Archetype Of The Horned God
A. The Horned God is born of a Virgin Mother
He is a model of male power that is free from father-son rivalry or 'Oedipal' conflicts.
He has no father, because He is his own father.
As He grows and passes through the changes on the Wheel, He remains in a relationship with the prime nurturing force of the Goddess.
His power is drawn directly from the Goddess and He participates in life through Her.
B. The Horned God represents powerful, positive male qualities that derive from deeper sources than the stereotypical violence and emotional crippling of men present in our society.
When a man strives to emulate the God, he is free to be wild without being cruel, angry without being violent, sexual without being coercive, spiritual without being unsexed, and able to truly love.
C. For men the God is the image of inner power, and of a potency that is more than merely sexual.
He is the undivided Self, in which mind is not split from the body, nor spirit from flesh.
United, both can function at the peak of creative and emotional power.
Men are not subservient or relegated to second class spiritual citizenship on the Craft.
But neither are they automatically elevated to a higher status than women, as they are in other religions.
Men in the Craft must interact with strong, empowered women who do not pretend to be anything less than what they are. Many men find this prospect disconcerting at first.
D. For women raised in our present culture, the God begins as a symbol of all those qualities that have been identified as male, and that they, as women, have not been allowed or encouraged to own.
The symbol of the God, like that of the Goddess, is both internal and external.
Through meditation and ritual a woman invokes the God and creates his image within herself. In this way she connects with those qualities that she may lack.
E. As her understanding moves beyond culturally imposed limitations, her image of the God changes and deepens.
He becomes the Creation, which is not simply a replica of oneself, but something different and of a different order.
True Creation implies separation as the very act of birth is a relinquishment, or letting go.
Through the God, women know this power within themselves, and so, like the Goddess, the God can empower women.
F. In the Craft, the cosmos is no longer modeled on external male control.
The hierarchy is dissolved and the heavenly chain of command is broken.
The "divinely revealed" texts are seen as poetry not the "word of God."
Instead, a man must connect with the Goddess who is immanent in the world, in nature, in women, and in his own feelings.
She is immanent in everything that childhood religions taught needed to be overcome, transcended, and conquered, in order to be loved by 'God'.
G. The very aspects of the Craft that seem threatening also hold out to men a new and vibrant spiritual possibility: that of wholeness, connection, and freedom.
Men of courage find relationships with strong powerful women exhilarating and they welcome the chance to know the Female within the self.
They enjoy the chance to grow beyond their culturally imposed limitations and become whole.
H. Within Covens, women and men can experience group support and the affection of other women and men.
They can interact in situations that are not competitive or antagonistic.
Men in Covens can become true friends with other men, without giving up any part of themselves, or subjecting themselves to derision or ridicule.