Warning: This post contains ideas and images that some readers may find offensive.
Talk about cultural poverty. Talk about premature canonization. Talk about unworthy traditions.
The so-called "Sacred Hunt" ritual has become a standard fixture at several Midwest pagan gatherings over the course of the last 10 years or so. Me, I hate this so-called "ritual." Personally, I would contend that, in fact, it is neither sacred, a hunt, nor even a ritual. I think it's time and high time that we drove a spear through its heart and let it die a well-deserved and long-overdue death.
Here it is in the nutshell. A bunch of "hunters" go off alone in the woods, work themselves up into an endorphin-driven pyschobabble tizzy, and spear a bale of hay. ("I'm killing my anger!") There's an elaborate framework of drummers and so-called "villagers" to support this mental masturbation. Then the "hunters" parade back into camp and (they've been fasting, which is the one authentic part of this whole monstrosity) they eat a potluck meal provided by the non-hunters.
What do you call a hunter who comes back to the village empty-handed and expects to be fed?
Surely this is metaphor abuse, at the very least.
I call this the "Wank in the Woods" ritual. Now, if you want to go and have one off in the woods, have at it. Probably the world would be a better place if more people did so more often. (Just don't scare the kids.) But don't go off working on your own stuff and then come strutting back into town and expect us all to buy you supper, pound you on the back, and tell you what a fine fellow you are. That's not how things work in the real world.
The "sacred" is something that belongs to a god. The only god I see being invoked here is Ego. A real hunter kills out of love and need, not anger (or whatever personal foible he feels like stroking today). A real hunter feeds others, not vice versa. And a ritual is something we all do together.* The so-called "Sacred Hunt" ritual is actually none of the above.
If you want to see what form a real Hunt ritual might take, you can read about one here: http://witchesandpagans.com/pagan-culture-blogs/paganistan/witch-kids.html. I might add that this rite is part of the mysteries of the Horned One; its purpose is to bless the Land and the year's hunting, and it's a rite that the community enacts together.
As modern pagans, we lack the deep fertile soil of tradition that nourished and sustained the ancestors, and this has all too often led us to canonize as "tradition" things that are unworthy and undeserving of that status.
Sparky T. Rabbit always used to say, "There's no ritual so good that it can't be improved, and no ritual so bad that we can't learn something from it." By now we've had more than 10 years' worth of so-called Sacred Hunts to learn from. For gods' sakes, let's cut our losses and move on.
"Sacred Hunt," I spear you.
*I would contend that the entire theoretical framework of the "SH" is hopelessly flawed. Real ritual is indeed capable of producing deep psychological change, but it achieves this not by focusing on my personal stuff, but by temporarily removing me from my own head and my own problems and immersing me in collective, oceanic experience, so that afterwards, when I finally return to my own head and my own problems, I return renewed and with a new perspective.