My first post! I actually have put quite a bit of thought on this subject. This will be long, so bear with me. I am initiated in Lukumi which is an Afro/Cuban religion that practices a good deal of animal sacrifice. My involvement has become a bit complicated though lately. I have been a pagan for about 16 years. I was not looking for Lukumi, but I met a teacher who, while a Lukumi priest, was also an old pagan priest who actually opened his temple over 40 years ago. So he was able to synthesize things very well between the Lukumi and "pagan" (I use that term loosely). I was very close to him and I learned alot about Lukumi and ceremonial magic and astrology since that was his original specialty. He recently died, so now my link to Lukumi is gone. I say that because Lukumi is a very closed religion, and I frankly I don't want to use my energy dealing with the political things that come with that. However, this has re-energized my love of paganism and ceremonial magic. It was never gone, but you know how you get caught up in the day to day things that happen. So part of my rethinking is animal sacrifice. I have done it, and had it done for me - alot. Lukumi almost exclusively uses poultry most of the time, but also goats, and every once in a while some other small animals. Now all sacrifices are very quick and humane actually - humane if you don't have a problem with meat. In fact what the Lukumi do is better than what factories do. So first the upside: It works. I have seen some very vast and dramatic results when sacrifices are done. Now remember that even in Lukumi sacrifices are relatively rare. Usually it's only for certain big rituals and initiations. Most people only see it done maybe twice a year. It's always controlled and is used in conjunction with herbs and various food products like honey. There is a rhyme and reason to it, so it's never a bloody orgiastic free for all. That's only in the movies. Now my personal take: I'm tired of it. It takes a lot of work and is messy and adds a rather tense dimension to a ritual in my opinion. While it works, I also don't think that it is the ONLY way to do things either. I do not like it when people say that we have moved on in modern society and thus we do not need to do. To me this implies we are more enlightened which is rather egotistical. But, on the other hand, in my research, I have found that the ancients have a rhyme and reason for what plants, food, stones,and incense was used. The trick is to learn the key to that rhyme and reason, and I have met few people besides my old teacher who knew this. So all of my energy is now going into this. I don't think it's that we as a society have moved beyond sacrifice, but our society has made it difficult to do it. Heck, finding the right plants is hard enough! So as far as I'm concerned, I have tried animal sacrifice, and saw its good points and bad points and now have decided it isn't worth it. I'm simplifying this quite a bit, but you get the idea.
We do a sacrifice for our Feb 2nd rit. We believed that by bringing back the reality of sacrifice that perhaps the groundhog would begin to take his weather predictions more seriously as he would now be held accountable. No more free rides for our furry February fortellers.
I never had a problem with animal sacrfice. It is a cultural practice that sometimes may look barbaric to some. Correct me If I am wrong but doesn't sacrifice mean to "Make sacred"?
Animal sacrifice is bullshit. It is entirely stupid and selfish and out of tune with any reasonable value system.
See that's the thing. If you do it, then you should be able to articulate why. Same thing if you don't do it. That's like saying "I'm not a Christian because Jesus sucks bawwwwls."
And if Jesus does indeed suck bawls that's his business and not ours to judge. I truly believe some of the older rituals and customs should be revived. Such as animal sacrifice, mercifully releasing the souls of the infirm, allowing women and children into combat, and most imprtantly, vanquishing an enemy, removing his head and hanging it from my door post. But I'm just nutty that way.
It's still widely practiced in many traditions...Santeria comes to mind, and is a tradition still heavily practiced(as well as rising in popularity here in the US. There's been a reent big upswell in N.J. especially) As for right and wrong...just words, my friends. You decide your moral codes, and you decide whether or not to abide. As has been said here, the construct of certain thoughtforms, deities, and the like out there tends to require 'blood' of some sort. Others require literal sacrifice. However, it's very rare when you can't find a deity of another hierarchy that won't give you the same results without needing blood... It's just psychodrama, like any other tool used in a ritual, and a very powerful one at that. Little else creates the proper mindset(conscious and sub-conscious) as well as blood, and literal death.
Yep that's basically my point. People tend to have knee-jerk reactions with things. They don't want to actually kill something, so they react with "sacrifice is barbaric", or even the opposite where people think that sacrifice is the only way. I think you have to really think all of this though. Is your opinion based on personal bigotry and what society wants you to do? Is it based on laziness? Is it based on a reasoned argument? I've had to go through this all myself since the loss of my teacher. I'm not taking anything for granted here. I've had to think through everything from oracles to sacrifice. I think everyone should do this type of evaluation at least once so that they can see how much they believe just because they are told and what they believe because of reasoning. Our brains are here to used!
If you want to eat an animal, it's better to kill it yourself than to buy it slaughterhouse-killed in a store. As far as ritual "sacrifice" goes, what's the use? That kind of stuff is just ignorant play-acting. Just kill it and eat it.
Animals that are killed ritually are eaten. We are not talking about the teen satan-worshipping cat killers! LOL
Is killing an animal for secular reasons any better? What about people who perform ritual cannibalism for religious cause? Are they freaks?
I beg to differ...ritual isnt "just play acting" no more than one saying a prayer is performing a monologue. To sacrifice an animal is an offering..not a stage act... Granted...some rituals are play acting...like wiccans dancing around singing their silly little songs, but many rituals have specific things for specific reasons...and need a little more credit than "play acting"
to me, blood sacrifice and animal sacrifice are two different things......if the Gods want blood, they'll take it in the manner they see fit. animal sacrifice is no different than the burnt offerings of Noah and other figures of yore - the blessed feast is intended to thank and feed the Gods, just as they have fed and provided for us....mystery school traditions incorporate this sacred feast, and honestly, it reminds me of the time we once were able to break bread with the gods face to face and share in the earth's bounty together
The Sattwic or pure men worship the gods; the Rajasic or the passionate worship the Yakshas and the Rakshasas; the others (the Tamasic or the deluded) worship the ghosts and the hosts of nature-spirits. (Swami Sivananda, Bhagavad-gita, Ch.17, V.4) Isn't animal sacrifice is utilized in this type of worship? Agree.
That only shows the first time a priestly cutlure came in contact with a shamanic one...naturally the kings class of religion looks down upon the woods dwellers....kinda like Christianity and paganisms....its all about who writes it down.
Good observation...the means of survival become deeply ingrained in the complete wrldview and view of the supernatural in a given culture. And I'm not criticizing the rituals that were part of genuine shamanic cultures of the past, and of those that still exist. I just question the genuineness of reviving these...but maybe I do have it all mixed up with the devil-worshipping cat sacrificers that someone mentioned earlier in the thread. Scripture I quoted is essential in Indian Vedic Brahminical culture, in which animal killing is strictly forbidden in most circumstances...my worldview is very much influenced by this. I have heard of Vedic ceremonies in which persons wishing to eat animal flesh essentially sacrifice the animal, with a promise that they are willing to return in their next life and be eaten by the animal they killed.
