that of ritual sacrifice. Why do people gather around and kill stuff (animals

and even people)? What in the world is going on here? One of the most useful

perspectives on this strange behavior is provided by mimetic theory, especially

in René Girard’s book “Violence and the Sacred”—so this is the perspective that

we’ll be looking at in this podcast, the fourth in our series on mimetic

theory. The link between ritual sacrifice and scapegoating is also introduced.