The Disablot Order of the Deorc Fyre, 1997In today's world of image conscious paganism and new neo-breeds of wicca, attempts are made to recreate, and invent a moralistic pagan past. Many pagans, beset with contemporary standards and morality, wishfully believe that sacrifice, both human and animal, was not part of pagan culture. As a result, their consumer brands of paganism are often devoid of any integrity or relevance, because they choose to ignore what was , in fact, an integral element of all forms of the pagan mysteries.In the Iron Age practice of Viking religion, sacrifices of hung warriors were given to the Aesir god Odin, while blood sacrifices were offered to Thor, and at an earlier period of history, to Tyr/Twisto. In Celtic religions, religions rituals such as those that invoked the dark god Crom Cruaich required an altar to be covered completely with human blood, while the entrails would be used for augury. One of the most famous forms of pagan sacrifice was the notorious wickermen, in which hundreds of victims were packed and then set alight.The sacrifices most pertinent to this discussion are those offered to the Dark Goddess, the disablot. Two of the most familiar forms from the Northern mysteries were the crushing of victims beneath new boats, to sanctify them, and to win the favour of Ran, the stormy aspect of the goddess Hela. The second example are the offerings to Hela, who were first strangled, and then left to descend into Hel, by sinking into Denmark's all enveloping peat-bogs.What is most significant to consider about human sacrifice is that, throughout its history, the victims were invariably male; and it is only under the patriarchal influence of this present culture that this has changed in the common mind. In the worship of both Kali and Shiva, by law only male animals were offered, while the thuggees, the Kali-worshipping thugs of central India, would only kill men, and women had nothing to fear from them; a point that was, inevitably, lost on the makers of the pulp Indiana Jones movies. The priestesses of Artemis, at Taurus, would sacrifice all men who happened to land on their shore, nailing their heads to crosses. While at Hierapolis, her victims would be hung on artificial trees within her temple.The ancient, and trans-cultural, belief in the sacrificial use of male victims, and the sanctity of females, appears to be based on the understanding that, to ensure the fertility of a biological group a high supply of females is necessary, whereas males are expendable; and indeed, too many males in a single group may prove to be detrimental to the gene-pool, or breeding stock.This same tenant appears in England's sinister traditions, maintained into the present by some magickal groups, where a young male was chosen for sacrifice every seventeen years to ensure cosmic balance. The opfer was made an honorary priest, and would have intercourse with the Priestess as a symbol of the Hiera Gamos, or sacred marriage between goddess and god. He was then sacrificed, usually through decapitation, to the dark goddess, Baphomet, and his head would be displayed for, usually, a night and a day. In death, the opfer would become immortal, part of the cosmos, and so the sacrifice was often undergone willingly.This method of sacrifice immediately recalls the veneration of the head in both Celtic, and Nordic mystery religions, in which the decapitated head would become a source of wisdom, and prophecy. Similarly, men being dedicated to the goddess Artemis were cut on the neck, a vestige of the previous use of beheading, and something which is still imitated with the practice of knighting. Even in the biblical record, we find the story of John the Baptist, whose death by beheading was brought about by his lover, the sacred prostitute Salome.Although in many sacrificial rites the victim was willing, not nearly as willing was another seasonal sacrifice, known as the Barley Dream, which has Somerset origins. The victim (sacrificial king) would be brought into a field of corn, made to drink a draught containing cannabis, belladonna, and various other hallucinogenic plants, and then his wrists would be cut. Then, while in this phantasmagorial state, he would slowly dream himself into the corn, merging with the goddess. It is interesting to consider that, whereas men had to die to ensure the fertility of the land, women could do exactly the same during menstruation. It was held that a menstruating woman could protect a field of crops by walking around it, or simply exposing her genitals within it.The seasonal killing of the corn-king is, a wide-spread cultural fixture, as the role of king was seen as temporal, and ultimately subject to the wyrd of the goddess. Its most suitably Helish form occurred as the Liebestod, Love-Death. The Liebestod took place when the temporary consort of the goddess, or goddess-incarnate, was no longer needed by the eternal goddess, when his heill or gaefa (his divine force) became exhausted, and she would kill him. The most famous example is Atilla the Hun, who is seen as Atli/Etzel in the Nibelungen saga. He married Queen Gimhild, the Dark Goddess Hela made manifest, but on their wedding night, she killed him, leaving the wedding bed soaked in his blood.A second form of sacrifice is the self-sacrifice, a ritual suicide. The perceived realism of the modern world, and of modern Satanism, has engendered the attitude that death is a negation of all life. This is evident in the image-conscious Satanism of America, where in an attempt to improve public image, proponents vehemently deny any interest, or relevance in death, choosing instead, to enact a pretence of revelling in life.A Satanist however, while revelling in life, also realises the cyclic regenerative nature of death. Death is understood as inevitable, necessary, and most importantly, the formula to creation of a new life, or rather the continuation of the current life in a new state. Therefore if someone should feel that it is indicative of their wyrd to leave this level of existence, they do so, and with the appropriate amount of ceremony. The ultimate disablot is one in which the offerer is also the offering.The disablot is not necessarily something that needs to be held up as a centrical act, but rather, acknowledged for its place in traditional paganism. Where the cycles of life, and death, and the Death Goddess, were not mere abstractions, as they often are today.