It was the evening of the Love Parade, 2002 in Berlin, Germany. I stood with a childhood friend in the queue for the club Tresor in the then derelict wastelands between Leipzigerstraße and Potstdamer Platz. My friend began conversing with a nice young Dutch gentleman who had traveled specifically for the event from Rotterdam, bringing with him some high quality MDMA. Once inside he generously shared it with us. What I experienced thereafter was so profound that I virtually ceased to speak for several hours. He was good enough to stay with me through these speechless hours of wonder and after we ended the evening/morning somewhat early at 7am, my friend and I invited him back to drink tea in my apartment. Some time around 10am we directed him towards the nearest underground station, and he disappeared back across the continent to Rotterdam. I never saw or heard from him again. He will never know the impact those little pills had on my life, culinary and otherwise. For it was those experiences that finally, conclusively pushed me down to road of becoming a vegetarian.  

It was not as if vegetarianism had never crossed my mind before that fateful evening. I had dated a vegetarian for many years, and found him quite frankly to be self-righteous and annoying. We had once done some voluntary work on an organic farm outside of Hamburg where I had had a little calf named after me. Yet I don‘t even remember wondering what this calf‘s fate would be.  On the same trip the commune-like ‘members’ of the farm offered to take anyone who was interested to come and see some cows being slaughtered. I of course declined. It is difficult to remember now whether I had any conflicted feelings at the time. I do remember thinking that there was really something quite bloodthirsty about those who wanted to come and watch. But whatever uncomfortable feelings it provoked, it certainly did not put me off eating meat when I returned from that neo-hippy corner of the universe back to the real world.

It may seem somewhat counterintuitive that an abstract experience would have more impact on my decision whether to eat animals or not than real life encounters with animals intended for death and animal consumption, but that‘s just the way it is. No, I did not sit in that club thinking of dead animals and lentil stew; I just began to see the world with new eyes. I was affected profoundly by the pointlessness of selfishness and was newly convinced that our duty was to act compassionately. And somewhere there lurked in my mind the realization that eating meat could not be squared with living compassionately. Some weeks later I found myself at and English university, and took up meditation. I discussed my drug revelations with the teacher, an Israeli Buddhist who had lived in Amsterdam before pursing the spiritual life and knew a thing or two about drug experiences. Take it slowly, he advised, don‘t make any rash changes. He was right. A year elapsed, and the spiritual fervor I felt waned. I felt no compulsion to make any other major changes in my life. But still I found myself becoming a vegetarian. 

Years have past. Today, walking down the streets where wonder exploded in my life I find it difficult to remember the sensations, the feelings that I experienced on that fateful evening. I no longer meditate, I do not follow any particular spiritual path. Almost nothing remains of that evening on MDMA. Only the fact that I am still a vegetarian.