No Devil: The Horned God of Wicca
October 29, 2010
By Star Foster
Listen to the words of the Great Father, who of old was called Osiris,
Adonis, Zeus, Thor, Pan, Cernunnos, Herne, Lugh and by many other names:
"My Law is Harmony with all things.
Mine is the secret that opens the gates of life
and mine is the dish of salt of the earth
that is the body of Cernunnos that is the eternal circle of rebirth.
I give the knowledge of life everlasting, and beyond death
I give the promise of regeneration and renewal.
I am the sacrifice, the father of all things,
and my protection blankets the earth."
~ The Charge of the God
Where did the Christian Devil get his horns and hooves? The image for the Devil as we picture him today was lifted from Pagan Gods, most specifically the Greek Pan. Yet just because it looks like a duck doesn't mean it walks, talks, and acts like a duck. Modern Wiccans worship a Goddess who tends to be celestial and a God who generally wears horns, but the resemblance to the Christian Devil stops there.
There are so many ways to write about the Horned One that when beginning this article I was at a loss about how to tackle the subject. In the interest of sincerity I decided to write from a mythological perspective, rather than a dry recounting of Wiccan history and scholarly opinions. This is what my heart has to say about him, and as they say, your mileage may vary.
Lord of the Wild, of the Hunt, of Animals, Lord of Death and Rebirth . . . We all know the epitaphs. We've all seen the images made by our ancestors. Although the God is also the Green Man, the Sacrificed King, and the Sun Child, we call him the Horned One. Why do we cling to this image of him?
Living in Christian cultures, we are surrounded and bombarded with images of Jesus. Jesus and lambs. Jesus on the Cross. Jesus the Infant, halo-crowned in a manger. Truly the only God-image we have that hasn't been co-opted and embraced by the Christian faith is the Horned God. That which they revile, we adore, and this is key to understanding both the God of Wicca and Wicca itself.
Wicca, through its proven history and its mythology, is a revolutionary religion. The legend of Wicca suggests that the religion reached its current form and order when the Pagan religions were eradicated or pushed underground by the growing influence of the Catholic Church. Far from the bright heyday of Eleusis, Paganism became transformed into a gothic dream: midnight meetings cloaked in secrecy.
The Goddess was far more easily passed off as the beautiful, celestial radiant Virgin Mary and perhaps of less interest to Inquisitors. The God, with his horns, his hooves, his animal wildness, could never be mistaken for Christ. It is in his stubborn obstinacy, his refusal to be assimilated, that he becomes the revolutionary force behind Wicca. Looking at the mythologized past of Wicca it is easy to see how meaningful a God bearing horns would be to a people who are living under religious oppression and fear. A God who represents all they cannot express, who in his appearance is a symbol of the interdependence of man and nature, who as Lord of Death and Rebirth reclaims the souls of his Witches for rebirth into the tribe of the faithful.
Both the Charge of the Goddess and Charge of the God speak of the promise of rebirth and reunion. In some ways it's an odd emphasis for a religion so concerned with nature, fertility, and reincarnation. Looking at Christianity from a Pagan perspective might explain this emphasis. Christianity is very concerned with your soul. It is your soul Christ wants, bound to him and called up into his spiritual realm at the appointed time. If you are not Christian out of faith, but baptized from fear, that is a horrible concept to imagine. Your soul is trapped, away from the earth and your loved ones, then whisked away to a realm far from your beloved earth and tribe.
The Charge of the Goddess assures us:
For Hers is the secret door which opens upon the land of youth and
Hers is the cup of wine of life, and the cauldron of Cerridwen,
which is the Holy Grail of immortality.
She is the gracious goddess, who gives the gift of joy unto the heart of man.
Upon earth, She gives the knowledge of the spirit eternal; and beyond death,
She gives peace and freedom, and reunion with those who have gone before.
Nor does She demand sacrifice, for behold,
She is the mother of all living, and Her love is poured out upon the earth.
The emphasis that the Lord and Lady have sway over death and rebirth, I suspect, is also a promise that they can break any holds placed upon the soul by foreign religions. Their devotees need not fear losing their soul to a strange Eastern cult but by devoting themselves to the Wicca they will return and not be separated from their tribe for eternity.
Wicca, seen through mythological eyes, becomes a mystery cult like Eleusis. By embracing the darkness and through secret worship Wiccans gave vent to the secret rebellion of their souls and embraced the hope of change and light. The moon is startlingly bright when full and has its cycle of ebb and flow. The Horned God is actually most often depicted with antlers, which grow, mature, and are shed in turn. These cycles of change held a distant promise that one day the age would turn once more and the era of fear and secrecy would end. Wherever the true origins of Wicca might lie, it's possible that we were their dream, that you and I were their fondest hope.
Margaret Murray, contentious as her work is, cites several records from the Witch Trials where it was said the "Devil" required that those who would worship him would renounce their baptism and give him their soul. From a Christian viewpoint this may sound sinister, but as a modern Wiccan this makes perfect sense. If you wish to be reborn, yet have bound your soul to Christ because it is not safe to do otherwise, then you must sign your soul over to your Gods’ keeping in secret. It's very contractual and businesslike, but ancient Pagans were fond of contracts and agreements with the Gods. The idea of an unconditional relationship with a God is a recent, and to some degree monotheistic, idea.
What a revolutionary and daring idea: to break your contract with one God, while still paying him lip service for safety's sake, while entrusting your soul's care to another God, who is the wild, hairy, sexual, and dark antithesis of the first God! What brazen boldness to maintain two spiritual lives side-by-side, one for safety and appearance and the other for salvation and joy.In this mythologized look at the Horned God, Wicca becomes an Underground Railroad for Pagans. While its practitioners led rather ordinary and respectable lives, their souls are traveling the dark paths of night seeking the hope and promise of moonlight. The "saving of souls" from the terrifying (to the Pagan mind) “salvation” of Christianity is a marvelously wondrous idea. It may not be literally true, because so much regarding Wicca's origins remains shrouded in mystery, but it rings mythically true to me.
Today the Goddess tends to garner most of the attention in Wicca, and that is a healing emphasis for many. As a woman who is very devoted to the Horned God, I like to think that perhaps he may have been of greater importance to Wiccans of yore, whoever they were and if they were. He was a symbol of their souls’ rebellion, their "savior," and the perfect foil for the Inquisition. When your God is incorrectly identified as the Devil, recanting your allegiance to the Devil is meaningless and does not prevent the Lord of Death and Rebirth from guiding your soul back to your tribe on earth.
Hear the words of the dancing God, the music of whose laughter
stirs the winds, whose voice calls the seasons:
"I who am the Lord of the Hunt and the Power of the Light,
sun among the clouds and the secret of the flame,
I call upon your bodies to arise and come unto me.
For I am the flesh of the earth and all its beings.
Thru me all things must die and with me are reborn.
Let my worship be in the body that sings,
for behold all acts of willing sacrifice are my rituals.
Let there be desire and fear, anger and weakness,
joy and peace, awe and longing within you.
For these too are part of the mysteries found within yourself,
within me, all beginnings have endings, and all endings have beginnings."
~ The Charge of the God
Disclaimer: I do not claim to know the true history of Wicca nor am I privy to the secret teachings of any Wiccan tradition. This is my meditation on the Horned God and his role within Wicca based on faith, not fact. I am as skeptical of the true history of Wicca as anyone, but I find the mythologized history of Wicca inspiring and fascinating. It feeds my soul.
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