blood sacrifice
Sacred bloodletting rite
Blood sacrifice is the ritual killing of a living creature as an offering to a deity, spirit, or supernatural force.
The practice appears across ancient religions and some contemporary traditions, where the shedding of blood carries spiritual significance—atonement, petition, or communion with the divine.
Figuratively, blood sacrifice describes any costly offering or extreme personal price: Building that company required blood sacrifice from everyone involved.
- atonementCompensation for wrongdoing
- sacrificial lambOne offered for others' benefit
- KaliFierce goddess of endings
- immolationSacrificial killing, often burning
- ritual killingCeremonial taking of life
covenant · propitiation · altar · oblation · appeasement · scapegoat · dark gods · ancient gods · purification · bloodletting · invocation · ancient rites · pagan traditions · devotion · slaughter · sanctity · pagan · ritual
- Maya mythologyfeathered serpent, rain god, moon goddess, sun god, world tree
- ancient ritesburnt offering, burnt offerings, fertility rite, fertility rites, initiation rite
- atonementpropitiation, substitution, reconciler, forgiveness, sin offering
- Mosaic lawMoses, Mosaic law, Ten Commandments, tablets of stone, commandment
- paganismWicca, pagan, heathen, polytheist, polytheism
- sacrificeburnt offering, immolation, oblation, libation, votive offering
blood sacrificeprayer
Address to deity
silent meditation · meditation · incense offering · praise · hymn singing