The Power of Horns & Satan as The Horned God of Antiquity

The greatest temple ever built was that of Karnak in Ancient Egypt. It was in honor of the horned god Ammon-Ra, who bore the curling horns of the ram. The attribute of horns as a symbol of power was widespread throughout the ancient world. Many Egyptian deities were depicted with horned headdresses. In Ancient Crete, to set up a pair of horns was a sign of a sacred place. The oldest known representations of masculine deity, are the painted pictures of horned ithyphallic figures found in caves, dating back to the Stone Age. The connection between this most primeval of gods, and the sophisticated, wide-ruling deities of Ancient Egypt, is far stretched, but quite clearly traceable. This stretch continues and reaches out again to the Great God Pan, who is often associated with the witches’ Devil – Satan! And, also to the Celtic Cerrnunnos, “The Horned One” (another title bestowed upon Satanas). As Cernunnos, He was worshipped in Celtic Europe and Ancient Britain. Many horned god statues have been discovered in Britain, and a temple to Him (Satan) as Cernunnus stood upon the site of the Church of Nortre Dame in Paris. Reaching into the witches’ Sabbat, the horned god is addressed by various names: The Devil, Auld Hornie, Nick, Clootie, Pan, and of course Satan (Satanas/Sathanas, or Lucifer).

Horns represent sacredness, power, and protection. They also stand for illumination and gnosis. On the Continent of Europe, horns were, and still are, an extremely popular amulet against the “Evil Eye”. The idea that there is something magical about horns derives from a very distant past, the time before humans discovered agriculture. When our remote ancestors, the primitive hunters, roamed the land in search of wild game for food. It is of no surprise why Satan has been reflected as being a horned god, why he appears to many of His devotees, as being horned. As being the horned god of the witches, Satan has absorbed the attributes, the characteristics of several horned gods created by the pagans, also by more modern man.

Satan as the horned god is the masculine side of Nature (His bride, the Goddess, who also goes by many names, is the feminine side ), and his current runs through this planet. He is the ruler of this world and of the Underworld or Otherworld. He opens the Gates of Life and Death, that which is born through the Gate of Life must return through the Gate of Death when the time comes to leave this plane of existence. It was the grass-roots of antiquity, of the old Horned God, that made the acknowledgment of His existence survive, when more sophisticated god-forms were forgotten. He was from the morning of the world, deep down in the memory of humankind, among the primeval things. The impression of Satan as being a horned god has lasted longer because it is deeper.

*This is part of an insert from a chapter in my upcoming book on Satanism and Witchcraft, also parts of this have already been published in my books “The Faces of Lucifer” and “Natural Satanic Witchcraft”

Copyright Kindra Ravenmoon