<\/a><\/p>\nThe truth of this matter is that yes, some Pagans do follow the practice of ritual animal sacrifice. \u00a0It does exist, it does happen. \u00a0It 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. \u00a0But it does exist, and in fact some religions demand that it happen. \u00a0Some 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. \u00a0There are various forms of African and other tribal shamanism that also sometimes require animal sacrifice. \u00a0A 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.<\/p>\n
There is the stereotype that exists that makes Pagans and Witches out to be devil worshippers who torture animals and even people. \u00a0This is not true, though some Pagans are in fact Satanists, which is different to the stereotype and doesn\u2019t usually include any \u201cevil\u201d activities, though this is entirely dependant on your perception of what evil is. \u00a0Some Pagans are nasty, just as some Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus are nasty \u2013 psychosis and so-called \u201cevil\u201d do exist in every religion. \u00a0But this is where the confusion and denial begins.<\/p>\n
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. \u00a0The proper act of ritual sacrifice should harm the animal no more than an animal is harmed when killed by a farmer or professional slaughterer \u2013 often the animal suffers far less during a ritual than when killed by a slaughterer, slaughterhouses can be horrific places after-all. \u00a0It 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. \u00a0In 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. \u00a0Of course, each path within Paganism will have different ways of doing this, but that is the more \u201cmainstream\u201d way, so to speak.<\/p>\n
It is easy to understand why people find the practice distasteful, especially when you consider the stereotypes that exist. \u00a0Within Paganism we often have to dispel the stereotype, a lot of people assume that Paganism means animal sacrifice. \u00a0But 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. \u00a0When we are at the point that Pagan\u2019s make such sweeping statements like \u201cAnyone who sacrifices an animal is NOT a Pagan\u201d then we know it has gone too far. \u00a0Who 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?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have a friend on Facebook whose main purpose in Facebook life lately is to try and annoy me. \u00a0Mostly he will make fun of Paganism, talk about slaughtering goats and the like. \u00a0He knows quite a bit about how Paganism really is, he has studied it just so he can troll me with all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2764,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
Misconceptions - Pagans and Animal Sacrifice<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I have a friend on Facebook whose main purpose in Facebook life lately is to try and annoy me. \u00a0Mostly he will make fun of Paganism, talk about\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/2012\/02\/misconceptions-pagans-and-animal-sacrifice.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Misconceptions - Pagans and Animal Sacrifice\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have a friend on Facebook whose main purpose in Facebook life lately is to try and annoy me. \u00a0Mostly he will make fun of Paganism, talk about\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/2012\/02\/misconceptions-pagans-and-animal-sacrifice.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Hearth Witch Down Under\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ThePaganVeil\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-02-23T12:21:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-01-24T03:33:31+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/files\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-AzpJkVz4rBY\/VwkNtdspuiI\/AAAAAAAA9fc\/qqla762rU9olKNp00_ANTud55hT3Kw9Cg\/s200\/title%20card%20-%20animal%20sacrifice.PNG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Bekah Evie Bel\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@thepaganveil\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Bekah Evie Bel\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/2012\/02\/misconceptions-pagans-and-animal-sacrifice.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/2012\/02\/misconceptions-pagans-and-animal-sacrifice.html\",\"name\":\"Misconceptions - Pagans and Animal Sacrifice\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-02-23T12:21:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-01-24T03:33:31+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/#\/schema\/person\/4fad88778c6fe8fc986d6ac7c0702ebf\"},\"description\":\"I have a friend on Facebook whose main purpose in Facebook life lately is to try and annoy me. \u00a0Mostly he will make fun of Paganism, talk about\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/2012\/02\/misconceptions-pagans-and-animal-sacrifice.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/2012\/02\/misconceptions-pagans-and-animal-sacrifice.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/2012\/02\/misconceptions-pagans-and-animal-sacrifice.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Misconceptions – Pagans and Animal Sacrifice\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/\",\"name\":\"Hearth Witch Down Under\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/#\/schema\/person\/4fad88778c6fe8fc986d6ac7c0702ebf\",\"name\":\"Bekah Evie Bel\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/76ee66f5182ea8791be935ab1f8a5901?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/76ee66f5182ea8791be935ab1f8a5901?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Bekah Evie Bel\"},\"description\":\"I am an Aussie Hellenic Revivalist, Domestic Pagan, Hearth Witch and Devotee of Hekate and the Covenant of Hekate. I was raised Agnostic, bordering on Atheist and became Pagan long before I knew the label existed in a modern sense. My \\\"conversion\\\" to Hellenism is fairly recent so I am still in discovery mode, and you get to share that journey with me. I was admin and owner of the Pagan Veil social network for 4 years and have a minor presence within the Aussie, Pagan and Aussie Pagan Homeschooling communities.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\",\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ThePaganVeil\",\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/thepaganveil\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/author\/bebel\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Misconceptions - Pagans and Animal Sacrifice","description":"I have a friend on Facebook whose main purpose in Facebook life lately is to try and annoy me. \u00a0Mostly he will make fun of Paganism, talk about","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/2012\/02\/misconceptions-pagans-and-animal-sacrifice.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Misconceptions - Pagans and Animal Sacrifice","og_description":"I have a friend on Facebook whose main purpose in Facebook life lately is to try and annoy me. \u00a0Mostly he will make fun of Paganism, talk about","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/2012\/02\/misconceptions-pagans-and-animal-sacrifice.html","og_site_name":"Hearth Witch Down Under","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ThePaganVeil","article_published_time":"2012-02-23T12:21:00+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-01-24T03:33:31+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/wp.production.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/files\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-AzpJkVz4rBY\/VwkNtdspuiI\/AAAAAAAA9fc\/qqla762rU9olKNp00_ANTud55hT3Kw9Cg\/s200\/title%20card%20-%20animal%20sacrifice.PNG"}],"author":"Bekah Evie Bel","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@thepaganveil","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Bekah Evie Bel","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/2012\/02\/misconceptions-pagans-and-animal-sacrifice.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/2012\/02\/misconceptions-pagans-and-animal-sacrifice.html","name":"Misconceptions - Pagans and Animal Sacrifice","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-02-23T12:21:00+00:00","dateModified":"2018-01-24T03:33:31+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/#\/schema\/person\/4fad88778c6fe8fc986d6ac7c0702ebf"},"description":"I have a friend on Facebook whose main purpose in Facebook life lately is to try and annoy me. \u00a0Mostly he will make fun of Paganism, talk about","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/2012\/02\/misconceptions-pagans-and-animal-sacrifice.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/2012\/02\/misconceptions-pagans-and-animal-sacrifice.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/2012\/02\/misconceptions-pagans-and-animal-sacrifice.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Misconceptions – Pagans and Animal Sacrifice"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/","name":"Hearth Witch Down Under","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/#\/schema\/person\/4fad88778c6fe8fc986d6ac7c0702ebf","name":"Bekah Evie Bel","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/76ee66f5182ea8791be935ab1f8a5901?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/76ee66f5182ea8791be935ab1f8a5901?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Bekah Evie Bel"},"description":"I am an Aussie Hellenic Revivalist, Domestic Pagan, Hearth Witch and Devotee of Hekate and the Covenant of Hekate. I was raised Agnostic, bordering on Atheist and became Pagan long before I knew the label existed in a modern sense. My \"conversion\" to Hellenism is fairly recent so I am still in discovery mode, and you get to share that journey with me. I was admin and owner of the Pagan Veil social network for 4 years and have a minor presence within the Aussie, Pagan and Aussie Pagan Homeschooling communities.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ThePaganVeil","https:\/\/twitter.com\/thepaganveil"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/author\/bebel"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2764"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/hearthwitchdownunder\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Pagans](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/690\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-AzpJkVz4rBY\/VwkNtdspuiI\/AAAAAAAA9fc\/qqla762rU9olKNp00_ANTud55hT3Kw9Cg\/s1600\/title%20card%20-%20animal%20sacrifice.PNG\" "\\"Misconceptions")
<\/a><\/div>\n