Misconceptions – Pagans and Animal Sacrifice

Last updated on: January 24, 2018 at 1:33 pm by Bekah Evie Bel

Misconceptions – Pagans and Animal Sacrifice 2018-01-24T13:33:31+10:00 Bekah Evie Bel

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I have a friend on Facebook whose main purpose in Facebook life lately is to try and annoy me. Mostly he will make fun of Paganism, talk about slaughtering goats and the like. He knows quite a bit about how Paganism really is, he has studied it just so he can troll me with all the wrong facts. Today on a Facebook page that is Pagan based he tagged me to a thread accusing me of wrongly teaching him that Wiccans slaughter goats regularly. This was my reply (not exact)…

“Stop trying to get me into trouble. I never said Wiccan’s do that, they don’t. I said that SOME Pagans slaughter animals.”

Apparently this was the wrong thing to say. The person who runs the page stated that no Pagan they know would ever do such a thing, maybe in the old days, but not now. Pagans follow the rule of Harm None. To which I had to reply that of course some Pagans kill animals, I gave some examples of when this would happen. I also pointed out that the Harm None rede is Wiccan, and is not followed by all that many non-Wiccan Pagans. Long-ish story short, I have been accused of lying, starting trouble and stereotyping Pagans. I have also been banned from their page, which is just plain amusing. I cannot imagine what would have happened if I had played the usual game with my friend and threatened to sacrifice him haha.

The truth of this matter is that yes, some Pagans do follow the practice of ritual animal sacrifice. It does exist, it does happen. It is not something that very many of us do, personally I do not do it, I sometimes wonder if I could even kill an animal for food. But it does exist, and in fact some religions demand that it happen. Some who follow an extremely traditional version of an ancient religion, such as the Greek religion, they will sacrifice animals to their gods just as the ancients once did. There are various forms of African and other tribal shamanism that also sometimes require animal sacrifice. A Kitchen Witch who is not a vegetarian may actually kill her own chickens or other animals for food, and since food is part of her Craft, the killing of the animal could in fact be considered part of her Craft as well.

There is the stereotype that exists that makes Pagans and Witches out to be devil worshippers who torture animals and even people. This is not true, though some Pagans are in fact Satanists, which is different to the stereotype and doesn’t usually include any “evil” activities, though this is entirely dependant on your perception of what evil is. Some Pagans are nasty, just as some Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus are nasty – psychosis and so-called “evil” do exist in every religion. But this is where the confusion and denial begins.

The stereotype of evil devil-worshipping animal torturing Pagans can be easily confused with the real act of animal sacrifice by those who know no better. The proper act of ritual sacrifice should harm the animal no more than an animal is harmed when killed by a farmer or professional slaughterer – often the animal suffers far less during a ritual than when killed by a slaughterer, slaughterhouses can be horrific places after-all. It is very rare for a true ritual sacrifice to waste the animal, a portion is set aside for the deities or spirits, the rest is eaten by those who participate within the ritual. In truth, it is no different to killing an animal for food, there is just a few more acts to be done after the fact and there is more than just one reason to kill the animal. Of course, each path within Paganism will have different ways of doing this, but that is the more “mainstream” way, so to speak.

It is easy to understand why people find the practice distasteful, especially when you consider the stereotypes that exist. Within Paganism we often have to dispel the stereotype, a lot of people assume that Paganism means animal sacrifice. But I think we have in a way gone too far with dispelling the stereotype, to the point where many Pagans cannot even admit that the act is part of some legit forms of Paganism. When we are at the point that Pagan’s make such sweeping statements like “Anyone who sacrifices an animal is NOT a Pagan” then we know it has gone too far. Who are any of us to make such a statement, when Paganism is always a personal choice and does NOT need to be legitimised by other Pagans?

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