Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

234 Sacrifice
the altar. The victim is an object or animal that has
been made sacer (holy) by being entirely devoted to
a god. Therefore, a sacrifice is something consecrated
to a deity, as a mode of communication
between humanity and the unseen powers, and an
expression of intentions in relation to those powers.
It may be offered as a gift, as an act of atonement, or
as an act of fellowship and communion. In some
religions sacrifices are also made to the elements,
the sun and the moon, the cardinal points, sacred
landmarks, ghosts and other supernatural beings.
Among the most popular gifts are food, drink,
fruits of harvest, and the blood sacrifice of animals
and fowl. The sacrifice of human life is now rare.
The places of sacrifices vary greatly. In traditional
cultures, for instance, they were represented by
natural sites of peculiar sanctity, such as caves, hills,
and groves, or tombs of the powerful dead.
However, with the advent of urban civilization, the
necessity for a sacred place in the city led to the
construction of temples, where the gods were
worshiped and sacrifices were offered.
In Christian liturgy, the Eucharist symbolizes
the sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.
Blood sacrifice has been practiced in most ancient
religious rites as a form of propitiation to the gods
and to secure generous harvests. The association
of blood with sacrifice is significant, since blood
has always been regarded as the bearer of life. Thus
special measures have been sought to consecrate
the blood of a sacrificial animal to the deity. In
Viking sacrifices, blood was frequently spread on
the participants.
Similar practices are found in many other religions,
even in ancient Israel, where sprinkling
blood on the altar was a preliminary to burning
the sacrificial animal. The sacrificial practices of
the early Hebrews are familiar to the West
through the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old
Testament). The Paschal Lamb, eaten at Passover,
represents a sacrifice celebrating the rescue of the
Israelites from Egypt.
Animals are sacrificed in a number of contemporary
tribal religions, as well as such contemporary
syncretisms as Vodoun and Santeria.
Santerians, who traditionally sacrifice fowl, lambs,
and goats, and leave the remains in public places,
have been often attacked by animal-rights groups.
Various attempts have been made to forbid animal
sacrifices. Santerians have, however, rightly
pointed out that animal sacrifices are both ancient
and ubiquitous in world culture.
Among those who sacrificed human beings
were the Celts and Druids, who drank the blood of
their victims; the Aztecs, who often ate the
dismembered body of the victims as an act of
ritual cannibalism; and the Khonds of southern
India, who fertilized the soil with pieces of the
bodies of the victims. The sacrifice of firstborn
children was common in several cultures, such as
among the nobility of Carthage during the Punic
Wars. The sacrifice of unbaptized children to the
Devil was part of the negative stereotype of
witches during the witch-hunts of the Renaissance
and Reformation. Witches were also charged with
the cannibalism of infants and children.
One of the reasons the stereotype of Satanists
sacrificing human beings is so persistent is that it
is a staple of occult adventure novels and horror
movies. Thus in Dennis Wheatley’s novel The
Satanist, for example, one character briefly
describes such a sacrifice: “We give ’em the treatment
same as J.C. got for getting up against Our
Lord Satan in Palestine. Only difference is we have
to cut their throats so the blood’ll run, and for
convenience sake we crucify them upside down”
(371). Essentially the same description is reproduced
in contemporary claims by “ex-Satanists”
about human sacrifices they have supposedly
witnessed, as in the account of a sacrificial ritual in
Rebecca Brown’s He Came to Set the Captives Free.
Blood from animals, fowl and humans was
believed to give the drinker the soul as well as the
features of the sacrificed being. In ceremonial
magic, blood sacrifices are believed to release a
flash of power that can be used by the magician for
a spell or conjuration. In order to release the
maximum of energy, animals offered to God or
various demons should be young, healthy, and
virgin. The Order of Nine Angles, one of the few
organized Satanist groups to advocate human
sacrifice (an advocacy most other Satanists regard
as grandstanding), essentially adhere to this theory:
“Human sacrifice is powerful magick. The ritual
death of an individual does two things: it releases
energy (which can be directed, or stored—for