The Horned God of the Witches

2021·7.24 MB·english

by  Jason Mankey

About the Author
Jason Mankey is a third-degree Gardnerian
High Priest and helps run two Witchcraft
covens in the San Francisco Bay Area with
his wife, Ari. He is a popular speaker at
Pagan and Witchcraft events across North
America and Great Britain and has been
recognized by his peers as an authority on
the Horned God, Wiccan history, and occult
influences in rock and roll. Jason writes online at Raise the Horns on
Patheos Pagan and for the print magazine Witches & Pagans. You
can follow him on Instagram and Twitter at @panmankey.
Llewellyn Publications
Woodbury, Minnesota
Copyright Information
The Horned God of the Witches © 2021 by Jason Mankey.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written
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and is illegal and punishable by law.
First e-book edition © 2021
E-book ISBN: 9780738763156
Cover design by Kevin R. Brown
Cover illustration by Laura Tempest Zakroff
For a list of interior art credits, please see Art Credits on page 275
Llewellyn Publications is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mankey, Jason, author.
Title: The horned god of the witches / by Jason Mankey.
Description: First edition. | Woodbury, Minnesota : Llewellyn
Worldwide,
[2021] | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary:
“This
book is an in-depth look at the horned god as honored by today’s
witches”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021005678 (print) | LCCN 2021005679 (ebook) |
ISBN
9780738763088 (paperback) | ISBN 9780738763156 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: horned god. | Witchcraft. | Paganism.
Classification: LCC BL460 .M26 2021 (print) | LCC BL460 (ebook) |
DDC
299/.942211—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021005678
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021005679
Llewellyn Publications does not participate in, endorse, or have any
authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements
between our authors and the public.
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Llewellyn Publications
Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.
2143 Wooddale Drive
Woodbury, MN 55125
www.llewellyn.com
Manufactured in the United States of America
This book is dedicated to the memory of
Dwayne Arthur Sortor (1968–2020).
May your spirit run wild and free, my friend.
Contents
List of Figures
Introduction: Finding the Horned God
Chapter One: The Nature of Deity
Chapter Two: Myth and Ancient History
Chapter Three: Ritual to Meet the Horned God
Chapter Four: Antlers and Horns and Phalluses in the Ancient World
Chapter Five: Pan and the Other Horned Gods of Ancient Greece
Chapter Six: Igniting the Fire: A Pan Ritual For Two (or More)
Chapter Seven: Cernunnos
Chapter Eight: A Devotional Altar for Cernunnos
Chapter Nine: The Green Man
Chapter Ten: Herne the Hunter and Elen of the Ways
Chapter Eleven: The Rebirth of Pan
Chapter Twelve: The Devilish Horned God
Chapter Thirteen: The Light of Lucifer Ritual
Chapter Fourteen: The Horned God of Death
Chapter Fifteen: John Barleycorn Ritual
Chapter Sixteen: From Horned God to The God: The Horned One in
Wicca
Chapter Seventeen: The Witchfather: The Horned God in Traditional
Witchcraft
Chapter Eighteen: Ritual to Meet the Witchfather
Epilogue: Some Final Thoughts
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Art Credits
Figures
Figure 1. Henri Breuil’s drawing of the Bison-Man at Trois-Frères
Figure 2. The Sorcerer as drawn by Henri Breuil
Figure 3. Pan
Figure 4. A sacrifice for Pan
Figure 5. Detail of a Grecian urn showing Dionysus flanked by satyrs
and maenads
Figure 6. Val Camonica rock drawing.
Figure 7. Gundestrup cauldron
Figure 8. Cernunnos panel on the Gundestrup cauldron
Figure 9. The Reims stela
Figure 10. The haunting image of the Green Man
Figure 11. Herne the Hunter
Figure 12. Elen of the Ways
Figure 13. Lucifer
Figure 14. A delightful Devil
Figure 15. Robin Goodfellow
Figure 16. Baphomet
Figure 17. Krampus
Figure 18. A shadowy-looking horned god, most likely resembling
Cernunnos
Figure 19. A depiction of the Horned God as he often appears in
Traditional Witchcraft
Introduction
Finding the Horned God
Witchcraft practices are as varied as the snowflakes that fall in
winter. There are Witches who work in covens and Witches who
prefer to work independently. Witchcraft practices can be thousands
of years old or exceedingly contemporary. There are Witches who
have learned from teachers in group settings and Witches who are
self-taught, trusting their intuition and perhaps learning from books
and other resources.
Many Witches build their practices around the use of magick, with
little use for any other trappings. I know some Witches whose rites
are focused almost exclusively on the dead, both those who have
died during their lifetimes and also the souls of long-ago ancestors
from thousands of years ago. There are Witches whose practices
revolve around nature, the turn of the seasons, and the power of the
natural world. And then there are Witches like me who work primarily
with deities, the most prominent one in my life being the figure most
people call the Horned God.
“The Horned God” is a god, a title, and a way of describing
particular deities found in the various strains of Modern Witchcraft.
The Horned God can even be a Horned Goddess or perhaps have
no gender at all, and he’s most certainly straight, gay, transgender,
and everything in between. I have to assume that as a force greater