rigorousintuition.ca

I know how excited everybody over here gets when anybody talks about black magic and dead babies, so here's a fun post I just put together on the topic:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2005/11/19/got-a-black-magic-baby/">www.timboucher.com/journa...agic-baby/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>If anybody knows of parallel traditions that I left out here (Asian or non-Asian) please let me know. I'm especially interested in hearing more about this from traditional indigenous magic systems, as opposed to the stereotypical ceremonial Aleister Crowley references which this is sure to generate. <p></p><i></i>

Years ago, while in South America, I had an opportunity to visit the <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>mercada negra brujeria</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> of La Paz, Bolivia. Some shops sold llama fetuses to be used in dedicating new houses, one under the main center pole for the roof. I was told that, traditionally, a newborn baby was used (but that's not "allowed" any more, wink wink.) <br><br>In an archeological dig a few years later, in Alabama, it was common to find the remains of exactly the same thing, some dated to just a few hundred years ago. --MaryK <p></p><i></i>

Possibly relevant:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4293934.stm">news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4293934.stm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Foetuses found at Bogota airport<br><br>Police officer holds the bodies of two of three human foetuses found at Bogota Airport<br><br>Colombian police have found the bodies of three human foetuses hidden in statues destined for the United States.<br><br>The discovery was made by officers searching for contraband at Bogota Airport on Tuesday.<br><br>The corpses were wrapped in plastic and concealed inside statues of Christian icons, which were smashed open.<br><br>Colombian police chief Gen Jord Alirio Varon said the four- to five-month-old foetuses could have been intended for use in Satanic rituals.<br><br>Gen Varon said the foetuses were found alongside crucifixes and medals.<br><br>He said officials are trying to find out who sent the packages, which came from Barranquilla in Colombia and were destined for Miami in the US.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

oh thats a good tip maryk. i have a feeling that this is one of those traditions that's probably shared the world over, but that its memory is buried in most cultures. <br><br>come to think of it, how old was isaac supposed to be when abraham was going to sacrifice him?<br><br>professorpan: that's actually the news article that originally spawned this whole investigation several months back. <p></p><i></i>

<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>come to think of it, how old was isaac supposed to be when abraham was going to sacrifice him?</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>Certainly older than an infant, since Isaac asks Abraham where the sheep for the sacrifice is.<br><br> <p></p><i></i>

Ah good call. It's been a while since I read the actual story... Are there other references to child/baby sacrifices in the Bible? <p></p><i></i>

Depending on how you interpret Cronus-eating-the-baby-pantheon you might have a very oblique reference to something resembling child practice in a prior culture. Cf, for example,<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://phoenicia.org/childsacrifice.html">phoenicia.org/childsacrifice.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>for a pro-con argument on whether the Phoenicians sacrificed 'children' ( the age is unclear from the accounts -- whether a lower age limit was in effect on sacrifices taking place is a separate issue also ). Follow up on the cited classical accounts if this tickles your interest. <p></p><i></i>

Hm, thanks. I'll check it out. Come to think of it though, maybe child sacrifice per se is the wrong line of research. None of these accounts I read about Asian countries actually suggested that any of these children were sacrificed. In general, they seemed to either be stillborn children, or children whose mothers had died while they were still pregnant. The idea seems to be trapping the child-spirit from moving on via magic and then using the remains as a sort of fetish object from which to control the associated spirit. The idea of child sacrifice seems to be a bit different - that you're giving up the child to feed a "hungry" deity of some sort. <p></p><i></i>

The interpretation the against-sacrifice author (and the write-in 'independent scholar') give is that children who died young or were stillborn were 'sacrificed' or 'offered up' post-mortem, either in the spirit of returning the soul—and thus getting a replacement sent out—more quickly, or simply because the diety in question needed the souls back for some reason.<br><br>Still very little mention of the idea of using stillborn/baby-aged childrens' remains to actually work magic; this may be a bit of a dead end for your question. <p></p><i></i>

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Are there other references to child/baby sacrifices in the Bible?<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>There's Moloch. The worship of Moloch was evidently a competing religion to Judaism at one point, and is traditionally held to have involved burnt sacrifices of infants. Among Moloch worshippers, the infant sacrificed was always one's own, though. <br><br>Some students feel that the practice referenced in the Bible as "passing through the fire to Moloch" wasn't an actual sacrifice, but instead a ritual that involved passing an infant quickly through a flame, unharmed. There are examples of both practices (passing through flames vs. burnt sacrifice) known from neighboring cultures. For obvious reasons, the more lurid theory is the better known.<br><br>The Catholic Encyclopedia has commentary on Moloch:<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10443b.htm">www.newadvent.org/cathen/10443b.htm</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>And Wikipedia has a very detailed account that touches on fire-based infant sacrifice in general:<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>- Sepka the Space Weasel <p></p><i></i>