Half Horned God

I think the biggest difference between traditional Wicca and traditional witchcraft is the magical goals of the members.

“Myth preserves the magic of creation, of life and the Mystery of death. Magic has been man’s greatest tool because it employs the greatest force - that of his own Will! When this force is combined with Gnosis we are able to transcend the spirals of existence and achieve our true purpose. This is the greatest gift of all, and yet many have sought it and not prevailed. Over Time, the Craft has become the natural repository of myth, knowledge and magical practice as such things declined usage within society, either through suppression, ignorance or ambivalence. Sadly, much exists only in fragmentary forms within folklore or as superstitions. Other arcane wisdoms have been preserved in more discernible forms within certain branches of the Traditional Craft. Myth celebrates cyclical Time; against this, annual celebrations of recurrence, suspended in the dreamtime of the eternal present, indelibly preserve the relationship between man, his environment, and the Universe. It is important to assert here the distinction between cycles of the year and of Time itself. Repetitive seasonal progression simply provides an appropriate vehicle by which the genus of myth unfolds. Cain rises, fecunds the Earth, the harvest is reaped, Cain dies. But this myth is not a story of the sowing and harvesting of grain associated with an agricultural deity, but that of the concept of Cain as the original and eternal progenitor. It relates to palingenesis - the cosmic cycle where deification of an old `father’ God occurs in his death as the new God, his son or younger version of himself is reborn. It is one of sacrifice, dispersal and re-union of itself.”

“Curiously, the`Satan’ does not appear in mainstream Judaism, or any other ancient religion of the Middle East, only in Western Christendom, a post Jesus imperialist myth, a fabulous lie, a sad victim and necessity of incumbent socio-religious politics. Satans within the Old Testament are rarely mentioned, and then only as obedient servants of God; indeed, King David himself is referred to as a`satan’ (adversary) of the Philistines. In fact, nowhere in the Old Testament are`satans’ meant in any way to imply anything malevolent or evil. These`servants’ of Jehovah within Judaic texts are named -`bene-ha -Elohim,’ which simply translates as - sons of (male and female) Gods. Only later were these forms rendered as sinister beings, especially by later redactors of the New Testament. Heavily influenced by Persian dualism and confused Gnostic teachings (gleaned possibly from the Essenes), these scholars, in order to conceal their insecurities and inadequacies, firmly placed this adversarial personage in dialectic opposition to Yahweh as an expression and embodiment of ultimate evil. Within the Old Testament lies an oft misquoted and misunderstood phrase from the prophet Isaiah (loyal to El Shaddai in the form of one`brother’ or Tutelary deity) concerning the fall of a`corrupt’ King of Babylon (loyal to the other): “How you are fallen from Heaven, day star, son of the Dawn” (Hel-el-ben Shahar). Hundreds of years later, when compiling theological instruction, 4th century Latin scribes working for the venerable Church fathers (Augustine and Jerome etc), interpreted this title,`son of the Morning Star’ (Venus) as`Lightbearer’ or`Lucifer.’ Sadly, this name has since been used to denote the negative Christian concept of an evil Satan, God’s adversary. Subsequent redactors and teachers exemplified Lucifer’s role as tempter and seducer of the faithful. This damaging fabrication has completely biased his role and position throughout history and is in absolute contra-distinction to all original constructs and composite characters from across the archaic Middle East. They are to be summarily dismissed and ignored; for our purposes, they are complete anathema.”