Sacrifice has become something many Pagans today deny has a place in their own spiritual and religious practices due to real and perceived negative connotations.

One of the reasons why many Pagans stay away from sacrifice is because Pagans, specifically Wiccans and many other Witches, have been falsely accused (out of spite, disinformation or pure ignorance) of sacrificing cats, babies, and even those mythical virgins, to imaginary dark gods.

Such accusations are known as blood libels and are nothing new. Blood libels are sensationalised allegations that a person or group engages in human sacrifice, often accompanied by the claim that the blood of victims is used in various rituals and/or acts of cannibalism. The alleged victims are often children or young women. Some of the best-documented cases of blood libel focus upon accusations against Jews, Witches, Wiccans, Roma, Mormons, Pagans, Heathens, Native Americans, etc.

Another reason why Pagans are so skittish when the word sacrifice is mentioned may be that the religions many Pagans came from emphasised mandatory sacrifice as an unpleasant chore. However, I think that rather than denying that Pagans ever did make sacrifices, we should all strive to understand the reasons why ancient people offered sacrifices, even if these do seem brutal by modern standards.

I think the main reasons behind this “anti-sacrifice stance” within Paganism itself are due to a misunderstanding: many Pagans and non-Pagans do not seem to know the difference between sacrifice and offerings (more about this later).

Before we continue, let’s take a look at what sacrifice means. The word sacrifice comes from the Latin root words “sacer” and “ficare,” which mean “sacred” and “to make,” respectively. In and of itself, sacrifice refers to the giving of something to a deity to show devotion, thankfulness, to please the deity or ask for a favour.

The word “sacred” probably comes from the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word sacros, which means “holy”. Cognates for this word also include the Latin sacerdos “priest” and the Tocharian B word “sakre-” (happy). There may also be a distant connection with the Hittite word “saklai-” meaning “rite, custom”, which is intriguing if you consider that some think sacred might also come from the PIE word “sek-” for “cut”, which, in a ritual context, could mean to “cut off from the world”. So a rite in which something was made sacred could be one where something was set apart from mundane reality.

Another interesting word related to the sacred, “consecrate”, means to “declare or set apart as sacred”, according to the American Heritage College Dictionary. The PIE root for consecrate would have been “weik”, and this has some interesting cognates as well, such as the Latin “victima” or sacrificial victim and even the modern word “witch”. The Sanskrit cognate, “vinákti”, means to “select out”. All this suggests that a good definition for the word sacrifice might be “to make something set apart from ordinary reality”.

SACRIFICES

The practice of sacrifice is found in the oldest human records. The archaeological records contain human and animal corpses with sacrificial marks long before any written records of this religious practice. Sacrifices are a common theme in most religions, though the frequency of animal, and especially human, sacrifices are rare today. So, why does this word leave such a bad taste in many Pagans’ mouths?

When mentioning the topic of sacrifice, some Pagans react by saying: “The gods don’t really want us to sacrifice; we know better than our ancestors now.” But how can we discount sacrifice so easily? And should we? Most Pagans value the spiritual traditions of the past and look for the values such beliefs and practices can hold today. Clearly, sacrifice must have proved to be a valuable form of spiritual devotion and communion for people all over the world, as it was a practice that spanned so many different times, places and cultures.

Perhaps Pagans should look at our ancestors’ motives before they dismiss the potential values of sacrifice. Are we as modern Pagans running from something that could be potentially painful, potentially difficult? Are our ideas of sacrifice tainted by the Christian ideas of guilt and sin, of sacrifice to gain redemption? Or are we perhaps trying to eliminate the presence of sacrifice in order to prove to non-Pagans that our spiritual paths do not deserve the negative stereotypes they often receive?

There seems to be something of an imbalance in Pagan practices today. While there is a great deal of instruction available as to how to cast spells requesting the help of a deity, very little information is available that fully covers the various acts of devotion to the gods.

One of the roadblocks Pagans still need to overcome is dealing with the negative light that the public often sees Paganism in. Pagans are quick to deny that they perform sacrifices, hoping that by doing so they will gain the approval of those who wonder if we kill cats in our basements. However, this only serves to alienate those Pagan religions in which sacrifice is still an integral part. Perhaps instead of denying sacrifice, we should try to present the truth. In the end, education is always far more effective and respectful to all Pagan traditions.

BLOOD SACRIFICES

The main Heathen religious rite is called a blót (pronounced bloat). In ancient times, a blót was a ceremonial animal sacrifice. Blóts were held to honour and thank the gods and ancestors or to gain their favour for specific purposes such as peace, victory, or good sailing weather. Blood from the sacrificed animal was sprinkled upon statues of the gods and upon all present as a blessing. The meat was cooked and shared at a community feast. The Anglo-Saxon name for October, for example, was “Blot-Monath”, or Month of Blood Sacrifice.

It would be highly impractical for modern Heathens to blót the ancient way, since the skills necessary to humanely slaughter an animal are no longer routinely taught in our society and the circumstances under which animals can be killed for meat are highly regulated. Modern Heathens have therefore replaced the animal offering with an offering of mead. Germanic peoples associated mead with blood and saw it as blessed and holy. In the mythology, the blood of a wise being called Kvasir was mixed with honey to create mead. During a modern blót, mead is ceremonially poured for a god (into an offering bowl, onto a fire or onto the earth). Sometimes it is also sprinkled on the participants. A feast usually follows.

Within Slavic pagan practices an animal was consecrated to the deities and then made as a feast for the Slavonic tribe. This was not seen as a bribe or as a method of capturing the power of the dying animal. It was simply the way in which the ancient Slav shared their bounty with a gift to the deities. Currently, the animal sacrifice has also been replaced by the offer of beer, juice or mead. Afterwards, those present are either sprinkled with the liquid, or drink it in sequence.

Judging by the vast numbers of archaeological finds involving jewelry, weaponry, and other valuables; the bones of various types of animals; and even human remains deliberately buried in deep pits in what seems to be a ritual offering or sacrifices, it is clear that the ancient Celts felt sacrifice, often on a grand scale, was a necessary practice of their religion.

There is myriad of other examples of symbolic blood sacrifices within ancient Celtic religions. Lammas, where Lugh, a grain god, is cut down and sacrificed so that his blood may feed the fields in thanks for the harvest that will bring the people through the coming winter. Midsummer and the Wicker Man. Beltaine where the Goddess will give birth, more blood. Yule, more death … and rebirth… and blood.

If we look at blood sacrifice in Classical religion, we see it was primarily of food animals and after the sacrifice the meat was cooked and eaten in a ritual feast sponsored by the temple. The innards, bones, and other non-edible parts were often offered to the gods as burnt offerings.

Hellenic Pagans are divided on this issue. This division is not a modern issue, however, and dates back even to the Classical Period before Socrates. Traditionally the ancient Greeks believed that all offerings and sacrifices were bloodless. Along the way, it is now believed, sacrifices of animals were made when people began to eat more and more meat.

In fact the Greeks divided offerings into “pure offerings” and “animal sacrifices”. There were many altars and sanctuaries in ancient Greece such as that of Zeus Hypsitos or Aphrodite Ourania where only pure offerings were allowed. Pure offerings include honey, milk, vegetables, etc and were considered acceptable in all sanctuaries, while animal sacrifices were not acceptable in all sanctuaries.

Some ancient Greeks in fact believed that animal sacrifice profaned the altars of the Gods. The Orphics (a Greek mystery religion arising in the sixth century BCE) for example were very much against animal sacrifice as were the Neopythagoreans. The Neoplatonics like Porphyrys or people of Apollodorus in fact were against animal sacrifice. The whole idea is that all life is sacred and the Gods do not wish us to take life unnecessarily. In the Classical Period some people considered animal sacrifice to be barbaric.

In fact from the Stoics (Stoicism was a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded in Athens by Zeno of Citium in the early third century BCE) onwards the concept is that the Gods are Good. The Gods being Good will not harm. To therefore sacrifice animals at the altar of the Gods is against the Good since it brings harm and if it is thus against Good it is against the Gods. This debate was especially intense amongst the later Hellenes (100CE to 400CE) and in practice it seems that by 100CE more and more newly built temenos repudiated animal sacrifice.

On the other end of the spectrum are people who believed that since humans do eat meat and humans do slaughter animals to eat it is (given that the basis of worship in the ancient Hellenic system is the concept of kharis or reciprocity) only hospitable that whenever a person eat meat that they should share the meat with the Gods.

It should be noted that all animal sacrifices in ancient times were in fact heavily connected with communal feasting or familial feasting. In fact for most of the Greek population about the only time they had meat was during communal festivities.

In Ancient Rome the festival of Lupercalia, held on February 15th, was one of the many festivals during which blood sacrifices were made. The Lupercalia ritual was held in the Lupercal (the wolves’ cave where the twin-founders of the city Romulus and Remus were said to have been raised by wolves) itself. Similar rituals held in other parts of the Empire had to use venues symbolic of the cave on Mount Aventine. Two high-born young men stripped naked and sacrificed a dog and a goat. They smeared blood on their foreheads, and then wiped it off with wool dipped in milk. The men made a show of laughing and wrapped strips of the goat’s hide about themselves. A great feast was then held - perhaps involving the remains of the goat. Finally each man led a group of near-naked men around the hills and bounds of Rome.

Lupercalian festivities continued until Pope Gelasius I outlawed them in 494CE. The Church instituted the Purification of the Blessed Virgin. The feast day of St Valentine was added to the calendar two years later. The habit of sending love tokens on this date goes back to at least the 14th century. The Pope’s motives in creating the new saint’s day are unknown. It may have been to adapt the enthusiasm for Lupercalia to a more socially acceptable pattern, though there is not much connection between sending soppy love letters and slapping women with bits of dead goat.

Some accounts suggest that in Roman-occupied Gaul, at Lupercalia, single women wrote their names on clay tablets and placed them in an earthen jar. Unmarried young men then picked out a name at random, and the two were paired off. Depending on which account you accept, this lasted a few hours, a day, or even a year

Lupercalia poses a challenge for modern Pagans who wish to celebrate it. Clearly most of the activities conducted in Ancient Rome would result in arrest, or prosecution by the SPCA. Either one must engage in an act of quite bizarre civil disobedience (running around naked while howling), or find a way of adapting the spirit to a new form. To do this, one has to establish what that spirit was.

As far as I know, blood sacrifices as such are not performed by Pagans - although some practitioners of the Craft may sometimes use blood in small quantities in their magickal workings. However, in the mid-1950s reports were published linking people such as Doreen Valiente and Gerald Gardner to blood sacrifices.

In a 1955 newspaper report, a woman who claimed she was an ex-witch talked about the sacrifice of chickens and the drinking of their blood (sounds a lot like Voodoo, although in those years everything magickal was classifies as witchcraft). Gardner denied this, and demanded a retraction from the newspaper, but he acknowledged in the Gardenian Book of Shadows that: “Sorcerers chiefly used the blood sacrifice; and while we hold this to be evil, we cannot deny that this method is very efficient.”

HUMAN SACRIFICES

Human sacrifice has without any doubt been practiced in various cultures throughout history. Victims were typically ritually killed in a manner that was supposed to please or appease gods, spirits or the deceased, for example as a propitiatory offering, or as a retainer sacrifice when the King servants (as was common in Egypt) die in order to continue to serve their master in the next life. By the Iron Age, with the associated developments in religion, human sacrifice was becoming less common throughout the Old World, and came to be widely looked down upon as barbaric already in pre-modern times (Classical Antiquity).

The various rationales behind human sacrifice are the same that motivate religious sacrifice in general. Human sacrifice was intended to bring good fortune and to pacify the gods, for example in the context of the dedication of a completed building such as a temple or bridge. The re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, it was reported that the Aztecs killed about 80400 prisoners over the course of four days.

Another motivation for human sacrifice was burial: in some notions of an afterlife, the deceased would benefit from victims killed at his funeral. Mongols, Scythians, early Egyptians and various Mesoamerican chiefs could take most of their household, including servants and concubines, with them to the next world.

Another purpose was divination from the body parts of the victim. According to Strabo, Celts stabbed a victim with a sword and divined the future from his death spasms

Other than three possible sites in Crete, dated to the pre-Hellenic Minoan civilisation, and allusions to the practice in classical mythology, archaeologists have been unable to find any evidence that Ancient Greeks practiced human sacrifice.

Early Romans practised various forms of human sacrifice in their first centuries; from Etruscans (or, according to other sources, Sabellians), they adopted the original form of gladiatorial combat where the victim was slain in a ritual battle. In the early republic, criminals who had broken their oaths or defrauded others were sometimes “given to the gods” (executed as a human sacrifice). Prisoners of war and Vestal virgins were buried alive as offerings to Manes and Di Inferi (gods of the underworld). Archaeologists have also found sacrificial victims buried in building foundations. According to Pliny the Elder, human sacrifice was abolished by a senatorial decree in 97 BCE, although by this time it was already so rare that the decree was wholly symbolic

As written in Roman sources, Celtic Druids engaged extensively in human sacrifice. According to Julius Caesar, the slaves and dependants of Gauls of rank would be burnt along with the body of their master as part of his funerary rites. He also describes how they built wicker figures that were filled with living humans and then burned. It is known that druids at least supervised sacrifices of some kind. According to Cassius Dio, Boudicas forces impaled Roman captives during her rebellion against the Roman occupation, to the accompaniment of revellery and sacrifices in the sacred groves of Andate.

Many modern-day scholars question the accuracy of these accounts, as they invariably come from hostile (Roman or Greek) sources. However, archaeological evidence from the British Isles seems to indicate that human sacrifice may have been practiced, over times long pre-dating any contact with Rome. Human remains have been found at the foundations of structures from the Neolithic time to the Roman era, with injuries and in positions that may argue for their being foundation sacrifices.

According to Norse mythology, Odin hanged himself from the world-tree Yggdrasil for nine nights to attain divine wisdom. Medieval Christian sources refer to Norsemen sacrificing prisoners by hanging them from trees, but the true extent of this behaviour is unclear, it is most likely that these killings were of an executional nature leaving the bodies on show as a warning to enemies, or criminals.

One account by Ahmad ibn Fadlan as part of his account of an embassy to the Volga Bulgars in 921 claims that Norse warriors were sometimes buried with enslaved women with the belief that these women would become their wives in Valhalla. German medieval chronicler Adam von Bremen recorded human sacrifices to Odin in 11th century Sweden, at the Temple at Uppsala, a tradition which is confirmed by Gesta Danorum and the Norse sagas.

OFFERINGS

As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, another, if not the main, problem Pagans seem to face when it comes to sacrifice is that many do not really understand the difference between sacrifice and offerings. Also speaking about “sacrificial offerings” tends to worsen this confusion.

I have noticed that many within Paganism speak of sacrifice when what they are speaking about are offerings. WikiAnswers makes this distinction: “Sacrifice cost you something, offering is freely given.” I do not think it is that simple. To me the difference is that a sacrifice is done for the good of the community and often includes blood (such as blood-letting, animal sacrifices, etc), while an offering is done for more personal reasons and does not involve killing - presenting food to deities, spirits or to our ancestors at Samhain, for example, is not sacrifice but an offering.

In many Pagan and Wiccan traditions, it is not uncommon to make some sort of offering to deities, spirits or ancestors. Despite the reciprocal nature of our relationship with the divine, it is not a matter of: “I’m offering you this stuff so you will grant my wish.” It is more along the lines of “I honour you and respect you, so I am giving you this stuff to show you how much I appreciate your intervention on my behalf.”

So the question arises, then, of what to offer the gods. And does it matter?

The Roman Cato described an offering for agricultural prosperity:
“Make offerings to keep your oxen in good health. Make the following sacrifices to Mars… three pounds of wheat, four-and-a-half of lard, four-and-a-half of meat and three pints of wine.”

The passage does illustrate the fact that our ancestors thought that offerings should be very specific and that different deities seem to respond best to different but specific kinds of offerings.

In modern Paganism, once again especially in Wicca, sacrifice is not practiced but many forms of offerings are made. But are sacrifices or offerings even necessary in modern Paganism?

In the Charge of the Goddess, we read:
“I give the knowledge of the spirit Divine, and beyond death, I give peace and reunion with those who have gone before. Nor do I demand aught of sacrifice, for behold, I am the Mother of all things, and my love is poured out upon the earth.”

So according to this text it seems that the Goddess does not need anything from us except our existence. She asks for nothing, and gives all in return.

But there are many Paths within Paganism, and there are and have been many forms of offerings.

In the religions of antiquity, a libation (spondee in Greek) is a ritual pouring of a drink as an offering to a deity. The liquid that was used in libations varied; most commonly it was wine, olive oil or other ;precious liquids such as perfumes, honey and milk. The vessels used in the ritual, including the patera (a broad, shallow dish), often had a significant form which differentiated them from secular vessels. The liquid was poured onto something of religious significance. The libation was very often poured on the ground itself, as an offering to the Earth.

Ancient Greek texts often mention libations. Euripides describes the dire consequences of failure to include certain gods in libations in The Bacchae, a theme common to many Greek tragedies. The use of a libation composed of barley, wine, honey and water to summon shades in Hades is also referred to in the Odyssey.

Among the Celts, votive offerings were left by the ancient Celts in rivers, pools, hot springs, and pits, and undoubtedly burned upon sacralised bonfires in an effort to fulfill the sacrificer’s portion of a contract with the Gods that was entered into by adherent.

In contemporary Paganism, libations are one of the many forms of offerings made by many Pagans. Burnt-offerings in the form of incense burning, for example, are probably one of the most used within the religion, as are the offering of fruits, flowers and oils. Ancient writings provide insight into how religions and cultures of old used incense in their practices.

From the Hebrew and Christians, to Buddhists, Hindu, Pagan, Native American cultures and more. One of the oldest surviving texts, (the Ebers Papyrus 2000 BCE), defines a list of medicinal herbs in use around 1800 BCE. From ancient texts like these, and Egyptian Hieroglyphs we know that burning incense was a big part of this early cultures spiritual life. Priests are depicted burning incense on street corners during festivals to appease the Gods. Writings indicate that a healer would burn incense to cast out demons from an ill patient. Incense was always kept burning within temples to honour the Egyptian gods and goddesses.

Sumbel is a Heathen ritual drinking ceremony based on the ancient Germanic tradition of the drinking of the minni (memory cup). Sumbel usually takes place following a blót. Mead or ale is ritually blessed. Depending on group preference, either a horn containing the blessed mead is passed to all the participants in turn, or the blessed mead is poured into each participant's individual drinking vessel. Rounds of toasting follow with gods and ancestors being named and honoured.

In Paganism and Heathenism, depending on the time of the year, festivals, rites of passage (birthing, wiccaning, crossing over, paganing, coming of age, handfasting, initiations, midlife, priesthood, elderhood, the great rite, moon phases, fasting, oath-takings, rites in honour of a particular god or goddess, rites of need, agricultural festivals, etc), and what the practitioner wishes to achieve or give thanks for, offerings can vary greatly: eggs, flowers, first fruits, bread, grain, evergreens, wine, beer, mead, milk, water, etc.

CONCLUSION

To me, everything has a relationship with everything else, and offerings are a cosmic bridge linking the spiritual with the physical world. Higher spiritual beings, I believe, are not as attached or attracted to physical objects as we are, so offerings need to reflect that.

With Gods and other higher spiritual beings it is not the object itself that they accept, but the spiritual energy that flows from the worshipper. In other words offerings, in my mind at least, are a way of opening and sharing our spirit with our deities and/or other higher beings, and offerings should never be seen as an exchange or a barter system.

(SOURCES: PaganSpace; WitchVox; Wikipedia; The Cauldron; WikiAnswers; PagansPath; AnswerBag; YahooAnswers; ManyGods.org; The Gardenian Book of Shadows)