You Crazy Vegan: Coming Out as a Vegan Intuitive

By Jessica Ang

Have you ever felt compelled to hide who you are or what you really care about? 

You Crazy Vegan: Coming Out as a Vegan Intuitive is a true story of a girl who learns that it's not always wise to share your passions or spirituality (you could get slapped!), nor to question common assumptions held by the majority (frequent

• Language: English
• Publisher: Atmosphere Press
• Release date: Mar 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781637528846

Book preview

YOU CRAZY VEGAN

YOU CRAZY VEGAN

Coming Out as a Vegan Intuitive

Jessica Ang

atmosphere press

Copyright © 2021 Jessica Ang

Published by Atmosphere Press

Cover artwork by Pamela Ang

Cover design by Nick Courtright and Jessica Ang

No part of this book may be reproduced

except in brief quotations and in reviews

without permission from the author.

You Crazy Vegan

2021, Jessica Ang

atmospherepress.com

You Crazy Vegan is dedicated to Frank.

I was a teenager when I met you, and had just started working at Toys R Us. As I watched the store director tease you about refusing KFC at a recent Christmas cruise and label you as Frank the vegetarian, I noticed how you smiled and didn’t seem to care. I thought that was hot.

Your subsequent and fairly regular statements, made unapologetically, about your preference for vegetarian food only highlighted how in-the-closet I was about my own dietary and lifestyle choices.

Almost two decades on, I still find you hot.

~

CONTENTS

Introduction             3

Part I: FIGURE

CHAPTER 1: F**k!      13

CHAPTER 2: Fellatio to Freedom      17

CHAPTER 3: Fourteen and Confused       21

CHAPTER 4: Fairy Tales       25

CHAPTER 5: Fact-Finding       32

CHAPTER 6: Force for Good       40

Part II: FORGIVE

CHAPTER 7: Family of Hunters       55

CHAPTER 8: Flustered by Cravings       61

CHAPTER 9: Facing Offers      70

CHAPTER 10: Fear of Lapses       82

CHAPTER 11: Fury        98

CHAPTER 12: Forgiveness After Trauma      110

CHAPTER 13: Family of Teachers      123

Part III: FREE

CHAPTER 14: Free to be Joyous       135

CHAPTER 15: Fun with Tarot       142

CHAPTER 16: Fantasy Worth Striving For      170

CHAPTER 17: Revolution       182

CHAPTER 18: Extreme              193

CHAPTER 19: Enthusiasm       206

Appendix A: Helpful Resources      222

Appendix B: 2012 Submission to the Australian NHMRC

(on Dairy and Osteoporosis)       225

References      285

Acknowledgements      295

INTRODUCTION

I think because of the stigma against veganism there’s a lot of people we’ve spoken to that have had a hard time coming out about it. It’s almost like they were in the closet.¹

~ James Wilks, elite Special Forces trainer

and Ultimate Fighter winner

I’ve noticed a pattern in my life where the things that matter most to me are the same things that I find most scary to openly discuss. I suspect that countless people, if not all people, feel this way. It seems reasonable that the more we share what we truly care about, the more apprehensive we’ll feel about the risk of hurt and embarrassment if others don’t approve of what we say.

At around the age of five, I brought up the story of the Buddha while having lunch with my classmates outside. I had recently read a children’s picture book on the life of Prince Siddhartha, and was inspired by his tale of perseverance, understanding of suffering, and eventual enlightenment, after which he was referred to as the Buddha or Awakened One.

Another girl, Eleanor, asked quietly, What can he do?

In my enthusiasm I responded with, Anything! Then after remembering the beautiful images I’d seen of the Buddha sitting in full lotus under the Bodhi tree, surrounded by rainbow light and levitating a little off the ground, I decided to add, I think he can fly!

What happened next, I did not see coming.

Eleanor slapped me in front of everyone, called me a liar, and scolded me as sternly as a little five-year-old child could about how wrong I was to have said what I did.

I was shocked and shamed by this public humiliation. After Eleanor walked away from the table, and I was left facing a group of other children staring silently in my direction, I couldn’t think of anything to say except, Nobody knows … before escaping to a less populated corner of the school playground.

In hindsight, Nobody knows was safer than saying, "But I do believe in the Buddha’s story, and I want to wake up just like him! Perhaps someone else would have punished me for repeating such heinous beliefs. I came to assume that it wasn’t safe to talk about spirituality, nor anything else I was passionate about, in case others may admonish or reject me for it. It was safer to say, I don’t know" than to express who I was and what was important to me.

Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are …

Fast-forward a couple of decades later, and my love affair with spirituality and all things woo-woo was alive and kicking. I still felt reluctant to talk about this with most people, unless I was certain that they were crazy woo-woo as well. I studied conventional topics at university and earned an income from normal work roles as I thought a responsible citizen should. I was also vegetarian by this point, which I kept hidden whenever possible lest I offend anyone with what my parents (and others, no doubt) thought were unreasonable and socially inconvenient eating habits. I remember reading in a magazine that singer K.D. Lang had received more hate mail about her dietary choices than her sexuality, which led to her statement: It was easier to come out as a lesbian than it was to come out as a vegetarian. 

A few years on, I was not just a vegetarian who was preoccupied with spiritual devotion. I was one of those crazy vegans, who would soon be quitting a respectable job of over half a decade to pursue a career as a professional intuitive.

Starting out as an intuitive, I would not share too much about being vegan. That could frighten away the many non-vegan people who might otherwise choose to work with me. As a vegan, I found it was a challenge to speak with others in the vegan community about any of the intuitive work I was engaged in. I could occasionally write about it online or share brief snippets on social media, but in person? I stuttered and gave vague responses whenever I was asked what it was exactly that I was doing. I didn’t want to lose any more friends in the same way that I’d lost my playmate Eleanor back in the first year of school. 

Coming Out as a Vegan Intuitive

One day, after several years of working as an intuitive, I was asked to be interviewed for a vegan spirituality webinar. One of the event co-hosts had contacted me in early 2016 after I wrote an article on trauma that had been passed on to her by a colleague. She requested permission for the animal protection organisation, In Defense of Animals (IDA), to republish the article for their audience. Upon discovering that I had written a book on intuition and spirituality a couple of years later in 2018, she invited me to be interviewed during a webinar called Attune Your Intuition to Empower Your Activism in February 2019. I was to be in the vulnerable position of having to openly discuss both these aspects of myself – being an intuitive and being vegan – a double whammy of woo-woo and vegan secrets revealed all at once. Yes, I was soon to release a book that touched on my work as an intuitive, but even that was a stretch beyond my comfort zone and my marketing efforts were minimal. The only way I could bring myself to continue that book to completion was to keep telling myself, Just write it. I don’t have to share it later if I don’t want to.

During that 2019 interview, I verbally and publicly answered questions for the first time on how my spiritual and intuitive journey had begun, how it had unfolded thus far, and about the experiences I’d had leading up to my decision to become vegan as well as in the years afterwards. I spoke about the fact that shortly after making the choice to adopt a vegan lifestyle, I was so passionate about veganism that I wanted to devote my whole life to it, whether it would be through protesting, rescuing, educating, or whatever else I could do to help change the world into a more compassionate one. That little intuitive voice within me, however, clearly said "no".

In hindsight, if I had quit everything to devote myself to the cause when I was first eager to help, and acted on that initial impulse to sacrifice all I had for the sake of activism, I suspect it would have backfired. Not just due to having a lack of savings to live off, but also because I was very disturbed and sad and angry at the world during those first months after watching the documentary Earthlings, which was the catalyst for me to go vegan. It’s no fun to listen to – or be around – an incredibly disturbed, sad, or angry individual no matter how justified they may be in feeling that way. And because it can be a real turnoff for people, any activism from that state would not have been particularly effective.

A couple of years after practicing as a professional intuitive, the same little voice piped up and urged me to volunteer for the vegan cause. The time was right, it said, but my circumstances had changed and I considered myself too busy to take on yet another commitment. Nonetheless, I had learnt the hard way that it’s never a good idea to ignore my intuition or inner voice, so I started to explore some volunteering options.

After offering to mentor newbie-vegans during a 30-day challenge run by Sydney Vegan Club (SVC), I was asked by the club’s founder to contribute articles for their online newsletter. For the very first article, I tuned in as I would before an intuitive reading, as I wasn’t sure what to write and I hoped that my intuitive ability would come to the rescue. The answer I got was trauma. I wrote an article about how to cope with trauma as a vegan, specifically in relation to witnessing cruelty to animals. Within 24 hours of being published, I received an email from the SVC founder to inform me that there had been a HUGE response to your article – so far more than 5.5K reach.

After writing that one article on trauma, it seemed from the comments and feedback I received that I had helped many others on their own vegan path, more so than if I had not waited until the time was right. To me, this was a powerful demonstration of how our intuition can assist us when it comes to activism or to increase our effectiveness in any area of life.

So, when I received the intuitive push to write a book and share some of my vegan-related experiences in it, I paid attention. I still felt fear at the thought of properly coming out as a vegan intuitive, but was open to allowing my inspiration to lead me where it wanted to.

From childhood, I had chosen to protect those opinions and passions I held most dear by making them largely invisible to the world around me; a world that may not approve and could publicly shame or slap me as a result. I’m no longer five years old though, and some things are worth raising despite the risk of disapproval. There’s a certain freedom that comes just from being open about who we really are.

Break Free

Ultimately, that’s what this book is about – freedom. Not so much in terms of justice or the notion that freedom should be fought for on behalf of other sentient beings (though the conviction that everyone deserves a life free from unnecessary harm is certainly central to vegan ideology). The main message that I hope will be taken away from this book is that if we have the privilege to enjoy a life of freedom, and if our culture and the time in which we live allows us the freedom to be ourselves, then that freedom is worth embracing. It would be a waste not to appreciate it. We can free ourselves from the worry about what others think of us, and be free to make our own choices even if that means going against the grain. Veganism, for me, is an example of choosing to live in a way that aligns with my most important values, no matter what other people or the majority might have to say about it.

Part I of this book follows my own story from being a confused schoolkid to concluding that becoming a vegetarian was the right choice for me. It touches on the freedom we have to figure things out for ourselves, the freedom that comes from being as healthy as possible, and the freedom to question the information we hear from others – whether it be about what we should think or believe or eat – through our ability to decipher fact from fiction.

Part II covers the freedom that can be obtained through forgiving other people and ourselves, freedom to choose what we put into our bodies (through facing our own cravings, responding to offers of food from others, and learning how to prepare for lapses), freedom from all-consuming fury about injustice or anything else, and the freedom to love those closest to us no matter what they do, eat, or say.

Part III is about our freedom to live joyfully even while involved in challenging activism work, to strive for a vision of the world we want even if it may seem like a mere fantasy based on how things are today, to be what others may call extreme and to own it, and to live in alignment with our values as well as engage in what interests us with enthusiasm. There’s even a chapter involving intuitive tarot to address more issues relevant to freedom and coming out as a vegan intuitive.

Shortly after completing some handwritten notes on what would be included in this book if I decided to continue with the project, back when the idea for it was just starting to take form, I wondered whether or not it would be worth the time and energy to work on a new book. I noticed that the next song that started to play on the radio was Break Free by Queen.

After Queen’s music faded, I asked what my intuition had to say on the matter, and the answer was,

Yes, you crazy vegan. Yes.

PART I: FIGURE

The right to figure things out for yourself is the only true freedom everyone shares. Go use it.

~ Robert A. Heinlein

Aeronautical engineer, author, and retired Naval officer

CHAPTER ONE

F**k!

I think the reason that swearing is both so offensive and so attractive is that it is a way to push people's

emotional buttons.

~ Steven Pinker, Canadian-American linguist

and psychology professor at Harvard University

There are a lot of F-words in this book. Well, various F-words are used for most of the chapter headings, at least.

During the first few years of primary school, I remember being asked several times by other kids, What word starts with ‘f’ and ends with ‘ck’? The idea, of course, was to be tricked into saying the F-word, after which you’d be told, Oh my gosh, why are you swearing? I’m dobbing on you! The answer is ‘fire truck’! I’d be a smarty pants and point out that this was a two-word answer rather than one. I argued that the answer should be flick or frock or something similar. There was no need to resort to a swear word or a double-word to give the right answer. 

Occasionally when people see that I’m having a meatless meal and ask if I’m vegetarian or vegan, it feels a little similar to being tricked into swearing. The word vegan has more in common with the F-word than you may think. Fuck can be an act of love, an impersonal bonk, an expression of frustration, an offensive comment, part of playful banter, or just harmless swearing that someone happens to include in their everyday vocabulary without meaning to be rude. 

Similarly, vegan can mean multiple things depending on the context and who hears it. It has been used in insulting ways, embarrassing ways, proud ways, and happy ways. Sometimes the word is avoided by vegans themselves. After the coordinated animal advocacy protests across Australia and the demonstrations that brought traffic to a standstill in the city of Melbourne during April 2019 (during which protesters held signs stating "You have been lied to. Watch Dominion"²), a fellow vegan mentioned to me, I’m plant-based now. I don’t want to be known as vegan anymore.

On a holiday in Europe during late 2018, every time I saw the word vegan it appeared to me as a heaven-sent response to an SOS signal. It reminded me of little Penny’s message in a bottle that led to her rescue by two heroic mice in the 1970s Disney cartoon, The Rescuers. I was being rescued in a land of (previously, mostly) non-vegan food. I felt instantly lit up with joy as my eyes fell upon that word in cafes, at grocery stores, on restaurant menus (in English, no less, amongst a sea of words I could not understand), and felt elated by the fact I was seeing that word so much … much, much more frequently and in a wider variety of places than during a previous trip to Europe almost a decade earlier.

I am aware that many people respond to this same word very differently. There are those who may see it as a warning that the food it’s attached to is somehow less edible or tasty or nutritious. Some could consider it a label that indicates a healthier alternative or an environ-mentally-friendly choice. Others might wonder if it’s a threat to the way food and the world used to be.

In my opinion, the word vegan doesn’t mean any-thing bad or crazy. It was introduced in the early 1940s by the co-founder of the Vegan Society in England, Donald Watson, and simply refers to the principle that people should live without exploiting animals. Is that such a strange way to go about one’s life? In this day and age, the use of animal products is normal. As a result, vegans are often perceived as not normal, or downright wacky. 

The word intuitive can also elicit various responses. For many people, to be intuitive simply means to consistently tap in and follow one’s intuition, something we all naturally possess. For others, it might mean that a person is ditsy or impractical, with their head in the clouds and their feet not firmly planted on the ground. To say that one works as a professional intuitive can trigger even more interesting reactions. To be an intuitive in this context could mean being spiritually connected or a healer. On the other hand, it could also mean being a fraud, delusional, or actively psychotic.

Over time, my hope is that many of the old negative views associated with the words vegan and intuitive can be largely replaced with more neutral or positive ones. At the time of writing this, however, there are several deeply entrenched beliefs about intuitives and vegans among the general population and within well-established powerful institutions (despite growing evidence that challenges those beliefs) that are far from positive.

Just as with swearing, the topic of veganism often pushes people’s emotional buttons, sometimes more so than when discussing psychic phenomena or intuitive abilities. This can make it complicated when wanting to try to be vegan or to come out as one.

CHAPTER TWO

Fellatio to Freedom 

In health there is freedom. Health is the first of all liberties.

~ Henri Frederic Amiel, Swiss philosopher and poet

To continue briefly on the topic of F-words, let me share an amusing story involving a close relative. She had recently been in hospital and desperately wanted to leave after being cooped up in a small shared room for weeks whilst enduring numerous medical tests. One particular test, presumably designed to screen for cognitive impairment, required her to say as many words as possible starting with the letter F within 60 seconds.

As she told me about this, I jumped to conclusions and asked, Did you say ‘fuck’?

No, she responded. "I said fellatio. I was so embarrassed."

I tried to reassure her by saying, I’m sure the woman who was testing you probably found it funny. Did she laugh?

No, she didn’t. She was so serious.

I probed further. Well, did you come up with more words starting with F?

Yes, she continued while cringing. "I came up with foreskin. Then fornicator. I couldn’t stop. I was appalled."

Other family members used to joke that she had a dirty mind. Still, I wondered aloud, Did you manage to think of any normal F words? Like ‘frog’?

No, not until the last 10 seconds or so.

I found it interesting that the word freedom hadn’t come up. After all, freedom was what she had wanted so badly, to the point where she had tried to escape hospital more than once within a two-week period. My own doctor jokingly referred to her as a repeat offender when I shared my concern