Moloch and the circulation of Myth

Moloch (also Molech, Molekh, Molok, Molek, Molock, Moloc, or simply the letter combination MLK) is the alleged name of an ancient Ammonite god with the head of a bull. Worship to this god in the form of propitiatory child and animal sacrifice — particularly by fire — has been attributed to Canaanites, Phoenician and related cultures in North Africa and the Levant.

Awkwardly, accounts of these bloody rituals have been written by enemies of these peoples, thus it seems impossible to know the context of these activities or whether they actually occurred.  Accounts of these rituals are as suspect as the Spanish accounts of Aztec sacrifice during the time when Spanish military officers were trying to gain Spanish support for their activities suppressing the people they encountered in The New World. Subsequent archeological discoveries have made it clear that some sort of human sacrifice was indeed practiced by the Aztecs perhaps even in forms reminiscent of the vivid descriptions in Spanish drawings and written accounts.

Archeological evidence of Moloch worship is much less clear. Read more here:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moloch

• http://peterjfast.com/2012/02/16/moloch-an-appetite-for-children/

What interests me is the life of such myths and their potency for the people who circulate them.

To do:

• Think about circulation of the Moloch story among the Israelites who published the first written references to this god as prohibitions.  Israelites were specifically told not to participate in such sacrifices. Why? Were they prone to? Or were the authors of the text simply establishing an other against which to define themselves?The Moloch image continues to be repeated as fact and placed in association with contemporary issues to serve various contemporary political agendas:

The ancients would heat this idol up with fire until it was glowing, then they would take their newborn babies, place them on the arms of the idol, and watch them burn to death.  I can’t help but compare today’s abortion massacre to the sacrifice of children by these ancient pagans.  In both, innocent life is destroyed for the gain of the parent.
(http://carm.org/christianity/miscellaneous-topics/moloch-ancient-pagan-god-child-sacrifice)

• Think about circulation of The Rite of Spring. This story is entirely manufactured based on an imagined “pagan Russia” and inspired by the roundly discredited theories of The Golden Bough, which circulated widely in the decades before The Rite of Spring emerged.

We cannot learn about the characters or cultures described in the myth, because the myth does not reliably point to a particular source. But we can learn about those who create, consume and circulate it.

Related:
The Munich Cosmic Circle was a group of writers and intellectuals in Germany associated with the mystic Alfred Schuler.

“They developed a doctrine according to which the West was plagued by downfall and degeneration, caused by the rationalizing and demythologizing effects of Christianity. A way out of this desolate state could, according to the “Cosmic” view, only be found by a return to pagan origins.” (wikipedia)

This urge toward (some imagined) pagan roots similarly motivates both The Golden Bough and The Rite of Spring. These urges also inspired the back-to-the-earth experiments of the artists and intellectuals at Monte Verita, where Rudolf Laban staged his first community movement ritual, Ode to the Sun in 1913.

Aside:
“In writings of the so-called Munich Cosmic Circle the name Moloch was used to symbolize a hostile to life, emotionally cold and intellectualist principle.” (wikipedia citation: Karl und Hanna Wolfskehl – Briefwechsel mit Friedrich Gundolf. Edited by Karlhans Kluncker. Castrum Peregrini Presse, 1977 ISBN 9060340329)

Sacrifice to Moloch copy/pasted from peterjfast.com. Please contact me with any further information about this image: artist, time period, publisher, etc. Thank you.

More Moloch:

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/m/moloch.html
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10443b.htm
http://carm.org/christianity/miscellaneous-topics/moloch-ancient-pagan-god-child-sacrifice
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10937-moloch-molech
http://peterjfast.com/2012/02/16/moloch-an-appetite-for-children/