covenrochester | Entries tagged with the god of the witches

The God of the Witches

This is likely as excellent a statue of the God of the Witches as one is may find without having it specifically commissioned. There are symbols of his Starry, Solar, and Earthy forms.

His face bears the symbol of the upward arrow -- long a symbol of the Pole Star and, thus, He is the King of Stars, around which all stars revolve (from the perspective of Earth). In that form, He watches over the destiny of long-range things on Earth, like empires, dynasties, and countries.

His chest is adorned with the solar disc and, thus, he is the Lord of the Sun. He powers all Life and Vitality on Earth, including yours. How much of His vital force is in you can be determined from your astrological natal chart.

At the top of his head are Horns, a symbol of integrating His animal nature into His human nature in such a way that He has become divine. He is half-animal, half-man, but all God. He is the Lord and Protector of Animals.

At the bottom of his feet is vegetation and, thus, He is also Lord of the Vegetable Kingdom. His Solar form descends into the vegetation of Earth, to be used by both animal and man. This is one of the great teachings of Lammas, a Greater Sabbat.

His Horns are not only a symbol of divinity but, being also in lunar-form, a symbol of receptivity. Even *He* is filled with something higher. People call that Higher Power by various names. I like The-One-Most-High. Others say Light or Consciousness or The One. Alchemists say "the Mercury." All of us are correct.

This particular statue is from Slavic artist, and it is supposed to represent Veles, the Slavic god of magic, the underworld, earth, cattle, wealth, and the harvest.

But, it does not matter. He's our guy: the God of the Witches. Our Horned Father is completely natural -- Stars, Sun, Earth, Plant, Animal, Man. The God of the Witches is very old. He is on the walls of caves around the world, 13,000 years old and even older. He is the Natural Lord and also the Natural Law.

Don't be fooled by deceptive frauds and oath-mocking warlocks who point to Judeo-Christian entities and symbols like Lilith, Baphomet, an Intersexed Androgyne, the Goat of Mendes, Samael/Satan, Cain, and so on as divinities of the Witches. Nothing doing! Those things are no older than the Sumerians, 6,000 BCE (and that is being very charitable in timing), and some of them are even as young as the 1890's, not even 150 years ago.

You will not find Our Father amongst the Judeo-Christians or their writings. Nor in the trial records of poor men and women wrongly accused of being, then burned and hanged and tortured as, witches.

To find Him, you must explore Nature, and tread His books with your feet. He is explored from landscape to landscape, from horizon to horizon, from sod to star, and He has as many pages as there are lands and seas. This is the great practical and down-to-earth rule of His nature, and only in this way may His leaves be turned.

So mote it be.

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester

An Image of the Horned Father (rather Druidic, I think).

Father of the Fallen,
Father of the Fearless,
Father of the Forged,
May your Children rise in the Light.
So mote it be.

To be trained in the Craft of the Wise is to be trained into a priesthood of the Earth and of humanity. Those who undergo such training, take its oaths, and understand its obligations deserve the title Witch, Wise One. It is a title bestowed on us. We cannot claim it for ourselves, no matter much we wish it were otherwise.

An initiated and trained Witch Priest or Priestess, even if no longer practicing with a coven, will never forget his or her spiritual work, which is to be of service to the Earth and humanity in whatever way his or her circumstances permit. Sometimes that may be only lighting a candle before bed each night and saying a short prayer for the world. It might be healing work, either via herbs or magic. It might be teaching others, and raising them to the priesthood of the Craft. It might be predicting the future for people. It might be planting trees or scattering the seeds of healing plants in a public park (recall our proverb: "The Witch who plants loves others besides herself").

It might be praying for the suffering of others:

". . . Hear my words, Holy Dark Mother,
Be gracious unto me and to those for whom I pray:
The friendless, the defenseless, the meek,
The victims of crime or violence, the unjustly accused, the intranquil,
The lost, the confused, the fearful,
The overburdened, the persecuted,
Those who seek the peaceful release of death,
And all those who seek healing, whether in body, mind, or spirit . . ."

The Craft is a viable and enriching spiritual path for those who want to learn the ancient mysteries and develop the hidden powers, and then use them to serve the Earth and humanity. Do you think at its root and most fundamental that the Craft is about finding and making offerings to some patron deity? Resolving your ancestral traumas? Doing personal shadow-work? The Wheel of the Year? Colored candles, rocks, essential oils?

No.

Mother of the Forgotten,
Mother of the Forsaken,
Mother of the Forlorn,
Tell your Children
That We are here for them.
Blessed be.

*** To all those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester

The Great God has several common forms.

He is the King of Stars, governing the patterns of Fate inherent in long epochs of time, such as ages and eras, dynasties and empires.

He is also the Horned Father of the World, the Provider for man and woman, bird and beast, field and forest, cave and quarry.

In His great mercy, He will even allow Himself to be villified and slandered and called by any of the world's names for the Dark or Evil Lord, as commonly happens amongst the fearful, malicious, ignorant, vengeful, deluded, oppressed, or alienated. He permits that because He is hoping, one day, that such people will take off the chains of mental imprisonment and see Him as He truly is.

But here, in the above picture, He is the Lord of the Sun, the Life-Giver. This piece, about 4 inches tall, is carved from rock taken from the River Esk on the east coast of Scotland. The Celts called him Belenos, the Shining One or the Bright One.

There are Six Great Mysteries of the Sun. Do you know them? Here is the First Mystery of the Sun:

I SHINE ON ALL,
I SHINE FOR ALL.

And here is the Fourth Mystery of the Sun:

I SHINE ABOVE YOU: TIME,
I SHINE WITHIN YOU: ETERNITY.

If you took the Six Mysteries to heart and meditated on them, you would become wise.

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester

Asking for an oracle on the subject of a burgeoning relationship.

Hornèd Father, wise and bold,
How will time their love unfold?

DECEIT
WILL DOOM
THIS BOND
TO DEATH

Welp, that seems like a fairly direct and unambiguous answer [1]. You know He means business when He answers in iambic monometer.

You might think this is too fatalistic a declaration. You will have to take that up with Him.

I also recently did an astrological chart revealing deception on the part of a man. Wooing Ms. One while enjoying sexual pleasures with Ms. Two, unbeknownst to Ms. One. And the deception certainly did a number on the whole situation. No pun intended.

[1] The cards are The Snake, The Ring, and Death

The statue is a bust of the Horned Father in the form he was known at his ancient oracle in Libya. Did you know the ancient Greeks had a form of Apollo with horns? Indeed they did: Apollo Karneios. He was even depicted on coinage in that form. Horn in ancient Greek was KERAS (or KERATO), and horns was KERATA.

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester

The Witchfather as a Dark-Lord-kind-of-figure really does not exist, except insofar as He may be the Horned Father as troubled humans see Him through the lens of their own fear, malice, ignorance, vengeance, delusion, sense of oppression or alienation, and so on. Nonetheless, He so loves His children that He will permit you to work with Him in that guise. Like any good Father, if you keep shitting yourself, He will clean you and keep changing your diaper. What a drag for Him, right? Don't worry about it. He's immortal and a mighty spirit so vast that His presence is contiguous with the Earth, itself. He can handle our idiocy, and a lot of diapers.

( Want To Know More? )

Such, dear Seeker, is the way of the wise ones. Remember it.

I will tell you about the "Dark Mother" some other time. She doesn't exist, either, technically, but She is the Queen of Heaven, as troubled humans see Her through the lens of their own fear, malice, ignorance, etc.

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester

A Bust of the Horned Father as He appeared at His Oracular Shrine at the Siwa Oasis in Libya

The Horned Father will still give oracles.

A Seeker asked how he could improve a certain situation in his life.

This was the response (shown by the two tiles in the bowl):

( The Oracle )

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester

On 15 September, in the posting on The Gods of the Witches, I asked this question:

"Where does the Bull-Man and the Goddess push you forward through the birth canal and into the Great World?"

Not only in the Chauvet Cave, but in the first five cards of the Major Arcana of the Tarot.

The Bull-Man is represented by the Fool-Magician.
The Goddess of the Moon is the High Priestess.
The birth canal, the doorway into the world, is the Empress.
The beginning of the Great World, itself, is the Emperor, governed by the sign Aries, the first sign of the zodiac.

And that is the answer.

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester

. . . are the oldest Gods of all." That is one of my favorite quotes from an old Witch named Ameth, now deceased, whose use-name was Doreen Valiente. It's true. The Gods of the Witches predate all of the Abrahamic religions by thousands and thousands of years. Take this image on a wall of Chauvet Cave, in France (photo 1). Dated to 32,000 B.C. It shows what has been called "Venus and the Sorceror" or "The Bull-Man and the Goddess." The photo below is a comparison of some of the artistic geometry to the Venus of Willendorf statuette (photo 2).

The Bull-Man/Goddess image is all the way in the back of the Chauvet Cave. Moving forward to the cave opening is like the birth canal into the Great World. Any Witch would recognize this as a massively old shrine or temple to the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

You may think that such entities as this have little to do with the modern world. You would be wrong. Their importance as spiritual forces has never been lost to the Wise Ones, who have hidden it in plain sight in many different places across the centuries.

Can you, dear reader, tell me one of them? Where the Bull-Man and the Goddess push you forward through the birth canal and into the Great World? Think on it, and I will provide an answer to the riddle at a later date.

*** Blessed be to those who serve the Great Mother and the Horned Father.

* Copyright to Coven Rochester