The specter of human sacrifice haunts Satanism. It is the worst of the stereotypes that we bear, the worst accusation to be made against us.

But the truth is that the specter of human sacrifice haunts religion in general, and especially Christianity.

In a sense, Christianity rests on a foundation of human sacrifice: the crucifixion, the pseudo-cannibalistic ritual of communion. Abraham nearly sacrifices Isaac to God, and in a lesser-known story, Jephtah actually does sacrifice his daughter.

If human sacrifice can be defined broadly as the killing of a human being for religious reasons, the Christianity can be considered to have a history of human sacrifice in practice, via the crusades, the inquisition, and various religious wars.

I think these violent, gruesome undertones provoke anxiety. These abject parts of Christianity need to be expelled somehow, and so they have been projected, for centuries, onto a mostly imaginary enemy: Satanism. (And often Judaism. Ever heard of “blood libel?”)

Certain Satanists and other occultists have flirted with the idea of human sacrifice. Aleister Crowley referred to sacrificing thousands of perfect infants as a sly metaphor for masturbation– in ejaculating outside of a womb, the magus “sacrifices” every potential life represented by each sperm. (In Crowley’s day, talk of violent human sacrifice was less likely to be censored than explicit reference to the sin of Onan! How’s that for backwards?)

Anton LaVey actually advocated human sacrifice, albeit on a magical rather than physically violent basis. He called for the “sacrifice,” i.e. cursing, of individuals who “volunteer” themselves as victims by virtue of obnoxious behavior. If more people took magic/k seriously, more people might be seriously disturbed by this. I confess, I don’t see anything wrong with a good curse on one’s enemies now and then, but I’m on the fence about connecting that to religious sacrifice.

I am considering this in the context of the Satanic Mass. Of particular concern to me is the figure of the nude human altar. The presence of naked figure “on the altar,” typically imagined as that of a beautiful young woman, is easily mistaken for a sacrificial victim. Actually, the body is not a sacrifice on the altar, but in fact is the altar itself. The real sacrifice is in the chalice and patten resting on or near the altar: bread and wine, metaphorical flesh and blood.

(The Gnostic Mass of Thelema also involves a nude priestess on the altar. For a good take on how easily this can be misread as violent sacrifice waiting to happen, see episode one of the excellent series “Strange Angel,” inspired by the life of Jack Parsons.)

In actuality, the “human sacrifice” of the Devil’s mass is the same as in a Catholic mass: the body of Christ. The blasphemy, and the genius, of the Devil’s mass is to make Christ into a victim rather than a messiah. It makes explicit the human sacrifice that lies at the dark heart of Christianity, and it rejects that sacrifice, turning it into a pointless, ugly death rather than a meaningful ascension. Subtext becomes text.

Sometimes I think a consensual, careful sacrifice of one’s own blood can be very powerful. Other excretions, such as sexual fluids can be excellent as well. So can a lock of hair. If giving up a little bit of yourself in this way can be considered “human sacrifice” then I guess I’m all for it in this context. Just be careful and responsible if you decide to draw blood. Self mutilation isn’t cute or Satanic (and as a recovering self-harmer, I should know). I usually just give menstrual blood because it’s convenient and painless. But if you don’t produce that, and reeeeaaally wanna give blood, be really careful, use a sterile tool, do not cut deep, and care properly for the wound.

Other than that, and the occasional Mass of Blasphemy, I don’t think human sacrifice has any place in Satanism. I strongly oppose the killing of human beings for any religious reasons (or really for any reason other than self-defense). I similarly take a dim view of animal sacrifice, unless you’re gonna actually eat the damn thing. Slaughtering a pig or chicken to be cooked and enjoyed in a ritual feast is acceptable to me (why shouldn’t it be? I’m not a vegan) as long as it is done as painlessly as possible. This, by the way, is how pagan animal sacrifice was usually done. Killing an animal just to kill it, especially if torture is involved, is abhorrent, and doesn’t really have much magical/religious precedence behind it at all anyway.