Human Sacrifice as a Fertility Rite

"One is misled not by what he does not know but by what he believes he knows." – Rousseau

All human sacrifice is a fertility rite. All you have to do is read the Old Testament – think Moloch, in which infants were rolled into the fire-filled stone belly of the idol.

This means all war is human sacrifice and therefore a fertility rite.

This connection is not original with me.

As Mircea Eliade wrote, "Since 'our world' is a cosmos, any attack from without threatens to turn it into chaos. And as 'our world' was founded by imitating the paradigmatic work of the gods, the cosmogony, so the enemies who attack it are assimilated to the enemies of the gods, the demons, and especially to the archdemon, the primordial dragon conquered by the gods at the beginning of time. An attack on 'our world' is equivalent to an act of revenge by the mythical dragon, who rebels against the work of the gods, the cosmos, and struggles to annihilate it. 'Our' enemies belong to the powers of chaos. Any destruction of a city is equivalent to retrogression to chaos. Any victory over the attackers reiterates the paradigmatic victory of the gods over the dragon (that is, over chaos)."

And who these days (in fact for the whole 20th Century) are the first to be sacrificed? Soldiers – and the “collateral damage” in other countries.

And who sacrifices them? Politicians. The vast majority of which are vermin.

In the past it was priests who conducted these sacrifices. Today, again, it’s politicians – who the stupid see, whether they know it or not, as priests defending against that mythical dragon.

Want to see a good movie about these meaningless sacrifices? Try Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto - with the hearts being ripped out of living people, to make sure the sun didn’t stop in the sky.

Notice that phrase “an act of revenge.” Much of the bad things in life are explained by “an act of revenge.”

I’ll use a modern example. The United States was attacked on 9-11 as an act of revenge. Osama bin Laden admitted this.

Then the United States (specifically the brain-damaged, uneducated, alcoholic, cokehead Dubya Shrub) attacked Iraq and Afghanistan as a act of revenge.

The ignorant and stupid can use all the excuses/rationalizations they want but it was about revenge.

What Eliade was writing about is the archetype of the horror story: good attacked by evil. The sacred "Homeland" (or “fatherland” or “motherland”) under assault by fanatical, insane, evil mass murderers who wish to destroy and conquer us. Heaven under attack by Satan. It's an old, apparently instinctive archetype, and many, many people fall for it. Always have, and always will.

When any country is attacked they always have to see their attackers as evil. As George Orwell wrote, “Every war when it comes, or before it comes, is represented not as a war but as an act of self-defense against a homicidal maniac.”

Even the ancient Greeks noticed what human sacrifice was with their god Dionysus, who was not the god of partying and booze. He was the god of tearing people to shreds – and Dionysus was a fertility god.

There is something pretty damn wrong with the human race – call it Original Sin if you want. It still believes in Moloch – and still cheers him on.