>The incense of Saturn contained opium and the skull of a black cat, and that of Mars contained human blood; the incense to the sun and moon is called respectively the 'greater' and the 'lesser incense of the Haniphites'. We have an account of the prayers to each planet, the name of its special angel, its magic appellation, and its chosen victim for sacrifice—Saturn demanded a black he-goat, Jupiter a white lamb, Mars a striped cat, the Sun a crested cock, Venus a white pigeon, Mercury a white cock, the moon a small calf
>Much has been written on human sacrifice among the Harranians. On 8th Ab (August), at the pressing of new wine in honour of the gods, they are said to have sacrificed a newly-born male child, and to have employed the flesh with the addition of flour, saffron, spikenard, cloves and oil, as the food at the mysteries. (One writer, however, declares that this sacrifice was performed whenever the earth was five degrees in the ascendant or the reverse.) The allegation must be rejected, at any rate for the Moslem period
>Al-Dimashqi in the 14th century goes so far as to declare that human sacrifice appeared in Sabian rites directed to every planet—except, significantly enough, to Saturn to whom a bull was offered. To Jupiter, he maintains, was sacrificed an infant born of a bought (in Arabic Jupiter is the 'buyer') woman, the infant's mother to the sun, to Mars a redhaired man, to Venus a whitehaired woman, to Mercury a cultured youth, to the moon a fair man. This cannot be taken seriously. Al-Dimashqi's taste for the horrific is shown by his story that the idol of Mars held a bloody head in one hand; from an earlier writer we learn that it was a burning torch, not a human head!
>There are three accounts of a severed human head which uttered oracles in the Harranian temples, one account in each of the 8th, 9th and 10th centuries. But in one important detail the accounts vary
