Pagan Sacrifice
What do we offer, and what do we gain?
It’s not a surprise that people have a natural revulsion to the blood sacrifice practiced in the religions of the ancient world. We have little exposure to death in our industrial world, and what exposure we do have is from the media ie. news, film fiction, and video games. That makes the ugliness on display for entertainment seem less real. What it actually does is desensitize us to violence because our brains don’t know the difference between what we see on a screen and what we see in real life. Oh, we know intellectually, but our bodies can't tell.
Over at the religion blog Patheos, Sam Webster published an essay in 2013 on the revival of Pagan sacrifice. [Webster has an inaccurate view of the nature of Christ’s sacrifice.] If you didn't know, yes, there are few Pagans who do animal sacrifice. I realize that for many, the practice is viscerally disturbing. [For the record, no one is advocating ancient practices of human sacrifice!!! No Pagan approves of that. Since there are plenty of witnesses talking about ‘satanic’ rituals and orgies - and worse - in Hollywood, it’s important to be clear up front that isn’t modern Paganism.] However, even the ancestors didn't always offer an animal to the gods. One could offer sacrifices that were more mental than physical, and from these, mental benefits were gained. Some eschewed the practice of eating meat as an act of devotion, and offerings also included poetry, song, wine, milk, vegetables, or grains.
On his many podcasts, Jordan Peterson talks about the concept of sacrifice. One offers something valuable to one’s future self. We give up something in the present - such as eating cake - so that our future will be better. Peterson sees this as an evolution from the ancestor’s blood offerings, and from the psychological aspect, I agree. What the psychological piece misses is the practical aspect of animal sacrifices, but also the sacred, the connection created to the unseen world. Animal sacrifice was far more than an offering to our ancestor’s future selves.
Animal sacrifices were a way to distribute quality food to the population while creating a bond that united individuals into a group. Group identity was a survival issue. An animal would be publicly offered to a god, and whatever portion was deemed appropriate [usually] incinerated on a sacred fire. The rest was shared by the people. But such rituals also bring awareness of death directly into our consciousness.
If the visceral reaction against animal sacrifice is about a failure of exposure to good death, or a fear of death, then that is worth examining. No being gets out of here alive, and we are all food (at least if we don’t get embalmed) even if that's for microbes. Sacrifice is a good death for an animal. One commenter on Sam’s essay that argued that apple trees get to live out their natural lives while still providing food. This fails to address the reality of “natural” animal death.
I’m not asking for paid subscribers but if you like this then perhaps you could…
Or have a look at the books I write under pen name Sabrina Rosen [On Amazon] or subscribe to my fiction blog.
Animals not under human care don’t ever die nicely. Humans are the only predators on the planet that have some care about how their prey dies. Predators chase their prey down, and it is frightened and in pain by the time the end comes. Sometimes the animal isn’t dead before the eating starts.
Industrial farming practices are no less horrendous. Personally, I have a visceral repulsion to keeping animals confined, and feeding them the wrong food while keeping them from anything resembling a descent life. Contrast this with the death of the grass-fed cow I purchased a few years ago. I had been buying beef in this form yearly, joining a ‘cow-pool’ where a group of people would get together to buy a whole animal in order to get the best price. On this occasion, the cow in question was owned by a friend, so I asked if I could be there for the killing. The young bull died cleanly with a single shot to the head. I was able to give a blessing to the process. He lived his life fully as a bovine, eating only grass and having the company of his own kind. He was treated with care by my friend and was having a treat of day old bread when he went down. The ease of death is an indicator of how well the animals have been treated. An animal that fears humans will not stand around waiting for the bullet. Kindness and care are necessary to a good death.
I know a number of people who raise livestock for sale to local people. They all say the slaughter process is hard. They care about the well-fare of their animals. Even though they know their eventual end, they understand that the price of distancing is worse. None of them got into farming because they dislike animals and enjoy seeing them killed.
Pagans who do animal sacrifice increase the level of care. The animal is well-fed, carefully sheltered, and isolated from stress. Death is quick. When animal has been cared for in this way, there is no way to avoid the emotional response to its death. Any group emotional response bonds humans together. Pagans say that grief shared is lessened and joy shared is multiplied. Our emotions can lead us closer to the divine, but that depends on how the experience is framed. It depends on the story we tell about it and on how we’re able to find faith.
The accounts I’ve heard and read about animal sacrifice among Heathens, universally reflect this. The animal is owned by someone who has enough land to keep a small farm and they live a natural life. Effectively, the offering is the emotions of love and grief and the recognition that we all die, and should prepare ourselves accordingly. Ignoring death, as we are often able to do in the Western world, doesn’t set us up for a good one. If done with this level of respect and care, I think there is value in the practice. Unlike Webster, I’m not advocating for it.
My advocacy is for being aware of where our food comes from and the conditions under which it is produced, I would be interested to hear from anyone who had attended such a sacrifice, or from those who raise and process some of the food they eat.
If you’re curious about Paganism/Heathenism/Wicca/Druidry, please feel free to message me and I’ll be happy to answer questions.
Selina Rifkin, M.S. [Nutrition], LMT, has been Pagan since she was 14 [which was a long time ago] and been to Hades in a handbasket. More than once. This has given her some opinions. She has direct communication with her gods and they’ve always given her answers when she asks. [One does have to ask.] Like most of her generation [X] she’s okay with snark. Most days she tries for good writing. But the snark, and side comments creep in. Be warned.
Pagan Organizations