Anubis

 

 

Judge of the Dead 

Pantheon: Egyptian  

Element: Earth

Sphere of Influence: Judgement and Death

Preferred colors:Green, Black

Associated symbol: Black Jackal, Number 9

Animals associated with:Jackal , Dog

Best day to work with Wednesday

Strongest around Samhain

Suitable offerings:Green Feldspar

Associated Planet: Mercury

  

The souls of the dead are protected on their journey to the halls of judgement by Anubis, son of Osiris and Nepthys. He is the guardian of cemeteries and sacred places. Anubis, whose hieroglyphic name more closely translates as Anpu, is the Ancient Egypt|Ancient Egyptian God of death and dying, and sometimes God of the Underworld. His mother is Hesat or Bastet with an unknown father, or Nephthys, and his father is variously said to be Set (god)|Set, Ra or Osiris. His daughter is Qeb-hwt, also known as Kebechet. In later times, Anubis was combined with the Greek mythology|Greek god Hermes to form Hermanubis. 

The center of his cult was in Cynopolis. He has the head of a jackal or some other kind of dog, and the jackal is his symbol. The jackal imagery is related to Anubis role among the Deities of Egypt, as the jackal is a scavenger and is strongly associated with death and dying. He was also know as the Guardian of the Dead. In art, he is depicted as a man with a canine head and alert ears, often wearing a ribbon and wielding a whip (implement)|whip.   

Papio anubis is the scientific name for the savannah baboon. The name is taken from Anubis because the baboon is commonly thought of as dog-headed. 

Alternative: Ienpw, Anpu, Yinepu, Imy-ut 

Anubis is worshiped today by some Neopaganism|Neopagans.

In Book xi of The Golden Ass by Apuleius, we find evidence that the worship of Anubis was maintained in Rome at least up to the 2nd century.

Anubis is closely related to Ap-uat, another god whose symbol is the jackal, and who for many years was thought to be just another name for Anubis.

Worship of Anubis is likely older even than that of Osiris. The Unas text (line 70) associates him with the Eye of Horus. In the Book of the Dead, he embalms the body of Osiris, wraps it in linens made by Isis and Nepthys, and protects the body by laying his bare hands on it.

In his embalming role, Anubis is known as Imy-ut (“he who is in the place where embalming occurs”). He guards the physical remains of bodies, as well as the tombs and necropoli.

Anubis was originally the lord of the underworld, however following the rise of the cult of Osiris he becomes the gatekeeper. In the Horus story he stands down his position out of respect for Osiris in order to allow him to take over. Anubis role as gate keeper was primarily that of either holding or watching the scales with which the souls of the dead were weighted against the feather of Maat. If the soul was as light as the feather, Anubis led the soul to Osiris; otherwise, it was fed to Ammit.

The Horned God

 

 

The Horned God is a modern syncretic term used amongst Wiccan-influenced Neopagans, which unites numerous male nature gods out of such widely-dispersed mythologies as the Celtic Cernounnos, the English Herne The Hunter, the Hindu Pashupati and the Greek Pan.  

A number of figures from British folklore, though normally
depicted without horns, are nonetheless considered related:
Puck, Robin Goodfellow and the Green Man.  

The idea that all such horned images were of deities and that they represented manifestations of a single Horned God, and that Christianity had attempted to suppress his worship by aassociating him with Satan, originally developed in the fashionable 19th-century Occultist circles of England and France. Eliphas Levi’s famous illustration of Baphomet, in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1855) (based on Goyas’s Witches Sabbath painting, 1789) accompanied the first suggestions to this effect. Levi’s image of “Baphomet” is reflected in most depictions of the Devil made since. Symbolism is drawn from the Diable card of the 17th and 18th century Tarot of Marseille: the bat-winged, horned and hoofed figure with female breasts, perched upon a globe; Levi added the caduceus of Mercury at his groin, moved the flaming torch to crown his head and had him gesture towards lunar crescents above and below.  

This was not an evil figure, Levi contended, but a god of the old world, driven underground and condemned as a figure of witchcraft by hostile Christianity. Margaret Murray took up this suggestion and blended it with an adaptation of the cultural anthropologies of James Frazer to define a pan-European fertility god. Where Frazer saw modern folklore and folk customs as the echoes of forgotten agricultural rituals, authors such as Murray and her contemporaries at the Folklore Society saw it as evidence of the survival of an esoteric fertility cult, a secret tradition driven underground and suppressed by Christianity. 

Margaret Murray selected and heavily edited sources in order to forward the position that witches meeting in the woods with Satan were actually representatives of a pan-European fertility cult worshiping a Horned God. These themes shaped both the popular image of the Devil and the modern concept of the Horned God revered by some neopagan groups (such as Wicca) today. Murray’s theories have subsequently been discredited due to her selection of evidence yet her influence, in part by having authored her theories in the Encyclopedia Britannica, persists. 

Margaret Murray associated the Horned God with woods, wild
animals, and hunting. He has also been associated with male virility and sexuality, mainly heterosexuality but also
homosexuality. 

In the religion of Wicca, first publicised in 1954, the Horned God is revered as the partner and/or child of the Goddess (commonly described as the Great Mother or the Triple Goddess). According to Gerald Gardner Wicca is a modern survival of an ancient pan-European pagan religion that was driven underground during the witch trials. As such the Goddess and Horned God (the “Lady” and “Lord”) of Wicca are the supposed ancient tribal gods of this faith. However, there is little evidence to support claims that the religion originates earlier than the mid-20th century, and Gardner himself states that he had reconstructed the rites from fragments, incorporating elements from English folklore such as Murray (see above) and contemporary influences such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. 

In Wicca, “The Horned God” may refer individually to any of a multitude of localized gods of different cultures (such as Cernunnos or Pan), or to the universal archetype many Wiccans believe such gods represent. In the latter context, he is sometimes referred to as the “Great God” or the “Great Father”, who impregnates the Goddess and then dies during the autumn and winter months and is reborn in spring. 

Some Wiccans have attempted to reconcile the lack of historical precedence of their beliefs, as scholar and Medieval history professor, Jenny Gibbons states:

 

We Neopagans now face a crisis. As new data appeared, historians altered their theories to account for it. We have not. Therefore an enormous gap has opened between the academic and the “average” Pagan view of
witchcraft. We continue to use of out-dated and poor writers, like Margaret Murray, Montague Summers, Gerald Gardner, and Jules Michelet. We avoid the somewhat dull academic texts that present solid research, preferring sensational writers who play to our emotions .