What’s it like to exist without food? Well, we exist without it on the Fourth Dimension or Astral Planes. Occasionally we eat fruit at special gatherings and these fruits do have a revivifying effect on us. But we don’t need food.
We won’t totally exist without food on the physical Fifth Dimension or Mental Plane. We’ll take a little.
But we are essentially indestructible beings and don’t absolutely need food. We require it on some dimensions, but not on others. Go without food on the Third Dimension or Physical Plane and your body will die, but you won’t die.
Here are three subsections from New Maps of Heaven on the subject. If you wish to know the full titles of books, go to the Bibliography, here: https://www.angelfire.com/space2/light11/nmh/nmh-bib1.html
Food
No provision for the body remains to be made. (Spirit leader Imperator in Moses, MST, 48.)
SM.: Have you food?
Not as you understand it. We are supported by the spirit ether which interpenetrates space, and by which your spirit-bodies are even now supported. It is the universal food and support of the spirit, whether incarnated or not. (Spirit leader Imperator in Moses, MSTSW, n.p.)
As time goes on even the habit of demanding nourishment gradually wears off. We are no longer bothered by hunger and thirst; though I, for instance, still stay myself occasionally with a little nourishment, an infinitesimal amount compared with the beefsteak dinners which I used to eat. (Judge David P. Hatch, LLDM, Letter XXVII.)
We do not crave for food as you, nor do we kill to live. . . . We have no need of sustenance save that which we can draw in with the air we breathe. (Bishop Wilberforce in Moses, MSTSW, n.p.)
To turn to more mundane matters, darling, you want to know how I eat? Well, my body absorbs all the nourishment it requires from the atmosphere, like the leaves of trees do. (Claude Kelway-Bamber in CB, 16.)
My new body does not need food in your sense; it is nourished, they tell me, by magnetic currents emanating from the Source of Power. (Philip Gilbert in PTW, 107.)
Hunger and thirst can no longer prove one’s undoing since one can go on indefinitely without food or drink. (T.E. Lawrence, PMJ, 51.)
The necessity of producing and consuming food is no longer a factor in our economy. (T.E. Lawrence, PMJ, 115.)
When you first arrive here, … the routines of eating and drinking and sleeping are too firmly established to be eliminated at one fell swoop. So, if you think you need to sleep, well, you lay down on a couch in one of the houses and you sleep for as long as you want. If you think you need to eat, then you eat your fill.
There are no excretory organs in our bodies. For example, when I drink a glass of water, it just diffuses itself throughout my system and that’s that! In other words, it’s converted into energy. (Mike Swain to his father, Jasper, in FMW, 34.)
We don’t think of putting food into our mouths because it isn’t needed. Therefore, the whole of the astral digestive tract and the elimination organs, like the kidneys and colon, cease to function – I guess you could say they become / paralytic. (A.D. Mattson, WOB, 45-6.)
The spiritual or soul body is immune from anything analogous to death; yet for its health and development it requires sustenance of a kind. You see, / it is a soul or mind body and food for the mind is essential for its well-being and growth. …
Just as you breathe air in the earth life, so here you inbreathe all these revivifying and beneficent influences surrounding you to which you happen to be en rapport. In this way soul nourishment is automatically imbibed. As you open your mentality to higher influences and recuperative forces, they enter and your soul body becomes reinvigorated and fortified. (Abbe Henry Bolo in SRE, 77.)
Now, with little children and adults likewise who are children in spiritual things, a semblance of eating as on earth is sometimes desirable and may be indulged in with great benefit. These folk – little children and children of a larger growth – who can conceive of no satisfactory existence without receiving food through their mouths, find means to gratify their imaginary needs. (Abbe Henry Bolo in SRE, 78.)
The necessity for providing the body with food was abandoned when we abandoned our physical body. (Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, LIWU, 89.)
The essential requisites indispensably associated with an earthly homestead were, of course, completely superfluous here, for example, the severely mundane matter of providing the body with food. That is one instance of the difference. And so with others it is easy enough to call to mind. (Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, LIWU, 19.)
It is difficult for you on earth to imagine yourself without hunger and the need for food. To be hungry and thirsty is instinct with human nature on earth. When you come to reside permanently in these realms of the spirit world, you leave your hunger and thirst for ever behind you. You will never, therefore, miss the food and drink for which you no longer have any need. And that state in turn becomes instinct with human nature in the spirit world. (Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, HH, 74.)
Food – Fruit Optionally Available
We have the most wonderful fruit on this plane, of a texture and quality that I am unable to describe to you fully. It has a spiritual quality of sustenance, suitable to our etheric bodies and is greatly enjoyed by all.
There are many varieties. Replicas of earth fruits abound, perfect in every detail to look at. There are also many kinds that are unknown to you. But here fruit is of a different substance … and although other foods are not necessary to us, we gain much from eating fruit. Like everything else here, the colours are indescribably beautiful so my energies have been directed to creating an artistic display in which I have been greatly helped by Cliffy, who has a keen appreciation for colour and is an expert at arrangement. (Ethel McLean in LFM, 82.)
There is no wastage because the very juice which may be discarded dissolves into the surrounding ether and, instantaneously, returns to the substance of the tree. (Cliffy McLean in LFM, 81.)
Fruits – beautiful to behold and luscious to the taste – are in great profusion and may, as thought necessary, be plucked and eaten. These fruits contain, in concentrated form, mental and spiritual essences. Though seemingly eaten, they are not swallowed as is food on earth, but are dissolved in the mouth cavity, then imbibed into the system.
But folk, as they grow upward and progress onward, ultimately perceive the puerility of the process, and do not pursue it. (Abbe Henry Bolo in SRE, 78.)
If I see a beautiful apple tree with bright red applies on it, I can reach up and pick one off and swallow it – all it does is to give me a tingling sense of satisfaction!
We have hundreds of trees which bear fruit and the fruit never drops off or rots. It stays crisp and fresh. When we occasionally feel depressed – and we do, Dad; when the people we left behind are sorrowing for us too intensely, it depresses us up here! – the best way to cheer up is to wander out and pick an apple or a pear, or any other fruit we happen to fancy. It has the effect of recharging our batteries. (Mike Swain to his father, Jasper, in FMW, 34.)
I have already remarked that we are never hungry, from which it might be inferred that our social gatherings are entirely without refreshment. Such is not the case. We have the most delicious fruit in abundance. Our host or hostess, whoever it may be, will always see to that. But it is fruit that is very unlike yours on earth, we eat it for a different reason, and it produces a totally different effect upon us.
To take the fruit itself first. We have a much greater variety than do you, even taking into account the diversity to be found in the different parts of the world. All the fruits that you have we also have here, but with the quality there is no comparison. And the size, too, is remarkable. That you must see to believe!
The fruit contains a great quantity of nectar-like juice, at the same time leaving the flesh of the fruit firm to behold, and its appearance does not belie it for it tastes even more lovely than it looks. In eating the fruit we are not conscious of internal satisfaction such as you are on earth with your fruit. We feel at once a powerful force running through our whole system, a feeling of exhilaration both mental and physical. We have no physical hunger that calls for satisfaction; whatever fruit we eat acts as a life force, and, as it were, stirs up mentally and charges us with vigour. (Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, HH, 73.)
Our host led us into the orchard where I beheld many trees … in full fruit. He looked at me for a moment, and then he took us to a splendid tree that looked strongly like a plum tree. The fruit was perfect in shape, with a deep rich coloring, and it hung in great clusters. Our host picked some of it, and handed it to us, telling us that it would do us both good. The fruit was quite cool to the touch, and it was remarkably heavy for its size. Its taste was exquisite, the flesh was soft without being difficult or unpleasant to handle, and a quantity of nectar-like juice poured out. My two friends watched me closely as I ate the plums, each bearing upon his face an expression of mirthful anticipation. As the juice of the fruit streamed out, I fully expected to spill an abundance upon my clothes. To my amazement, although the juice descended upon me I could find, upon examination, no traces of it. … They hastened to explain to me that as I am now in an incorruptible world anything that is ‘unwanted’ immediately returns to its own element. The fruit juice that I thought I had spilled upon myself had returned to the tree from which it was plucked.
Our host informed me that the particular type of plum which I had just eaten was one that he always recommends to people who have but newly arrived in spirit. It helps to restore the spirit, especially if the passing has been caused by illness. … The various fruits that were growing were not only for those who needed some form of treatment after their physical death, but all enjoyed eating thereof for its stimulating effect. (Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, LIWU, 26.)
As to the actual supply of fruit, our host said that all he knew was that as he picked his fruit other fruit came and took its place. It never over-ripened because it was perfect fruit, and, like ourselves, imperishable. … There is no earthly fruit I know of with which comparison can be made. We can only, at any time, give such an indication to the senses by comparison with that which we have already experienced. If we have not had that experience, then we are at a complete and absolute loss to convey any new sensation, and nowhere is this more appreciable than in the sense of taste. (Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, LIWU, 27.)
You would … find that you could manage very nicely if you were never to partake of any fruit here, but once you have tried it and sampled its rich benefits, you have discovered a pleasure that you will never want to deny yourself. And there is no need to deny yourself upon any grounds whatsoever. There is plenty of it to be had simply for the gathering of it and you may ‘tuck in’ without fear of being dubbed a glutton.
Where does the fruit grow? Most people have a garden attached to their houses and they are bound to have a favourite fruit tree tucked away in some corner that will amply supply them both for the requirements of hospitality and for their own personal needs. But there are large tracts of land here that are entirely applied to growing fruit of various sorts and for various purposes. (Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, HH, 74.)
Drink
I have spoken to you of food in the limited extent of fruit, but what of drink? Do we never feel the need for liquid of some sort? Never. But you must know that there is an enormous quantity of juice to be found in the fruit which would be sufficient to quench any thirst of reasonable dimensions!
However the spirit world is not an arid waste, as you will by this time have gathered. There is water in abundance in the rivers and streams and brooks and every drop of it not only fit to drink, but, indeed, like no water to found upon earth. (Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, HH, 75-6.)