Talk:Horned God

Puzzlement

er..."deific archetype"? "naturalistic religions? I'm puzzled...

• Sorry about that - terms from a long-ago mythology class, from which basis I wrote that. I'll try to clarify and neutralize it.

-- April

Origins of Christian depictions of Satan

Any idea when or where the Christian description of Satan having cloven hoofs and horns began? I haven't a clue. Wesley 19:49 Sep 19, 2002 (UTC)

Satan isn't wholly evil in the Judaic tradition. The Book of Job describes Satan as a rival to YHWH, but not necessarily a malicious entity. User:Waxmop

In fact it could be argued that the udaic Satan actually works for Yahweh as a sort of divine Prosecuting Attorney or (pun intended) "devil's advocate"--Tricksterson 17:45, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

---

This is all a modern garble, so that a subtle reference to syncretism is only fair to the reader. Fortunately the revised entry Satan answers some puzzles. But this kind of sentence:

During the rise of Christianity, Literature attributed the image of the Horned God in the form of Satan... To hear tell, Christianity just rose like Sourdough, while I was sitting in the parlor reading my favorite author, Literature, who attributes images in the form ... Wetman 08:00, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

According to Ronald Hutton (our favourite author... not) in Triumph of the Moon early depictions of Satan were more often bull-horned, with clawed feet, long ears and webbed wings; the Pan-like depiction seems to be a nineteenth-century creation, representing a Christian reaction to the growing importance of Pan as an alternative focus for the literary imagination. (p. 46) I don't know whether that's more reliable than any of his other claims, but it sounds OK... Something that Hutton doesn't mention is that this Pan-like physiognomy was once a common depiction of John the Baptist, clearly recalling some earlier pagan Jack-in-the-Green type of deity. Also worth mentioning that John and Jesus were examples of the Oak and Holly Kings that Frazer wrote of. Anyway, I'm tired, I should get some sleep rather than haranguing poor Hutton. Fuzzypeg 13:48, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Skeptical tone

"such widely-dispersed and historically unconnected mythologies as the Celtic Cernunnos, the Welsh Caerwiden, the English Herne the Hunter"

I appreciate the sceptical tone, but there's a lot of controversy about that. It's certainly not an undisputed fact.

I would agree that "unconnected" is probably controversial. Some pre-Socratic Greek thought, Pythagoras in partciular, appears to have had subcontinental influences, and I understood that it was fairly well assumed now that some form of contact or transmission of ideas took place. There is no need to assume that Gauls and other Celts were uninfluenced by eastern traditions, even though they may not have recognised them as such, and vice versa. - Unsigned post

Skepticism is fine, and always healthy. However Wikipedia should not have any tone, as such, rather than informative, and the clear tone from reading this article was even more than skeptical; it was scoffing. I've done some subtle rewording to remove that tone.

I've also removed the mention of a 'melange of classical symbolism' in the caption to the Baphomet picture, and replaced it with a clear comparison to the Devil card of the Marseilles tarot decks, from whence the image clearly derives, almost in its entirety. I realise the caption of this card is now indulgently long - I suggest moving this material to the Baphomet article, and in the caption here, having only a brief mention that it resembles the Devil card.

I would also like to find the source of the quote cited only as "Burkert 1985 p.64". Anyone know who this is? If anyone has some other prominent authors who criticise this syncretism it might be an idea to mention them too; Burkert looks a bit lonely there. Even Ronald Hutton, if he says anything about this (though he's not my favourite author - another scoffer teeming with factual errors). Fuzzypeg 09:52, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I've re-edited with an even clearer comparison to the actual Tarot of Marseille card, not to be confuised with the modern Rider-Waite deck etc, and made some badly-needed links. I integrated the caption text with the main text. Burkert Greek Religion should have been listed in References: now it is. --Wetman 20:52, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for removing my mention of "omphalos-type stone". I have just been reading about depictions of Dionysus, and it just slipped out, I guess. I tossed an turned a couple of times last night over that one. I've slightly altered your description: the "perched on a globe" was a feature of the marseilles decks, but gesturing above and below was not. I'm not sure where you got "good above and evil below" from - Levi refers the moons to Chesed and Gevurah, not good and evil. Fuzzypeg 22:53, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Some of these sections need a much more skeptical tone, being written from a completely Murray-ist point of view of the ancient worship of a pan-European horned god as a fact. I'd rewrite myself if I had more time... Fuzzypeg☻ 21:18, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Horns and Antlers

minor point:

The Horned God image as embraced by neo-pagan traditions includes both gods with horns (such as Pan) and gods with antlers (such as Cernunnos). I think the distinction between the two, and the way they have been "combined" should be made more clear.

yes, it would be a valuable addition (do you have sources where this is discussed?) beyond the obvious that just, well, antlers are a type of horns. dab 09:07, 17 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yes and no...horns are part of bone if I remember, and antlers are closer to nails and hair in composition. Also, antlers are shed while horns are not, and horns tend NOT to branch. They both grow on one's head, but are not the same thing...

God or god

see User_talk:Sam_Spade#Horned_God. The article Deity might also add some insight. Sam_Spade (talk · contribs) 14:05, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

yeah, so it's a syncretic term. It's still "Horned God" is a syncretic term, not, "Horned god" is a syncretic term. You should add that the insight from deity is your insight. This is not a matter of capitalization as explained on God. It's simply a question of common usage. See http://www.google.com/search?q=%22horned+god%22 . Please move it back, you did no good here. dab (ᛏ) 15:01, 29 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Horned God" is used almost exclusively to refer to this figure. As a proper name, it should be capitalized. Also, it's a bit telling of the bias involved in the rewrite that the first three words are now The Horned god (sic) rather than The horned god or The Horned God. -Sean Curtin 01:29, Dec 30, 2004 (UTC)

I know. please change it back. dab (ᛏ) 11:49, 30 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I agree that because it's a proper name it should be "Horned God". Note the capitalizations of "Great Mother", "Great Father", and "Green Man". The capitalizations should at least be consistent. The rest of the page currently has "Horned god" though instead of "Horned God". The capitalization should at least be consistent in the same article! --C S 01:35, Jan 3, 2005 (UTC)

well, you can fix it, if you like... dab (ᛏ) 08:28, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

i agree with Chan-Ho Suh. im going ahead and changing the instences of "Horned god" to "Horned God". Craptree 05:35, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I respect the concensus. Sam_Spade (talk · contribs) 01:29, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sources

I notice that someone has removed the note that most of this article (everything between the headings "Associations" and "Wicca", I would say) takes the neo-pagan ideas of a Horned God at face value. (Rather like reading the article on Jesus, only to discover that the text after the first couple of paragraphs is just a rehash of the Nicene Creed.) I do not know why this was not considered worthy of note, but I do agree with the suggestion that this article needs better references. The following ideas especially need to be made clear (who proposed them, when, and on what grounds?):

• That there is a unified cross-cultural Horned God. There are plenty of gods with horns, and one can find shared attributes among them, but as far as I know the idea of a single capitalized Horned God is a modern invention.
• That he's associated with the woods. Pan and Faunus, sure, and Cernunnos, but what about Leib-olmai the alder man, or the Slavic Perunu, or the dryads?
• That he's associated with hunting. Orion, Artemis, Odin et al. are hornless counterexamples.
• That he's associated with wild animals. Again we have Cernunnos, and also Faunus, and Pashupati. (No counterexamples spring to mind, and associating a figure with animal attributes with animals is quite sensible.)
• That he's a fertility god. (This one is probable, actually, since it's one of the most common meanings of the horn, for obvious reasons.)
• That he's always a life-death-rebirth deity. A fertility god, yes perhaps, but the two don't always go hand in hand.
• That this Horned God survived into the 19th century in local customs, rather than being invented around that time.

Also worth keeping in mind is the dictum from Burkert quoted in the Bull (mythology) article. —E. Underwood

on the contrary, I have replaced your "exposition of syncretism" in the article body with the prominent Template:Unsourced, meaning that the statements in the article should be referenced or cleaned up. You are more than welcome to insert the points you make into the article, raising the it to a more encyclopedic standard. It's always preferable to actually improve an article than to just sneaking in a statement that it's really crap. dab (ᛏ) 09:24, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I am sorry that you consider adding a referenced explanation of the idea's historical context and pointing the reader in the general direction of the sources for the rest of the article to be "sneaking in a statement that it's really crap". Such was not my intent. I do not believe that it is crap; I think it is a religious belief, I think it has identifiable origins and purposes, and I think it is accurate in some ways but not in others. This is fine. Letting the reader think that he's reading something other than a religious belief is, however, not fine. The article on Jesus should not say something like "Jesus was the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit, was crucified, died, and was buried; on the third day he rose again. . . etc." without making it known who believes that. Neither should this article. Indicating that sources are lacking does not indicate the nature of the beliefs described.

Is a subtle but necessary piece of context superior to one of those ugly, obtrusive dispute boxes? I've added eight words, neutrally phrased, that satisfy all of my objections for now (though of course sources should still be found); if you don't like them, then take them out and put up a TotallyDisputed tag. It is neither neutral nor accurate to expound a religious belief without the slightest indication of what it is. —E. Underwood

I'm very sorry, I was referring to this edit, where you say

"What follows is a description of the neo-pagan conception, sources unknown."

I had not seen your earlier, very substantial edit. It was entirely my mistake, and you have already improved the article substantially. dab (ᛏ) 10:42, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As far as I know, this concept is a theory which did not originate with wiccans, but rather along with the mother goddess concept lead to them. There has long been a tendancy to blur the lines between ancient dieties, and I see this as yet another attempt at that. We should find out who came up w the idea, clearly. (Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 10:51, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

James Frazer, maybe? blur the lines between ancient deities? the ancients were happy to blur them, themselves, often enough. dab (ᛏ) 11:08, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Right, I didn't mean to suggest that the line blurring was anything new, it was a major theme of the Romans, for example. The particularly broad catagories of Horned god and mother goddess are pretty new tho, I'd assume. (Sam Spade | talk | contributions) 11:25, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)

interpretatio Romana, yes. Horned gods and mother goddesses are nothing new, and especially in the case of the latter, linking them across cultures is a common practice. I think it might be worthwhile to put the information on non-capitalized horned gods and other mythological horns into Horn (mythology). That could cover various horned deities and symbols, the Minoan sacral horns, the Horn of Plenty, the unicorn's horn, the Kirin, and suchlike; this article could be entirely about the modern concept of a single Horned God, with reference to the real background where appropriate. —E. Underwood

"Pseudohistory"?

I'm removing the "Pseudohistory" template, since the article states from the outset that it is about a modern syncretic term. As such, "Horned God" is not pseudohistory at all, just a contemporary notion with roots in older, historical notions. dab (ᛏ) 14:20, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Wouldn't an adequate definition of pseudohistory be "a contemporary notion with roots in older, historical notions"? When the "Hornèd God" is set into historical contexts, how is the result not pseudohistory? All history is colored by the historian's view: perhaps it's all pseudohistory... --Wetman 01:30, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I am not sure I understand you here. Is Carnival "pseudohistory", for example? Everybody agrees that carnival customs have ancient roots, but as long as nobody claims that Iron Age Celts celebrated "carnival" with brass bands, I don't see how it is "pseudohistory", it's just what these ancient customs have evolved into today. I am not aware that anybody claims that Wicca etc. notions of the "Horned God" are authentic Iron Age reconstructs. It's just a collection of whatever people fancied in old sources. dab (ᛏ) 09:38, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

The celebration of Carnival is traditional, not historic, endlessly self-renewing in an eternal present: ask a Samba band. There is a history of the development of Carnival, nevertheless. Perhaps there is a pseudohistory of Rio's Carnival as well, which would include the folk etymology carne vale and much elaboration on a few hints in West African folklore besides. Thus a contemporary notion has roots in older, historical notions, both as history and—through inventions—pseudohistory. I do see your point in removing the Pseudohistory template, but look over the articles at Category:Pseudohistory: they all select from some genuine nuggets. --Wetman 20:11, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

Ba`al Hammon of Carthage

This was anonymously added as an element of the "Horned God". Since so little was known of Ba'al Hammon while the syncretic myth of a "Hornmed God" was being developed in the 19th century, I moved this here, lest we simply develop a random list of pagan deities. --Wetman 04:31, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

{{pov-section}} tag added

The section on Wicca and Gardner is basically going straight with the POV that Gardner made up Wicca on his own. There is, in both Hutton and Heselton combined, reason to doubt that statement.--Vidkun 13:27, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

As a Wiccan (and don't you hate people who introduce their opinion with 'As A Whatever,' as though it makes it any more than their opinion?), I'd like to say that there's no evidence that's yet convinced me that Wicca is anything other than the invention of Gardner and his associates. If the dispute here is that he 'made up Wicca on his own', then I agree that's not the case. If the dispute is about whether or not it actually existed as a defined religion in pre-Christian Europe, then I'm certainly not aware of any reputable source that would argue that it did. Gardner certainly drew from many existing sources, so much of what is recognised as Wiccan ritual and philosophy did exist already - but it's unlikely that Wicca itself did. - Adaru 17:51, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

If the dispute is about whether or not it actually existed as a defined religion in pre-Christian Europe It isn't. The debate is whether Gardner made it up on his own, as suggested by the wording Gerald Gardner began Wicca in England. There is, for those willing to read published works, sufficient evidence in Hutton's Triumph of the Moon, and Heselton's Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration, to show that Gardner did not begin Wicca. People prior to him did, and he revised and reinvigorated it.--Vidkun 16:38, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough then. - Adaru

I'll have a go at improving the wording. Fuzzypeg☻ 19:31, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

horned gods

I think the question of why there are/were so many horned gods around the world is worth an article in its own right (e.g. horned gods). I don't know enough about anything like this to start one unfortunately. Ireneshusband 05:52, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

I think the question of why there are/were so many vegetation goddesses, sun goddesses, horned goddesses and sky goddesses, and why almost all lunar gods are male, and most goddesses don`t fit in any triad, all around the world, is worth an article in its own right. Come on, let`s face it they`re even more sun goddesses than lunar goddesses.

It might be true that there are more horned gods than horned goddesses- but then again, we all know ALL men are half animals, don`t we? LOL —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.62.14.246 (talk) 23:43, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

How about an article about how/why most fruit aren't shaped like bananas? I'm not sure what point you're trying to make — that most fruit aren't bananas, or that bananas are unimportant... ??? Or that some people who like eating bananas should be eating other fruit instead? Please explain. Fuzzypeg★ 05:42, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Pop Culture

Seeing as someone deleted this section I thought I'd provide a rationale for inclusion: The section on representations of "The Horned God" in pop culture is highly relevant to the subject, and directly relates to the evolving syncretic nature of the concept and it's representation in the wider society. Further to that, the band mentioned Sabbat are neo-pagans. The "Horned Rat" of the Skaven is an example of how the concept has influenced fictional work, and whilst somewhat tongue-in-cheek in itself, The Horned Rat might well be a better known and understood "deity-with-horns" image among a certain demographic than the 'real' one. At present the article has a strong neo-pagan bias and fails to deal with the popular image, modern interpretation or it's influnce on secular culture. --Davémon 09:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

The someone was me. I was thinking of the Manual of Style section on trivia. Now you may not all agree that popular culture references equate to trivia, but the two disparate references I deleted here certainly seemed rather randomly gathered, and not by any means the most important cultural manufestations of the Horned God. There is an essay here which, as an essay is obviously not formal policy, but I think it makes good sense and would prefer that we follow its guidance in this article. A further essay here also makes some useful points. What do other editors feel? I certainly don't want to impose my view if I'm alone on this. Kim Dent-Brown ^{(Talk to me)} 10:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, I've added a couple more references 'off the top of my head'. If you have some more significant examples then they should be added too. As suggested by WP:TRIVIA once we've got a more comprehensive outline of the popular image of the Horned God - it should be a simple task to take it out of list-form and integrate it into the main article, but it is useful whilst editors gather the information together. To show the influence that the idea has outside of the neo-pagan 'ancient-religion-survival' / 'christian demonisation of Pan' narrative the article is currently biased towards will help balance the article more evenly. --Davémon 15:38, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

To be honest, I don't think the right way to go with this section is to expand it. The presence of such sections at all is deprecated, and the preferred strategy (vide the essays cited above) is to integrate 'popular culture' references into the main text of the article in a sensible way that illustrates and expands the article. Frankly (and I speak as an ex-Warhammer player!) I see no link between the Horned Rat and the topic of the article. At an absolute minumum, these pop culture assertions need a reference each, but personally I'd delete them again in a second except I have no interest in starting an edit war. Anyone else have a view or is this just a 2-way difference of opinion? Kim Dent-Brown ^{(Talk to me)} 17:30, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

The Horned Rat is a "god" whose defining feature is having "horns" (there are other connections - he also presides over a council of thirteen, the number of a 'coven' popularised by Murray). This article is obviously at a very early stage of development - the first section rightly positions Margaret Murray's theories as discredited, then goes on to state precisely those theories ("European common belief in and worship of the Horned God waned almost to extinction by the 19th century") as if they were simple accepted facts in a completely unreferenced way. As a lot of work is needed to remove these internal contradictions, I see no reason to delete what is obviously outline content for new sections. Indeed WP:TRIVIA states "Lists of miscellaneous information can be useful for developing a new article". Or does everyone else see this article as already comprehensive and nearly complete? --Davémon 18:43, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Please! No more!! Kim Dent-Brown ^{(Talk to me)} 17:06, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I believe in this situation that trying to accumulate trivia and then expand it into discussion is going to result in original research. It is not our job to report on our own perceptions of how pop-culture elements relate to the neopagan Horned God; if some reliable author has written about this subject then by all means report on their findings, but otherwise this all comes down to personal speculation. Take the horned rat you've discussed above, for example: this may indeed be based on the Horned God concept, but isn't it more likely that it was based on the Devil, linked with the concept (admittedly originating with Murray) that covens have thirteen members? This, to my mind at least, seems more likely to have come to Warhammer via Satanism or any number of a host of crap horror movies and books. Anyway, regardless of what we think, this is just our own personal speculation, clearly inconclusive, and has no place in the article.

As for things like album covers and so forth, I can think of much better ways to expand the article than by providing every pop reference. Again, if we find some notable author who writes about how the Horned God has influenced pop culture, we might quote them and get a more interesting and useful discussion. If the Jesus article had a "Popular culture" section it would involve a discussion of trends of influence, rather than a listing of every tacky piece of junk with a picture of Jesus on it. In most of the cases with these pieces of trivia, if any discussion is deserved at all, it would be more appropriate to mention the Horned God link in the other article, i.e. in Cruachan (band) or Death SS. Then if anyone's really interested they can click on the "What links here" link in the toolbox.

I'm going to remove the couple of references that have no established connection to the subject, and I invite anyone else to remove other items, or the section in its entirety. Fuzzypeg☻ 22:38, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

OK. I'll remove the list and place it on the Talk page. As you've also expressed a problem with original research, which has also concerned me for some time, I'll also remove all the uncited statements from the article. Yes, the Horned God seems to have generated a small wealth of "crap horror movies and books" - or 'pulp fiction' as I prefer to call it, in his short life. --Davémon 07:46, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Now just be careful here. A number of the statements in the article marked with {{fact}} tags were marked before the decision of about 2 months ago that controversial statements marked with fact tags could be automatically removed. That was, in my mind, a stupid decision, because many people had been using that tag for non-controversial statements that could have done with a reference, not because they were not attributable, but to make the article more informative. When that decision was made I went through the Wicca article and removed many of the fact tags that didn't warrant deletion of the statement! No-one has done this here, so if you're going to remove any statements, remember to evaluate carefully: is the claim actually doubtful, or is it just uncited?

To clarify: until about April the {{fact}} tag simply indicated that a citation was needed but wasn't an automatic go-ahead for deletion, and was applied to a number of things that were known to be non-controversial. Since then a decision was made that the fact tag should only be applied to statements that are "doubtful". Much of what you deleted consists of non-doubtful statements that were tagged before the policy change. I shall reinstate the deleted material for more careful deletion of only doubtful statements. The fact tags can simply be removed from other statements, since no-one has proposed an anternative tag that doesn't carry an auto delete policy. Stupid, I know, but there you are.

I'm not sure this is the appropriate place to discuss policy. However, it has been the case for quite some time that WP:V states "Editors adding or restoring material that has been challenged or is likely to be challenged, or quotations, must provide a reliable published source, or the material may be removed" (my emphasis). I've no interest in starting an edit war, but without proper sources, much of this is just cruft. --Davémon 08:01, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

And I'm just a little concerned: something in the way you phrased "I'll also remove all the uncited statements from the article" conveys the sense of a vendetta. I trust this is not the case, but please make sure you're improving the article rather than just diminishing it. Fuzzypeg☻ 00:01, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I've restored some of this info with some minor rewordings. You're right, there was some quite poorly worded stuff here, but the basic ideas are still worth recording. I think it's helpful in building a picture of what the Horned God concept is supposed to represent, and with better citations it would be even more helpful. I'm pretty rushed for time, so if it doesn't initially look perfect please forgive me. I believe attributions can easily be found for most of what's in the article — where fact tags remain I'm less certain (without doing further investigation) that finding attributions will be trivial. Fuzzypeg☻ 02:00, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

OK. I doubt there are reliable references for much of it at all - the Satan section - isn't really necessary to compare the characters of the two - Murray clearly illustrates their historical relationship, and this later section adds nothing except very poor theology. I'm also more concerned that the article becomes less biased. You suggest in your edit notes to consult Heselton. I do not want to offend, but he is a Wiccan, and is hardly unbiased on the subject. Might as well ask a Christian about the historical reality of Jesus. Further, I'm not sure there is a need to re-hash the whole History of Wicca debate here at all, rather simply make reference to the two positions (inspired by Murray / taught by a survivor), and that they are debated by wicca supporters and neutral historians, and get on with describing what the Horned God means in Wicca. Davémon 09:05, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The Satan section: the first paragraph is a straight synopsis of Hutton's analysis in Triumph of the Moon. The second paragraph is straight fact that you should find repeated in any Wicca 101 or Paganism 101 book. I don't have my books here with me at work, but I should be able to find a citation soon. I changed the word "pagan" to "neopagan" to hopefully placate you further.

Of course it's necessary to compare the Horned God with Satan, since they are easily and commonly confused, especially by fundamentalist Christians and Muslims, and because Murray's supposed "Horned God" was the Devil in witchcraft testimonies. I expect this section will eventually grow substantially to discuss this relationship.

You're concerned about bias. Let me remind you that Wikipedia articles can and often should cite biased sources; the article itself should remain (as far as possible) unbiased, by presenting these views in context and providing alternative views. Saying that, Heselton has been highly praised by Ronald Hutton for his wealth of factual evidence and the clear distinction he makes between objective data and his own occasional speculations. His research is generally considered the most complete and up-to-date regarding the facts of Gardner's inception into Wicca. Hutton is regarded (for better or worse) as the world authority on Neopaganism in general. Neither of these authors conclude that Gardner created the religion himself, although both allow this as a possibility. More particularly, neither say that Gardner "followed" Murray when he claimed the religion was ancient; if he didn't make the whole thing up it then he could well have "followed" his initiators in this belief. The thing is, we don't know, and neither do the experts in the field. If we want to make statements like this we need supporting evidence. I don't want to re-hash the history of Wicca either, so I'm sorry. But if we disagree on Wiccan history then it's going to come up. Fuzzypeg☻ 23:14, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure this is the correct forum for a debate on this subject - as long as the article is balanced, that's all that really matters. Hutton may well support Heselton, but few others do. Both Jaquiline Simpson ( "Margret Murray: Who believed her and why?") and Micheal York (‘Invented Culture/Invented Religion: The Fictional Origins of Neopagansim') and many other academics besides them simply say that Gardner followed Murray - entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem . It remains an article of faith of the Wiccan religion that Gardner's sources are really what he claims - as you say - the experts "don't know".

However, I do think the relationship between Satan and The Horned God is adequately explained with reference to Murray - everything else will be "after the event" and will inevitably stem (as far as reliable sources go) from that. Satan is a theologically complex figure, and paragraph 2 depends entirely on 1) a naive literal reading of Satanic mythology, and 2) that mythology being mutually exclusive from that of the Horned God - which simply isn't the case. If the article presents the idea that Wiccans do not believe that the Horned God is Satan (as it currently does), then it should be balanced with the Christian opinion that they are one and the same thing. I personally don't feel that debate is of benefit to the article but if it's going to be represented it should be done properly.Davémon 21:06, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I do not have York's or Simpson's articles on hand, but I presume they must have been following Kelly or Roper (I think it was Roper?) in claiming that Gardner followed Murray. These opinions are outdated, coming before either Triumph or Heselton's books, and being derivative of works now considered flawed (Kelly's scholarship in particular has been pulled to shreds, see Hutton and Don Frew). That said, I like the wording change you made, since there clearly was some influence from Murray, but how much and at which points, and at whose hand, is unknown.

No, York and Simpson weren't using Kelly nor Roper - why would anyone do that? Heselton doesn't have a monopoly on the academic study of witchcraft. --Davémon 13:58, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I intended Eliot Rose, not Roper. He and Kelly wrote well-known "debunkings" of Gardner's claims, forming a basis for most later research surrounding Gardnerian origins. Of course Heselton doesn't have a monopoly on the academic study of witchcraft, but he has produced by far the most comprehensive study of the origins of Gardnerian Wicca to date. Fuzzypeg☻ 06:43, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Now as to the "Christian opinion" that the the Horned God and Satan are one and the same, that would be a good thing to mention. Do you have any good sources to hand that we could draw from for this? I know some Christians view any other god as Satan in disguise, but it'd be good if we could find something that more specifically names the Horned God. Hopefully not too polemical, or we'll make them look like raving loonies...

Of course I don't see why the pagan viewpoint needs to be balanced with the Christian viewpoint... why not the Buddhist viewpoint? I would prefer not "balancing" with other coloured perspectives, but trying to take a more objective approach, simply saying "this is the supposed deity, these are his known origins in folklore (and the misinterpretation of folklore), these are the people who honour him, and this is how they see him". But hey, a small section on Christian perspectives would be OK. Fuzzypeg☻ 05:41, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Finding decent sources that say "Wiccans are Satanists, their 'Horned God' is satan" by anyone except the lunatic fringe has proven impossible. However, there must be sources where Wiccans have felt the need to express the difference between the HD and Satan because it has been accused? --Davémon 13:58, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Of course. If I remember I'll have a look through my books. Cheers, Fuzzypeg☻ 06:43, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Pop Culture Representations

• 1967: The film The Devil Rides Out features a Devil which is based on the Horned God syncretism (based on the 1937 book of the same name)
• 1986: In the gaming merchandise related to Warhammer published by Games Workshop a race of mutant rat-people called Skaven worship a Horned Rat.
• 1988: The song "Horned is the Hunter" by thrash metal band Sabbat on the album A History of A Time to Come describes an un-named Horned God of Hunting.
• 1989: The comic book series 2000AD featured Sláine by Pat Mills and Simon Bisley features the Horned God in a major story-arc.
• 2002: the irish folk-metal band Cruachan feature a song called The Horned God on their albumn Folk Lore.
• 2004: The italian black metal band Death SS have a compilation album entitled The Horned God of the Witches released featuring an image of Baphomet on the cover.
• 20??: The [Wood Elf Orion] takes the form of the Horned God.

Hutton-centrism

I've just made some pretty big changes to the intro, and I'm sure a few people will be surprised. I've tried to make the supporting evidence clear, and have included a host of references, all from highly regarded academics. People like Bengt Ankarloo, Georg Luck, Keith Thomas and Eva Pocs are extremely well-regarded, and have written standard texts in their fields. If their opinions seem to contradict Ronald Hutton, around whose books this article seems to have been written, it's because they do.

Ronald Hutton has a habit of casting himself as one of an academic elite, and actually cites several of these authors in support of his theories, often misrepresenting their work in the process. Hutton's work can largely be seen as an extension of Norman Cohn, whose book Europe's Inner Demons Carlo Ginzburg has described as a 'polemic'. Far from presenting a synthesis of current academic consensus, Hutton's works stand apart as taking quite an extreme and minimalistic approach.

So I realise this may be a shock to those who have read Hutton but little else; what I've tried to do is restore some balance and make this article representative of wider academic opinion.

I've only attacked the lead section so far, and it may be a little to top heavy and go into too much detail regarding the witch-hunts and the survival of paganism; this is partly to demonstrate to other editors that I'm not off my rocker, and I would expect some of this text to move further down the article in future. Cheers, Fuzzypeg★ 23:39, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

It's good that other opinions than Huttons are being introduced to the article. Unfortunately naturalising those opinions isn't good, and makes it look biased. The history of the Horned God is created by several differening and conflicting viewpoints. The article must not priveledge any of those views over the others, but neutrally lay out what the sources say. Actually fleshing out what the witch-cult survival arguments are (rather than just citing them on one line) would help that a lot. --Davémon (talk) 08:41, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I'm not really trying to make this into an article about survival of elements of pagan belief. That would be more appropriate elsewhere. I've only included enough to demonstrate to readers and other editors that another body of academic literature exists outside of Hutton, and provide a little context for this argument of a pagan god.

Note also that what I've added is actually not in as much conflict with Hutton as it would at first seem, since he only claims that "paganism" had entirely disappeared from everywhere except the very fringes of Europe; he doesn't give much attention to the possibility of pagan beliefs and practices persisting as folk magic or folk superstition within a Christianised society (at which time it's debatable whether they could be called 'pagan' or not — if the practitioners consider themselves 'Christian', who are we to contradict them?). The authors I've cited don't (mostly) call the activities of these accused witches 'pagan', but they do claim that their activities often originated in pre-Christian paganism and magic. When reading Hutton, one gets the impression that he is claiming a complete Christian holocaust of pagan-related beliefs between the 6th and 8th centuries, but in fact he only talks about paganism, not beliefs originating in paganism but practiced by people who were nominally Christian.

This is a subtle but important distinction, and hard to word clearly, I know. Unfortunately Hutton hasn't helped to make this gap in his discussion clear.

The main conflict with Hutton comes from the opening paragraph in which the "Horned God" is stated to be a syncretic god of late antiquity rather than a syncretic god of the 19th and 20th centuries. The scholar cited there is Professor Emeritus from Johns Hopkins University, Georg Luck:

"No one currently at work in ancient magic or related fields can remotely compare with Luck for the breadth and profundity of his knowledge of the literary texts... or for the humility and lightness of touch with which he conveys his scholarship." -- Daniel Ogden, Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft.

So, if you want the arguments about survival from paganism fleshed out:

• Ginzburg charts the development of the Sabbath stereotype from pagan ecstatic shamanistic practices originating in ancient central Eurasia, with themes of leaving the body in spirit and battling for the fertility of the land, or congregating at feasts presided over by a goddess who would teach magic and give prophecies.
• Pocs, having conducted the largest single study of witch-trial documents, elaborates on this theme of leaving the body at particular times and communing or battling with various spirits, and again claims these are essentially pre-Christian beliefs and practices. She also demonstrates how little there was to distinguish a 'witch' from a 'healer' or wise-person, and one village's healer was often the next village's 'witch'.
• Wilby carries the same conclusions that Pocs came to with the Eastern European data over to England and Scotland; she demonstrates how closely witchcraft beliefs were tied up with the pre-Christian magical world and beliefs regarding fairies and the cult of the dead; she also demonstrates just how flimsy common people's grasp of Christianity was even by the Early Modern Age. She is particularly important in having demonstrated in the British data how little separated the cunning-folk from 'witches'; that both used the same techniques, both employed familiars, and both were often seen with ambivalence by others (as being capable of both beneficent and malevolent magic). The terms 'witch' and 'cunning man/woman' were interchangeable, and a large number of accused witches seem to have been cunning folk.
• Monter, looking at French white witches, identifies elements of paganism under a 'Christian veneer', such as the 'devils' encountered in the woods who he claims were pre-Christian deities, or the holy springs to which these witches sent customers for their health giving properties; the saints to which these springs were sacred were, he says, marely pagan deities in disguise.
• Erik Midelfort spends most of a chapter describing how the diabolical themes associated with the witches' sabbath began developing right from the first introduction of Christianity to Europe, based around pagan beliefs and practices re-cast in a negative light; he also shows how some of these practices persisted amongst the populace in the form of popular magic.
• Henningsen basically elaborates on Ginzburg, showing how elements of pre-Christian belief and fairy lore persisted in a fairly coherent structure that ultimately was cast as the 'witches' sabbath'.
• Thomas, author of the widely acclaimed magnum opus "Religion and the Decline of Magic", has charted, probably in the most detail, the persistence of folk magic techniques and superstions amongst common people, originating in paganism and contributing to the witchcraft stereotype.

Hope this clarifies things a bit. Fuzzypeg★ 23:33, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that Hutton can be blatantly wrong. However, I think one of the issues here is that, without up front attributing theories to individuals and mixing various notions in a big line of references, you can easily arrive in the area of synthesis. I think it's wise to just present notions side by side or simply say "... theorizes otherwise, stating ..." and that "this notion is echoed by .... who states that ... but that ....". I'm a big supporter of stating attestations up front and then putting the rest in a well organized "theories" section or when necessary a "debate on ..." subsection - it makes it easier on those trying to edit the article and readers both. :bloodofox: (talk) 00:06, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

As I say, that discussion about survivals of pagan belief is probably more than is appropriate, especially in the lead section. I'm happy for it to move or be trimmed down, and I intend to do so myself as I find time to make further changes to the article. If you want to pursue improvements in the meantime or try to trim that paragraph down, then be my guest.

I don't think what I've written regarding survivals from paganism constitutes OR, since all the cited authors quite explicitly claim such survivals from paganism — there's no synthesis in that. What is a little questionable is beginning this discussion about pagan survivals in the middle of the lead section of the Horned God article. It's not directly relevant to the Horned God, as evidenced by the fact that a lot of these authors aren't specifically discussing a Horned God, but rather survival of paganism and witchcraft in general.

I guess I was just trying to anticipate what arguments might be raised and give my evidence in advance. But I'm happy for that text to be relocated or even potentially removed. Fuzzypeg★ 01:27, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with the ideas - and the Horned God is inextricably linked to the construction theories of the history of paganism, so some discussion is bound to come up in the article. The problem isn't the content itself, its just the way it has been presented as a Everyone vs. Hutton argument, rather than neutrally showing the views. It just needs a bit of clarifying, expanding and attributing. I'd rather see it fixed as Bloodofox suggests than removed. --Davémon (talk) 07:54, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Restructure

Right now, this article is very much centered around the concept of a horned god in Wicca. What would be far more useful is a listing of horned gods, a short paragraph about them with a {{main|...}} tag in their appropriate sections, a section regarding the medieval notion, and then whatever theories and modern beliefs centering around the notion of horned gods/horned god. In fact, perhaps the article should be moved to horned gods and the theory/belief of the god representing some sort of universal archetype be treated in its own section within the article. :bloodofox: (talk) 00:17, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I would second that. I think Horned god is more appropriate than Horned gods (just as Deity is more appropriate than Deities), but I would make the subject of the article pluralistic, rather than trying to mash every horned god into a single syncretic deity. (Note my capitalisation of 'god' in my proposed title.) Highly syncretic Neopagan conceptions would be a subsection, as would the various theories about a universal 'horned god' archetype. And the conception of a syncretic god in late antiquity who became a god of 'witches', that would be another subsection. Fuzzypeg★ 01:37, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

I've finally gone through and built a basic skeleton that this article ought to logically flesh out around: the historical gods with horns and antlers and the singular "horned god"/baphomet that would later appear with Christianization and modern groups. Right now it's a bit of a mess, but, unfortunately, so are the current articles for the very interesting figures that are linked here. There's plenty to be said here: for example, the similarities between the depiction of "Cernunnos" from the Gundestrup cauldron found in Denmark and the "Pashupati Seal" is most striking. Note that these are also all Indo-European cultures currently listed here (minus the paleolithic cave art, obviously), and there's probably some interesting things out there on that. :bloodofox: (talk) 08:56, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Brilliant! Getting the right structure in place is probably the most important thing at this stage, and you've done well. At some stage I might add the horned Dionysus. It's interesting that Prajāpati has been clearly linked with the Orphic Protogonos, an incarnation of the Orphic Zeus/Dionysus/Pan/Phanes/Eros. I read this in a MA thesis, but this is just an extension of comparisons made in a more reputable source: Martin West's Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient and Orphic Poems. There's probably plenty of other interesting material cited in that paper. Fuzzypeg★ 00:36, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Great, I am glad we can agree on a structure here then! A shame that the articles we're "main-linking" are in poor states. As a result, I say that we ought to just provide a basic summary of characteristics of each figure, then go into their depictions with horns or antlers on our own here. Let's just be sure to keep the theories cleanly separate from the primary sources. :bloodofox: (talk) 06:20, 8 October 2008 (UTC)

Actually no, the new structure seems to be committing wp:syn and wp:or. By clumping together these 'horned gods' and folklore characters the article is naturalising the view that all these things are somehow connected. They aren't. Or at least the connection is somewhat disputed and to retain neutrality must make that clear. --Davémon (talk) 16:09, 8 October 2008 (UTC)