Talk:Horned God

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Contents 1 Puzzlement 2 Origins of Christian depictions of Satan 3 Skeptical tone 4 Horns and Antlers 5 God or god 6 Sources 7 "Pseudohistory"? 8 Ba`al Hammon of Carthage 9 {{pov-section}} tag added 10 horned gods 11 Pop Culture 12 Pop Culture Representations

[edit] 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

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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...

[edit] God or god

see User_talk:Sam_Spade#Horned_God. The article Deity might also add some insight. Example (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. Example (talk · contribs) 01:29, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] 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

[edit] "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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] {{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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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.