In ancient Israel, a scapegoat was a literal goat on which the sins of the people were transferred—the goat was then set loose in the wilderness, to die. Since scapegoating seems to be based on human psychology, many cultures have practiced forms of it. Modern scapegoats are those people that get singled out, pointed to as “bad,” on which the collective’s flaws are projected. Rene Girard in his Violence and the Sacred expounds upon how scapegoating is inherent in human religiosity. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scapegoating In Molly and the Mark of the Dragon Slayer, there are various references by Sophia to humans scapegoating each other.