AHC: Normalize cannibalism

The Eucharist, of course. But how can we get the Eucharist to incorporate actual, physical cannibalism? And how would it look? Drops of actual blood are used in the wine? Bits of human flesh are mixed into the crackers? I'd say ideally they should use more than that, but I don't see how Europe is going to get that many bodies for processing?

And then how do we convince the Church that this is what the Bible intended and not just the ravings of some mad heresiarch?
 
Maybe the Akkadians adopt it? I know they were pretty horrible, maybe they expand even more than OTL and encourage their people to eat the flesh of defeated foes?

Also about the Kuru thing. From what I've read of it the prion can but is restricted to eating the brain. So maybe the people figure this out and don't eat brain, or slowly build immunity to it.
 
That would involve having to (a) screw over Europe's climate, (b) stifle/reverse innovation in agriculture or (c) have repeated plagues. All three at once for preference. Given that this did happen historically (several times) to one degree or another, and that Europe (eventually) recovered each time, you would need to cause significant damage.

At any rate, Europe's population would (eventually, and probably rather messily) reach equilibrium with its carrying capacity + food imports.

Famine can only get you so far. Normalising something like cannibalism requires significant cultural shifts.
All in suggesting is for it to last long enough that the emphasis is on giving your body to provide for your family rather than going out to acquire the flesh of others. Particularly in an aborted roman world, you are going to have a force which practices cannibalism during famines migrating into another force which may have practiced it ritualistically (the druids may have practiced this). I don't think it's absurd for it to become common this way, although it is far from guaranteed.
 
This one's easy.

Mummia becomes accepted as a common form of folk medicine, and endures to the present day.


The fun thing as is hinted here in the quote above "medical" cannibalism was mainstream pretty much until the 20th century. And it didn't stop at mummies:

"Noble’s new book, Medicinal Cannibalism in Early Modern English Literature and Culture, and another by Richard Sugg of England’s University of Durham, Mummies, Cannibals and Vampires: The History of Corpse Medicine from the Renaissance to the Victorians, reveal that for several hundred years, peaking in the 16th and 17th centuries, many Europeans, including royalty, priests and scientists, routinely ingested remedies containing human bones, blood and fat as medicine for everything from headaches to epilepsy.
(...)
“The question was not, ‘Should you eat human flesh?’ but, ‘What sort of flesh should you eat?’ ” says Sugg. The answer, at first, was Egyptian mummy, which was crumbled into tinctures to stanch internal bleeding. But other parts of the body soon followed. Skull was one common ingredient, taken in powdered form to cure head ailments. Thomas Willis, a 17th-century pioneer of brain science, brewed a drink for apoplexy, or bleeding, that mingled powdered human skull and chocolate. And King Charles II of England sipped “The King’s Drops,” his personal tincture, containing human skull in alcohol."
(...)
"While that doesn’t seem to have been common practice, the poor, who couldn’t always afford the processed compounds sold in apothecaries, could gain the benefits of cannibal medicine by standing by at executions, paying a small amount for a cup of the still-warm blood of the condemned. The executioner was considered a big healer in Germanic countries."
(...)
However, consuming human remains fit with the leading medical theories of the day. “It emerged from homeopathic ideas,” says Noble. “It’s 'like cures like.' So you eat ground-up skull for pains in the head.” Or drink blood for diseases of the blood.

Especially the last observation shows a possible path to keep cannibalism relevant. Even in OTL people love they homeopathic quack medicine. Just have some of these weired theories prevail in the "alternative" medicine.





Source
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/histo...ses-as-medicine-82360284/#dYdlEMCHFZL8TTMk.99
SmithsonianMagazine
 
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Uh- from the viewpoint of Judaism and Islam; the Catholic religion IS cannibalistic with the eucharist. If your religion seriously says "this transmogrifies in to the blood and body of Christ" we take your word for it that, that is what you're eating. It doesn't seem like it would take much changing to have cannibalism accepted in the early Christian Church.
 
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