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

[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. [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|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! --Chan-Ho Suh 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. [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|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)