Quote from truthseeker:
What I kept wondering about was the emphasis on animal sacrifices to please the gods. This habit totally flies in the face of Gurdjieff's bashing of animal sacrifices in Beelzebubs Tales to his Grandson, chapter 18 (which I'm listening to right now). I wonder if sacrifices were built into the story as a kind of strategic enclosure, to pass through the restrictions of the control system. I have no other explanation, because in my eyes, sacrifices aren't positive at all (except for 4D STS gods maybe).
Look at sacrifice in terms of the contrast that it provides to the wanton destruction of Telemacho's inheritance, the disrespect to Telemachos, to the gods, and to Penelope, and I think a case can be made that the sacrifice is the beginning of Telemahos's induction into the rule of law. First of all, it is the first event that Telemachos experiences when he reaches Pylos, the island of Nestor, the wise old warrior who fought with Odysseus in The Trojan War, the one who carries the institutional memory of the way things should be done.
In contrast to the barbaric feasting in Ithaca, this meal is ceremonial: every aspect of it is choreographed, the gods are honored, and each man is assured his portion in an orderly way by taking his rightful place in his own guild discerning his rightful place among the the nine guilds each containing 500 men. It appears that there has been much experience in ordering this feast down to the nine bulls that are required to make sure that each guild receives enough meat provide the food for each man's meal.
The guests are welcomed and given choice cuts of meat and poured wine to drink. They are told to offer a prayer to the gods "For men can not live without god in the world."
The "sacrifice" here is not a sacrificen the way I think Truth Seeker understands it to be but rather may be looked at instead as a very formal ceremonial meal. Every action taken is taken with great consciousness and respect. Everyone has a place, understands the protocol, and follows it.
This experience is crucial for Telemachos who has grown up without a father and has not been inducted into the proper way a man is to behave and require others to behave in a lawful society.
We all have to sacrifice something in our lives. Telemachos has to sacrifice the example he had been given by the suitors in order to be able to take his place as the son of a king and become a future King of Ithaca. He must learn the proper way to honor and address the gods. Although he was already noble of spirit, and had passed all the tests that Athena had set for him, he desperately needs this training.
To carry the theme a little further, I suggest that this scene foreshadows Odysseus' refusal of immortality which Calypso uses to entice him to stay with her. But Odysseus embraces his humanity and chooses mortality instead. He has suffered greatly already and lost all men. However, he chooses hardship for the chance to be reunited with the part of his being that is embodied in Penelope, his wife, his soul even though as mortals both of them will die. But perhaps, in another sense each will attain a different quality of immortality than that represented by an immortal such as Calypso who can take what she wants without the payment in suffering that humans must make. By contrast, although immortal, she seems shallow and one dimensional in contrast to the depth and breadth of Odysseus' love for home, and family because, as a god, she will never suffer the way that Odysseus and Penelope have.
I think that it can't be otherwise. I think that sacrifice is necessary for growth and for the possibilty of awakening the sacred in ourselves.