EGW Investigation

Animal Passions

By Dirk Anderson, last updated August, 2024

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Animal Passions Nineteenth century health reformers regarded "animal passions" as a serious physical, mental, and spiritual health concern. This term was used to describe urges or desires, particularly of a sexual nature. These reformers believed that indulging in such passions strengthened the animal nature of humans, drained vital energy from the body, and resulted in moral, physical, and spiritual degradation.

The doctrine of vital force taught that animal passions depleted essential energy required by the higher brain. Thus, indulging in sexual activity, or even sexual thoughts, could lead to spiritual weakening, while simultaneously amplifying one's animalistic tendencies. This resulted in a person becoming more base, depraved, and potentially criminally oriented. Abstaining from sexual activity or any form of arousal was considered a path toward spiritual growth and elevation. Therefore, spirituality and sexuality were seen as opposing forces—engaging in sexual activity or even thinking sexual thoughts diminished one's spiritual state, while abstaining from sexual activity and thinking spiritual thoughts promoted spiritual growth.

In the mid-1860s, Ellen White became indoctrinated in the concept of vital force after obtaining her health message from health reformer Dr. Caleb Jackson. Following Jackson's teachings, she took a radical stance against anything that she thought might possibly stimulate even the least amount of sexual desire. She warned her followers that certain meat, stimulating drinks, spices, and various activities, like going to the theater, the dance hall, or even the circus, could strengthen their animal passions. She believed these animal passions were detrimental to spiritual life. This doctrine became a foundational principle of Ellen White's health teachings.

The Downward Progression to Hell

In 1870, Mrs. White warned her followers:

The indulgence of the appetite in first eating food highly seasoned, created a morbid appetite, and prepared the way for every kind of indulgence, until health and intellect were sacrificed to lust. ...stimulating drinks, as tea and coffee, create unnatural appetites. The system becomes fevered, the organs of digestion become injured, the mental faculties are beclouded, while the baser passions are excited, and predominate. The appetite becomes more unnatural, and more difficult of restraint. The circulation is not equalized, and the blood becomes impure. The whole system is deranged, and the demands of appetite become more unreasonable, craving exciting, hurtful things, until it is thoroughly depraved.1

To claim that tea and coffee ultimately result in a downward progression until a person becomes "thoroughly depraved" seems preposterous to a modern audience. In fact, many SDAs are likely drinking an iced tea or a cappuccino while reading this article. However, it was received with alarm and grave concern by those who supposed Ellen White was conveying God's special message of warning for the last days.

Mrs. White also adopted her fellow health reformers' view that marital excess (frequent sexual activity in marriage) drained vitality from the body. She also adopted the reformers' stance against masturbation. She wrote that it "lessens the strength of the vital powers" and was a "soul-and-body-destroying vice" that would result in "utter shipwreck of body and mind."2

She vehemently warned parents of the horrific consequences of reading "love stories" or seeing "impure" pictures:

Exciting love stories and impure pictures have a corrupting influence. Novels are eagerly perused by many, and, as the result, their imagination becomes defiled. In the cars, photographs of females in a state of nudity are frequently circulated for sale. These disgusting pictures are also found in daguerrean saloons, and are hung upon the walls of those who deal in engravings. This is an age when corruption is teeming everywhere. The lust of the eye and corrupt passions are aroused by beholding and by reading. The heart is corrupted through the imagination. The mind takes pleasure in contemplating scenes which awaken the lower and baser passions. These vile images, seen through defiled imagination, corrupt the morals and prepare the deluded, infatuated beings to give loose rein to lustful passions. Then follow sins and crimes which drag beings formed in the image of God down to a level with the beasts, sinking them at last in perdition.3

Notice the downward progression started by reading a romance novel or seeing an artistic expression of the female form:

  • Corrupt passions are aroused
    • The morals are corrupted
      • Lustful passions are given loose rein
        • Sins and crimes follow
          • Ultimately the soul ends up in hell

To protect children, she advised parents to burn their children's novels:

Put your novels into the fire. Make a great bonfire of all the novels you have. Let them not come into the hands of your children. Let every novel be consumed.4

In addition to book-burning, Mrs. White advised her followers to avoid theatrical performances which could arouse their animal passions...

The youth who walk the streets are surrounded with handbills and notices of crime and sin, presented in some novel, or to be acted at a theater. Their minds are educated into familiarity with sin. The course pursued by the base and vile is kept before them in the periodicals of the day. Everything which can excite curiosity and arouse the animal passions is brought before the young in thrilling and exciting stories.5

SDA parents must have been terrified as they read these frightful warnings about the downward spiral caused by indulging in meat, coffee, novels, the theater, and impure pictures. Indulging in these could start a chain of events that could land their children in perdition!

Downward Progression Copied from Fowler

O.S. Fowler

O.S. Fowler, M.D.

The terror over animal passions was shared by other health reformers whom Ellen White acquired her health message from. For example, O.S. Fowler believed that whatever stimulates the passions provokes an individual to other vices, leading to a downward progression. He explained that the least indulgence was like paddling a canoe down the Niagara rapids. Anything that could possibly kindle sexual passions should be avoided, because it could lead one to make a shipwreck of their life. He believed marriage partners should hold their sexual urges in check and save sex for procreation. He believed that "secret vice" was ruining children. He believed three-fourths of all ailments men suffered were due to masturbation, and nine tenths of all mental problems stemmed from sex draining the vital powers. He taught that when vital powers were lessened by sexual activity or even sexual thoughts, people could not cultivate their higher faculties. Instead, they become more like animals. He viewed the expenditure of vital energy on sensual passion to be akin to "physical, mental, and moral suicide."6 Demonstrating their confidence in Fowler, the Whites included large sections of his rants against masturbation in their 1870 book, A Solemn Appeal.

Likewise, SDA physician J.H. Kellogg believed marital excess and masturbation would exhaust one's supply of vital energy. He opposed behaviors that might stimulate sexual passion, decrying the "vile pictures...which hang in many of our art galleries" that are a "means of evil."7

Backed by Ellen White's testimonies and J.H. Kellogg's influence, the health reformers' doctrine of vital force soon became a core doctrine within Seventh-day Adventism. By 1885, Ellen White could declare that health reform had become a central part of SDA theology:

The health reform, I was shown, is a part of the third angel's message and is just as closely connected with it as are the arm and hand with the human body.8

Veganism: A Solution to Animal Passions

Mrs. White banned meat from those who were preparing for translation, because, after all, what could be more arousing to the animal passions than eating an animal? (See Meat of the Adventist Health Message). Ellen White envisioned a holy, vegan people, who eliminated all animal passions from their hearts by abstaining from animal flesh:

Meat should not be placed before our children. Its influence is to excite and increase the force of the lower passions, and has a tendency to deaden the moral or higher powers. Grains and fruits prepared free from grease, and in as natural a condition as possible, should be the food for the tables of all who claim to be preparing for translation to Heaven. The less feverish the diet, the more easily can the passions be controlled.

I was instructed that the use of flesh meat has a tendency to animalize the nature, and to rob men and women of the love and sympathy which they should feel for everyone.

Not only this, but they are injuring their families by placing upon their tables a feverish diet which will increase the animal passions of their children and lead them to care but little for heavenly things. The parents are thus strengthening the animal, and lessening the spiritual, powers of their children. What a heavy penalty will they have to pay in the end! And then they wonder that their children are so weak morally!9

According to Ellen White, if parents gave their children meat to eat, it would strengthen their animal nature and make them less spiritual. If Mrs. White had been reading the Bible instead of O.S. Fowler's books, she may have discovered that God instructed His priests to eat meat (Ex. 29:32; Lev. 2:3,10; 7:9; 10:12; Num. 18:17,18; Deut. 18:3. The priests were God's spiritual leaders. Why would God instruct them to eat a substance that would have a terrible negative impact to their spiritual lives?

According to Ellen White in Counsels on Diets and Foods, meat has the following dire effects:

  • "Butter and meat stimulate. These have injured the stomach and perverted the taste. The sensitive nerves of the brain have been benumbed, and the animal appetite strengthened at the expense of the moral and intellectual faculties. These higher powers...have been growing weaker, so that eternal things have not been discerned. Paralysis has benumbed the spiritual and devotional." (p. 48)
  • "...flesh meats and other food prepared with spices, which have a tendency to excite the animal passions." (pp. 231-232)
  • "Animal passions bear sway as the result of meat eating..." (p. 269)
  • "...who are still eating the flesh of animals, thus endangering the physical, mental, and spiritual health." (p. 382)
  • "...the flesh of dead animals. Such a diet contaminates the blood in their veins, and stimulates the lower animal passions. It enfeebles keen perception and vigor of thought to the understanding of God and the truth..." (p. 384)
  • "It is impossible for those who make free use of flesh meats to have an unclouded brain and an active intellect." (p. 389)
  • "A religious life can be more successfully gained and maintained if meat is discarded, for this diet stimulates into intense activity lustful propensities, and enfeebles the moral and spiritual nature." (p. 389)
  • "...flesh meat is not the right food for God's people. It animalizes human beings." (p. 390)
  • "The intellectual, the moral, and the physical powers are depreciated by the habitual use of flesh meats. Meat eating deranges the system, beclouds the intellect, and blunts the moral sensibilities." (p. 391)

The effects of meat, along with spices and butter, sound like a spiritual nightmare! This is the foundation of Ellen White's health message that the SDA sect teaches today.

Veganism: The Path to Holiness

This message became integrated into the SDA sect's end-time prophetic message. This is how the SDAs were going to be perfected in holiness—by discarding the use of animal products! After the arrival of the health message, the Seal of God was no longer just about keeping the seventh day Sabbath. Health reform became an integral component of those who wished to receive the Seal of God. The vegan diet would enable the holy SDAs to grow in spiritual perfection. Finally, when all SDAs adopted the vegan diet, when all sexual desires were totally eliminated, then the Lord could safely place his seal upon his perfected, asexual Sabbath-keeping people.

Ellen White's health reforms were not universally accepted in the SDA sect. Some sect members in Iowa rejected the reforms and the teachings of Dr. Kellogg. Mrs. White warned them that they not only rejected Kellogg, but God, because "the Lord Himself has been sending you line upon line, precept upon precept."10 Thus, Mrs. White informs sect followers that her health reform teachings originated with the Lord, and to reject them is tantamount to rejecting God. SDAs must adopt a bland vegan diet, avoid stimulating drinks like tea and coffee, and avoid marital excess, masturbation, and anything else that might stimulate sexual desire or thoughts.

Courting

Mrs. White envisioned that SDA schools would be devoid of any dating or romantic attachments. She laid down strict rules of conduct for SDA schools. At Avondale (Australia), she warned that "nothing can be tolerated like forming attachments, courting or being in the society girls with boys."11 She wrote, "the school is not a place to form attachments for courting, or entering into marriage relations."12 To avoid any possibility of animal passions developing, "the young ladies must keep themselves to themselves, and the young gentlemen must do the same.13 She even considered building separate classroom facilities for males and females at Avondale because: "We would not, could not, allow any courting or forming attachments at the school, girls with young men and young men with girls."14

The same rules were applied to Battle Creek College. Mrs. White warned one young man:

The rules are strict there. No courting is allowed. The school would be worth nothing to students were they to become entangled in love affairs as you have been. Our college would soon be demoralized.15

Courting was also strictly prohibited at SDA Health Institutions. After all, courting might arouse animal passions that could result in a reduction of vital force which would be detrimental to patients' health. Ellen White warned:

Not one particle of anything like flirting between young men and women, or even of courting, should be allowed at the Health Institute. Familiarity between men and women in the parlors or on the grounds should not be encouraged. I have been shown that the very worst results will follow if any leniency is given in this direction. If men and women had possessed self-control and moral power to restrain appetite and keep all their passions in subjection, many would have no need of coming to the Health Institute. Therefore if sanction is given for young ladies and gentlemen to be on familiar terms and encourage the society of each other, the imagination will become excited and there will be a strange abandonment of principle which characterizes this generation.16

SDA University Students - Fair Use God forbid that their "imagination" might become excited!

It seems that the administrators of SDA universities were not too fond of these testimonies. If these hyper-moral Victorian Era restrictions were carried out as Ellen White intended, there would likely be no students attending SDA schools. Hence, in order to attract students, these outmoded testimonies that Mrs. White was "shown" were discarded into the dumpster of SDA history.

On a personal note, I had the opportunity to attend several SDA schools, and I can testify that dating is now encouraged in these institutions. Today, these schools are viewed as an ideal place to go and find an SDA marriage partner, which is the opposite of how Ellen White viewed them. Men and women are no longer segregated to the degree that Ellen White envisioned. The schools' marketing material even pictures young people fraternizing together (as can be seen on the right). The current state of courting in SDA universities more resembles the book of Song of Solomon than the book Messages to Young People! This demonstrates that SDA leaders have no confidence in the inspiration of Ellen White's writings and the things she was supposedly "shown." Perhaps Ellen White stated it best:

My brethren have trifled and caviled and criticized—and commented and demerited—and picked and chosen a little, and refused much, until the testimonies mean nothing to them.17

Women Must Douse Their Husband's Animal Passions

In Ellen White's concept of a holy SDA marriage, women must take care to refrain from anything that might sexually excite their husband:

Let the Christian wife refrain, both in word and act, from exciting the animal passions of her husband.18

She placed the burden on SDA wives to avoid any subjects of conversation that might possibly arouse their husband. Wives must also avoid any actions that might arouse their husband. This would likely eliminate any type of touching or intimate physical contact. Mrs. White desired the wife to create a sterile environment free from any possibility of exciting her husband's animal passions.

The Naked Ankle!

To avoid arousing the passions of men, Mrs. White advised SDA women to cover themselves from head-to-toe. She even started wearing trousers underneath her dresses so that not even her naked ankle could be observed. Mrs. White appears shocked that some women were so bold as to expose their naked ankles to men:

It is a common thing to see the dress raised one-half of a yard, exposing an almost unclad ankle to the sight of gentlemen, but no one seems to blush at this immodest exposure.19

One can sense Ellen White's grave concern that seeing a female's naked ankle might possibly arouse the base passions of SDA men, inciting them to engage in marital excess with their wives or even worse, solitary vice, thus diminishing their vital power, blunting their moral sensibilities, then sinning against God, and finally placing themselves into an early grave. That one glimpse of a naked ankle could start a chain of downward events like launching a canoe on the rapids above Niagara falls.

By now it should be evident that Ellen White adopted the false theories of deluded health reformers and foisted these upon her followers as testimonies, "line upon line," straight from the throne of God. For the better part of a century, SDA couples were terrorized by the thought of sexual excess. Women were burdened with the necessity of severely curtailing their husband's natural desires, restricting their own sexual desires, and wearing clothing covering their bodies from head to toe. It is no wonder that SDAs were known as SADventists!

Ellen White Explains How Sex Causes Disease

In 1900, Mrs. White explained the mechanism of how sexual activity (passions indulged) caused disease and mental impairment:

The lower passions are to be strictly guarded. The perceptive faculties are abused, terribly abused, when the passions are allowed to run riot. When the passions are indulged, the blood, instead of circulating to all parts of the body, thereby relieving the heart and clearing the mind, is called in undue amount to the internal organs. Disease comes as the result. The mind cannot be healthy until the evil is seen and remedied.34

According to Ellen White, sex causes blood to stop circulating to the entire body thereby causing blood to pool in the internal organs which then causes disease and an unhealthy mind. Really? The SDA corporation should alert medical authorities of this "truth" that is "years ahead of science."

Death of Vital Force Myth

By the early 1900s, the vital force doctrine was refuted by science. The health reformers were debunked and the entire movement fizzled out. It was eventually proven by science that people who had frequent sex outlived those who refrained, effectively killing the last remnants of the vital force theory.

  • A 1997 British Medical Journal study of Welsh villagers found that men who had more orgasms lived longer.
  • A 2011 San Diego Union Tribune article reported that men who had two or more orgasms per week had half the mortality rate of men who had orgasms less than once a month. The article also suggested that ejaculating more than 100 times per year could increase life expectancy by five to eight years.
  • A 2023 YourLifeChoices article reported that having around 100 orgasms per year could add three or more years to life expectancy, and up to eight years with 700 orgasms per year.

Conclusion

Ellen White incorporated the paranoid myths of her day into her health writings. Her followers then assumed these myths were inspired by God. They were led astray by the fake theory of vital force which she endorsed.

Vital Force could rightfully be called a doctrine of demons. It was abandoned in the early nineteenth century as hopelessly flawed. With it, Mrs. White's dire testimonies about "animal passions" find their rightful place in the trash heap of history. Sadly, it was the SDA prophetess who introduced and promulgated this false doctrine within the SDA sect for decades. Since she advocated false doctrines like vital force, this proves her testimonies were uninspired. The "testimony of the Lord is sure [confirmed, established, verified, reliable, trustworthy]" (Psalm 19:7). The testimonies of Ellen White were unconfirmed, not established, unverified, unreliable, and untrustworthy. They were misleading, errant, and outright wrong. Therefore, her testimonies are not from the Lord.

It is claimed that Ellen White was "years ahead of science," when in fact she was teachings myths that science later debunked. If only God had told her in the 1860s what science would discover in the 1900s, it would have substantiated her prophetic claims. Alas, it has done the opposite.

See also

Citations

1. Ellen White, A Solemn Appeal (1870), 102. See also Signs of the Times, Sep. 29, 1881:

Intemperance in eating and drinking leads to the indulgence of the animal passions. And those who, understanding the effect of their course, indulge appetite and passion at the expense of health and usefulness, are preparing the way to disregard all moral obligations. When temptation assails them, they have little power of resistance. This was the cause of Israel's continual backsliding; and it is the reason why there is so much crime and so little true godliness in the world today.

2. Ellen White, Testimony 17, (1869), 185-186.

3. Ellen White, Testimonies for the Church vol. 2, (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1885), 410.

4. Ellen White, Manuscript 145, 1906.

5. Ellen White, Testimony for the Church 25, (1875), 9.

6. O.S. Fowler, Private Lectures on Perfect Men, Women and Children, in Happy Families: Including Gender, Love, Mating, Married Life, and Reproduction, Or Paternity, Maternity, Infancy and Puberty (NY: Sharon Station, self-published 1883), 120. The Whites quoted from Fowler in A Solemn Appeal (1870), 200.

7. John Harvey Kellogg, Plain Facts for Old and Young, (Burlington, Iowa: Segner & Condit, 1881), 465.

8. Ellen White, Testimonies for the Church vol. 4, (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1885), 486.

9. Ellen White, Testimony for the Church no. 17 (1869), 191. Ellen White, Manuscript 50, 1904 (5MR 408). Ellen White, Testimonies for the Church vol. 2, 365.

10. Ellen White, Letter 177, May 7, 1901. To Brethren and Sisters of the Iowa Conference.

11. Ellen White, Letter 194, 1897.

12. Ellen White, Letter 23, 1893.

13. Ellen White, Letter 145, 1897.

14. Ellen White, Letter 193, 1897.

15. Ellen White, Testimonies for the Church, vol. 5 (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1889), 109.

16. Ellen White, Letter 41a, 1874.

17. Ellen White, Letter 40, 1890.

18. Ellen White, A Solemn Appeal (Battle Creek, MI: Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association, 1870), 178.

19. Ellen White, Health Reformer, May 1, 1872.

20. Ellen White, "Words of Instruction to Physicians and Nurses," Manuscript 24, April 3, 1900.

Category: Health Myths
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