Ritual Sacrifice as Group Cohesion Mechanism
Historical civilizations including Aztecs, Phoenicians, Romans, and Spartans practiced ritualized human sacrifice. Modern examples include what occurs in Gaza, where 47% of the population is under 18, making casualties predominantly children—functioning as contemporary ritual sacrifice.
Ultimate Taboo: Unity Through Engineered Hatred
Israeli extremists deliberately create spectacle of killing children rather than using efficient secret methods. This pattern appears throughout history—groups intentionally perform acts society finds most disgusting to unify themselves against universal condemnation. Spartans practiced similar strategies, making themselves hated across Greece.
River Behind Your Back: No-Escape Strategy
Ancient Chinese generals famously employed this tactic. Modern Israeli extremists use analogous strategy in Gaza, creating situation where retreat means destruction, forcing population into total commitment. Any general facing scattered, demoralized troops can apply this principle.
Common Language and Divine Founding Myths
One hundred men from different countries, speaking different languages—Chinese, English, Spanish, Russian—transplanted onto hostile island with flesh-eating monkeys. Despite diverse backgrounds, poverty, and lack of education, they rapidly create unified linguistic and mythological systems.
Leadership Selection: Sacrifice Over Strategy
During leadership election among hundred desperate men, 65-year-old delivers powerful speech filled with experience, strategies, survival wisdom. Then 15-year-old boy steps forward—inarticulate, no ideas, no experience. He shows his hand, takes knife from pocket, cuts off his hand without crying, looks at everyone as though nothing happened. Everyone picks the boy as leader.
Synchronicity: When Groups Achieve Telepathic Unity
Tightly bonded groups—sports teams, military units, families—develop ability to sense each other across distance. Mother knows son hospitalized in France without phone call. Comrades know when distant brother faces danger. This isn’t mysticism—it’s documented phenomenon emerging from deep cohesion.
Hazing: Brotherhood Through Shared Brutality
Spartan boys aged five and six, taken from homes, placed in schools run by older boys aged 10-11. Modern fraternities, sports teams, military units practice similar rituals. The pattern transcends culture and era—young initiates systematically brutalized by slightly older members.