Horned God
Encyclopedia
The Horned God is one of the two primary deities found in some European pagan
religions. He is often given various names and epithets, and represents the male part of the religion's duotheistic theological system, the other part being the female Triple Goddess. In common Wiccan belief, he is associated with nature, wilderness, sexuality, hunting and the life cycle. Whilst depictions of the deity vary, he is always shown with either horn
s or antler
s upon his head, often depicted as being theriocephalic
, in this way emphasizing "the union of the divine and the animal", the latter of which includes human
ity.
The term Horned God itself predates Wicca, and is an early 20th century syncretic
term for a horned or antlered anthropomorphic god with pseudohistorical origins who, according to Margaret Murray
's 1921 The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, was the deity worshipped by a pan-European witchcraft-based cult, and was demonized into the form of the Devil
by the Mediaeval Church.
The Horned God has been explored within several psychological
theories, and it has also become a recurrent theme in fantasy
literature since the 20th Century.
, the Sacrificed God and the Vegetation God, although the Horned God is the most popular representation, having been worshipped by early Wiccan groups such as the New Forest coven
during the 1930s. The pioneers of the various Wiccan or Witchcraft traditions, such as Gerald Gardner
, Doreen Valiente
and Robert Cochrane
, all claimed that their religion was a continuation of the pagan
religion of the Witch-Cult following historians who had purported the Witch-Cult's existence, such as Jules Michelet
and Margaret Murray
.
For Wiccans, the Horned God is "the personification of the life force energy in animals and the wild" and is associated with the wilderness
, virility and the hunt
. Doreen Valiente
writes that the Horned God also carries the souls of the dead to the underworld
.
Wiccans generally, as well as some other neopagans, tend to conceive of the universe as polarized into gender opposites of male
and female
energies. In traditional Wicca, the Horned God and the Goddess are seen as equal and opposite in gender polarity. However, in some of the newer traditions of Wicca, and especially those influenced by feminist ideology, there is more emphasis on the Goddess, and consequently the symbolism of the Horned God is less developed than that of the Goddess.
In Wicca the cycle of the seasons is celebrated during eight sabbats called The Wheel of the Year
. The seasonal cycle is imagined to follow the relationship between the Horned God and the Goddess. The Horned God is born in winter, impregnates the Goddess and then dies during the autumn and winter months and is then reborn by the Goddess at Yule. The different relationships throughout the year are sometimes distinguished by splitting the god into aspects, the Oak King and the Holly King. The relationships between the Goddess and the Horned God are mirrored by Wiccans in seasonal rituals. There is some variation between Wiccan groups as to which sabbat corresponds to which part of the cycle. Some Wiccans regard the Horned God as dying at Lammas, August 1; also known as Lughnasadh, which is the first harvest sabbat. Others may see him dying at Mabon, the autumn equinox, or the second harvest festival. Still other Wiccans conceive of the Horned God dying on October 31, which Wiccans call Samhain
, the ritual of which is focused on death. He is then reborn on Winter Solstice, December 21.
Other important dates for the Horned God include Imbolc
when, according to Valiente, he leads a wild hunt
. In Gardnerian Wicca, the Dryghten prayer is recited at the end of every ritual meeting contains the lines referring to the Horned God:
According to Sabina Magliocco
, Gerald Gardner
says (in 1959's The Meaning of Witchcraft
) that The Horned God is an Under-god, a mediator between an unknowable supreme deity and the people. (In Wiccan liturgy in the Book of Shadows, this conception of an unknowable supreme deity is referred to as "Dryghtyn." It is not a personal god, but rather an impersonal divinity similar to the Tao of Taoism.)
Whilst the Horned God is the most common depiction of masculine divinity in Wicca, he is not the only representation. Other examples include the Green Man
and the Sun God
. In traditional Wicca, however, these other representations of the Wiccan god are subsumed or amalgamated into the Horned God, as aspects or expressions of him. Sometimes this is shown by adding horns or antlers to the iconography. The Green Man, for example, may be shown with branches resembling antlers; and the Sun God may be depicted with a crown or halo of solar rays, that may resemble horns. These other conceptions of the Wiccan god should not be regarded as displacing the Horned God, but rather as elaborating on various facets of his nature. Doreen Valiente has called the Horned God "the eldest of gods" in both The Witches Creed and also in her Invocation To The Horned God.
Wiccans believe that The Horned God, as Lord of Death, is their "comforter and consoler" after death and before reincarnation; and that he rules the Underworld
or Summerland
where the souls of the dead reside as they await rebirth. Some, such as Joanne Pearson, believes that this is based on the Mesopotamian myth of Innana's decent into hell, though this has not been confirmed.
Doreen Valiente
, a former High Priestess of the Gardnerian tradition
, claimed that Gerald Gardner's Bricket Wood coven
referred to the god as Cernunnos
, or Kernunno, which is a Gallo-Celtic word meaning "the Horned One". Valiente claimed that the coven also referred to the god as Janicot , which she theorised was of Basque
origin, and Gardner also used this name in his novel High Magic's Aid.
Stewart Farrar
, a High Priest of the Alexandrian tradition
referred to the Horned God as Karnayna, which he believed was a corruption of the word Cernunnos. The historian Ronald Hutton
has suggested that it instead came from the Arabic term Dhul-Qarnayn
which meant "Horned One". This term had been used in the Qur'an
to refer to Cyrus the Great
or alternatively Alexander the Great, who considered himself the son of the horned deity Ammon-Zeus, and wore horns as a part of his regalia. Margaret Murray had mentioned this information in her 1933 book The God of the Witches, and Hutton theorised that Alex Sanders
had taken it from there, enjoying the fact that he shared his name with the ancient Macedonian emperor.
In the writings of Charles Cardell
and Raymond Howard
, the god was referred to as Atho. Howard had a wooden statue of Atho's head which he claimed was 2200 years old, but the statue was stolen in April 1967. Howard's son later admitted that his father had carved the statue himself.
In Cochrane's Craft
, which was founded by Robert Cochrane, the Horned God was often referred to by a Biblical name; Tubal-cain
, who, according to the Bible
was the first blacksmith. In this neopagan concept, the god is also referred to as Bran
, a Welsh mythological figure, Wayland
, the smith in Germanic mythology, and Herne
, a horned figure from English folklore
.
In the neopagan tradition of
Stregheria
, founded by Raven Grimassi
and based on the works of Charles Godfrey Leland
, the Horned God goes by several names, including Dianus, Faunus, Cern, and Actaeon.
When first encountered, the figure is a dangerous, 'hairy chthonic wildman' possessed of kindness and intelligence. If repressed
, later in life The Horned God appears as the lord of the Otherworld, or Hades
. If split off entirely, he leads to violence, substance abuse and sexual perversion. When integrated he gives the male an ego 'in possession of its own destructiveness' and for the female psyche gives an effective animus
relating to both the physical body and the psyche.
In considering the Horned God as a symbol recurring in women's literature, Richard Sugg suggests the Horned God represents the 'natural Eros', a masculine lover subjugating the social-conformist nature of the female shadow, thus encompassing a combination of the shadow
and animus. One such example is Heathcliff
from Emily Bronte
's Wuthering Heights
. Sugg goes on to note that female characters who are paired with this character usually end up socially ostracised, or worse - in an inverted ending to the male hero-story.
in the Mythopoetic men's movement, John Rowan
proposes the Horned God as a "Wild Man
" be used as a fantasy image or 'sub-personality' helpful to men in humanistic psychology
, and escaping from 'narrow societal images of masculinity encompassing deference to women and paraphillia.
Several theories have been created to establish historical roots for the worship of a Horned God.
and others, Margaret Murray
, in her 1921 book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, proposed the theory that the witches of the early-modern period were remnants of a pagan cult and that the Christian Church had declared the god of the witches was in fact the Devil. Without specific recourse to any specific representation of this deity Murray speculates that the head coverings common in inquisition
-derived descriptions of the devil 'may throw light on one of the possible origins of the cult'.
In 1931 Murray published a sequel, The God of the Witches, which tries to gather evidence in support of her witch-cult theory. In Chapter 1 "The Horned God". Murray attempts to claim that various depictions of humans with horns from European and Indian sources, ranging from the paleolithic
French cave painting of "The Sorcerer
" to the Indic Pashupati
to the modern English Dorset Ooser
, are evidence for an unbroken, Europe-wide tradition of worship of a singular Horned God. Murray derived this model of a horned god cult from James Frazer
and Jules Michelet
.
In dealing with 'The Sorcerer
", the earliest evidence claimed, Murray based her observations on a drawing by Henri Breuil
, which modern scholars such as Ronald Hutton claim is inaccurate. Hutton states that modern photographs show the original cave art lacks horns, a human torso or any other significant detail on its upper half. Breuil considered his drawing to represent a shaman or magician - an interpretation which gives the image its name. Murray having seen the drawing called Breuil's image 'the first depiction of a deity', an idea which Breuil and others later adopted. Hutton's theory led him to conclude that reliance on Bruiel's initial sketch resulted in many later scholars erroneously claiming that "The Sorcerer" was evidence that the concept of a Horned God dated back to Paleolithic times
Murray also used an inaccurate drawing of a mesolithic
rock-painting at Cogul
in northeast Spain as evidence of group religious ceremony of the cult, although the central male figure is not horned. The illustration she used of the Cogul painting leaves out a number of figures, human and animal, and the original is more likely a sequence of superimposed but unrelated illustrations, rather than a depiction of a single scene.
The idea of a historical Horned God cult is widely regarded as being a fantasy. Despite widespread condemnation of her scholarship some minor aspects of her work continued to have supporters.
at the time led to the figure of Pan becoming generalised as a 'horned god', and applying connotations to the character, such as benevolence that were not evident in the original Greek myths which in turn gave rise to the popular acceptance of Murray's hypothetical horned god of the witches.
The reception of Aradia amongst Neopagans has not been entirely positive. Clifton suggests that modern claims of revealing an Italian pagan witchcraft tradition, for example those of Leo Martello
and Raven Grimassi
, must be "match[ed] against", and compared with the claims in Aradia. He further suggests that a lack of comfort with Aradia may be due to an "insecurity" within Neopaganism about the movement's claim to authenticity as a religious revival.
Valiente offers another explanation for the negative reaction of some neopagans; that the identification of Lucifer
as the god of the witches in Aradia was "too strong meat" for Wiccans who were used to the gentler, romantic paganism of Gerald Gardner and were especially quick to reject any relationship between witchcraft and Satanism
.
In 1985 Classical historian Georg Luck, in his Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds, theorised that the origins of the Witch-cult may have appeared in late antiquity as a faith primarily designed to worship the Horned God, stemming from the merging of Cernunnos
, a horned god of the Celts, with the Greco-Roman Pan/Faunus
, a combination of gods which he posits created a new deity, around which the remaining pagans, those refusing to convert to Christianity, rallied and that this deity provided the prototype for later Christian conceptions of the Devil
, and his worshippers were cast by the Church as witches.
Eliphas Levi's image of "Baphomet
" serves as an example of the transformation of the Devil into a benevolent fertility deity and provided the prototype for Murray's horned god. Murray's central thesis that images of the Devil were actually of deities and that Christianity
had demonised these worshippers as following Satan
, is first recorded in the work of Levi in the fashionable 19th-century Occult
ist circles of England and France. Levi created his image of Baphomet, published in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855), by combining symbolism from diverse traditions, including the Diable
card of the 16th and 17th century Tarot of Marseille.
Margaret Murray
's theory of the historical origins of the Horned God has been used by Wiccans to create a myth of historical origins for their religion. There is no real evidence to support claims that the religion originates earlier than the mid-20th century.
Modern scholarship has disproved Margaret Murray's theory, however various horned gods and mother goddesses were indeed worshipped in the British Isles during the ancient and early Medieval periods.
The "father of Wicca", Gerald Gardner
, who adopted Margaret Murray's thesis, claimed Wicca was a modern survival of an ancient pan-European pagan religion. Gardner states that he had reconstructed elements of the religion from fragments, incorporating elements from Freemasonry
, the Occult
, and Theosophy
, which came together in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
, where Gardner met Aleister Crowley
, whose influence became the basis for Wiccan magical practices.
Gerald Gardner was initiated into the O.T.O.
by Aleister Crowley and subsequently went on to found the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Various scholars on early Wiccan history, such as Ronald Hutton
, Philip Heselton
, and Leo Ruickbie
concur that witchcraft's early rituals, as devised by Gardner, contained much from Crowley's writings such as the Gnostic Mass
. The third degree initiation ceremony in Gardnerian Wicca (including the Great Rite
) is derived almost completely from the Gnostic Mass.
, a horned god of the Celts, with the Greco-Roman Pan/Faunus
, a combination of gods which he posits created a new deity, around which the remaining pagans, those refusing to convert to Christianity, rallied and that this deity provided the prototype for later Christian conceptions of the devil
, and his worshippers were cast by the Church as witches.
by Kenneth Grahame
, in Chapter 7, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn", Ratty and Mole meet a mystical horned being, powerful, fearsome and kind. Grahame's work was a significant part of the cultural milieu which stripped the Greek god Pan of his cultural identity in favour of an unnamed, generic horned deity which led to Murray's thesis of historical origins.
Outside of works that predate the publication of Murray's thesis, horned god motifs and characters appear in fantasy literature that draws upon her work and that of her followers.
In the novel Childhood's End
(1953) by Arthur C. Clarke
, all humans have a collective premonition, also described as a memory of the future, of horned aliens which arrive to usher in a new phase of human evolution. The collective subconscious image of the horned aliens is what accounts for mankind's image of the devil or Satan.
In the critically acclaimed and influential 1950s TV series created by Nigel Kneale
, Quatermass and the Pit
, depictions of supernatural horned entities, with specific reference to prehistoric cave-art and shamanistic horned head-dress are revealed to be a "race-memory" of psychic Martian
grasshoppers, manifested at the climax of the film by a fiery horned god.
Murray's theories has been seen to have had influence on Blood on Satan's Claw
(1971), where a murderous female-led cult worships a horned deity named Behemoth
.
Marion Zimmer Bradley
, who acknowledges the influence of Murray, uses the figure of the "horned god" in her feminist fantasy transformation of Arthurinian myth
, Mists of Avalon (1984), and portrays ritualistic incest between King Arthur as the representative of the horned god and his sister Morgaine as the "spring maiden".
Also, in the popular video game Morrowind, its expansion Bloodmoon has a plot enemy known as Hircine, the Daedric god of the Hunt, who appears as a horned man with the face of a deer skull. He condemned his "hounds" (werewolves) to walk the mortal ground during the Bloodmoon until a champion defeats him or Bloodmoon falls. He also appears as a horned wolf or bear when in combat.
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
religions. He is often given various names and epithets, and represents the male part of the religion's duotheistic theological system, the other part being the female Triple Goddess. In common Wiccan belief, he is associated with nature, wilderness, sexuality, hunting and the life cycle. Whilst depictions of the deity vary, he is always shown with either horn
Horn (anatomy)
A horn is a pointed projection of the skin on the head of various animals, consisting of a covering of horn surrounding a core of living bone. True horns are found mainly among the ruminant artiodactyls, in the families Antilocapridae and Bovidae...
s or antler
Antler
Antlers are the usually large, branching bony appendages on the heads of most deer species.-Etymology:Antler originally meant the lowest tine, the "brow tine"...
s upon his head, often depicted as being theriocephalic
Theriocephaly
Theriocephaly is the condition or quality of having the head of an animal - commonly used to refer the depiction in art of humans with animal heads.-Examples:...
, in this way emphasizing "the union of the divine and the animal", the latter of which includes human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
ity.
The term Horned God itself predates Wicca, and is an early 20th century syncretic
Syncretism
Syncretism is the combining of different beliefs, often while melding practices of various schools of thought. The term means "combining", but see below for the origin of the word...
term for a horned or antlered anthropomorphic god with pseudohistorical origins who, according to Margaret Murray
Margaret Murray
Margaret Alice Murray was a prominent British Egyptologist and anthropologist. Primarily known for her work in Egyptology, which was "the core of her academic career," she is also known for her propagation of the Witch-cult hypothesis, the theory that the witch trials in the Early Modern period of...
's 1921 The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, was the deity worshipped by a pan-European witchcraft-based cult, and was demonized into the form of the Devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
by the Mediaeval Church.
The Horned God has been explored within several psychological
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
theories, and it has also become a recurrent theme in fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
literature since the 20th Century.
Horned God of Wicca
In traditional and mainstream Wicca, the Horned God is viewed as the masculine side of divinity, being both equal and opposite to the Goddess. The Wiccan god himself can be represented in many forms, including as the Sun GodSolar deity
A solar deity is a sky deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it, usually by its perceived power and strength. Solar deities and sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms...
, the Sacrificed God and the Vegetation God, although the Horned God is the most popular representation, having been worshipped by early Wiccan groups such as the New Forest coven
New Forest coven
The New Forest coven were a group of Neopagan witches or Wiccans who allegedly met around the area of the New Forest in southern England during the 1930s and 1940s...
during the 1930s. The pioneers of the various Wiccan or Witchcraft traditions, such as Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
, Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
and Robert Cochrane
Roy Bowers
Robert Cochrane , who was born as Roy Bowers, was an English Neopagan witch who founded the tradition known as Cochrane's Craft, which is seen by some to be a form of Wicca but is sometimes considered distinct from it due to Cochrane's opposition to both Gerald Gardner and Gardnerian Wicca.Born...
, all claimed that their religion was a continuation of the pagan
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
religion of the Witch-Cult following historians who had purported the Witch-Cult's existence, such as Jules Michelet
Jules Michelet
Jules Michelet was a French historian. He was born in Paris to a family with Huguenot traditions.-Early life:His father was a master printer, not very prosperous, and Jules assisted him in the actual work of the press...
and Margaret Murray
Margaret Murray
Margaret Alice Murray was a prominent British Egyptologist and anthropologist. Primarily known for her work in Egyptology, which was "the core of her academic career," she is also known for her propagation of the Witch-cult hypothesis, the theory that the witch trials in the Early Modern period of...
.
For Wiccans, the Horned God is "the personification of the life force energy in animals and the wild" and is associated with the wilderness
Lord of the Animals
The Lord of the Animals is a generic term for a number of deities from a variety of cultures with close relationships to the animal kingdom or in part animal form . They sometimes also have female equivalents, the so-called Mistress of the Animals...
, virility and the hunt
Hunting god
A hunting god is a deity in mythology associated with the hunting of animals and the skills and equipment involved. They are a common feature of polytheistic religions.-African mythology:...
. Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
writes that the Horned God also carries the souls of the dead to the underworld
Death deity
Deities associated with death take many different forms, depending on the specific culture and religion being referenced. Psychopomps, deities of the underworld, and resurrection deities are commonly called death deities in comparative religions texts...
.
Wiccans generally, as well as some other neopagans, tend to conceive of the universe as polarized into gender opposites of male
Masculinity
Masculinity is possessing qualities or characteristics considered typical of or appropriate to a man. The term can be used to describe any human, animal or object that has the quality of being masculine...
and female
Femininity
Femininity is a set of attributes, behaviors, and roles generally associated with girls and women. Though socially constructed, femininity is made up of both socially defined and biologically created factors...
energies. In traditional Wicca, the Horned God and the Goddess are seen as equal and opposite in gender polarity. However, in some of the newer traditions of Wicca, and especially those influenced by feminist ideology, there is more emphasis on the Goddess, and consequently the symbolism of the Horned God is less developed than that of the Goddess.
In Wicca the cycle of the seasons is celebrated during eight sabbats called The Wheel of the Year
Wheel of the Year
The Wheel of the Year is a Neopagan term for the annual cycle of the Earth's seasons. It consists of eight festivals, spaced at approximately even intervals throughout the year. These festivals are referred to as Sabbats...
. The seasonal cycle is imagined to follow the relationship between the Horned God and the Goddess. The Horned God is born in winter, impregnates the Goddess and then dies during the autumn and winter months and is then reborn by the Goddess at Yule. The different relationships throughout the year are sometimes distinguished by splitting the god into aspects, the Oak King and the Holly King. The relationships between the Goddess and the Horned God are mirrored by Wiccans in seasonal rituals. There is some variation between Wiccan groups as to which sabbat corresponds to which part of the cycle. Some Wiccans regard the Horned God as dying at Lammas, August 1; also known as Lughnasadh, which is the first harvest sabbat. Others may see him dying at Mabon, the autumn equinox, or the second harvest festival. Still other Wiccans conceive of the Horned God dying on October 31, which Wiccans call Samhain
Samhain
Samhain is a Gaelic harvest festival held on October 31–November 1. It was linked to festivals held around the same time in other Celtic cultures, and was popularised as the "Celtic New Year" from the late 19th century, following Sir John Rhys and Sir James Frazer...
, the ritual of which is focused on death. He is then reborn on Winter Solstice, December 21.
Other important dates for the Horned God include Imbolc
Imbolc
Imbolc , or St Brigid’s Day , is an Irish festival marking the beginning of spring. Most commonly it is celebrated on 1 or 2 February in the northern hemisphere and 1 August in the southern hemisphere...
when, according to Valiente, he leads a wild hunt
Wild Hunt
The Wild Hunt is an ancient folk myth prevalent across Northern, Western and Central Europe. The fundamental premise in all instances is the same: a phantasmal, spectral group of huntsmen with the accoutrements of hunting, horses, hounds, etc., in mad pursuit across the skies or along the ground,...
. In Gardnerian Wicca, the Dryghten prayer is recited at the end of every ritual meeting contains the lines referring to the Horned God:
According to Sabina Magliocco
Sabina Magliocco
Sabina Magliocco , is a professor of Anthropology and Folklore at California State University, Northridge . She is an author of non-fiction books and journal articles about folklore, religion, religious festivals, foodways, witchcraft and Neo-Paganism in Europe and the United States.A recipient of...
, Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
says (in 1959's The Meaning of Witchcraft
The Meaning of Witchcraft
The Meaning of Witchcraft is a non-fiction book written by Gerald Gardner, the, known to many in the modern sense as the "Father of Wicca", based around his experiences with the religion of Wicca and the New Forest Coven...
) that The Horned God is an Under-god, a mediator between an unknowable supreme deity and the people. (In Wiccan liturgy in the Book of Shadows, this conception of an unknowable supreme deity is referred to as "Dryghtyn." It is not a personal god, but rather an impersonal divinity similar to the Tao of Taoism.)
Whilst the Horned God is the most common depiction of masculine divinity in Wicca, he is not the only representation. Other examples include the Green Man
Green Man
A Green Man is a sculpture, drawing, or other representation of a face surrounded by or made from leaves. Branches or vines may sprout from the nose, mouth, nostrils or other parts of the face and these shoots may bear flowers or fruit...
and the Sun God
Solar deity
A solar deity is a sky deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it, usually by its perceived power and strength. Solar deities and sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms...
. In traditional Wicca, however, these other representations of the Wiccan god are subsumed or amalgamated into the Horned God, as aspects or expressions of him. Sometimes this is shown by adding horns or antlers to the iconography. The Green Man, for example, may be shown with branches resembling antlers; and the Sun God may be depicted with a crown or halo of solar rays, that may resemble horns. These other conceptions of the Wiccan god should not be regarded as displacing the Horned God, but rather as elaborating on various facets of his nature. Doreen Valiente has called the Horned God "the eldest of gods" in both The Witches Creed and also in her Invocation To The Horned God.
Wiccans believe that The Horned God, as Lord of Death, is their "comforter and consoler" after death and before reincarnation; and that he rules the Underworld
Underworld
The Underworld is a region which is thought to be under the surface of the earth in some religions and in mythologies. It could be a place where the souls of the recently departed go, and in some traditions it is identified with Hell or the realm of death...
or Summerland
The Summerland
The Summerland is the name given by Wiccans and other earth-based Neopagan religions and by Theosophists to their conceptualization of an afterlife.-General overview of Summerland in Neopaganism:...
where the souls of the dead reside as they await rebirth. Some, such as Joanne Pearson, believes that this is based on the Mesopotamian myth of Innana's decent into hell, though this has not been confirmed.
Names of the Horned God
The Horned God is given different names and epithets by different Wiccan groups and traditions. Epithets for the Horned God include The Lord and the Old One. Another term used is Old Horny, in reference to the deity's horns and also to his sexual nature.Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, a former High Priestess of the Gardnerian tradition
Gardnerian Wicca
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian Witchcraft, is a mystery cult tradition or denomination in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner , a British civil servant and scholar of magic...
, claimed that Gerald Gardner's Bricket Wood coven
Bricket Wood coven
The Bricket Wood coven, or Hertfordshire coven was a coven of Gardnerian Witches founded in the 1940s by Gerald Gardner. It was notable for being the first coven in the Gardnerian line, though having its supposed origins in the pre-Gardnerian New Forest coven...
referred to the god as Cernunnos
Cernunnos
Cernunnos is the conventional name given in Celtic studies to depictions of the horned god of Celtic polytheism. The name itself is only attested once, on the 1st-century Pillar of the Boatmen, but depictions of a horned or antlered figure, often seated in a "lotus position" and often associated...
, or Kernunno, which is a Gallo-Celtic word meaning "the Horned One". Valiente claimed that the coven also referred to the god as Janicot , which she theorised was of Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
origin, and Gardner also used this name in his novel High Magic's Aid.
Stewart Farrar
Stewart Farrar
Frank Stewart Farrar , who always went by the name of Stewart Farrar, was an English screenwriter, novelist and prominent figure in the Neopagan religion of Wicca, which he devoted much of his later life to propagating with the aid of his seventh wife, Janet Farrar, and then his friend Gavin Bone...
, a High Priest of the Alexandrian tradition
Alexandrian Wicca
Alexandrian Wicca is a tradition of the Neopagan religion of Wicca, founded by Alex Sanders who, with his wife Maxine Sanders, established the tradition in the United Kingdom in the 1960s...
referred to the Horned God as Karnayna, which he believed was a corruption of the word Cernunnos. The historian Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton is an English historian who specializes in the study of Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and contemporary Paganism. A reader in the subject at the University of Bristol, Hutton has published fourteen books and has appeared on British television and radio...
has suggested that it instead came from the Arabic term Dhul-Qarnayn
Dhul-Qarnayn
Dhul-Qarnayn , literally "He of the Two Horns" or "He of the two centuries" is a figure mentioned in the Qur'an, the sacred scripture of Islam, where he is described as a great and righteous ruler who built a long wall that keeps Gog and Magog from attacking the people who he met on his journey...
which meant "Horned One". This term had been used in the Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
to refer to Cyrus the Great
Cyrus the Great
Cyrus II of Persia , commonly known as Cyrus the Great, also known as Cyrus the Elder, was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Under his rule, the empire embraced all the previous civilized states of the ancient Near East, expanded vastly and eventually conquered most of Southwest Asia and much...
or alternatively Alexander the Great, who considered himself the son of the horned deity Ammon-Zeus, and wore horns as a part of his regalia. Margaret Murray had mentioned this information in her 1933 book The God of the Witches, and Hutton theorised that Alex Sanders
Alex Sanders
Alex Sanders is an American politician from the state of South Carolina. He is the former chief judge of the South Carolina Court of Appeals and was the 19th President of the College of Charleston . In 2002, he was the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate seat left vacant after the...
had taken it from there, enjoying the fact that he shared his name with the ancient Macedonian emperor.
In the writings of Charles Cardell
Charles Cardell
Charles Cardell was an English Wiccan who propagated his own tradition of the Craft, which was distinct from that of Gerald Gardner. Cardell's tradition of Wicca was based around a form of the Horned God known as Atho, and worked with a coven that met in the grounds of his estate in Surrey. His...
and Raymond Howard
Raymond Howard
Raymond Howard was an English Witch and an early figure in the history of the neopagan religion of Wicca. Howard propagated the tradition focused around the Horned God known as Atho, which had originated with Charles Cardell....
, the god was referred to as Atho. Howard had a wooden statue of Atho's head which he claimed was 2200 years old, but the statue was stolen in April 1967. Howard's son later admitted that his father had carved the statue himself.
In Cochrane's Craft
Cochrane's Craft
Cochrane’s Craft, which is also known as Cochranianism, is a tradition of the Neopagan religion of Witchcraft founded in 1951 by the English Witch Robert Cochrane, who himself claimed to have been taught it by some of his elderly family members, a claim that is disputed by some historians such as...
, which was founded by Robert Cochrane, the Horned God was often referred to by a Biblical name; Tubal-cain
Tubal-cain
Tubal-cain is an individual mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, in . He was a descendant of Cain, the son of Lamech and Zillah, and the brother of Naamah.-Name:...
, who, according to the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
was the first blacksmith. In this neopagan concept, the god is also referred to as Bran
Bran the Blessed
Brân the Blessed is a giant and king of Britain in Welsh mythology. He appears in several of the Welsh Triads, but his most significant role is in the Second Branch of the Mabinogi, Branwen ferch Llŷr. He is a son of Llŷr and Penarddun, and the brother of Brânwen, Manawydan, Nisien and Efnysien...
, a Welsh mythological figure, Wayland
Wayland
Wayland is a Germanic given name, from wela "battle" and, nand "brave", corresponding to German Wieland, Scandinavian Völund/Vølund...
, the smith in Germanic mythology, and Herne
Herne the Hunter
In English folklore, Herne the Hunter is a ghost associated with Windsor Forest and Great Park in the English county of Berkshire. His appearance is notable in the fact that he has antlers upon his head....
, a horned figure from English folklore
English folklore
English folklore is the folk tradition which has developed in England over a number of centuries. Some stories can be traced back to their roots, while the origin of others is uncertain or disputed...
.
In the neopagan tradition of
Stregheria
Stregheria
Stregheria is a form of ethnic Italian form of Wicca originating in the United States, popularized by Raven Grimassi since the 1980s. Stregheria is sometimes referred to as La Vecchia Religione The word stregheria is an archaic Italian word for "witchcraft", the modern Italian word being...
, founded by Raven Grimassi
Raven Grimassi
Raven Grimassi is the pen name of an Italian-American author, publishing on the topics of Neo-paganism and witchcraft. He is perhaps best known for his popularization of Stregheria, a neopagan revival of "Italian witchcraft"....
and based on the works of Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
, the Horned God goes by several names, including Dianus, Faunus, Cern, and Actaeon.
Jungian analysis
Sherry Salman considers the image of the Horned God in Jungian terms, as an archetypal protector and mediator of the outside world to the objective psyche. In her theory the male psyche's 'Horned God' frequently compensates for inadequate fathering.When first encountered, the figure is a dangerous, 'hairy chthonic wildman' possessed of kindness and intelligence. If repressed
Psychological repression
Psychological repression, also psychic repression or simply repression, is the psychological attempt by an individual to repel one's own desires and impulses towards pleasurable instincts by excluding the desire from one's consciousness and holding or subduing it in the unconscious...
, later in life The Horned God appears as the lord of the Otherworld, or Hades
Hades
Hades , Hadēs, originally , Haidēs or , Aidēs , meaning "the unseen") was the ancient Greek god of the underworld. The genitive , Haidou, was an elision to denote locality: "[the house/dominion] of Hades". Eventually, the nominative came to designate the abode of the dead.In Greek mythology, Hades...
. If split off entirely, he leads to violence, substance abuse and sexual perversion. When integrated he gives the male an ego 'in possession of its own destructiveness' and for the female psyche gives an effective animus
Animus
-Psychology :* Anima and animus, Jungian concepts* The ancient Roman concept of animus or soul-Music:*Animus , a Philadelphia, PA based Eastern Mediterranean World Fusion music group...
relating to both the physical body and the psyche.
In considering the Horned God as a symbol recurring in women's literature, Richard Sugg suggests the Horned God represents the 'natural Eros', a masculine lover subjugating the social-conformist nature of the female shadow, thus encompassing a combination of the shadow
Shadow (psychology)
In Jungian psychology, the shadow or "shadow aspect" is a part of the unconscious mind consisting of repressed weaknesses, shortcomings, and instincts. It is one of the three most recognizable archetypes, the others being the anima and animus and the persona...
and animus. One such example is Heathcliff
Heathcliff (Wuthering Heights)
Heathcliff is a fictional character in the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Owing to the novel's enduring fame and popularity, he is often regarded as an archetype of the tortured Romantic hero whose all-consuming passions destroy both himself and those around him.Legend has stereotyped...
from Emily Bronte
Emily Brontë
Emily Jane Brontë 30 July 1818 – 19 December 1848) was an English novelist and poet, best remembered for her only novel, Wuthering Heights, now considered a classic of English literature. Emily was the third eldest of the four surviving Brontë siblings, between the youngest Anne and her brother...
's Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a novel by Emily Brontë published in 1847. It was her only novel and written between December 1845 and July 1846. It remained unpublished until July 1847 and was not printed until December after the success of her sister Charlotte Brontë's novel Jane Eyre...
. Sugg goes on to note that female characters who are paired with this character usually end up socially ostracised, or worse - in an inverted ending to the male hero-story.
Humanistic psychology
Following the work of Robert BlyRobert Bly
Robert Bly is an American poet, author, activist and leader of the Mythopoetic Men's Movement.-Life:Bly was born in Lac qui Parle County, Minnesota, to Jacob and Alice Bly, who were of Norwegian ancestry. Following graduation from high school in 1944, he enlisted in the United States Navy, serving...
in the Mythopoetic men's movement, John Rowan
John Rowan (psychologist)
John Rowan is an author, counselor, psychotherapist and clinical supervisor who practices Primal integration in England. He has worked with Ken Wilber in exploring Transpersonal psychology and has written several books on subpersonalities.-Career summary:...
proposes the Horned God as a "Wild Man
Woodwose
The wild man is a mythical figure that appears in the artwork and literature of medieval Europe, comparable to the satyr or faun type in classical mythology and to Silvanus, the Roman god of the woodlands.The defining characteristic of the figure is its "wildness"; from the 12th century...
" be used as a fantasy image or 'sub-personality' helpful to men in humanistic psychology
Humanistic psychology
Humanistic psychology is a psychological perspective which rose to prominence in the mid-20th century, drawing on the work of early pioneers like Carl Rogers and the philosophies of existentialism and phenomenology...
, and escaping from 'narrow societal images of masculinity encompassing deference to women and paraphillia.
Theories of historical origins
Margaret Murray
Following the writings of suffragist Matilda Joslyn GageMatilda Joslyn Gage
Matilda Electa Joslyn Gage was a suffragist, a Native American activist, an abolitionist, a freethinker, and a prolific author, who was "born with a hatred of oppression".-Early activities:...
and others, Margaret Murray
Margaret Murray
Margaret Alice Murray was a prominent British Egyptologist and anthropologist. Primarily known for her work in Egyptology, which was "the core of her academic career," she is also known for her propagation of the Witch-cult hypothesis, the theory that the witch trials in the Early Modern period of...
, in her 1921 book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, proposed the theory that the witches of the early-modern period were remnants of a pagan cult and that the Christian Church had declared the god of the witches was in fact the Devil. Without specific recourse to any specific representation of this deity Murray speculates that the head coverings common in inquisition
Inquisition
The Inquisition, Inquisitio Haereticae Pravitatis , was the "fight against heretics" by several institutions within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It started in the 12th century, with the introduction of torture in the persecution of heresy...
-derived descriptions of the devil 'may throw light on one of the possible origins of the cult'.
In 1931 Murray published a sequel, The God of the Witches, which tries to gather evidence in support of her witch-cult theory. In Chapter 1 "The Horned God". Murray attempts to claim that various depictions of humans with horns from European and Indian sources, ranging from the paleolithic
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
French cave painting of "The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer (cave art)
The Sorcerer is one name for an enigmatic cave painting found in the cavern known as 'The Sanctuary' at Trois-Frères, Ariège, France, made around 13,000 BC. The figure's significance is unknown, but it is usually interpreted as some kind of great spirit or master of the animals...
" to the Indic Pashupati
Pashupati
Pashupati , "Lord of cattle", is an epithet of the Hindu god Shiva. In Vedic times it was used as an epithet of Rudra. The Rigveda has the related pashupa "protector of cattle" as a name of Pushan. The Pashupatinath Temple is the most important Hindu shrine for all Hindus in Nepal and also for many...
to the modern English Dorset Ooser
Dorset Ooser
The Dorset Ooser is the name of a horned mask that has been a part of folklore in the town of Dorchester, in the county of Dorset in southern England, for several centuries...
, are evidence for an unbroken, Europe-wide tradition of worship of a singular Horned God. Murray derived this model of a horned god cult from James Frazer
James Frazer
Sir James George Frazer , was a Scottish social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion...
and Jules Michelet
Jules Michelet
Jules Michelet was a French historian. He was born in Paris to a family with Huguenot traditions.-Early life:His father was a master printer, not very prosperous, and Jules assisted him in the actual work of the press...
.
In dealing with 'The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer (cave art)
The Sorcerer is one name for an enigmatic cave painting found in the cavern known as 'The Sanctuary' at Trois-Frères, Ariège, France, made around 13,000 BC. The figure's significance is unknown, but it is usually interpreted as some kind of great spirit or master of the animals...
", the earliest evidence claimed, Murray based her observations on a drawing by Henri Breuil
Henri Breuil
Henri Édouard Prosper Breuil , often referred to as Abbé Breuil, was a French Catholic priest, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist...
, which modern scholars such as Ronald Hutton claim is inaccurate. Hutton states that modern photographs show the original cave art lacks horns, a human torso or any other significant detail on its upper half. Breuil considered his drawing to represent a shaman or magician - an interpretation which gives the image its name. Murray having seen the drawing called Breuil's image 'the first depiction of a deity', an idea which Breuil and others later adopted. Hutton's theory led him to conclude that reliance on Bruiel's initial sketch resulted in many later scholars erroneously claiming that "The Sorcerer" was evidence that the concept of a Horned God dated back to Paleolithic times
Murray also used an inaccurate drawing of a mesolithic
Mesolithic
The Mesolithic is an archaeological concept used to refer to certain groups of archaeological cultures defined as falling between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic....
rock-painting at Cogul
El Cogul
El Cogul is a municipality in Catalonia. It is in the comarca of les Garrigues in the province of Lleida.In 2010 the population was reported to have dropped below 200.It is famous for its rock art site Roca dels Moros....
in northeast Spain as evidence of group religious ceremony of the cult, although the central male figure is not horned. The illustration she used of the Cogul painting leaves out a number of figures, human and animal, and the original is more likely a sequence of superimposed but unrelated illustrations, rather than a depiction of a single scene.
The idea of a historical Horned God cult is widely regarded as being a fantasy. Despite widespread condemnation of her scholarship some minor aspects of her work continued to have supporters.
Influences from literature
The popular image of the Greek god Pan was removed from its classical context in the writings of the Romantics of the 18th century and connected with their ideals of a pastoral England. This, along with the general public's increasing lack of familiarity of Greek mythologyGreek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
at the time led to the figure of Pan becoming generalised as a 'horned god', and applying connotations to the character, such as benevolence that were not evident in the original Greek myths which in turn gave rise to the popular acceptance of Murray's hypothetical horned god of the witches.
The reception of Aradia amongst Neopagans has not been entirely positive. Clifton suggests that modern claims of revealing an Italian pagan witchcraft tradition, for example those of Leo Martello
Leo Martello
Leo Martello was an author, lecturer, gay civil rights activist, and an early voice in the American Neopagan movement. He drew heavily on his Sicilian heritage, teaching the Strega Tradition which was named after the Italian word for Witch....
and Raven Grimassi
Raven Grimassi
Raven Grimassi is the pen name of an Italian-American author, publishing on the topics of Neo-paganism and witchcraft. He is perhaps best known for his popularization of Stregheria, a neopagan revival of "Italian witchcraft"....
, must be "match[ed] against", and compared with the claims in Aradia. He further suggests that a lack of comfort with Aradia may be due to an "insecurity" within Neopaganism about the movement's claim to authenticity as a religious revival.
Valiente offers another explanation for the negative reaction of some neopagans; that the identification of Lucifer
Lucifer
Traditionally, Lucifer is a name that in English generally refers to the devil or Satan before being cast from Heaven, although this is not the original meaning of the term. In Latin, from which the English word is derived, Lucifer means "light-bearer"...
as the god of the witches in Aradia was "too strong meat" for Wiccans who were used to the gentler, romantic paganism of Gerald Gardner and were especially quick to reject any relationship between witchcraft and Satanism
Satanism
Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...
.
In 1985 Classical historian Georg Luck, in his Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds, theorised that the origins of the Witch-cult may have appeared in late antiquity as a faith primarily designed to worship the Horned God, stemming from the merging of Cernunnos
Cernunnos
Cernunnos is the conventional name given in Celtic studies to depictions of the horned god of Celtic polytheism. The name itself is only attested once, on the 1st-century Pillar of the Boatmen, but depictions of a horned or antlered figure, often seated in a "lotus position" and often associated...
, a horned god of the Celts, with the Greco-Roman Pan/Faunus
Faunus
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Faunus was the horned god of the forest, plains and fields; when he made cattle fertile he was called Inuus. He came to be equated in literature with the Greek god Pan....
, a combination of gods which he posits created a new deity, around which the remaining pagans, those refusing to convert to Christianity, rallied and that this deity provided the prototype for later Christian conceptions of the Devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
, and his worshippers were cast by the Church as witches.
Influences from occultism
Baphomet
Baphomet is an imagined pagan deity , revived in the 19th century as a figure of occultism and Satanism. It appeared as a term for a pagan idol in trial transcripts of the Inquisition of the Knights Templar in the early 14th century...
" serves as an example of the transformation of the Devil into a benevolent fertility deity and provided the prototype for Murray's horned god. Murray's central thesis that images of the Devil were actually of deities and that Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
had demonised these worshippers as following Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
, is first recorded in the work of Levi in the fashionable 19th-century Occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
ist circles of England and France. Levi created his image of Baphomet, published in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855), by combining symbolism from diverse traditions, including the Diable
The Devil (Tarot card)
The Devil is the fifteenth trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks. It is used in game playing as well as in divination.- Symbolism :...
card of the 16th and 17th century Tarot of Marseille.
Gerald Gardner and Wicca
Margaret Murray
Margaret Alice Murray was a prominent British Egyptologist and anthropologist. Primarily known for her work in Egyptology, which was "the core of her academic career," she is also known for her propagation of the Witch-cult hypothesis, the theory that the witch trials in the Early Modern period of...
's theory of the historical origins of the Horned God has been used by Wiccans to create a myth of historical origins for their religion. There is no real evidence to support claims that the religion originates earlier than the mid-20th century.
Modern scholarship has disproved Margaret Murray's theory, however various horned gods and mother goddesses were indeed worshipped in the British Isles during the ancient and early Medieval periods.
The "father of Wicca", Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
, who adopted Margaret Murray's thesis, claimed Wicca was a modern survival of an ancient pan-European pagan religion. Gardner states that he had reconstructed elements of the religion from fragments, incorporating elements from Freemasonry
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
, the Occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
, and Theosophy
Theosophy
Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...
, which came together in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a magical order active in Great Britain during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which practiced theurgy and spiritual development...
, where Gardner met Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
, whose influence became the basis for Wiccan magical practices.
Gerald Gardner was initiated into the O.T.O.
Ordo Templi Orientis
Ordo Templi Orientis is an international fraternal and religious organization founded at the beginning of the 20th century...
by Aleister Crowley and subsequently went on to found the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Various scholars on early Wiccan history, such as Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton is an English historian who specializes in the study of Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and contemporary Paganism. A reader in the subject at the University of Bristol, Hutton has published fourteen books and has appeared on British television and radio...
, Philip Heselton
Philip Heselton
Philip Heselton is a retired British Conservation Officer, a Wiccan initiate, and a writer on the subjects of Wicca, Paganism and Earth mysteries...
, and Leo Ruickbie
Leo Ruickbie
Leo Ruickbie is an historian and sociologist of magic, witchcraft and Wicca. He is the author of several books, beginning with Witchcraft Out of the Shadows, a 2004 publication outlining the history of witchcraft from ancient Greece until the modern day. Ruickbie was born in Scotland and took a...
concur that witchcraft's early rituals, as devised by Gardner, contained much from Crowley's writings such as the Gnostic Mass
Liber XV, The Gnostic Mass
Aleister Crowley wrote The Gnostic Mass — technically called Liber XV or "Book 15" — in 1913 while travelling in Moscow, Russia. In many ways it is similar in structure to the Mass of the Eastern Orthodox Church. However, the comparison ends there, as Liber XV is a celebration of the principles of...
. The third degree initiation ceremony in Gardnerian Wicca (including the Great Rite
Great Rite
In Wicca, the Great Rite is a form of sex magic that includes either ritual sexual intercourse or else a ritual symbolic representation of sexual intercourse....
) is derived almost completely from the Gnostic Mass.
Romano-Celtic fusion
Georg Luck, repeats part of Murray's theory, stating that the Horned God may have appeared in late antiquity, stemming from the merging of CernunnosCernunnos
Cernunnos is the conventional name given in Celtic studies to depictions of the horned god of Celtic polytheism. The name itself is only attested once, on the 1st-century Pillar of the Boatmen, but depictions of a horned or antlered figure, often seated in a "lotus position" and often associated...
, a horned god of the Celts, with the Greco-Roman Pan/Faunus
Faunus
In ancient Roman religion and myth, Faunus was the horned god of the forest, plains and fields; when he made cattle fertile he was called Inuus. He came to be equated in literature with the Greek god Pan....
, a combination of gods which he posits created a new deity, around which the remaining pagans, those refusing to convert to Christianity, rallied and that this deity provided the prototype for later Christian conceptions of the devil
Devil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
, and his worshippers were cast by the Church as witches.
Fantasy and science fiction
In 1908's The Wind in the WillowsThe Wind in the Willows
The Wind in the Willows is a classic of children's literature by Kenneth Grahame, first published in 1908. Alternately slow moving and fast paced, it focuses on four anthropomorphised animal characters in a pastoral version of England...
by Kenneth Grahame
Kenneth Grahame
Kenneth Grahame was a Scottish writer, most famous for The Wind in the Willows , one of the classics of children's literature. He also wrote The Reluctant Dragon; both books were later adapted into Disney films....
, in Chapter 7, "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn", Ratty and Mole meet a mystical horned being, powerful, fearsome and kind. Grahame's work was a significant part of the cultural milieu which stripped the Greek god Pan of his cultural identity in favour of an unnamed, generic horned deity which led to Murray's thesis of historical origins.
Outside of works that predate the publication of Murray's thesis, horned god motifs and characters appear in fantasy literature that draws upon her work and that of her followers.
In the novel Childhood's End
Childhood's End
Childhood's End is a 1953 science fiction novel by the British author Arthur C. Clarke. The story follows the peaceful alien invasion of Earth by the mysterious Overlords, whose arrival ends all war, helps form a world government, and turns the planet into a near-utopia...
(1953) by Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke
Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, CBE, FRAS was a British science fiction author, inventor, and futurist, famous for his short stories and novels, among them 2001: A Space Odyssey, and as a host and commentator in the British television series Mysterious World. For many years, Robert A. Heinlein,...
, all humans have a collective premonition, also described as a memory of the future, of horned aliens which arrive to usher in a new phase of human evolution. The collective subconscious image of the horned aliens is what accounts for mankind's image of the devil or Satan.
In the critically acclaimed and influential 1950s TV series created by Nigel Kneale
Nigel Kneale
Nigel Kneale was a British screenwriter from the Isle of Man. Active in television, film, radio drama and prose fiction, he wrote professionally for over fifty years, was a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award and was twice nominated for the British Film Award for Best Screenplay...
, Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit
Quatermass and the Pit is a British television science-fiction serial, originally transmitted live by BBC Television in December 1958 and January 1959. It was the third and last of the BBC's Quatermass serials, although the character would reappear in a 1979 ITV production simply entitled Quatermass...
, depictions of supernatural horned entities, with specific reference to prehistoric cave-art and shamanistic horned head-dress are revealed to be a "race-memory" of psychic Martian
Martian
As an adjective, the term martian is used to describe anything pertaining to the planet Mars.However, a Martian is more usually a hypothetical or fictional native inhabitant of the planet Mars. Historically, life on Mars has often been hypothesized, although there is currently no solid evidence of...
grasshoppers, manifested at the climax of the film by a fiery horned god.
Murray's theories has been seen to have had influence on Blood on Satan's Claw
Blood on Satan's Claw
Blood on Satan's Claw is a 1970 British horror film made by Tigon British Film Productions and directed by Piers Haggard. The film was written by Robert Wynne-Simmons, with additions by Piers Haggard, and stars Patrick Wymark, Linda Hayden and Barry Andrews...
(1971), where a murderous female-led cult worships a horned deity named Behemoth
Behemoth
Behemoth is a mythological beast mentioned in the Book of Job, 40:15-24. Metaphorically, the name has come to be used for any extremely large or powerful entity.-Plural as singular:...
.
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Marion Eleanor Zimmer Bradley was an American author of fantasy novels such as The Mists of Avalon and the Darkover series. Many critics have noted a feminist perspective in her writing. Her first child, David R...
, who acknowledges the influence of Murray, uses the figure of the "horned god" in her feminist fantasy transformation of Arthurinian myth
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
, Mists of Avalon (1984), and portrays ritualistic incest between King Arthur as the representative of the horned god and his sister Morgaine as the "spring maiden".
Also, in the popular video game Morrowind, its expansion Bloodmoon has a plot enemy known as Hircine, the Daedric god of the Hunt, who appears as a horned man with the face of a deer skull. He condemned his "hounds" (werewolves) to walk the mortal ground during the Bloodmoon until a champion defeats him or Bloodmoon falls. He also appears as a horned wolf or bear when in combat.