The story told in the book of Genesis, 22: 1-12 is among the most harrowing and heart-rending of the Old Testament tales. Harrowing, because it tells of how God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac, the son for whom he had waited for decades, and who had been vouchsafed to Abraham to be the “child of the promise”, i.e., that Isaac would continue the lineage of his father and thus eventually bring forth the nation of Israel. And now, without any hesitation, Abraham agrees to the divine command to immolate Isaac on Mount Moriah. The tale is heart-rending because, just a few verses after the story ends, the death of Sarah, Isaac’s mother, is narrated. No reason is given for her death; but an ancient Jewish interpretation (midrash) maintains that she died of shock when she heard of what had transpired on Mt. Moriah.
The tale is told with masterful brevity, generating a tension which is almost nail-biting in its intensity. As father and son proceed to the slaughter site, Isaac asks his dad about the animal for the sacrifice. Abraham replies most enigmatically saying “My son, God will provide the animal”. The next line reads, “And the two of them walked on together”, the father ready to fulfil his horrific duty of killing, the son in silent ignorance of his soon-to-be-ended young life: “The most poignant and eloquent silence in all literature”, in the opinion of biblical scholar A. E. Speiser.
The story is so important, that, for devout Jews to this day, it is read every day during their daily prayer. But it has generated a mixed response over the centuries. For the most part, for those who wish to defend the sanctity of scripture, the “morality” of God and the righteousness of Abraham, the story is an uplifting one. Abraham is praised for his faithfulness to God’s command, even to the point of being willing to kill his only son. So the letter to the Hebrews says that Abraham responded to the divine command because of his faith that God would somehow “restore” Isaac (Heb: 11: 17-19).
But it has also received questioning or critical commentaries, the most famous, of which, I think, is that of the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant. He wrote that if something appears to be commanded by God, but that something is obviously in contravention of all decent morality, then the so-called divine decree should be discarded, and morality should be followed. After all, he maintained, the tenets of a moral system can be shown to be rational and intelligible, whereas the so-called divine command may be simply an illusion or hallucinatory.
This last position has been re-iterated by the Jewish scholar Yaakov Malkin, who speaks of the “tragedy and sinfulness of a father who is willing to kill his son, because of his beliefs”. He even refers to the “sinfulness of a God who can order such a command”.
That child sacrifice was sometimes practised in ancient Israel is surely the message of the prophets (e.g., Jeremiah, Ezekial). I mean, why would they rail against such a practice, if it didn’t exist? One of the most memorable quotes on the topic is from the prophet Micah, where he compared any kind of sacrifice with the practice of upright living: “Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Should I offer my own son? You know what the Lord requires: to act justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God” (6: 7-8). Indeed, the practice of sacrifice in general has a distinctly negative, ambivalent tone to it in the Old Testament. The very first occasion of sacrifice was neither requested nor ordered by God but was solely the initiative of Cain & Abel (Genesis 4). When, for reasons not entirely clear, Cain’s sacrifice was not pleasing to the Lord, the consequences were tragic, as he went on to kill his brother Abel. For the official worship in the temple in Jerusalem, what was offered was either animal or agricultural – the firstborn son, supposedly to be offered to God, was instead to be “redeemed”, and an animal immolated in his stead. And then the whole notion of sacrifice was spiritualized, and we get the following: “A sacrifice of praise I will offer to the Lord and call on His name” (Psalm 116:17). And Saint Paul wrote: “I urge you brothers and sisters, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to the Lord”, (Romans: 12: 1-2).
But did human sacrifice end after biblical times? Undoubtedly not. There is evidence from Spanish archives of child sacrifice among the Maya, Inca & Aztec populations; and there is copious evidence of child sacrifice among other nations.
All of the foregoing is simply a prelude to the question: Is child sacrifice still being practised? And the surprising answer is Yes! At least according to Mattias Desmet, professor of psychology at Ghent university (Belgium), who has researched and taught for many years on the subject of “mass psychosis” or “mass hypnosis”. Here is an excerpt from a recent interview:
Desmet: Only 30 percent of the population usually is really into this process of mass psychosis, into this process of collective hypnosis. Then there are an additional 40 or 50 percent who just go along with the measures, who will never ever go against the current [go against the flow]. But the measures really function as a ritual and the rituals are a kind of behaviour that has to be without pragmatic meaning. And it has to demand a sacrifice of the individual. By participating in the ritual, an individual shows that the collective is more important than the individual.
Interviewer: So children, not at all really statistically at risk, just not even touched by COVID, except for very few who have some co-morbidities. Actually, the science says they don’t really transmit COVID all that well either, because they have such high innate immunity to this thing. And yet there are people out there saying we need our children to be masked, even though there’s no science to support the idea that the mask does anything, except it probably harms the child’s cognitive and social development skills at a critical period of time. So people are willing ritualistically to sacrifice their children. Indeed, that’s powerful to me. Is that what we’re talking about?
Desmet: That’s what we are talking about. Yes, that’s exactly what we are talking about.
This is hyperbole surely. I mean they are hardly equating mask-wearing with strapping children onto altars and plunging knives into them – as Abraham had Isaac bound on an altar and indeed had the cleaver held aloft ready to slay him, only for an angel to command him not to proceed. And Desmet and his interviewer hadn’t even touched on the subject of vaccines at this part of their exchange. And yet I find myself agreeing that the interference that has occurred in children’s lives, and which continues unabated, is tantamount to sacrificing something in their lives – whether their basic outlook on life (is childhood an adventure or an obstacle course? Is my neighbour an ally or a threat?) or how they see their future.
I think Mattias Desmet is largely correct in his analysis of our current situation. We are indeed in the throes of a mass psychosis (not mass hysteria, though I’ve witnessed behaviour of a clearly neurotic character), and the percentage of those who have not been convinced is still quite small; but the majority still believe the story (most of the details of which Desmet says are “utterly absurd”), and are willing to go so far as to sacrifice something in the precious lives of their children. Yet, apart from my musing about “sacrificing something” in children’s lives, have there been any harmful effects in following current NHPET recommendations? It is of the utmost importance to recall another so-called pandemic, the swine flu of 2009. When a vaccine was approved for that scare, the chief medical officer in Ireland, a certain Tony Holohan, said emphatically: “We are quite happy that this vaccine, as with all other influenza vaccines, have actually got a very good safety profile. We have no hesitation in recommending it,” (Irish Times, Oct 20, 2009). However, the drug, Pandemrix, was later withdrawn over safety concerns and, in Ireland alone, some 80 cases of people who developed narcolepsy have gone before the courts, seeking compensation.
Fast forward to 28/07/2021, and the same health officer is unrepentant: “Following advice from NIAC, which has been approved by Government, I encourage parents and guardians of those aged 12-15 years of age to register them for a vaccination as soon as the opportunity arises.”