Blood.
It is an undeniable fact that religious behaviour includes killing. It is also undeniable that killing a living creature is a serious thing, rarely a frivolous or mindless activity. When killing is done so that people may eat, it becomes a Holy act when the food is offered to the Gods first. Killing for reasons other than food production is sacrifice. This is true for religious and non religious people alike..
One of the oldest and most common uses of sacrifice is purification.
On the fifth day of the Akitu festival at the spring equinox, the preists of Marduk would go down to the river four hours before sunrise and bathe in the waters of the Tigris. Two hours after sunrise the purification of the temple began. The temple was sprinkled with water from a well containing mixed waters of Tigris and Euphrates. The door of the temple was smeared with resin from a cedar tree and a sheep was beheaded, its body dragged through the temple, presumably so that its blood ran with the water on the floor and walls.
Incense was burnt, and the body and head were left for a while before removal, to be thrown into the river. It was understood that all who had been involved in this were now themselves ritually unclean for hours or days.
In the Akitu, an Akkadian example, blood and the body of the sheep attract the elements or elementals that the temple should be rid of.
The power of blood to draw spirits towards it is described by Homer...Link.
A similar use of blood as described in the Akitu is found in Ezekiel. 45:18-20
Errors in codes of behaviour lead to impurity.
The purification is from error.
Impurity is no longer caused by something in the air.
God, in this belief system, accepts the sacrifice of blood to purify sin.
So it is that Jesus pays for the sins of all humanity by his blood.
The passage from Ezekiel does not specify what is to happen to the flesh of the animal. As in the description of the Akitu, blood is the focus of the sacrifice. More importantly though, the blood of an animal must be drained before the flesh may be eaten (Lev. 3:17; 7:26; 17:10–14; Deut. 12:15–16, 20–24). Seeming to mean that blood cannot be accepted as food, it can only be used to cleanse...Link.
The slaughter houses that provide food for us, the rendering plants and factories producing pet food are invisible to protect us from transgressing new sacred zones. The purpose of making somewhere sacred is to protect the psyche, in this case by preventing the truth of the horror within, being seen by someone unprepared.
The religion of this land is born of the machine age, and our mass religion is scientism. In keeping with this religion, it is accepted that killing an animal must be preformed in a non-religious, and preferably, mechanised way.
Killing an animal for any reason other than food, is a modern sin, and recognition that killing has taken place creates miasma. Meat must be made unrecognisable, folded in weird and traditional ways. Fish fingers or cod loins are linguistic re-packagings. There are no fish fingers and cod fish do not have loins...
The recognition leads to impurity unless the encounter is ritualized and placed within a sacred zone..
The taboos and rituals born out of scientism, are supported by liturgies of statistics founded on endless rituals of tests.
The purpose of which is to maintain the health and happiness of the majority through science.
In my time the scientific priesthood regulate the activity of the people on the killing floor - who are there in the main, because they need the money. Unhappiness and bad working conditions can be cured by SSRIs, there is never any need for suffering.
Remember this is the best system and everything works better here than elsewhere, where animals may be killed anywhere. Sarcasm!
One of the oldest and most common uses of sacrifice is purification.
On the fifth day of the Akitu festival at the spring equinox, the preists of Marduk would go down to the river four hours before sunrise and bathe in the waters of the Tigris. Two hours after sunrise the purification of the temple began. The temple was sprinkled with water from a well containing mixed waters of Tigris and Euphrates. The door of the temple was smeared with resin from a cedar tree and a sheep was beheaded, its body dragged through the temple, presumably so that its blood ran with the water on the floor and walls.
Incense was burnt, and the body and head were left for a while before removal, to be thrown into the river. It was understood that all who had been involved in this were now themselves ritually unclean for hours or days.
In the Akitu, an Akkadian example, blood and the body of the sheep attract the elements or elementals that the temple should be rid of.
The power of blood to draw spirits towards it is described by Homer...Link.
There we beached our ship, and landed the sheep, and made our way along the Ocean stream, till we came to the place Circe described.
Perimedes and Eurylochus restrained the sacrificial victims while I drew my sharp sword from its sheath, and with it dug a pit two foot square, then poured a libation all around to the dead, first of milk and honey, then of sweet wine, thirdly of water, sprinkled with white barley meal. Then I prayed devoutly to the powerless ghosts of the departed, swearing that when I reached Ithaca I would sacrifice a barren heifer in my palace, the best of the herd, and would heap the altar with rich spoils, and offer a ram, apart, to Teiresias, the finest jet-black ram in the flock. When, with prayers and vows, I had invoked the hosts of the dead, I led the sheep to the pit and cut their throats, so the dark blood flowed.
Then the ghosts of the dead swarmed out of Erebus – brides, and young men yet unwed, old men worn out with toil, girls once vibrant and still new to grief, and ranks of warriors slain in battle, showing their wounds from bronze-tipped spears, their armour stained with blood. Round the pit from every side the crowd thronged, with strange cries, and I turned pale with fear. Then I called to my comrades, and told them to flay and burn the sheep killed by the pitiless bronze, with prayers to the divinities, to mighty Hades and dread Persephone. I myself, drawing my sharp sword from its sheath, sat there preventing the powerless ghosts from drawing near to the blood, till I might question Teiresias.’
A similar use of blood as described in the Akitu is found in Ezekiel. 45:18-20
18 Thus saith the Lord God; In the first month, in the first day of the month, thou shalt take a young bullock without blemish, and cleanse the sanctuary:
19 And the priest shall take of the blood of the sin offering, and put it upon the posts of the house, and upon the four corners of the settle of the altar, and upon the posts of the gate of the inner court.
20 And so thou shalt do the seventh day of the month for every one that erreth, and for him that is simple: so shall ye reconcile the house.
Errors in codes of behaviour lead to impurity.
The purification is from error.
Impurity is no longer caused by something in the air.
God, in this belief system, accepts the sacrifice of blood to purify sin.
The passage from Ezekiel does not specify what is to happen to the flesh of the animal. As in the description of the Akitu, blood is the focus of the sacrifice. More importantly though, the blood of an animal must be drained before the flesh may be eaten (Lev. 3:17; 7:26; 17:10–14; Deut. 12:15–16, 20–24). Seeming to mean that blood cannot be accepted as food, it can only be used to cleanse...Link.
And Orestes...
Orestes is sitting in front of the omphalos stone at Delphi holding the sword he used to kill his mother, Clytemnestra. Behind him Apollo is about to purify him of blood-guilt by showering him in the blood of a piglet.
The blood of an animal is used to attract the badness out of a location or from someone because blood is magnetic to the unseen.
Clearly this sacrifice of a piglet by Apollo is not a sacrifice for Apollo. Only the Chthonic Gods in the earth...are believed to accept blood.
Something I dispute...
As Pu'abi's servants swallowed poison to be with their mistress, so Ereshkigal asked...
What's the hurry?
Everyone comes to me in the end...
Clearly this sacrifice of a piglet by Apollo is not a sacrifice for Apollo. Only the Chthonic Gods in the earth...are believed to accept blood.
Something I dispute...
As Pu'abi's servants swallowed poison to be with their mistress, so Ereshkigal asked...
What's the hurry?
Everyone comes to me in the end...
Meanwhile the Indo-European examples of sacrifice don't follow the Mesopotamian rules. In fragments of stories and translations the sacrificial animal is totemic of the Gods, and/or of the king. It is as if the living animal is an avatar of a God and the divine aspect of kingship. The sacrifice of the animal creates a conduit between this world and the world of the Gods.
Though the practice of reading a liver, a favourite Babylonian activity...was meant to be more accurate if the liver was part of an animal mid way between life and death. This may not have conformed to the conduit idea. The land of the dead could have been the land of the future and an animal brought close to death was in effect just closer to what was going to arrive here.
Sleipnir?
...Link.
Though the practice of reading a liver, a favourite Babylonian activity...was meant to be more accurate if the liver was part of an animal mid way between life and death. This may not have conformed to the conduit idea. The land of the dead could have been the land of the future and an animal brought close to death was in effect just closer to what was going to arrive here.
Sleipnir?
...Link.
The chamber of the tomb contained a lacquered wooden coffin which had burial goods placed around it. A total of 11,500 artifacts were recovered from the tomb. The name of the tomb derives from a famous painting of a white horse which is depicted on a birch bark saddle flap, also referred to as a mud-guard. The horse, a Cheonma (Korean pegasus), has eight legs and is depicted with wings on its feet.
At Potapovka, near Samara on the Sok River, excavations conducted from 1985-1988 exposed four burial mounds, or kurgans, dated about 2200-2000 B.C. Beneath kurgan 3, the central grave pit contained the remains of a man buried with at least two horse heads and the head of a sheep, in addition to pottery vessels and weapons. After the grave pit was filled, a human male was decapitated, his head was replaced with the head of a horse, and he was laid down over the filled grave shaft. This unique ritual deposit provides a convincing antecedent for the Vedic myth...LinkBut...in my time...
The slaughter houses that provide food for us, the rendering plants and factories producing pet food are invisible to protect us from transgressing new sacred zones. The purpose of making somewhere sacred is to protect the psyche, in this case by preventing the truth of the horror within, being seen by someone unprepared.
The religion of this land is born of the machine age, and our mass religion is scientism. In keeping with this religion, it is accepted that killing an animal must be preformed in a non-religious, and preferably, mechanised way.
Killing an animal for any reason other than food, is a modern sin, and recognition that killing has taken place creates miasma. Meat must be made unrecognisable, folded in weird and traditional ways. Fish fingers or cod loins are linguistic re-packagings. There are no fish fingers and cod fish do not have loins...
The recognition leads to impurity unless the encounter is ritualized and placed within a sacred zone..
The taboos and rituals born out of scientism, are supported by liturgies of statistics founded on endless rituals of tests.
The purpose of which is to maintain the health and happiness of the majority through science.
In my time the scientific priesthood regulate the activity of the people on the killing floor - who are there in the main, because they need the money. Unhappiness and bad working conditions can be cured by SSRIs, there is never any need for suffering.
Remember this is the best system and everything works better here than elsewhere, where animals may be killed anywhere. Sarcasm!
