Animal Sacrifice in the Left-Hand Path and the Negotiations of Antinomianism and Respectability

MOKRÝ, Matouš. Animal Sacrifice in the Left-Hand Path and the Negotiations of Antinomianism and Respectability. In The 9th Biennial Conference of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism : Western Esotericism and Practice, 26–28 June 2023, Malmö, Faculty of Culture and Society, Malmö University. 2023.

Basic information

• Original name: Animal Sacrifice in the Left-Hand Path and the Negotiations of Antinomianism and Respectability
• Name in Czech: Zvířecí oběť v Left-Hand Path a vyjednávání antinomianismu a respektability
• Authors: MOKRÝ, Matouš.
• Edition: The 9th Biennial Conference of the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism : Western Esotericism and Practice, 26–28 June 2023, Malmö, Faculty of Culture and Society, Malmö University, 2023.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Presentations at conferences
• Field of Study: 60304 Religious studies
• Country of publisher: Sweden
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• Organization unit: Faculty of Arts
• Keywords (in Czech): Left-Hand Path; satanismus; západní esoterismus; transgrese; antinomianismus; zvířecí oběť; Kenneth Grant; Anton S. LaVey; Chaos-Gnosticismus
• Keywords in English: Left-Hand Path; Satanism; Western Esotericism; transgression; antinomianism; animal sacrifice; Kenneth Grant; Anton S. LaVey; Chaos-Gnosticism
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

Since Christianity's rise to power, (antinomian) magic has been associated in the Western imagination with ritual violence signified through the condemned practice of animal sacrifice, with this conceptual matrix continuing in the general Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment critique of religious superstition (be it Christian or other). As inheritors of Enlightenment anti-religious sentiments and of other discourses of modernity, most actors within the Left-Hand Path milieu reject the practice of animal sacrifice on the grounds of humanitarianism, ecology, ritual efficacy and / or social respectability (e. g. Church of Satan, Dragon Rouge, or Michael W. Ford). However, there are some Left-Hand Path proponents (e. g. Temple of the Black Light or E.A. Koetting) who embrace it as a potent antinomian tool imbued with the power of tradition. Surveying the textual production of the main actors in the milieu, the paper aims to uncover dominant discursive strategies operating in the exclusion or acceptance of animal sacrifice and in its contested constructions as either harmful or foolish ritual act possibly de-legitimizing Left-Hand Path, or, conversely, powerful expression with the authority of history which might be essential to “dark” magical practice.

Links

• MUNI/A/1417/2022, interní kód MU: Name: Víra, vědění a kolektivní jednání: Informační technologie a kolektivní zvládání výzev antropocénu

Investor: Masaryk University, Belief, knowledge, and collective action: Information technologies and the collective handling of the challenges of the Anthropocene