The Charge of the Dark God

Hear ye the words of the Dark Lord, He who was of old also called among men Anubis, Hades, Arawyn, Pluto, Set, Charon, Herne, Gwyn ap Nudd and by many other names:

"I am the Shadow of the bright day; I am the reminder of mortality at the height of living. I am the never ending veil of Night where the Star Goddess dances. I am the Death that MUST be so that life may continue, for behold, Life is Immortal for the living must die."

"I am the Strength that protects, that limits; I am the Power that says No, and no further, and that is enough. I am the things that cannot be spoken of and I am the Laughter at the edge of Death."

"Come with Me into the warm, enfolding dark; feel My caresses in the hands, in the mouth, in the body of the one you love and be transformed."

"Gather in moonless nights and speak in unknown tongues; the Great Mother and I will listen. Sing to us and cry out and the power will be yours to wield."

"Blow Me a kiss when the sky is dark and I will smile. but no kiss return, for Behold! My kiss is the final one for all mortal flesh."

 

The God of the Wicca

(Note: all graphics of the God in this essay have been used by kind permission of the artists. Click on them and visit their websites!)

by Cerridwen Ceramics The God of the Wicca must certainly stand as one of the most maligned dieties in human history. As Dr. Margaret Murray and others have shown us, the Church of centuries passed identified the horned visage of the God with Satan, and in so doing justified the slaughter of millions.

The God of the Wicca is primarily a disturbing one to the average, closed minded individual. The horns He wears on His brow are symbolic of animal kind and wildness, for He appears as the Greeks portrayed their god Pan. The God represents all the opposite forces and potencies of His lover, the Goddess. Where She is life, He is Death, but a death that must be 'so that life may continue.' All living things feed upon death, wether through the consumtion of plants or the animals that consume them. Where the Goddess is Mother Nature, essentially, the God is 'Father Time'.

painting by Marc Potts While the Goddess is often portrayed as Maid, Mother and Crone, the God has His own aspects through which He makes Himself known to us. His first aspect is the Young Lord, typified by Pan and the satyrs that followed him; lusty, wild, impetuous. In this form He is the power of fecundation and the seed that is sown in the womb of the Goddess. All the power and strength of youth are His. The Young Lord is one whose presence we feel most readily in the Spring months; the infamous 'spring fever' is a natural expression of His energy within us as the entire world turns towards love in its most physical sense. This also ensures the future of the God Himself, for when He sacrifices Himself to ensure the continued survival of the world, He is reborn at Yule (the Winter Solstice) as His own child.

So then, in the allegorical myths of the Craft, the God as Young Lord seeks union with the Goddess in a physical sense; through His mating with Her in this aspect the entire world is renewed. This is also a metaphor for much of the psychic and physical qualities and tendencies of the human male, for most are Young Lords for a time in their lives. All of us know the type to which I refer; brash, headstrong, lusty and amourous.

The second form the God is generally given is that of the Dark Lord. In this form He is cthonic, otherworldly and terrifying. The God as the Dark Lord has no longer the power of youth, but He has replaced it with a nearly infinite wisdom and understanding of the Mysteries. Where the Young Lord is an archetype of lust and consummation, the Dark Lord is the archetype of wisdom and power. It is said that the Goddess gains Her power from the God, and this is so. In the legend of Her descent into the underworld, He lays his crown and sword at Her feet. His power is Hers to wield.

The Dark Lord knows well the nature of life, its transient quality and the future promise Death brings are well represented in His archetypes. As the Young Lord dies after His mating with the Goddess, falling at the Sabbat of Lughnasadh, the Dark Lord steps in to take His place, ruling through until Yule and its resurrection of the Young Sun King. This is also a psychic metaphor for man. As a man ages, and his youth and strength fade away, a Dark Night of the Soul arrives, He sees that he is no longer the spirit of youth and virility; that the powers he wielded have faded and gone. He dies inside, he questions all he is, and he wars with himself in an attempt to reclaim these lost strengths. In the popular phraseology, this is called a 'mid-life crisis'. This occurs generally around the early to mid forties. Is it any wonder that the Pharoahs celebrated their Sed festivals of renewal in the fortieth year of their reigns?

from Greenman Graphics As time goes on, and the realization that he will never reclaim those things he longs to again possess dawns on him, he finds himself forced to accept them. He accepts this hideous truth, that he is aging, and the world is now the oyster of those half his age; but in this acceptance he finds a new strength and a new power. Like the Phoenix, he arises from the ashes of his former self, renewed and wrapped in the shroud of the Dark Lord. Where once his young muscles rippled, Wisdom now burns bright. The Power he had thought lost he finds renewed. It has never left him, merely changed its focus. Rather than now seeking physical union and the bodies of women (although as a man he still craves them), his Power bends inward at first, purifying him and transforming him, forging within him a strength born of his new-found wisdom and experience. Sorrow is his friend, sorrow at the loss of his youth, but there is also a great joy welling up with him. The world is no longer a secondary concern to him, he is of it, but at the same time he is far greater than it. The text of his life has been written; he now sets about writting the commentary that accompanies it. The lust he once felt so strongly has been replaced by a love deeper and more powerful than he had known before. Witness the fact that the Great Teachers of world religions, all of whom preached a doctrine of Love, be it of fellow man or of enlightenment, crystalized their messages at this stage in life. Christ was the youngest in his thirties, Mohammed was in his forties, as was Siddartha Gatauma. The Jewish patriarchs and teachers Abraham, Mosheh (Moses), Ezekiel, Aaron and Isaiah (among others) were all older men. Even in the Legend of the Descent of the Goddess we see that it is the God that teaches the Goddess the true Mysteries of Love, for only after His scourge strikes Her does She cry out, "I know the pangs of Love!"

So then, the transformation from Young Lord to Dark Lord is complete, and a man has come into his own, changing from Pan to Hades, from Heru to Sutekh, from Lust to Love.

from greenman graphics Throughout the Sabbats of the witch's year, the tale of the God and His life is dramatized. He is born at Yule, the new Sun, and child of the God who went before Him. As He grows. along with His waxing solar influence, He takes his first steps into His solar renewal aspect at Imbolc, when the days are noticably longer and the light begins to challenge the darkness of the winter. At Ostara, He conquers the darkness, arrayed in His armour, and the light gains power over darkness. This is also the time when magickal lodges issue a new current of power, for all is balanced. At Beltane, when the sacred fires are lit, the God mates with His Lady, fertilizing Her as surely as the land itelf is now fertile. Now, He has planted the Seed of Promise, sowing the field of the Lady with the promise of future renewal. He is now the consort of the Goddess, and when Litha arrives He is in His prime, ruling the world with His Lady at the height of His strength. But the solstice passes, and He begins his slow decline. Lughnasadh comes, and He mates with the Goddess a final time, dying with this act of sacrifice that envigorates the land and produces the bounty of its harvest. He is the God in the Grain, life lives through His death. Mabon comes. Since Litha, the darkness has been growing, and now with the coming of Mabon darkness has again achieved equality with the light that is ever dimming. Finally, Samhain is upon the world, and Darkness rules as potently as Light did at Beltane. The Day of the Dead has come, the Time-Out-of-Time, when the worlds blend together and the Veil between them thins. Death is supreme. And at last, again comes Yule, when the Child growing in the Womb of the Goddess is born, and with Him the Sun. The God has come full circle.

A second set of aspects also reveals the God to us. These two are called simply the Oak King and Holly King, the former being Lord of the Waxing Year, and reigning in the time of solar increase from Yule to Litha, while the latter rules the time opposite, when the power of the sun is waning. This eternal cycle is dramatized in the Sabbat rituals of Litha and Yule. In these rites, the ascending aspect of the God battles with His brother, slaying him in one rite and being slain in the next. There are deep Mysteries in this eternal cycle, for the Kings change from active to passive as they conquer and are conquered. An eternal cycle of Death and Rebirth governs them; this is found in mythological cycles around the world, from the Greeks (where Zeus slew his father, Cronos, and took his place) to the Egyptians (where Ausar [Osiris], slain by Sutekh [Set], is avenged by Heru [Horus]). All these myths share the common thread of a younger god conquering and replacing and older, dying one. And this brings us to the subject of the Divine King.

One of the most poignant aspects of the God is in His form of Divine King. To the ancient Egyptians, the Pharaoh was the God Horus, becoming Osiris upon his death. In ancient Britain, the ruling King was the Incarnate God. This is the permutation of the worldwide Incarnate God mythos that applies most directly to the Craft. This topic is far too great to explore here, but I will present the bare essentials. Margaret Murray's 'The Divine King in England' and 'The God of the Witches' should be consulted for more information.

farewell, O Ra... The God-King (the Sun King essentially) in Britain was made such through a symbolic marriage with the land itself. Since the very Earth was the Goddess, the King had married Her in essence, and was therefore the earthly representation of the God. It was believed that the land and the king were fundamentally linked thereafter; as one prospered and blossomed so too did the other. This theme is explored well in the 1980 film 'Excalibur'.

Now, the King was to rule for seven years (there is a mystery herein understood by initiates) at the termination of which he was to sacrifice himself, allowing his blood to be spilt upon the Earth to renew it. It does seem however that the King was able to select a willing substitute, a person who would stand for the king and die in his stead. This sacrifice had to occur ever seven years, either the king or his substitute spilling his blood upon the Earth. Many figures in British history are possibly part of this cycle, including William Rufus, Thomas Beckett, and William Wallace. Interested parites may consult Katherine Kurtz's 'Lammas Night' for a fictionalized account of this legend.

The God brings to us gifts of the positive, active aspect He represents. From Him comes our rational minds and our ability to reason. He bestows an analytical mind to blend with and complement the raw emotional force of the Goddess.

Again, although the God is Death, we must always remember that He is also the source of power, and that without the Death he softly brings, life would multiply indefinetly and smother itself. We must never lose sight of the fact that Death is a vital part of existence, and that without it we could never complete the tasks we have incarnated in this world to complete, for He rules the lives of men as surely as He rules their deaths.

So Mote It Be.

Written by Amphion. Again, many thanks to Marc Potts, Cerridwen Ceramics and Green Man Graphics for their kind permission to use their art! Visit them and let them know you saw it here!