
Sacrifice (Breakthroughs in Mimetic Theory)
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
$0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Buy for $6.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Tim Lundeen
-
By:
-
Rene Girard
About this listen
In Sacrifice, Rene Girard interrogates the Brahmanas of Vedic India, exploring coincidences with mimetic theory that are too numerous and striking to be accidental. Even that which appears to be dissimilar fails to contradict mimetic theory, but instead corresponds to the minimum of illusion without which sacrifice becomes impossible.
The Bible reveals collective violence, similar to that which generates sacrifice everywhere, but instead of making victims guilty, the Bible and the Gospels reveal the persecutors of a single victim. Instead of elaborating myths, they tell the truth absolutely contrary to the archaic sense. Once exposed, the single victim mechanism can no longer function as the model for would-be sacrificers.
Recognizing that the Vedic tradition also converges on a revelation that discredits sacrifice, mimetic theory locates within sacrifice itself a paradoxical power of quiet reflection that leads, in the long run, to the eclipse of this institution which is violent but nevertheless fundamental to the development of human culture.
Far from unduly privileging the Western tradition and awarding it a monopoly on the knowledge and repudiation of blood sacrifice, mimetic analysis recognizes comparable, but never truly identical, traits in the Vedic tradition.
In giving attention to the overlooked subject of Vedic sacrifice in Indian religious tradition, this Stanford Emeritus Professor and member of the French Academy deepens understanding of the universal practice of sacrifice." (Midwest Book Review)
©2011 Rene Girard (P)2013 Redwood AudiobooksListeners also enjoyed...
-
I See Satan Fall Like Lightning
- By: René Girard
- Narrated by: Martin Girard
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A seminal work on the astonishing power of the gospel by one of the most original thinkers of our time.
-
-
Insightful but an overreach.
- By Mountain K9iner on 12-11-22
By: René Girard
-
Wanting
- The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life
- By: Luke Burgis
- Narrated by: Luke Burgis, Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gravity affects every aspect of our physical being, but there’s a psychological force just as powerful - yet almost nobody has heard of it. It’s responsible for bringing groups of people together and pulling them apart, making certain goals attractive to some and not to others, and fueling cycles of anxiety and conflict. In Wanting, Luke Burgis draws on the work of French polymath René Girard to bring this hidden force to light and reveals how it shapes our lives and societies.
-
-
One of the most important books you'll ever read
- By chris boutte on 06-14-21
By: Luke Burgis
-
A Secular Age
- By: Charles Taylor
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 42 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it mean to say that we live in a secular age? Almost everyone would agree that we - in the West, at least - largely do. And clearly the place of religion in our societies has changed profoundly in the last few centuries. In what will be a defining book for our time, Charles Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean - of what, precisely, happens when a society in which it is virtually impossible not to believe in God becomes one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is only one human possibility among others.
-
-
Needs Guest Narrators for French and German
- By Norman on 06-13-15
By: Charles Taylor
-
The Genesis of Desire
- Studies in Violence, Mimesis, and Culture
- By: Jean-Michel Oughourlian
- Narrated by: Bob Goding
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How can a couple be saved when they have declared war on one another? By helping them realize that desire originates not in the self, but in the other. There are strategies that can help, which Dr. Oughourlian has prescribed successfully to his patients. This work, alternating between case studies and more theoretical statements, convincingly defends the possibility that breakups need not be permanent.
-
-
Finally a book that explains mimetic theory!
- By Placeholder on 06-04-15
-
Man and Technics
- A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life
- By: Oswald Spengler
- Narrated by: Jeremy Taescher
- Length: 2 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this new and revised edition of Oswald Spengler's classic Man and Technics, Spengler makes a number of predictions that today, more than 80 years after the book was first published, have turned out to be remarkably accurate.
-
-
Oswald Spengler
- By Leonardo on 05-06-20
By: Oswald Spengler
-
Mythologies
- The Complete Edition, in a New Translation
- By: Roland Barthes, Annette Lavers - translator, Richard Howard - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Roland Barthes's groundbreaking Mythologies first appeared in English in 1972, it was immediately recognized as one of the most significant works in French theory - yet nearly half of the essays from the original work were missing. This new edition of Mythologies is the first complete, authoritative English version of the French classic. It includes the brilliant "Astrology", never published in English before.
-
-
Fun and engaging
- By Chris Hall on 01-08-19
By: Roland Barthes, and others
-
I See Satan Fall Like Lightning
- By: René Girard
- Narrated by: Martin Girard
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A seminal work on the astonishing power of the gospel by one of the most original thinkers of our time.
-
-
Insightful but an overreach.
- By Mountain K9iner on 12-11-22
By: René Girard
-
Wanting
- The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life
- By: Luke Burgis
- Narrated by: Luke Burgis, Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Gravity affects every aspect of our physical being, but there’s a psychological force just as powerful - yet almost nobody has heard of it. It’s responsible for bringing groups of people together and pulling them apart, making certain goals attractive to some and not to others, and fueling cycles of anxiety and conflict. In Wanting, Luke Burgis draws on the work of French polymath René Girard to bring this hidden force to light and reveals how it shapes our lives and societies.
-
-
One of the most important books you'll ever read
- By chris boutte on 06-14-21
By: Luke Burgis
-
A Secular Age
- By: Charles Taylor
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 42 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What does it mean to say that we live in a secular age? Almost everyone would agree that we - in the West, at least - largely do. And clearly the place of religion in our societies has changed profoundly in the last few centuries. In what will be a defining book for our time, Charles Taylor takes up the question of what these changes mean - of what, precisely, happens when a society in which it is virtually impossible not to believe in God becomes one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is only one human possibility among others.
-
-
Needs Guest Narrators for French and German
- By Norman on 06-13-15
By: Charles Taylor
-
The Genesis of Desire
- Studies in Violence, Mimesis, and Culture
- By: Jean-Michel Oughourlian
- Narrated by: Bob Goding
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How can a couple be saved when they have declared war on one another? By helping them realize that desire originates not in the self, but in the other. There are strategies that can help, which Dr. Oughourlian has prescribed successfully to his patients. This work, alternating between case studies and more theoretical statements, convincingly defends the possibility that breakups need not be permanent.
-
-
Finally a book that explains mimetic theory!
- By Placeholder on 06-04-15
-
Man and Technics
- A Contribution to a Philosophy of Life
- By: Oswald Spengler
- Narrated by: Jeremy Taescher
- Length: 2 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this new and revised edition of Oswald Spengler's classic Man and Technics, Spengler makes a number of predictions that today, more than 80 years after the book was first published, have turned out to be remarkably accurate.
-
-
Oswald Spengler
- By Leonardo on 05-06-20
By: Oswald Spengler
-
Mythologies
- The Complete Edition, in a New Translation
- By: Roland Barthes, Annette Lavers - translator, Richard Howard - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Roland Barthes's groundbreaking Mythologies first appeared in English in 1972, it was immediately recognized as one of the most significant works in French theory - yet nearly half of the essays from the original work were missing. This new edition of Mythologies is the first complete, authoritative English version of the French classic. It includes the brilliant "Astrology", never published in English before.
-
-
Fun and engaging
- By Chris Hall on 01-08-19
By: Roland Barthes, and others
-
The Technological Society
- By: Jacques Ellul
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 21 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Jacques Ellul’s The Technological Society has become a classic in its field, laying the groundwork for all other studies of technology and society that have followed. Ellul offers a penetrating analysis of our technological civilization, showing how technology - which began innocuously enough as a servant of humankind - threatens to overthrow humanity itself in its ongoing creation of an environment that meets its own ends. No conversation about the dangers of technology and its unavoidable effects on society can begin without a careful listening of this book.
-
-
A singular work.
- By Daniel S Hoffman on 06-20-21
By: Jacques Ellul
-
The Age of Entitlement
- America Since the Sixties
- By: Christopher Caldwell
- Narrated by: Christopher Caldwell
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A major American intellectual makes the historical case that the reforms of the 1960s, reforms intended to make the nation more just and humane, instead left many Americans feeling alienated, despised, misled - and ready to put an adventurer in the White House. Christopher Caldwell has spent years studying the liberal uprising of the 1960s and its unforeseen consequences. Even the reforms that Americans love best have come with costs that are staggeringly high - in wealth, freedom, and social stability - and that have been spread unevenly among classes and generations.
-
-
Do laudable ends justify unconstitutional means?
- By LBJ on 02-08-20
-
Propaganda
- The Formation of Men’s Attitudes
- By: Jacques Ellul
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 15 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From one of the greatest French philosophers of the 20th century comes a seminal study and critique of propaganda. Taking not only a psychological approach but a sociological approach as well, Jacques Ellul outlines the taxonomy for propaganda and, ultimately, its destructive nature towards democracy. Drawing from his own experiences fighting for the French resistance against the Vichy regime, Ellul offers a unique insight into the propaganda machine.
-
-
Excellent analysis on the dichotomies of propagandize media
- By Anonymous User on 04-03-21
By: Jacques Ellul
-
Introduction To Christianity (2nd Edition)
- By: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI
- Narrated by: Scott Russell
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of Cardinal Ratzinger's most important and widely read books, this volume is a revised second edition with an improved translation and an in-depth preface by the Cardinal. As he states in the preface, since this book was first published over 30 years ago, many changes and significant events have occurred in the world, and in the Church. But even so, he says he is firmly convinced that his fundamental approach in this book is still very timely and crucial for the spiritual needs of modern man.
-
-
great book poorly narrated
- By Harrison Ayre on 12-24-22
By: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, and others
-
End Times
- Elites, Counter-Elites, and the Path of Political Disintegration
- By: Peter Turchin
- Narrated by: Robin McAlpine
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Peter Turchin, one of the most interesting social scientists of our age, has infused the study of history with approaches and insights from other fields for more than a quarter century. End Times is the culmination of his work to understand what causes political communities to cohere and what causes them to fall apart, as applied to the current turmoil within the United States.
-
-
Boomer History
- By Kevin on 08-12-23
By: Peter Turchin
-
Conjectures and Refutations
- The Growth of Scientific Knowledge
- By: Karl Popper
- Narrated by: Martyn Swain
- Length: 22 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Conjectures and Refutations is one of Karl Popper’s most wide-ranging and popular works, notable not only for its acute insights into the way scientific knowledge grows, but also for applying those insights to politics and to history. It provides one of the clearest and most accessible statements of the fundamental idea that guided his work: not only our knowledge but our aims and our standards grow through an unending process of trial and error.
-
-
Essential for Age of AI
- By Chris Mays on 08-08-23
By: Karl Popper
-
You Are Gods
- On Nature and Supernature
- By: David Bentley Hart
- Narrated by: Chris Monteiro
- Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In recent years, the theological—and, more specifically, Roman Catholic—question of the supernatural has made an astonishing return from seeming oblivion. David Bentley Hart's You Are Gods presents a series of meditations on the vexed theological question of the relation of nature and supernature. In its merely controversial aspect, the book is intended most directly as a rejection of a certain Thomistic construal of that relation, as well as an argument in favor of a model of nature and supernature at once more Eastern and patristic.
-
-
A Path for Hope in Faith
- By Vatoussis fam on 01-22-23
-
The Evangelical Imagination
- How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis
- By: Karen Swallow Prior
- Narrated by: Susan Hanfield
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed author Karen Swallow Prior examines evangelical history, both good and bad. By analyzing the literature, art, and popular culture that has surrounded evangelicalism, she unpacks some of the movement's most deeply held concepts, ideas, values, and practices to consider what is Christian rather than merely cultural. The result is a clearer path forward for evangelicals amid their current identity crisis—and insight for others who want a deeper understanding of what the term "evangelical" means today.
-
-
Fantastic Content, Unfortunate Narration
- By Matthew Carson on 09-02-23
-
The Soul of the World
- By: Roger Scruton
- Narrated by: Tom Stechschulte
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Soul of the World, renowned philosopher Roger Scruton defends the experience of the sacred against today’s fashionable forms of atheism. He argues that our personal relationships, moral intuitions, and aesthetic judgments hint at a transcendent dimension that cannot be understood through the lens of science alone. To be fully alive - and to understand what we are - is to acknowledge the reality of sacred things.
-
-
"Against Reductionism"
- By Edmund Schilvold on 10-08-15
By: Roger Scruton
-
The Master and His Emissary
- The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World
- By: Iain McGilchrist
- Narrated by: Dennis Kleinman
- Length: 27 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This pioneering account sets out to understand the structure of the human brain - the place where mind meets matter. Until recently, the left hemisphere of our brain has been seen as the "rational" side, the superior partner to the right. But is this distinction true? Drawing on a vast body of experimental research, Iain McGilchrist argues while our left brain makes for a wonderful servant, it is a very poor master.
-
-
The Master and His Emissary
- By Michael on 11-07-20
By: Iain McGilchrist
-
The Ancient City
- A Study on the Religion, Laws, and Institutions of Ancient Greece and Rome
- By: Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges
- Narrated by: Charlton Griffin
- Length: 15 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the most remarkable historical works of the 19th century came from the pen of French historian Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, a native of Paris. This amazing analysis of family and religious life among the ancient Greeks and Romans is the key to understanding ancient Mediterranean civilizations. The story begins in the misty period of the Bronze Age as the Indo-Europeans began to filter down into the Italian and Greek peninsulas. They brought with them a patriarchy that was based on ancestor worship and the veneration of hearth gods.
-
-
Wow! Shifted my whole perspective on Roman History
- By Michael on 08-25-24
-
Bronze Age Mindset
- By: Bronze Age Pervert
- Narrated by: Adam Smith
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Some say that this work, found in a safe-box in the port area of Kowloon, was dictated because Bronze Age Pervert refuses to learn what he calls "the low and plebeian art of writing". It isn't known how this work was transcribed. The contents are pure dynamite. He explains that you live in ant farm. That you are observed by the lords of lies, ritually probed. Ancient man had something you have lost: confidence in his instincts and strength, knowledge in his blood. BAP shows how the Bronze Age mind-set can set you free from this iron prison and help you embark on the path of power.
-
-
Mandatory Reading For All Men
- By Anonymous User on 11-20-18
What listeners say about Sacrifice (Breakthroughs in Mimetic Theory)
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Brice Laughrey
- 12-27-19
Robotic
I appreciated René Girard's arguments and this unique perspective on sacrifice. There are definitely things worth considering, especially in the context of Christianity, where sacrifice is fundamental to the story of Jesus.
While the considerations in this book are interesting, the narration was difficult to get past. I know it can be difficult when the information is highly technical or uses a lot of jargon, but the narration was so robotic it was often difficult to follow during complex sentences. There was a lack of natural flow and inflection that made things unpleasant to listen to. I think reading the book probably would have been a better experience.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Christopher
- 06-21-15
Intriguing
I have a colleague who thinks the sun rises and sets on Rene Girard, so I started with this book because I could get it on Audible.
I didn't care for the narrator, but the theory is intriguing. I will have to read more of Girard. I also enjoyed the last chapter defense of both Christianity and the Vedic religions.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Waterman
- 11-03-21
A quick and solid introduction to mimetic desire
This is a quick listen and will give you a clear understanding of Girard’s overarching point. He juxtaposes Christian mythology with that of the Vadic (Hindu) tradition which allows for a wider understanding of ones own culture
These lectures are some of the most straightforward articulations of complex ideas and will give the listener a starting point to go deeper into Girards work.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jeremy
- 07-12-23
Brilliant
This small piece by Rene Girard is an incredible academic work. Makes one sit there and think for hours, days and weeks afterward.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- luke in seattle
- 08-28-16
solid, pithy Girard lectures transcribed
this is a tremendous text by Girard as he explains a parallel analysis of mimetic theory based on Ancient Hindu texts and Compares them to ancient biblical Concepts including finding both opposites as well as complementary Parts in his argument relative to his overall Theory. if you're looking for a great audio relatively short introduction to girardian thought, Theory and the overall sense of how scapegoats have formed civilizations and people groups this is an excellent choice
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 07-03-21
Finally an explanation of Christianity
This is a short but poignant explanation of how Christianity differs from the religions that came before it and after. It explains why it seems similar and how it transcends to a truth incomparable with the others.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Igor Naverniouk
- 11-13-19
Nuggets of insight floating in word soup.
This book makes many overly general claims that aren't supported by evidence, and it does so in passing, as if everyone already agrees. The first half of the book is written in a language that seems deliberately obfuscatory. It gets more coherent in the second half, or perhaps I just got used to the style. There core point of the argument makes sense and was new to me, which I enjoyed.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful