper: “Look at
him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!” I experienced the
sensation that comes over one when one has not been quite fairly
treated. Just at that moment, with a warm stirring of the air, there
pitched within six yards of me a magnificent old black-cock—the very
spit of that splendid fellow I shot last season at Balnagie, whose tail
my wife now wears in her hat. He was accompanied by four gray-
hens, who, settling in a semi-circle, began at once: “Look at him!
Look at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!” At that moment I
say with candour that I regretted the many times I have spared
gray-hens with the sportsmanlike desire to encourage their breed.
For several bewildered minutes after that I could not turn my
eyes without seeing some bird or other alight close by me: more and
more grouse, and black game, pheasants, partridges—not only the
excellent English bird, but the very sporting Hungarian variety—and
that unsatisfactory red-legged Frenchman which runs any distance
rather than get up and give you a decent shot at him. There were
woodcock too, those twisting delights of the sportsman’s heart,
whose tiny wing-feather trophies have always given me a distinct
sensation of achievement when pinned in the side of my shooting-
cap; wood-pigeons too, very shy and difficult, owing to the thickness
of their breast-feathers—and, after all, only coming under the
heading “sundry”; wild duck, with their snaky dark heads, that I
have shot chiefly in Canada, lurking among rushes in twilight at
flighting time—a delightful sport, exciting, as the darkness grows;
excellent eating too, with red pepper and sliced oranges in oil!
Certain other sundries kept coming also; landrails, a plump, delicious
little bird; green and golden plover; even one of those queer little
creatures, moorhens, that always amuse one by their quick, quiet
movements, plaintive note, and quaint curiosity, though not really, of
course, fit to shoot, with their niggling flight and fishy flavour!
Ptarmigan, too, a bird I admire very much, but have only once or
twice succeeded in bringing down, shy and scarce as it is in
Scotland. And, side by side, the alpha and omega of the birds to be
shot in these islands, a capercailzie and a quail. I well remember
shooting the latter in a turnip-field in Lincolnshire—a scrap of a bird,
the only one I ever saw in England. Apart from the pleasurable
sensation at its rarity, I recollect feeling that it was almost a mercy
to put the little thing out of its loneliness. It ate very well. There,
too, was that loon or northern diver that I shot with a rifle off
Denman Island as it swam about fifty yards from the shore.
Handsome plumage; I still have the hat it made. One bird only
seemed to refuse to alight, remaining up there in the sky, and
uttering continually that trilling cry which makes it perhaps the most
spiritual of all birds that can be eaten—I mean, of course, the
curlew. I certainly never shot one. They fly, as a rule, very high and
seem to have a more than natural distrust of the human being. This
curlew—ah! and a blue rock (I have always despised pigeon-
shooting)—were the only two winged creatures that one can shoot
for sport in this country that did not come and sit round me.
 There must have been, I should say, as many hundred altogether
as I have killed in my time—a tremendous number. They sat in a sort
of ring, moving their beaks from side to side, just as I have seen
penguins doing on the films that explorers bring back from the
Antarctic; and all the time repeating to each other those amazing
words: “Look at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!”
Then, to my increased astonishment, I saw behind the circles of
the birds a number of other animals besides the hare. At least five
kinds of deer—the red, the fallow, the roe, the common deer, whose
name I’ve forgotten, which one finds in Vancouver Island, and the
South African springbok, that swarm in from the Karoo at certain
seasons, among which I had that happy week once in Namaqualand,
shooting them from horseback after a gallop to cut them off—very
good eating as camp fare goes, and making nice rugs if you sew
their skins together. There, too, was the hyena I missed, probably
not altogether; but he got off, to my chagrin—queer-looking brute!
Rabbits of course had come—hundreds and hundreds of them. If—
like everybody else—I’ve done such a lot of it, I can’t honestly say
I’ve ever cared much for shooting rabbits, though the effect is neat
enough when you get them just right and they turn head over heels
—and anyway, the prolific little brutes have to be kept down. There,
too, actually was my wild ostrich—the one I galloped so hard after,
letting off my Winchester at half a mile, only to see him vanish over
the horizon. Next him was the bear whose lair I came across at the
Nanaimo Lakes. How I did lurk about to get that fellow! And, by
Jove! close to him, two cougars. I never got a shot at them, never
even saw one of the brutes all the time I was camping in Vancouver
Island, where they lie flat along the branches over your head,
waiting to get a chance at deer, sheep, dog, pig, or anything handy.
But they had come now sure enough, glaring at me with their
greenish cats’ eyes—powerful-looking creatures! And next them sat
a little meerkat—not much larger than a weasel—without its head!
Ah yes!—that trial shot, as we trekked out from Rous’ farm, and I
wanted to try the little new rifle I had borrowed. It was sitting over
its hole fully seventy yards from the wagon, quite unconscious of
danger. I just took aim and pulled; and there it was, without its
head, fallen across its hole. I remember well how pleased our “boys”
were. And I too! Not a bad little rifle, that!
Outside the ring of beasts I could see foxes moving, not mixing
with the stationary creatures, as if afraid of suggesting that I had
shot them, instead of being present at their deaths in the proper
fashion. One, quite a cub, kept limping round on three legs—the
one, no doubt, whose pad was given me, out cubbing, as a boy. I
put that wretched pad in my hat-box, and forgot it, so that I was
compelled to throw the whole stinking show away. There were quite
a lot of grown foxes; it certainly showed delicacy on their part, not
sitting down with the others. There was really a tremendous crowd
of creatures altogether by this time! I should think every beast and
bird I ever shot, or even had a chance of killing, must have been
there, and all whispering: “Look at him! The ferocious brute! Oh,
look at him!”
Animal lover, as every true sportsman is, those words hurt me. If
there is one thing on which we sportsmen pride ourselves, and
legitimately, it is a humane feeling toward all furred and feathered
creatures—and, as every one knows, we are foremost in all efforts to
diminish their unnecessary sufferings.
The corroboree about me which they were obviously holding
became, as I grew used to their manner of talking, increasingly
audible. But it was the quail’s words that I first distinguished.
“He certainly ate me,” he said; “said I was good, too!”
“I do not believe”—this was the first hare speaking—“that he
shot me for that reason; he did shoot me, and I was jugged, but he
wouldn’t touch me. And the same day he shot eleven brace of
partridges, didn’t he?” Twenty-two partridges assented. “And he only
ate two of you all told—that proves he didn’t want us for food.”
The hare’s words had given me relief, for I somehow disliked
intensely the gluttonous notion conveyed by the quail that I shot
merely in order to devour the result. Any one with the faintest
instincts of a sportsman will bear me out in this.
 When the hare had spoken there was a murmur all round. I
could not at first make out its significance, till I heard one of the
cougars say: “We kill only when we want to eat”; and the bear, who,
I noticed, was a lady, added: “No bear kills anything she cannot
devour”; and, quite clear, I caught the quacking words of a wild
duck. “We eat every worm we catch, and we’d eat more if we could
get them.”
Then again from the whole throng came that shivering whisper:
“Look at him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!”
In spite of their numbers, they seemed afraid of me, seemed
actually to hold me in a kind of horror—me, an animal lover, and
without a gun! I felt it bitterly. “How is it,” I thought, “that not one of
them seems to have an inkling of what it means to be a sportsman,
not one of them seems to comprehend the instinct which makes one
love sport just for the—er—danger of it?” The hare spoke again.
“Foxes,” it murmured, “kill for the love of killing. Man is a kind of
fox.” A violent dissent at once rose from the foxes, till one of them,
who seemed the eldest, said: “We certainly kill as much as we can,
but we should always carry it all off and eat it if man gave us time—
the ferocious brutes!” You cannot expect much of foxes, but it struck
me as especially foxy that he should put the wanton character of his
destructiveness off on man, especially when he must have known
how carefully we preserve the fox, in the best interests of sport. A
pheasant ejaculated shrilly: “He killed sixty of us one day to his own
gun, and went off that same evening without eating even a wing!”
And again came that shivering whisper: “Look at him! The ferocious
brute! Oh, look at him!” It was too absurd! As if they could not
realize that a sportsman shoots almost entirely for the mouths of
others! But I checked myself, remembering that altruism is a purely
human attribute. “They get a big price for us!” said a woodcock,
“especially if they shoot us early. I fetched several shillings.” Really,
the ignorance of these birds! As if modern sportsmen knew anything
of what happens after a day’s shooting! All that is left to the butler
and the keeper. Beaters, of course, and cartridges must be paid for,
to say nothing of the sin of waste. “I would not think them so much
worse than foxes,” said a rabbit, “if they didn’t often hurt you, so
that you take hours dying. I was seven hours dying in great agony,
and one of my brothers was twelve. Weren’t you, brother?” A second
rabbit nodded. “But perhaps that’s better than trapping,” he said.
“Remember mother!” “Ah!” a partridge muttered, “foxes at all events
do bite your head off clean. But men often break your wing, or your
leg, and leave you!” And again that shivering whisper rose: “Look at
him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!”
By this time the whole thing was so getting on my nerves that if I
could have risen I should have rushed at them, but a weight as of
lead seemed to bind me to the ground, and all I could do was to
thank God that they did not seem to know of my condition, for,
though there were no man-eaters among them, I could not tell what
they might do if they realized that I was helpless—the sentiments of
chivalry and generosity being confined to man, as we all know.
“Yes,” said the capercailzie slowly, “I am a shy bird, and was
often shot at before this one got me; and though I’m strong, my size
is so against me that I always took a pellet or two away with me;
and what can you do then? Those ferocious brutes take the shot out
of their faces and hands when they shoot each other by mistake—
I’ve seen ’em; but we have no chance to do that.” A snipe said
shrilly: “What I object to is that he doesn’t eat us till he’s had too
much already. I come in on toast at the fifth course; it hurts one’s
feelings.”
“Ferocious brute, killing everything he sees.”
I felt my blood fairly boil, and longed to cry out: “You beasts! You
know that we don’t kill everything we see! We leave that to
cockneys, and foreigners.” But just as I had no power of movement,
so I seemed to have no power of speech. And suddenly a little voice,
high up over me, piped down: “They never shoot us larks.” I have
always loved the lark; how grateful I felt to that little creature—till it
added: “They do worse; they take and shut us up in little traps of
wire till we pine away! Ferocious brutes!” In all my life I think I never
was more disappointed! The second cougar spoke: “He once passed
within spring of me. What do you say, friends; shall we go for him?”
The shivering answer came from all: “Go for him! Ferocious brute!
Oh, go for him!” And I heard the sound of hundreds of soft wings
and pads ruffling and shuffling. And, knowing that I had no power to
move an inch, I shut my eyes. Lying there motionless, as a beetle
that shams dead, I felt them creeping, creeping, till all round me and
over me was the sound of nostrils sniffing; and every second I
expected to feel the nip of teeth and beaks in the fleshy parts of me.
But nothing came, and with an effort I reopened my eyes. There
they were, hideously close, with an expression on their faces that I
could not read; a sort of wry look, every nose and beak turned a
little to one side. And suddenly I heard the old fox saying: “It’s
impossible, with a smell like that; we could never eat him!” From
every one of them came a sort of sniff or sneeze as of disgust, and
as they began to back away I distinctly heard the hyena mutter:
“He’s not wholesome—not wholesome—the ferocious brute!”
The relief of that moment was swamped by my natural
indignation that these impudent birds and beasts should presume to
think that I, a British sportsman, would not be good to eat. Then
that beastly hyena added: “If we killed him, you know, and buried
him for a few days, he might be tolerable.”
An old cock grouse called out at once: “Go back! Let us hang
him! We are always well hung. They like us a little decayed—
ferocious brutes! Go back!” And once more I felt, from the stir and
shuffle, that my fate hung in the balance; and I shut my eyes again,
lest they might be tempted to begin on them. Then, to my infinite
relief, I heard the cougar—have we not always been told that they
were the friends of man?—mutter: “Pah! It’s clear we could never
eat him fresh, and what we do not eat at once we do not touch!”
All the birds cried out in chorus: “No! That would be crow’s
work.” And again I felt that I was saved. Then, to my horror, that
infernal loon shrieked: “Kill him and have him stuffed—specimen of
Ferocious Brute! Or fix his skin on a tree, and look at it—as he did
with me!”
For a full minute I could feel the currents of opinion swaying over
me, at this infamous proposal; then the old black cock, the one
whose tail is in my wife’s hat, said sharply: “Specimen! He’s not good
enough!” And once more, for all my indignation at that gratuitous
insult, I breathed freely.
“Come!” said the lady bear quietly: “Let us dribble on him a little,
and go. The ferocious brute is not worth more!” And, during what
seemed to me an eternity, one by one they came up, deposited on
me a little saliva, looking into my eyes the while with a sort of horror
and contempt, then vanished on the moor. The last to come up was
the little meerkat without its head. It stood there; it could neither
look at me nor drop saliva, but somehow it contrived to say: “I
forgive you, ferocious brute; but I was very happy!” Then it, too,
withdrew. And from all around, out of invisible presences in the air
and the heather, came once more the shivering whisper: “Look at
him! The ferocious brute! Oh, look at him!”
I sat up. There was a trilling sound in my ears. Above me in the
blue a curlew was passing, uttering its cry. Ah! Thank Heaven!—I
had been asleep! My day-dream had been caused by the potted
grouse, and the pressure of the Review, which had lain, face
downwards, on my chest, open at the page where I had been
reading about the man-eating lions, and the death of those ferocious
brutes. It shows what tricks of disproportion little things will play
with the mind when it is not under reasonable control.
And, to get the unwholesome taste of it all out of my mouth, I at
once jumped up and started for home at a round pace.
 III
The Slaughter of Animals for Food
(Papers in the Daily Mail, 1912.)[2]

The thing is horrible, but it is necessary. Why then drag it out

into the light? Why make our thoughts miserable with contemplation
of horrors which must exist?
If it were true that the present methods of slaughtering animals
for food in this country were necessary, if all the suffering they
involve was inevitable, I should be the first to say: “Let us shut our
eyes!” For, needless suffering—even to ourselves—is stupid. It is just
because this particular suffering is avoidable, and easily avoidable,
that one feels we must face the matter if we want to call ourselves a
decent people.
I am a meat-eater—we are nearly all meat-eaters. Well! We
cannot sit down at present to a single meal without complicity in
methods that produce a large amount of preventable suffering to
creatures for whom the least sensitive among us has at heart a
certain friendly feeling. For, to those who say that they do not care
for animals, or that animals, even domestic ones, have no rights
except such as for our own advantage we accord them, let me at
once reply: I do not agree, but for the sake of argument, granted;
and then conceive, if you can, a world without cattle, sheep, and
pigs, and tell me honestly whether you do not miss something
friendly. No! the fact is, we, who are the descendants of countless
generations to whom these animals have been literally the breath of
life, cannot—even now that we have become such highly civilized
townsmen—disclaim all sensibility in their regard.
Consider the magnitude of this matter. The calculations of an
expert give the following approximate numbers of animals annually
killed for food in England and Wales: 1,850,000 beasts, 8,500,000
sheep, and 3,200,000 pigs. These figures are hard to come at, and
may be a million or so out, one way or the other, but even if they be,
is there any feature of the national life which can touch this for
possibilities of preventable physical suffering? And is there any
department so neglected by public opinion and the law?
Save the eating of bread, have we any practice in our lives so
consistent as that of eating meat, or any from which we, perhaps
wrongly, consider that we derive more benefit, or any about whose
conditions, sanitary or humane, we are so careless?
If a donkey is beaten to death, a dog stoned, or a cat killed with
a riding-whip, the chances are that a prosecution will ensue or a
question be asked in Parliament; for public opinion and the law lay it
down that the infliction of unnecessary suffering on animals is an
offence punishable by fine or imprisonment. But if in slaughter-
houses some 8,000,000 sheep are killed yearly, without first being
stunned, by a method which, even in the hands of an expert,
produces some seconds of acute suffering (Report of the Admiralty
Committee on Humane Slaughtering of Animals, 1904); if thousands
of cattle require two or more blows of that primitive instrument, the
pole-axe (if even only one in a hundred cattle requires a second
blow it means 18,000 in a year); if pigs are driven in gangs into a
small space and there killed, one by one, with the others squealing
in terror round their dead bodies; if all this preventable suffering is
inflicted daily in our slaughterhouses, what does public opinion know
of it, and what does the law care?
There was a time in this country when men beat their donkeys,
set cocks fighting, baited bears and badgers, tied tin pots to dogs’
tails, with the lightest of light hearts and no consciousness at all that
they were outside the pale of decency in doing so. We, their
descendants, now look on the unnecessary suffering involved in such
doings with aversion; but we still allow our sheep and pigs to be
killed without stunning, our pigs to be driven in gangs into the
slaughtering chamber, and the uncertain pole-axe to be used for
cattle—all without a qualm.
 Why should this enormous field, wherein does occur such an
amount of easily preventable suffering, be left so unpatrolled by the
law, which has interested itself in warding off all needless suffering
from cats and dogs and horses? Well! The law stands idle partly
because the animals we kill for food are not so near and dear to us
as those others. We should never stand the horses and dogs and
cats we make such pets of being killed when their time comes in the
manner in which we kill our sheep and pigs. And partly the law
stands idle because in the case of horses and dogs and cats there is
no large leagued interest, such as that of the meat trades,
unconvinced of the need for improvement.
I am told that the meat trades constitute the strongest body in
the kingdom. And well they may, considering the vast proportions of
their business. The meat trades are controlled by men like ourselves
—as humane, and undesirous of inflicting unnecessary suffering.
Surely they will reconsider their convictions and accept such simple,
elementary safeguards against unnecessary suffering as were
outlined by the Admiralty Committee on Humane Slaughtering, of
1904. There is nothing really prejudicial to their interest in these
suggestions. Nothing extravagant, or experimental. The case has
been proved up to the hilt. What is the good of appointing a
governmental committee of first-rate men[3] to examine into facts if
their Report is to be paid about as much attention to as one would
pay to the suggestions of seven lunatics? Why set going a laborious
inquiry, for negligible or puny results? It can no longer be pretended
that humane-killers are not effective, in the face of so much
evidence from abroad; in the face of numerous testimonials from
butchers in this country; in the face of the fact that Mr. Christopher
Cash (for whose consistent advocacy of humane slaughtering the
thanks of us all are due) in the year 1910 had 4,000 animals, the
property of thirty butchers, killed by “humane” methods, and though
he was in every case willing to pay full compensation for any injury
he might do to a carcase, had not one single claim made on him.
(From a pamphlet entitled “The Humane Slaughtering of Animals for
Food,” by Christopher Cash. Issued by the R.S.P.C.A.).
 Butchers and slaughtermen perform a necessary task from which
most of us would shrink, and it is both unbecoming and nonsensical
to suggest intentional cruelty on their part. I do not for a moment.
But I do say that it is the business of the law so to control the
methods of slaughter as to obviate to the utmost all needless
suffering, however unintentionally it may be inflicted.
In the following brief summary of our want of system I am not
dealing at all with the Jewish method of killing, for not being a Jew,
I cannot pretend to be qualified to discuss a custom which appears
to have been necessary hitherto to the peace of the Jewish mind. I
only urge a people in some respects more humane than ourselves to
search their consciences, and see if they can still endure this
method. Neither am I speaking as to Scotland, which is ahead of us,
having provided by the Burgh Police Act, of 1892, that where there
are public there shall be no private slaughter-houses; and where—at
all events in Edinburgh—they have abattoirs that compare, I am
told, with the best on the Continent.
The following is a rough outline of what at present seems good
to a nation which prides itself on being at once the most practical
and the most humane in the whole world: —

A mixed system of private and public slaughter-houses—

thousands of private slaughter-houses (some of them
highly insanitary) alongside of a few municipally controlled
abattoirs.
No regulation that where there are public abattoirs there
shall be no private ones; hence great difficulty in making
these public slaughterhouses pay their way.
Inspection of private slaughter-houses, in spite of all the
good intentions of local authorities and medical officers,
admitted to be very inefficient in so far as condition of meat
and method of slaughter are concerned.
Supervision of public slaughter-houses much hampered
by the present widespread custom of allowing butchers to
send in their beasts with their own slaughtermen.
 No general statutory regulations as to method of
slaughter. Model by-laws have been drawn up by the Local
Government Board and recommended to local authorities—
but they are not compulsory and have been as yet but
sparsely adopted.
Slaughtermen not licensed; nor—except in
slaughterhouses directly controlled by a Government
Department (such as the Admiralty)—required by law to be
proficient before they commence slaughtering.

These are the methods of slaughter we adopt at present: —

Cattle are almost universally stunned before their throats are cut.
So far—good! But they are still, for the most part, stunned with the
pole-axe. This weapon produces complete unconsciousness at the
first blow, if well wielded. If not well wielded——! I have been
assured that the cases of misfire amount to a very small percentage.
But I can only say, on the first two beasts slaughtered before my
eyes the first blow of the pole-axe—wielded in each case by an
experienced slaughterman—descended without effect. The animals
moaned, and waited for the second and successful blow. Thanks to
the efforts of the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals,
the Council of Justice to Animals, the Humanitarian League, of Mr.
Christopher Cash, and others, there are now a considerable number
of improved instruments for stunning cattle in use—the Greener and
Behr pistols; the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
humane-killer and large captive-bolt pistol; the Swedish Cattle-killer
(used throughout Scandinavia), and others. But the number of these
improved instruments in use at present is only a fringe to the mass
of time-hallowed and uncertain pole-axes.
Calves.—“The usual practice in this country appears to be to run
the animal up first (by a tackle fastened to its hind legs) and then to
stun it, previous to bleeding.” (Report of the Admiralty Committee.)
On this method the Committee thus commented: “This order of
procedure is not so humane, and appears to be unnecessary.” . . .
“Calves should first be stunned by a blow on the head with a club”—
i.e., before being run up. When this Committee conducted its
investigation in 1904, the best humane-killers had not been
invented, or were not known here.
Sheep, with few exceptions, are not stunned before they are bled.
The method of killing them and the amount of suffering they
undergo are thus summed up in the Report of the Admiralty
Committee:

“The usual method in this country is to lay the sheep on

a wooden ‘crutch’ and then to thrust a knife through the
neck below the ears, and with a second motion to insert
the point from within between the joints of the vertebrae,
thus severing the spinal cord. In the hands of an expert this
method is fairly rapid but somewhat uncertain, the time
which elapses between the first thrust of the knife and
complete loss of sensibility varying, according to Professor
Starling’s observations, from five to thirty seconds. In the
hands of an inexpert operator it may be some time before
death supervenes, and there can be little doubt that this
method must be very painful to the sheep as long as
consciousness remains.
“At the best it is a somewhat difficult operation and yet
in practice is often entrusted to the younger and less
experienced hands in the slaughter-house, the probable
reason being that sheep are easy to handle, and do not
struggle or give trouble when stuck. . . .”

In other words, the more helpless the creature the less need for
humanity!

“In Denmark and many parts of Germany and

Switzerland the law requires that sheep shall always be
stunned previous to being stuck, and the Committee have
satisfied themselves, by practical experiments and
observation, that this can be done expeditiously and
without difficulty. A small club with a heavy head should be
 used, and the sheep should be struck on the top of the
head between the ears. This point is important, as it is
almost impossible to stun a sheep by striking it on the
forehead. . . . It was also clearly demonstrated that the
stunning caused no injury to the sheep’s head or to the
‘scrag of mutton’ which could in any way depreciate their
market value.”

Notwithstanding this recommendation, the Local Government

Board had (up to 1915) omitted from their model by-laws (which, as
before said, are not obligatory) a regulation requiring the stunning of
sheep. In 1915, however, they added the following alternative
clause:

“9 (b). A person shall not in a slaughter-house proceed

to slaughter any animal until the same shall have been
effectually stunned with a mechanically operated
instrument suitable and sufficient for the purpose.”

And in their memorandum they say:

“At the present time the Board understand that a

‘humane-killer’ can be got which is adapted for stunning
any kind of animal, reasonable in cost, and effective and
simple in operation. It appears, too, that the use of the
improved instruments can readily be learnt, so that no
prolonged training is needed for their proper manipulation.”

One can only hope that every Local Authority will now adopt this
clause, and insist on the stunning of sheep as well as of all other
animals.

Pigs.—“The Committee ascertained that it is the usual

practice in large establishments in England to stun pigs by a
blow on the forehead previous to sticking them, and there
is no difficulty in carrying this out, as the pig’s head is soft
as compared with that of the sheep. The Committee are of
 opinion that the preliminary stunning should be enforced in
all cases, the evidence tending to show that this operation
is often limited to pigs which are so large or strong as to
give trouble, or to cases where, owing to the location of the
slaughter-house, the squeals of the stuck pigs cause
annoyance to the neighbourhood. The Committee feel that
considerations of humanity are at least as important as
those above mentioned.”

A sentiment with which most of us will presumably agree. Note,

however, that the Admiralty Committee refer above only to large
establishments. Pigs still appear to be killed in ways that the
following quotation describes:

“I, with another witness, saw five pigs killed—three

small ones and two large ones. The pigs were ‘knifed’ one
at a time and allowed to wander round the slaughter-house
bleeding and in a drunken, reeling, rolling state, and at the
same time uttering most plaintive cries.” (From a letter to a
daily journal.)

And Mr. R. O. P. Paddison (one of the foremost workers in the

cause of humane slaughtering) thus describes the method adopted
in most of our bacon factories:

“First the animals are hung up alive head downwards by

a chain fastened to a hind foot, and then they are stuck
and bleed to death. The work is done quickly in a collective
sense—at the rate possibly of 100 to 200 pigs an hour, but
each individual pig suffers from forty seconds to two or
three minutes, and several pigs struggle and shriek at the
same time.”

I have not personally witnessed either of the methods so

described.
 I understand that some bacon-curers consider, or did consider,
stunning cruel, on the ground that several blows were often
required. The use of humane-killers disposes of this objection.
The late eminent physiologist, Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson, in
a paper read before the Medical Society of London some years ago,
says:

“Pigs, I have said, suffer a mental terror of death, and

to them commonly is also given a severe degree of physical
pain. . . . When they are killed by the knife alone they die
by a hæmorrhage that may extend with persistent
consciousness over three or four minutes of time.”

In relation to the pig’s mental horror of death, I myself saw the

following sight:—Fifteen or so pigs in a slaughtering chamber just
large enough to hold them and the slaughterer. Of these pigs three
or four had already been stunned and knifed and lay dead and
bleeding among their living brethren, who with manifest terror were
squealing and straining here and there against the walls, while the
slaughterer moved about among them selecting the next victim. A
blow, a cut, and there was another dead pig, and this would go on,
no doubt, till the whole fifteen were despatched and their bodies
shot down the slide. Terror of death! Yes! At all this, by the way, a
boy of about thirteen was looking on—and this in a public slaughter-
house with a good superintendent and under municipal control.

Segregation of Animals about to be slaughtered from

slaughtering operations.—“It appears to be the common
practice, even in modern and well-regulated slaughter-
houses, to keep the animals, which are immediately
awaiting slaughter, in pens which are mere annexes to the
slaughter chamber itself, and in many cases in full view of
all that goes on inside . . . There is no point which the
Committee have more carefully investigated than the
question as to whether animals do or do not suffer from
fear from this contact, and the evidence of those best
 qualified to judge is so conflicting that no absolute verdict
can be given . . . The animal should be given the full
benefit of the doubt.” (Report of the Admiralty Committee.)

But the animal is not given the benefit of the doubt. Whatever
the degree of consciousness of animals awaiting slaughter
(sometimes for a whole hour) just divided by a door which, all
regulations to the contrary, is far from always shut, whether they
know or not that it is death which awaits them, any spectator
accustomed to animals in their normal state has only to look at their
eyes, as they stand waiting, to feel sure that they are in fear of
something.
Such then, in brief and in rough, are the conditions and methods
of slaughter which still seem good to us. When the Admiralty
Committee issued their report in 1904 they made the following
recommendations: —

(a) All animals (cattle, calves, sheep, lambs, and pigs)

without exception must be stunned or otherwise rendered
unconscious before blood is drawn.
(b) Animals awaiting slaughter must be so placed that
they cannot see into the slaughter-house, and the doors of
the latter must be kept closed while slaughtering is going
on.
(c) The drainage of the slaughter-house must be so
arranged that no blood or other refuse can flow out within
the sight or smell[4] of animals awaiting slaughter, and no
such refuse shall be deposited in proximity to the waiting
pens.
(d) If more animals than one are being slaughtered in
one slaughter-house at one time they must not be in view
of each other.
(e) None but licensed men shall be employed in or
about slaughter-houses.
 What has been done to carry out these recommendations, the
fruit of most thorough and laborious investigations carried out at a
considerable expenditure of public money and presumably with
some object, by men well qualified for their task?
Just this much has been done. The recommendations have been
adopted and are worked successfully by the Admiralty themselves,
and they form the basis of certain clauses in the Local Government
Board’s Voluntary Model Bye-laws, to which attention is only just
beginning to be paid.
Seeing that the condition of affairs is such as I have detailed;
seeing that the Admiralty Committee made the following wise
remarks: “However humane and scientific in theory may be the
methods of slaughter, it is inevitable that abuses and cruelty may
result in practice, unless there is a proper system of official
inspection”; and: “In the interests not only of humanity, but of
sanitation, order, and ultimate economy, it is highly desirable that,
where circumstances permit, private slaughter-houses should be
replaced by public abattoirs, and that no killing should be permitted
except in the latter under official supervision”; seeing the enormous
dimensions of this matter, and that our methods are behind those of
nearly every Continental country, and very much behind those of
Denmark, Switzerland, and Germany, it would occur to the simple
mind that here was eminently a case for broad and sweeping action
on the part of the Legislature.
I have not even thought it worth while to dwell on the insanitary
aspect of the present system, because the Royal Commission on
Food from Tuberculous Animals (again at a considerable expenditure
of public money) reported thus—“The actual amount of tuberculous
disease among certain classes of food animals is so large as to
afford to man frequent occasions for contracting tuberculous disease
through his food. We think it probable that an appreciable part of
the tuberculosis that affects man is obtained through his food”—
practically without effect! If the public likes to spend its money on
ascertaining a risk to itself and likes to disregard that risk to itself
when ascertained, far be it from me to gainsay the public. But if any
one be interested in the sanitary side of our want of system, let him
go to the superintendent of some large public slaughter-house and
ask what percentage of meat is condemned daily; then let him ask
some medical officer of health how far it is possible to inspect the
condition of carcases in private slaughter-houses; and then let him
go home and think! There I leave the matter. For, frankly, it is not
this, but the disregard by the public of needless suffering inflicted on
helpless creatures, bred and killed for its own advantage, that moves
me. Surely no one can call the following suggestions unreasonable:

No animal to be bled before being stunned (or

otherwise rendered instantaneously insensible).
No animal to be slaughtered in sight of another animal.
No slaughter-refuse and blood to be allowed within sight
or smell of an animal awaiting slaughter.
No stunning or slaughtering implement to be used that
has not been approved by the Local Government Board.
The licence of no slaughter-house to be renewed unless
it possesses these approved stunning and slaughtering
implements, a copy of official instructions how to use them,
and can prove that it does use them and them alone.
All offenders against these regulations to be liable to
penalties on summary conviction.

Why has not this simple harmless minimum of decent humanity

been—as in other countries—long ago adopted? For the usual
reasons: Dislike of change; dislike of a little extra trouble and a little
extra expense; liberty of the subject. To take the last point first.
Dictate to a man how he shall slaughter his own animals—what
next! Well! I am all for liberty of the subject. I am for letting him
hurt himself as much as ever he likes. I even go so far as to say that
prosecutions for attempted suicide are wrong and ridiculous; but
where the subject claims to hurt the helpless with impunity, then it
seems to me time to hurt the subject.
 I fancy that in most men’s minds there lurks the feeling: “Oh! a
little extra suffering to animals who are going to die anyway in a
minute or two—what does it matter? Now, if you were to put it on
the ground that it hurts the slaughterer, there’d be something in it!”
Yes! It certainly may hurt the morale of the slaughterer—but not
much, for he inflicts the needless suffering without consciousness of
cruelty; and ill actions of which one is not conscious only negatively
deteriorate morale, in so far as they are a waste of time in which
good actions might have been performed. But to say that it does not
matter whether we needlessly hurt the sheep or pig because they
are going to die anyway is really to say that no suffering matters,
however unnecessary, since we must all die and it will be all the
same a hundred years hence. It is at all events not a saying that I
can imagine coming out of the mouth of a human being in perfect
health and the possession of all his faculties, with a knife going in
just behind his right ear and wiggling about in his neck and head till
it finds his spinal cord between the joints of his vertebræ. And
though you may think that the infliction of some seconds of
excruciating torture on an animal does not really hurt the animal
because she cannot tell you that it does—it conceivably might hurt
you a little to feel it was needlessly inflicted.
The meat-trades and butchers generally deny the need for
change, and claim that the humanity of existing methods cannot be
improved on. I really cannot understand this. Take for example two
conversations I had with quite humane butchers.
I: “So you never stun your sheep before bleeding them?”
First Butcher: “Oh! no.”
“Why not?”
“It isn’t necessary.”
“Not to avoid pain?”
“Oh! no; there’s no pain.”
Ten minutes later:—
I: “You always stun your cattle before bleeding them?”
 Same Butcher: “Oh! yes, always.”
“Why!”
“Oh! it avoids a lot of pain.”
To the second butcher:—
I: “Then you never stun your sheep before bleeding them.”
Second Butcher: “No, never.”
“Why not? Is there any objection?”
“No, I don’t see any objection; only it’s never done. I’ve never
seen a sheep stunned.”
“Just custom?”
“Yes, just that.”
The old, ignorant prejudice that animals do not bleed freely if
stunned first is now, I think, never advanced.
So much for custom and dislike of change.
But now we come to what is perhaps the real gravamen of the
resistance—a little extra trouble, a suspicion of extra expense. This
touches all the points in the irreducible minimum of reform. For
instance, the various R.S.P.C.A. humane-killers cost about thirty-five
shillings; the Swedish cattle-killer ten shillings and sixpence, with
cartridges four shillings per hundred. You must spend perhaps an
hour in learning how to use them, and five minutes or so per day in
cleaning them. They are still new things—“fads”—although they
have passed all tests, been proved by dozens of testimonials from
butchers in this country to be perfectly efficient; and the Swedish
cattle-killer is used throughout several countries.
Again, it is convenient not to have to be careful to shut doors
between slaughtering chambers and animals awaiting slaughter, or
to have to pave your floors so that blood runs well away from the
waiting pens. It is handy (especially in ill-constructed slaughter-
houses) to kill animals in sight of each other. It is always, in fact, a
nuisance to make any change that involves readjustment. And
unfortunately animals have no force behind them, are not
represented on the public bodies of the country; cannot lobby in the
House of Commons, withdraw votes or commit outrages; cannot
instruct counsel; have no rights save those which mere chivalry shall
give them. “Besides,” says Defence, “everything is already done as
well as it can be done. Switzerland, Denmark—who knows whether
they are really better? The ways of our own country are good
enough for us—the good old-fashioned methods—if there were any
real need for reform we should be the first to undertake it!” Waste-
paper, then, the Admiralty Report! Waste-paper!
I have reckoned that in the case of sheep alone the amount of
needless suffering inflicted must amount to some 33,000 hours of
solid, uninterrupted death agony each year (number of sheep
slaughtered without stunning, 8,000,000; period of suffering, five to
thirty seconds—Admiralty Committee’s report)—all preventable by a
few strokes of the legislative pen.
But the truth is we don’t reflect; or if by any chance we do, we
pass on with the thought: “Nothing can be done till the butchers
themselves are convinced!” Is that true?
Just this far true: As in every other case of new law, there would
be required at first a little special activity. It is only a question of
starting a new standard. In two years’ time, if these simple,
harmless regulations concerning the slaughter of animals for food
were enforced—not merely recommended, as now—there would
hardly be an animal in this country bled without first being stunned
by humane methods, or any beasts watching their fellows being
killed.
I attack no one in this matter; I blame no one, for I am not in a
position to—the charge of callousness falls heavily on my own
shoulders, who have eaten meat all these years without ever
troubling as to what went before it. Nor can I hope that these words
will do more than ruffle the nerves of the public; but I do trust that
such of our legislators as may chance to read them may be moved
to feel that it is their part to save patient creatures, who cannot
plead in their own behalf, from all suffering that the proper
satisfaction of our wants does not compel us to inflict on them.
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