Wicca as a religion is a duotheistic theological system, which has a goddess / the lady in triple aspect and a horned god / lord.
The name the horned god / lord comes from a pan-european witchcraft based cult and was brought to life in 1921 by Marharet Murray. There is no real evidence that the Horned god / lord has any true historical evidence of being a deity it his own right but is consider to be the god / lord of nature and the opposite and equal of the goddess / the lady.
We all understand that Wicca is a modern pagan path created by Gerald Gardner, Doreen Valiente and Robert Cochrane, in attempts to reclaim the traditions of the pagans of old and to reclaimed the traditions of witchcraft.
Wiccan’s understand that the god / lord forms are more that the divine, but agree that their archetypal forms are imagery use to understand the divine. The Horned god / lord is the personification of the life force energy in animals and the wild” and is associated with the wilderness, virility and the hunt and the carrier of the dead to the underworld.
Has Wicca has developed and grown in to different paths some paths have placed more empathise on the goddess / the lady leaving the god / lord as a less involved deity.
In Wicca the wheel of the year is divided into 8 sections marking the relationship of the god / lord and goddess / the lady.
In Wicca the god / lord seems harder to contact than the goddess / the lady and the Horn god / lord is portrayed as an intermediately between humans and Dryghtyn (Which is a impersonal diety similar to theTao of Taoism). And has many different name depending on which neo pagan path your following.
The horned god / lord has been studied by many pychologists as the Archityple of the male pyche. And since wicca knows where it stands in the terms of its limitation and in the terms of the the Horn god / lord things are a bit wolley, when it come to the understanding of the horned god / lord, and since I am wiccan trained even I can see that this article can be taken the wrong way.
My explaination for this is that at the time Gerald Gardner wanted to disempower the “god / lord” as the almighty , the one true god / lord and wanted to reclaim the feminine aspect of the divine in attempt to restore the balance as any true pagan does, for me Wicca and witchcraft are a part of life a universal balance based on the hermitic laws.
One of the first and mojor of shots of wicca is alexandrian wicca founded by Alex sanders The roll of the horned god / lord has changed from being the wild male aspect to a consult to the goddess / the lady.So when we take a closer look at the horned god / lord you can see that he is made up from influences from literature, historical gods and occult symbology. This Construct of the god / lord form is meant to contain the best and worst aspects of a man from his most gentle to most violent.To me the horned god / lord is the primal force that all the gods are created from or should I say the archetypal male god / lord forms, which all gods are created from. Since Gardner created or recreated Wicca since his understanding of female nature was limited he felt the need to explain more about the triple goddess / the lady than then the god / lord, many Wiccan paths /covens grow and off shoot as the off-shoots start new groups they take with them previous knowledge and new understanding that they have gained and I doubt that any group still follows the Gardner original Book of shadows to the letter if they do then they are not doing what wiccan’s should be doing they are not growing and learning.
Most images of the horned god / lord are related to Pan or Cernunnos both wild and loving gods.
The masculine energy That Gardner portrayed is an untameable spirit filled with sexual desire but also a father. Since I am not a psychologist and their have been a lot of studies by Jungian psychologist on the Horned god / lord I can only give my view of what the horned god / lord means to me as a Wiccan and a Witch the Horned god / lord referred to as the Lord is all male gods with out an aspect applied to them. Since now my path is not predominantly Wiccan, But Wiccan based during Sabbats I would call on the Horned god / lord (a god / lord with no name) as the god / lord-form but for spell working etc I would choose a god / lord whose archetypal form meets my requirements for the spell(etc for example spell work for understanding I would use mercury (from my lip to the god / lord ears and vice versa)).
To be a true Wiccan you have to understand that for each of us the god / lord will show a face and you have to name it and find your path but if you work in a group you will need a archetype god / lord and goddess / the lady form visualise on for successful magicks if you have confusion over god / lord and goddess / the lady for you need to study a little Jung as this will add insight to your understanding, but simple analogy a pack of cards contains many images and if you turn on card and see an image that image is part of a pack of cards alone it has no value apart form its face value the horned god / lord is the pack the card is the male deity of your choice.
Related articles
- Magic, Witchcraft, Wicca – A Brief Overview (cybercauldron.co.uk)
- #PaganBlogProject – C is for Cernunnos (sharmonia.wordpress.com)
- Basic Practices and Beliefs in Wicca (cybercauldron.co.uk)
- Tools Used for Traditional Rituals in Wicca (cybercauldron.co.uk)
- An Introduction to Wicca (cybercauldron.co.uk)
Hi, actually Robert Cochrane was famously opposed to Gardner and is said to have coined the term “Gardnerian”. Doreen Valiente was in Cochrane’s coven for a time but it’s not entirely correct to say that Cochrane created “Wicca” (along with the two of them), a name that later became associated primarily with Gardner based traditions and “neo” paganism in general. Great picture!
With Referance to Robert Cochrane i should of made it clearer that Cochrane, Gardner and Valiente where some of the notable figures in the development of Neo Paganism and moden witchcraft.
[...] tradition is based on the Germanic deities fused with Wiccan deities Woden is the Horned god and Freya as Mother Goddess. The ritual and rites are publicly available although their first [...]