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Episode 202: Satanic Destruction Rituals

Black Mass Appeal — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 00:55:07 +0000

This episode: Total destruction, from mountain to shore!

SHOW LINKS

- From The Satanic Bible etc etc you know the rest: Remain in the area of the altar unless imagery is more easily obtained in another spot, such as in the vicinity of the victim. Producing the image of the victim, proceed to inflict the destruction upon the effigy in the manner of your choice. This can be done in the following ways: the sticking of pins or nails into a doll representing your victim; the doll may be cloth, wax, wood, vegetable matter, etc. The creation of graphic imagery depicting the method of your victim’s destruction; drawings, paintings, etc.. The creation of a vivid literary description of your victim’s ultimate end. A detailed soliloquy directed at the intended victim, describing his torments and annihilation.mutilation, injury, infliction of pain or illness by proxy using any other means or devices desired. Intense, calculated hatred and disdain should accompany this step of the ceremony, and no attempt should be made to stop this step until the expended energy results in a state of relative exhaustion on the part of the magician. If requests are written, they are now read aloud by the priest and then burned in the flames of the appropriate candle. “Shemhamforash!” and “Hail Satan!” is said after each request. If requests are given verbally, participants (one at a time) now tell them to the priest. He then repeats in his own words (those which are most emotionally stimulating to him) the request. “Shemhamforash!” and “Hail Satan!” is said after each request. Appropriate Enochian Key is now read by the priest, as evidence of the participants’ allegiance to the Powers of Darkness. Then the words “SO IT IS DONE” are spoken by the priest. Black candles are used for power and success for the participants of the ritual, and are used to consume the parchments on which blessings requested by the ritual participants are written. The white candle is used for destruction of enemies. Parchments upon which curses are written are burned in the flame of the white candle.
- - From Satanic Scriptures, Peter Gilmore, 2007: Our rituals are not “spells” which guarantee that some actual change will occur in the real world. Since we are skeptical atheists, we do not believe in anything supernatural. However, there are many aspects of the human experience. ESP suggests that there may be a gateway through the most primitive part of the brain by which thoughts and imagery might be broadcast to other minds when fueled by extreme emotional experiences. We see this as a possible means for magic to impact the world outside of the ritual chamber. Biologist Rupert Sheldrake has documented phenomena of the “extended mind” such as people’s pets sensing from a distance the time their owners are deciding to return home, as well as the “feeling” that you are being stared at by someone else, even when you don’t see the person doing the staring. These could be supernatural abilities. Perhaps only a small percentage of our population has these intuitive capabilities. Thus we leave this as an open question that each must answer for himself—does ritual do more than simply give emotional relief? Only you can answer it, based on your personally chosen criteria for validity. The format for our traditional ritual was created as a guideline that may be amended by Satanists to suit their own needs. We’re often asked by interested parties if they must use black candles, or absolutely must have all of the devices for ritual described in The Satanic Bible. The answer is that you really don’t need any of the suggested implements, since the most important tool for ritual is your own imagination. The original prescribed practice was to use at least one black candle on the left and one white candle on the right of your altar. That was dropped fairly quickly; any color candles will do, so long as they “feel proper” to you.
  - From The Problem With Rupert Sheldrake, Sam Woolfe, 2013: Rupert Sheldrake is an English author and parapsychologist credited with the hypothesis of “morphic resonance” who has argued that dogs have the power of telepathy. The problem with Sheldrake is that his ideas do not really survive critical investigation and remain within the realm of pseudoscience. Despite having a PhD in Biochemistry, Sheldrake has received a great deal of criticism from the scientific community for his work on telepathy. He views this attack as a refusal to look at the evidence he has collected; however, none of his experiments has ever been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal, suggesting that there is no compelling evidence in the first place. In his book Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home, Sheldrake describes how he videotapes the behaviour of dogs and concluded that they knew when their owners set off to home; dogs would apparently wait by the doorway before they could hear the noise of their car approaching, for example. The psychologist Richard Wiseman attempted to duplicate Sheldrake’s experiment using the same ‘psychic’ pet that Sheldrake had used in his own experiments, a dog named Jaytee. Jaytee would wait on the porch for longer periods of time when the owner was closer to arriving home, a phenomenon consistent with Sheldrake’s own results. But Wiseman is not convinced. He argues that the observed patterns could easily be explained by natural waiting behaviour: A dog is more likely to wait on the porch for longer the longer their owner is away. So it should not be surprising that Jaytee is on the porch before the owner comes home. This is evidence of a dog anticipating the arrival of their owner, instead of knowing it through psychic abilities. Another idea that has characterised Sheldrake’s career has been ‘morphic resonance’ and the ‘morphogenetic field’, “the idea of mysterious telepathy-type interconnections between organisms and of collective memories within species.” Through morphic resonance each member of a species draws on a collective memory. Morphogenetic fields are located invisibly in and around organisms, and may account for such hitherto unexplainable phenomena as the regeneration of severed limbs by worms and salamanders, phantom limbs, the holographic properties of memory, telepathy, and the increasing ease with which new skills are learned as greater quantities of a population acquire them. That the morphogenetic field is invisible leads sceptics to argue that the concept is magical and untestable. Supporters could reply by saying that the quantum world is invisible to us, yet that does not mean it is unreal. That’s true, however, evidence points to a quantum world; Sheldrake’s obsession with telepathy does not necessarily point to a world full of invisible fields. https://www.samwoolfe.com/2013/07/the-problem-with-rupert-sheldrake.html
  - From Devil Worshiper Hell-Bent on Controversy, ABC News, 2014: In a small, darkened room, Adam Daniels, the self-proclaimed head of his own satanic church, spat and stomped on the symbolic body of Christ in a ritual devoted to Satan. The smells of incense and smoky dry ice vapors wafted over his small band of followers, who watched him and others perform the so-called “black mass” and destroy bread that was meant to symbolize the Eucharistic. Only about 40 or so people attended Daniels’ demonic service, which was held in the basement of an Oklahoma City civic center in September, but it was enough to draw nearly 2,000 Christians from all over the region, some of which drove in from out of state, for a massive protest against it. Daniels is the co-founder of Dakhma of Angra Mainyu, a dark religion that worships demons, He has written his own “bible” and calls himself high priest. Daniels has a real day job — he works as a restaurant cook — but he insists he has supernatural powers that are so strong he claims he can give someone a death sentence. “For example, we had an opponent whose mother was dying of cancer and when the destruction ritual was done on him, it put his mother out,” Daniels said. He’s also a man with a dark past — Daniels is a registered sex offender, but he doesn’t believe that conviction interferes with performing his duties. Daniels has 14 believers who worship regularly at his church, which is a converted storage room in his house. They garnered almost no public notice at all until they threatened to desecrate the Holy Sacrament of the Catholic Church, the communion wafer, during a satanic ceremony. The archbishop of Oklahoma City was outraged. “There’s a real danger involved,” said Archbishop Paul Coakley. “Danger, because of the powers that they are invoking are real. This isn’t entertainment. This isn’t a horror movie. This is real. These people are serious. They are invoking satanic powers. The archbishop even went as far as to say the satanic mass was an assault on the soul of humanity. ’The Exorcist’ [the movie] is based upon a true story. Satanic influences are real.” The news of these devil-worshipers’ ceremony spread quickly online, and 100,000 people signed a petition to block it.
  - From Satanic Bay Area’s Lupercalia Destruction Ritual, Tabitha Slander and Daniel Walker, 2025: If a man can show his hands and prove that they are clean, no wrath of ours shall lurk for him–unscathed he walks through this lifetime. But one like this man, with bloodstained and hidden hands, shall find us there beside him as witness of the truth, and we rise up against him to the last. Hear me, mother Night, who gave birth to us to avenge the living and the dead: This man of false piety dishonours us: Let this song of ours fall upon our victim’s head, our sacrifice, our curse of madness to weigh always on his mind. Remorseless Fate gave us this work to carry on, a destiny spun out to attach ourselves to those haughty with corrupt and foolish power until they go beneath the ground. These rights are ours by birth, even gods may not divert us. We share no feasts with them, no fellowship: their pure white robes are no part of our destiny. We Sing now this enchantment, A song without music, a clamor of furies, A sword in the senses, A storm in the heart, a fire in the brain, a drought in the soul. This task we take, ministers of overthrow, brewing strife for the one who threatens what we hold dear. We are here now, eager to contest the charges and challenges of other god. . There will be no prayers— for their gods despise us, consider us unworthy, refuse to converse with us, and so instead we deal in blood. Those proud opinions people have, who raise themselves so high above us, will melt away when we, in our black robes, beat out our vengeful dance. Dark clouds of defilement hover all around this man. Murky shadows fall, enveloping his home and Rumour spreads a tale of all his sorrow. We have our powers to fulfill, keeping human evil in our minds, and we cannot be appeased by men like this. Dishonoured and despised, we see to our revenge split off from gods, with no light from the sun. We take the path more arduous, and seek always what is ours. What man is not in awe and stands there unafraid to hear me state my rights, those powers allowed by Fate and ratified by all my words, mine to hold forever? No god is enraged on my behalf: So wake, you powers of the underworld, and let my reproaches prick the heart of justice, a spur for those who act with righteousness. Blow your blood-filled breath all over him; let those fires in your bodies shrivel his, and drive him to a fresh pursuit. For happiness will never fall upon this man who cheats justice, this reckless man who goes too far, who piles up riches for himself in any way he can and disregards all justice—I tell you this— In time storming torments will break his ship. He screams for help, but no one listens. In the middle of the seas he fights—but all in vain. Hail Satan.
  - - From How To Perform a Destruction Ritual, Ali Kellogg, Medium, 2017: Rituals are repeated human actions to fulfill, reinforce and maintain a part of the human function and experience. The Destruction Ritual was born from a tradition I have done for many years with friends and loved ones on New Year’s Eve. We would gather around a fire with some scraps of paper, pens, and a few bottles of liquor. We would take turns writing things down, reading them aloud, throwing them into the fire and then taking a shot. As the night progressed, we found ourselves sobbing, hugging, and getting some really sticky shit off our chests. Then one year, we started bringing physical objects to destroy. Things that bore some kind of sentimental value we hung onto, but in reality just sat in a box in a closet somewhere and caused us negative emotions when we remembered they were there. By hanging onto these objects, we were holding onto the hope of a failed relationship or the improvement of someone’s character, or a good memory we would cling to like this object was a life raft. My friend had a box of these creepy ceramic dogs her abusive grandfather gave her every year for her birthday. Another friend had an engagement ring from his ex fiancée. I had an antique children’s tambourine my ex gave me that I couldn’t let go of for some reason. We took turns smashing our objects and throwing the pieces into the fire. Afterwards, I felt a sense of empowerment I had never felt before, and an epiphany. The relationship was done, but I had let it still continue to hurt me; I allowed the toxicity to seep into my every day. We all cried, hugged, and stood around the fire silently watching the shards of our bad memories burn in the fire. The Destruction Ritual serves this very purpose — destroying objects that we have given the power to hurt us. It’s a form of self love, as you are trusting that by destroying these stupid things, you will be stronger and lighter, so to speak, after doing it.
      - The Incantation: These were things that I held in my hands. These were things that belonged to me. These were things that I held in my heart. These were things that have meaning to me. These things are not dead, because they never carried life. But I gave these things life, because they have carried me. I gave these things my memories. My fear. My secrets My tears My blood My devotion My hate My forgiveness My pain My pleasure My love My disdain. I am the creator of life in these things, for without me, they would not be, and people would seek to profit off what I give with no mutual heart given back to me .We emancipate ourselves from this; we liberate ourselves from this endless cycle of voids filled with unnecessary greed. I fill my void with the beauty that surrounds me. Together we raise our arms and unshackle ourselves from the control these things have over us. Together we raise our hammers and daggers, and with them pierce the heart of that control, a power driven by addiction, attachment, consumption, and by a relentless hunger for excess. I do not belong to these things: These things belong to me. Hail Satan. Have at it, and be well. https://medium.com/@allthebigtrees/how-to-perform-a-satanic-destruction-ritual-4c76baf0ea30
    - From Satanic Bay Area’s Candlemas Ritual, Tabitha Slander & Daniel Walker, 2024: Some religions are obsessed with destruction. You know the type: “The end is near,” “Rapture incoming,” lots of talk about the Hidden Imam, that kind of thing. In 1988, NASA engineer and Bible kook Edgar Whisehant sold 4.5 million copies of his book, “88 Reasons why the Rapture will happen in 1988”; as you can imagine, sales dipped in 1989. But Edgar kept it up, he wrote another book, explaining that the end would actually come in 1989; then 1993; then again in 1994. Among his original 88 reasons was, and this is true–I mean, it’s not true, but it’s true that he wrote it–since the world was supposedly in the midst of “a population explosion,” Edgar projected that human consumption would render the earth uninhabitable in just a few years, and since “god wants his glory,” god would have to intervene and destroy the world before humans did. I remind you, this man worked at NASA. Edgar of course was not the only one, if you lived in the Bay Area for a long time you probably remember Oakland minister Harold Camping spent $5 million on billboards predicting global destruction in 2011; he died in 2013, so, in a certain sense, perhaps he was only a few years off. By comparison, our deployment of the virtues of destruction is on a decidedly more human scale. The late Christopher Hitchens–whom I will say I was not always the biggest fan of but whom I do have to concede articulated this particular point with sobering clarity–observed that “a large part of modern religion quite clearly wants us all to die, it wants this world to come to an end, you can tell the yearning for things to be over, whenever you read any of its text, or listen to its authentic spokesmen. The eschatological element that is inseparable from Christianity, if you don’t believe there will be a final separation of the sheep and the goats, then you’re not really a Believer. They cannot wait for death and destruction to overtake and overwhelm the World, a hateful idea very much opposed to our daily lives.” And he was right, that is a troubling norm. Instead, we are here tonight to embrace the beauty of flames that are not everlasting but which we mean to last only as long as they have to, and to witness not the destruction of all things but only of these things, and to hope not for End Times, but just for the end of a time in our lives–and that, we think, is a much healthier kind of eschatology. This ritual has also included some quotations from late Satanist poet Baron Jacque Fersen; when Fersen wrote about Satanism he was actually writing about the scandal around his own swinging sex-positive queer lifestyle; he did write because he seemingly wanted to get something off of their chests, but he did not want to confess in the conventional meaning of that word. Confession is bad for the soul; it appropriates the right you have to assess your own life and embezzles it into the account of some god–-we know not who. When we unburden ourselves, it should be with ourselves. Gods do not write the endings of our stories, our lives, or our worlds–that is the privilege that we resolve for our own persons. Hail Satan.
  - From Canyon River Pride Interfaith Service, Satanic Idaho, 2025: Destruction rituals. far from being acts of violence, are deeply symbolic practices that signify transformation, renewal, and the cyclical nature of existence. Destruction rituals are intentional acts of breaking down or dismantling objects, symbols, or even structures. They are not about chaos for its own sake but are deliberate expressions of letting go, clearing the old to make way for the new. These rituals are prevalent across various cultures and religions, each with its unique significance and purpose. It’s roots trace back to the dawn of civilization. Before human kind could farm, we knew we wanted to shed ourselves of trauma and grief. Honored guests, seekers of transformation, and guardians of the sacred flame, Today, we gather not to celebrate creation, but to honor the power inherent in endings, the force that clears the path for new beginnings. We stand on the threshold of a ritual as ancient as time itself, the Rite of Destruction. This is not an act of mindless violence, but a deliberate, sacred process of severance. It is the sacred act of severing ties with that which no longer serves us—be it a toxic relationship, a destructive habit, or an unhealed wound. Through this rite, we reclaim our agency, our sovereignty, and our future. In the ancient world, destruction rituals were performed to obliterate the influence of enemies and to purify the land. The Egyptians crafted execration texts, inscribed curses upon figurines or clay tablets which were then smashed and buried to symbolically annihilate their foes. Similarly, in parts of Asia, statues or objects were submerged in water along with deceased loved ones. They were profound statements of intent, of closure, and of transformation. Today, we invoke this tradition with reverence. We do not seek to harm others, but to liberate ourselves from the chains of the past. We gather our intentions, our will, and our focus, and we channel them into this sacred act. This ritual is consent based. If you do not feel comfortable in participating, there is no requirement or pressure to do anything you do not wish to participate in. What we faith leaders are asking you, to do is step forward and write a name, a phrase, a memory, or an experience that you wish to no longer to carry with you, on one of these pieces of paper. And release it into this bowl of water. This is a space for reflection and for honoring thyself. This moment is yours. Afterwards, myself and other faith leaders will be at the front of the stage and would love to hear your stories if you are in a place of sharing. The hugs are free and so is your future. A future you choose to create on your terms.
  - From A New Rage Room Is Ready For You, Leslie Bridgers, Portland Press Herald, 2025: There’s no question people are worked up about all sorts of things these days, and while some are channeling their anger by gathering in protest or on social media, a new business is offering another option: breaking stuff. The Wreck Room opened in January and every month since, demand has multiplied for its ax throwing, paint splatter, air-gun range and most of all, its rage rooms. Aside from breakups, the current political climate is the most common reason people come in, said owner Brent Gumbs. But despite his impeccable timing, that’s not why he started the business. Growing up in New Hampshire, Gumbs said he saw too many of his peers turn to drugs and “wanted to try to counteract that” by offering less self-destructive activities in the Midcoast, where he had noted a similar lack of things to do, especially in bad weather. The rage rooms are the main attraction, offering a private space for customers to unleash their anger by taking a bat or a hammer to various breakable objects including vases, Mason jars and, for an additional cost, appliances like TVs, toasters and crockpots. Although rage rooms have been around for more than a decade, there aren’t many in Maine, and none in the southern part of the state. Perhaps we had been too peaceable a lot until now. I’ll admit, I wasn’t feeling particularly ragey when I decided to head up to Topsham to give it a try but pretty quickly things got serious. First, there was the waiver, releasing The Wreck Room of any responsibility for whatever I did to myself in there. Then I was given a plastic face shield and what looked like gardening gloves to protect me from the objects I was about to break and those in the pile of previously smashed material on the floor. There was a plastic tub holding 10 items: a pint glass, some Mason jars and vases, a ceramic mug, a pail and a cooking pot lid. There was also an old water heater lying on its side that Gumbs said was for people to beat on or to prop up the items before hitting them into the wall, like some sort of very impractical softball tee. In the corner were several baseball bats, a hammer and a pickax. Truthfully, I didn’t give my inner rage much of a chance. Though I’m no physicist, it seemed that the harder I hit these things, the faster the shards flew back at me. So, rather than swinging for the fences, I went for more of a slap hit followed by a flinch and duck. Although I never fully unleashed my anger, you don’t have to be bitter to enjoy The Wreck Room. You can shoot at glass bottles from a much more comfortable distance in the air-gun range or put on a full-body suit and take spray guns to the walls of the paint splatter room. There’s also a bar serving f specialty cocktails, as well as snacks, with plans to add more food. Gumbs has other ambitions, too. He’s getting a glass pulverizer to turn the broken objects into sand that he wants to donate to help restore the coastline. The day after I was there, he held his first trivia night and later that week, an ax-throwing competition. Those sound like good activities to do any day, but I’ll wait to revisit the rage room. https://www.pressherald.com/2025/04/21/feeling-angry-a-new-rage-room-in-topsham-is-ready-for-you/

The post Episode 202: Satanic Destruction Rituals appeared first on Black Mass Appeal.

Episode 199: Moloch’s Summer BBQ Spectacular

Black Mass Appeal — Wed, 09 Jul 2025 00:41:35 +0000

Time to fire up the coals for a modest proposal as we grill some historians about some of their most brazen claims.

SHOW LINKS

- From The Dead Past, Isaac Asimov, 1956: The Carthaginians, it seemed, worshiped Moloch, in the form of a hollow, brazen idol with a furnace in its belly. At times of national crisis, infants were hurled alive into the flames. They were given sweetmeats just before the crucial moment, in order that the sacrifice not be ruined by displeasing cries of panic. The drums rolled just after the moment to drown out the few seconds of infant shrieking. The parents were present, presumably gratified, for the sacrifice was pleasing to the gods. Potterley frowned at all this: Vicious lies, he told her, on the part of Carthage’s enemies. Such propagandistic lies were not uncommon: According to the Greeks, the ancient Hebrews worshiped an ass’s head; according to the Romans, the primitive Christians sacrificed pagan children in the catacombs. “Then they didn’t do it?” asked Caroline. “I’m sure they didn’t,” he replied. “Human sacrifice is commonplace in primitive cultures, but Carthage in her great days was not a primitive culture. The Greeks and Romans might have mistaken some Carthaginian symbolism for the full rite, either out of ignorance or out of malice. Could people fight so for a city and a way of life as bad as the ancient writers painted it? Hannibal was a better general than any Roman, and his soldiers were absolutely faithful to him. Even his bitterest enemies praised him. They talk of Moloch, a twenty-five-hundred-year-old canard started by the Greeks and Romans. They had their own slaves, their crucifixions and torture, their gladiatorial contests. They weren’t holy. The Moloch story is war propaganda, the big lie. I can prove it was a lie. I can prove it and, by Heaven, I will.
- From Salammbo, Gustave Flaubert, 1862: The temple of Moloch was built at the foot of a steep defile in a sinister spot. The night was gloomy, a greyish fog seemed to weigh upon the sea, which beat against the cliff with a noise of death-rattles and sobs. As soon as the doorway was crossed one found oneself in a vast quadrangular court. In the centre rose a mass of architecture with eight equal faces surmounted by cupolas thronged around a kind of rotunda, from which sprang a cone with a re-entrant curve and terminating in a ball on the summit. Fires were burning in cylinders of filigree-work fitted upon poles, which men were carrying to and fro. Here and there on the flag-stones huge lions couched like sphinxes, living symbols of the devouring sun. Here it was that the Ancients laid aside their sticks of narwhal horn, for a law which was always observed inflicted the punishment of death upon anyone entering the meeting with any kind of weapon. These men were generally thick-set, with curved noses like those of the Assyrian colossi. In a few, however, the more prominent cheek-bone, the taller figure, and the narrower foot betrayed an African origin and nomad ancestors. Those who lived continually shut up in their counting-houses had pale faces; others showed in theirs the severity of the desert, and strange jewels sparkled on all the fingers of their hands, which were burnt by unknown suns. Part of a wall in the temple of Moloch was thrown down in order to draw out the brazen god without touching the ashes of the altar. Then came all the inferior forms of the Divinity: Baal-Samin, god of celestial space; Baal-Peor, god of the sacred mountains; Baal-Zeboub, god of corruption. Before each tabernacle a man balanced a large vase of smoking incense on his head. Masters of the finances, governors of provinces, sailors, and the numerous horde employed at funerals were making their way towards the tabernacles; out of deference to Moloch they adorned themselves with the most splendid jewels. A fire of aloes, cedar, and laurel was burning. The children ascended slowly, their wrists and ankles tied. The appetite of the god was never appeased: He ever wished for more. The faithful came into the passages, dragging their children, and they beat them in order to make them let go. The instrument-players sometimes stopped through exhaustion; then the cries of the mothers might be heard, and the frizzling of the fat as it fell upon the coals.
- From The King James Bible, 1611: Thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy god. Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molec, he shall surely be put to death. And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people because he hath given unto Molech to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name. And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not, then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go a whoring after him to commit whoredom with Molech. Solomon did evil in the sight of the lord and built a high place for Chemosh, the abomination, and for Molech, the abomination of the children of Ammon. And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire to Molech. For this city hath been to me as a provocation of mine anger and they have turned unto me the back, and not the face, and they set their abominations in the house, which is called by my name, to defile it. Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings, O house of Israel? Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Moloch: and [so] I will carry you away beyond Babylon.
- - From The Cult of Moloch, Jewish Virtual LIbrary, 2017: Evidence concerning Moloch worship in ancient Israel is found in the Bible. The laws of the Holiness Code speak about giving or passing children to Moloch Deuteronomy speaks of “passing [one’s] son or daughter through fire,” although Moloch is not named in the Deuteronomy passage. Some scholars interpret the phrase “pass through” as a reference to a divinatory or protective rite in which children were passed through a fire but not physically harmed. However, the same phrase is found in an unmistakable context of burning in Numbers. Psalms speaks of child sacrifice to the unnamed idols of Canaan; prophetic sources like Jeremiah and Ezekiel speak disapprovingly of sacrificing children to Yahweh. Only in Jeremiah 32 is Moloch mentioned by name, and there he is associated with Baal. As the classical sources have it, the sacrifices of children at Carthage, a colony founded by Phoenicians on the coast of Northeast Tunisia, usually came after a defeat and a great disaster – a religious practice based upon an ancient mythological tradition. The accepted view since Abraham Geiger is that Moloch is a mis-vocalization of the word melekh, for “king.” Since it is unlikely that one particular god who is not especially famous would be singled out for mention while other prominent gods are not mentioned by name in the Torah even once, Molech has been interpreted to mean “lambe” or “vow,” while some scholars understood the term as referring to the human sacrifice itself. The most plausible explanation is, as has already been suggested, that the term means “king of humankind,” and is the epithet of the god to whom the inscription is dedicated. The word “king” was indeed a common attribute of the deities in the Phoenician-Punic sphere.
    - As already indicated above, the sources speak about passing children to Moloch in fire. According to the rabbinic interpretation, this prohibition is against passing children through fire and then delivering them to the pagan priests–an initiation rite. A similar non-sacrificial tradition, perhaps more ancient, is found in the Book of Jubilees connecting intermarrriage or rather the marrying off of one’s children to pagans with the sin of Moloch. The common denominator of all these traditions is the understanding of Moloch worship as the transfer of Jewish children to paganism either by delivering them directly to pagan priests or by procreation with a pagan woman. This tradition is in keeping with the general rabbinic tendency to make biblical texts relevant to their audiences, who were more likely to be attracted to Greco-Roman cults and pagan women than to the sacrifice of humans to a long-forgotten god. This figurative interpretation was accepted by the fact that Ahaz, who opened the door to Assyrian culture and religion, was the first king to indulge in the worship of Moloch, along with other practices such as the burning of incense on the roofs. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-cult-of-moloch
- From Moloch, Isidore Singer & Geor, Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906: The motive for these sacrifices is not far to seek. Micah says, “Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” In the midst of the disasters which were befalling the nation, men felt that if the favor of Yhwh could be regained it was worth any price. Other tribes worshiped their gods with offerings of children, so in their desperation the Israelites did the same. For some reason, perhaps because not all the priestly and prophetic circles approved of the movement, they made the offerings not in the Temple but at an altar or pyre in the valley of Hinnom. 1 Kings calls Molech the “abomination of the children of Ammon”; it was formerly assumed that this worship was an imitation of an Ammonite cult, but little is known of the Ammonite religion; because child-sacrifice was a prominent feature of the worship of Phoenician gods, Moore seeks to prove that the worship of Moloch was introduced from Phoenicia. Jeremiah declares that Yhwh had not commanded these sacrifices, while Ezekiel says Yhwh polluted the Israelites in their offerings by permitting them to sacrifice their first-born so that through chastisement they might know god’s authority. The fact, therefore, now generally accepted by critical scholars, is that human sacrifices were offered to Yhwh as King or Counselor of the nation and that the Prophets disapproved of it and denounced it because it was introduced from outside as an imitation of a heathen cult and because of its barbarity. In course of time “Melek” was changed to “Molech” to still further stigmatize the rites. https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10937-moloch-molech
- From Ancient Carthaginians really did sacrifice their children, Oxford University Press, 2014: A collaborative paper by academics from institutions across the globe, including Oxford University, suggests that Carthaginian parents ritually sacrificed young children as an offering to the gods. The paper argues that well-meaning attempts to interpret the ‘tophets’ – ancient infant burial grounds – simply as child cemeteries are misguided. In the 1970, scholars began to argue that the theory was simply anti-Carthaginian propaganda, but Dr Josephine Quinn of Oxford said: ‘It’s becoming increasingly clear that the stories about Carthaginian child sacrifice are true. This is something the Romans and Greeks said the Carthaginians did and it was part of the popular history of Carthage in the 18th and 19th centuries. But in the 20th century, people increasingly took the view that this was racist propaganda against a political enemy and that Carthage should be saved from this terrible slander. What we are saying now is that the archaeological, literary, and documentary evidence for child sacrifice is overwhelming and that instead of dismissing it out of hand, we should try to understand it.’ The city-state of ancient Carthage was a Phoenician colony located in what is now Tunisia from around 800BC until 146BC, when it was destroyed by the Romans. Children – both male and female, and mostly a few weeks old – were sacrificed by the Carthaginians at locations known as tophets. Dr Quinn said: ‘People have tried to argue that these archaeological sites are cemeteries for children who were stillborn or died young, but quite apart from the fact that a weak, sick or dead child would be a pretty poor offering to a god, and that animal remains are found in the same sites treated in exactly the same way, it’s hard to imagine how the death of a child could count as the answer to a prayer. It’s very difficult for us to recapture people’s motivations for carrying out this practice or why parents would agree to it; perhaps it was out of profound religious piety, or a sense that the good the sacrifice could bring the family or community as a whole outweighed the life of the child. We also have to remember the high level of mortality among children.” The backlash against the notion of Carthaginian child sacrifice began in the second half of the 20th century and was led by scholars from Tunisia and Italy, the very countries in which tophets have been found. Perhaps the very reason the people who established Carthage and its neighbours left their original home of Phoenicia – modern-day Lebanon – was because others there disapproved of their religious practices. Child abandonment was common in the ancient world, but child sacrifice is relatively uncommon. Perhaps the future Carthaginians were like the Pilgrim Fathers leaving from Plymouth, so fervent in their devotion to the gods that they weren’t welcome anymore. https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2014-01-23-ancient-carthaginians-really-did-sacrifice-their-children
- From Child Sacrifice and the Greek Legendary Tradition, John Rundin, Journal of Biblical Literature, 2004: The Athenians, as punishment for their killing of King Minos’s son, periodically sent young men and women to Minos in Crete, where they were turned over to the Minotaur to be devoured. It has long been conjectured that the legend of the Minotaur reflects Semitic child sacrifice. Minos’s story itself connects him with the Phoenicians; legend has him as the son of Europa, daughter of the Phoenician king. Crete, then, might well be a place where such rituals were practiced. Furthermore, the preadult status of the victims sent to the Minotaur recalls the young age of the children sacrificed in those rites. But the connection between the Minotaur and child sacrifice does not end there: The Hebrew and Christian Scriptures speak of Molech or Moloch, who has been erroneously thought to be a god to whom children were sacrificed. Interestingly, medieval and modern sources represent Molech as a calf-headed, human-bodied bronze or copper idol; this tradition has no foundation in extant ancient Jewish or Hebrew sources; Moore traced it back only as far as medieval Jewish commentaries. In his view, this portrayal of Molech derives from classical sources which describe a bronze idol of Cronus at which children were sacrificed in Carthage. Moore suggested that Molech’s calf-head derives from the Minotaur of Greek legend.
- In fact, the medieval figure of Molech probably derives from a tradition that intermingles not only Cronus of Carthage and the Minotaur but at least two other source: One is the legend of Talos, a creature made of bronze, [often imagined as a giant] but referenced in at least one source to be a bull. The other obvious tradition that feeds into the image of Molech comes from the Greek city of Acragas in Sicily, which lay close to Punic settlements and where a notoriously cruel tyrant roasted his enemies alive in a bronze bull. The particular association of the Minotaur with child sacrifice gets further support from evidence involving rites on ancient Cyprus in the second and first millennia B.C.E. There, Shawn O’Bryhim has argued, bull-masked priests sacrificed children. It is tempting to speculate why bull imagery might play such a prominent role in child sacrifice. Unfortunately, bull iconography is so common in ancient Near Eastern religion that false hypotheses can easily find support. The Scriptures of the Hebrews call god the Bull of Jacob, and in Exodus Aaron has a golden calf made, while Jeroboam enshrines two golden calves in 1 Kings, identified as the gods who led the Israelites out of Egypt. Could these bulls have been images of Yahweh? These narratives, as we have received them, reflect a hostile tradition that accuses the Israelites of apostasy. That may not be how everyone would have seen these events however, which may reflect a tradition of Yahweh worship that involved images of bulls that later scriptures opposed.
- From Howl, Alan Ginsberg, 1955: What sphinx of cement and aluminum bashed open their skulls and ate up their brains and imagination? Moloch! Solitude! Filth! Ugliness! Ashcans and unobtainable dollars! Children screaming under the stairways! Boys sobbing in armies! Old men weeping in the parks! Moloch! Moloch! Nightmare of Moloch! Moloch the loveless! Mental Moloch! Moloch the heavy judger of men! Moloch the incomprehensible prison! Moloch the crossbone soulless jailhouse and Congress of sorrows! Moloch whose buildings are judgment! Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments! Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb! Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities! Moloch whose love is endless oil and stone! Moloch whose soul is electricity and banks! Moloch whose poverty is the specter of genius! Moloch whose fate is a cloud of sexless hydrogen! Moloch whose name is the Mind! Moloch in whom I sit lonely! Moloch in whom I dream Angels! Moloch whom I abandon! Wake up in Moloch! Light streaming out of the sky! Robot apartments! invisible suburbs! skeleton treasuries! blind capitals! demonic industries! spectral nations! invincible madhouses! granite cocks! monstrous bombs! They broke their backs lifting Moloch to Heaven! Pavements, trees, radios, tons! lifting the city to Heaven which exists and is everywhere about us! Visions! omens! hallucinations! miracles! ecstasies! gone down the American river! the whole boatload of sensitive bullshit! down on the rocks of Time! Real holy laughter in the river! They saw it all! the wild eyes! the holy yells! They bade farewell! They jumped off the roof! to solitude! waving! carrying flowers! Down to the river! into the street!
- From Moloch Malarky: Does Fox News Know Anything About Fox News? Daniel Walker, 2019: Fox News host and ambulatory combover Todd Starnes nattered about “the pagan god Moloch” and the ye old ritual human sacrifice schtick on Monday and the only ones surprised by this were his employers at Fox News, and when “Moloch” starts trending on Twitter that’s as close to an actual Bat Signal as I’m personally ever going to get, so far be it for me to look a gift bull in the mouth. If you’ve never heard of Todd Starnes before, he’s the author of the 2009 book They Popped My Hood and Found Gravy On the Dipstick. That’s not a joke, that’s the real title. He also blames school shootings on Satan. That’s not a joke either, chiefly because it’s not at all funny. Until very very very very recently Starnes had a Fox News radio show, which until very very very very recently featured Rob Jeffress as a guest. And If you’ve never heard of Rob Jeffress, he’s a Baptist preacher who thinks Catholics are Satanists, which is most of all offensive for giving me something in common with Catholics, in that we both hate Rob Jeffress. He’s also on the White House’s Evangelical Advisory Board, which for some reason is a thing that exists. On Monday, Starnes and Jeffress were yucking it up on the radio about their common interest in marrying their sisters in law and converting modern currency into talents of silver…or whatever, I don’t listen to evangelical radio, I have no idea what they talk about. Then Jeffress succumbed to his compulsions and said of Democrats, “the god they worship is the pagan god of the Old Testament Moloch, who allowed for child sacrifice.” Starnes did not actually agree with this statement in so many words, but neither did he question how long his guest had stared directly into the sun that morning, and since that’s pretty much the only normal thing to say at that juncture Fox decided to fire him. I know what you’re thinking, and yeah, I didn’t know you could actually get fired from Fox News either. Starnes also once got fired from Baptist Press for inventing quotes and claiming the Secretary of Education said them, which I assume is how he qualified for the Fox job. Also surprised: Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who pointed out that people saying conspiratorial religious bullshit is the only commodity Fox News really has, so why was this supposedly bad? “How was he supposed to know this was below their standards?” she quipped on Twitter.
- She’s probably just kicking Starnes’ soft, pale underbelly while it happens to be showing, but the truth is this is a very good question. If you ask me, the firing makes Fox News look incredibly out of touch. Talk about shadowy baby-eating cults and devilish pagan gods is EXTREMELY common with the absolute freaks in their audience. If they don’t realize this, you’ve got to wonder what the “news” part of Fox News even does., #Qanon quacks used to burn up the bytes all night with talk of “elite Satan worshippers [sic] who sacrifice children to Moloch.” As a non-elite Satan worshiper I guess I wouldn’t know; the biggest sacrifice I’ve made this month is eating a single Impossible Burger to combat climate change and also to prove that the burger is paradoxically possible. Dailywire editor Josh Hammer beat Jeffress and Starnes to this verbatim Moloch malarky by nearly a month. But Hammer was just nailing down the impossibly named Erick Erickson’s identical comments, while LifeSite was saying it on the exact same day as Starnes’ broadcast. In 2013, serial blackboard abuser Glenn Beck even wrote a fever-ridden novel about “a shadow war waged by an elite cabal of tyrants” led by a “trillionaire” George Soros stand-in. His title: The Eye of Moloch. Pushing this hustle to the masses, Beck declared, “Soon this will be a history book, and then it won’t be so enjoyable.” In 2014, the apologetics site CARM wrote of supposed Moloch worship, “I can’t help but compare today’s abortion massacre to the sacrifice of children by these ancient pagans.” Why, did women have to drive across three states to see Moloch too? The Wanderer, a Catholic newspaper calls Democrats “the Party of Moloch,” which actually sounds like a hell of a rave. Charisma News, the pity fuck of Christian blogs, says the same thing. So does the US Pastor Council. Bill Mitchell, the conspiracy asshole who looks like a deep fake of Benedict Cumberbatch with David Lynch’s hair, regularly raves on Twitter that “Democrats worship Moloch.” And Catholic anti-abortion group Human Life International was flogging this pony as far back as 2007, which in Trump years was roughly the 17th century ago. If the execs at Fox News are not broiling in the juices of baby-eating religious conspiracies 19 hours a day, they’re going to very shortly become the only ones. https://www.satanicbayarea.com/2019/10/07/fox-news-moloch-starnes/
- From Mark Twain Did Not Sacrifice Babies to Moloch, T. Adler, Urban Fictionary, 2019: In 2000, Alex Jones filmed a documentary titled Dark Secrets: Inside Bohemian Grove, supposedly revealing the suspicious happenings in The Bohemian Club in California. He claimed he had proof that some of the most powerful men in America were part of a secret cabal of Satanists running a global government. These claims are ridiculous, but the Bohemian Club maintains enough secrecy that it is difficult to disprove. The club was founded in in the 1870s, but soon after, wealthy politicians and businessmen took control of it. Nowadays, the Bohemian Club is almost entirely made up of well-connected, wealthy, primarily white, conservative, Christian men. A new member can only be inducted after a vote by a panel and an induction fee affordable only to the wealthy. The club hosts a two-week retreat once a year, called an “encampment,” where members hike, perform plays, and give presentations called “Lakeside Talks.” Members have included Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, Mark Twain, and Walter Cronkite. It begins with an opening ceremony called the “Cremation of Care” in front of the camp’s totem, a large cement owl. The Cremation of Care is a play written by one of Bohemian Grove’s founding members, James T. Bowman. More reliable sources describe it as an odd play. Jones claims that members sacrifice an effigy of a child to the Biblical child-eating pagan god named “Moloch,” and take part in orgies, and sex trafficking. Members of the club do in fact, burn an effigy, although not of a child. Instead, they burn an effigy of “dull care,” symbolizing that they are releasing their anxieties about the outside world. Mary Moore, lifetime activist and longtime protester of the Bohemian Club, claimed that while the Satanist, baby-murdering conspiracy theories are “all bullshit,” she fears that politicians and business executives use the club to make political decisions and influence public policy without transparency. It seems unusual that a popular conspiracy theory about Republican politicians is advocated by Alex Jones, a leading proponent of conservative causes. Many people see politics today as a war for the heart of the country. They may be less willing to damage the reputation of their own party through conspiracies and more willing to villainize the opposition. Bohemian Grove conspiracy theories might be dying out, but a contemporary version has taken its place, signaling that paranoia of elitist conspiracy is alive and well, in the QAnon conspiracy, where the names have been updated, the opposition has been villainized, and the message is still the same.

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