In a message dated 98-10-27 05:39:58 EST, you write:

<< Do
 you say you have to eat raw food because you THINK it is living, and
 THINK you can absorb some subtle energy you can't prove the existence
 of, and then you see a picture which proves nothing but satisfies you
 because it comforts you in your belief? In short, is it your
 imagination, or a real feeling? >>

Jean-Louis,

It has been my experience as a living being that I can sense other life,
energetically or experientially.  And that eating food in various states of
aliveness produces different experiences.  And that eating cooked food might
feel somewhat nourishing but at the same time feels like it is too
energetically expensive to my being.  It costs me too much, it is like
sacrifice.   Now, this energy that gets lost with cooked food might be an
experience of spending enzymes.  Or, this experience might be an experience of
spending my life energy to take inorganic, inanimate matter and turn it into
living tissue.  It is a mystery, but in reality, I feel the difference, so I
KNOW what works and what doesn't.  I know that breathing clean mountain air is
better than breathing dirty, smoke filled air.  I don't need proof of that.  I
have certainty.

We aren't plants and don't appear to have the ability to take sunlight and
turn dirt into living flesh as readily as they, or, we would just be eating
dirt and thriving.  But people don't seem to thrive on dirt.  Especially
cooked dirt.  Of course, at some times in our lives, it might be appropriate
to spend some of our energy/life to digest cooked food in order to obtain
nutrition, but this nutrition is not balanced with life.  It is simply
nutrition, we are taking in no life, and using up our own life in the process.
That is my experience.  And it all depends upon sensitivity as to when you'll
notice it.  Perspective gives sensitivity, as well as other things.  Could I
pick out one cooked bean in a salad.  Maybe, maybe not.  Probably not, but
I've found that a teaspoon of brewer's yeast wasn't good for me, and other
things, so it depends on what state a person is in as to what they can notice.

When a man masturbates too much he feels used up energetically, wasted life
spent needlessly.  IN the beginning, he may feel rich, and not notice.  Later
on, he notices, and then it is spent.  Hopefully, then, he learns his lesson
and accepts what he has done.  IT is like realizing you have spent your life
poorly.  That is how I experience cooked food.

My 2 cents,

Aaron