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David Fleming
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This summary draws especially on Bataille (1967), The Accursed Share, vol 1, pp 19–77, and on James G. Frazer (1922), The Golden Bough, chapters 24–26. This is a controversial field, and Frazer’s work is now dated, though not refuted. Peter Metcalf and Richard Huntington (1981) write, “It was Frazer’s simplistic view that every representation suggesting regicide inevitably meant the former existence of the practice. Evans-Pritchard’s view reverses the practice, stressing the power of the idea itself, and stressing that the belief may be even more effective in strengthening the polity when the deed is not actually done.” Celebrations of Death: The Anthropology of Mortuary Ritual, p 180. Of course, the substitution of a son opened the way for someone else to stand in for the son. As Bataille (1967) writes, “There is no possibility of a mistake here: This was a sacrifice of substitution” (p 55).

David Fleming
Dr David Fleming (2 January 1940 – 29 November 2010) was a cultural historian and economist, based in London, England. He was among the first to reveal the possibility of peak oil's approach and invented the influential TEQs scheme, designed to address this and climate change. He was also a pioneer of post-growth economics, and a significant figure in the development of the UK Green Party, the Transition Towns movement and the New Economics Foundation, as well as a Chairman of the Soil Association. His wide-ranging independent analysis culminated in two critically acclaimed books, 'Lean Logic' and 'Surviving the Future', published posthumously in 2016. These in turn inspired the 2020 launches of both BAFTA-winning director Peter Armstrong's feature film about Fleming's perspective and legacy - 'The Sequel: What Will Follow Our Troubled Civilisation?' - and Sterling College's unique 'Surviving the Future: Conversations for Our Time' online courses. For more information on all of the above, including Lean Logic, click the little globe below!

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