Human Sacrifice in True Detective

Human sacrifice is one of the main elements in True Detective. As the previous literature has shown, there have been interpretations and accounts of human sacrifice in religions throughout history. While the show never identified what religion is followed by the Tuttle cult, human sacrifice plays a large role (11).

This unknowing has left fans wondering about the religion that the cult follows. Many fans speculate that this cult follows aspects of different religions, and over the years interpreted religion to mean whatever they wished it to. One fan’s interpretation is that the religion the cult follows is known as “The Yellow King Religion”, which is created by “... a combination of West African Santeria, Christian deity worship, Native American "pagan" practices, and Caribbean Voudon -picked up by the slaves en transit to the US…” (12). This does make sense as some of these religions may have passages that can be interpreted as human sacrifice. Over time the mix of religions may have become its own feature, as this cult may have added religious aspects that they liked and discarded the ones they did not (13).

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For more information, please see The Tuttle Cult page.