The Belief in the Deities The God and Goddess

Citations: art link- https://www.pinterest.com/mirandasmom73/artsy-fartsy/?lp=true

Excerpts from Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft

Beliefs

Deities
As different as are the many religions of the world,
in essence they are all the Same.  It has frequently been
said that they are simply different paths all leading to a
common center, and this is true.  The basic teachings
are all the same; all that differs is the method of teaching.
There are different rituals, different festivals and
even different names for the gods, rather than, simply,
different gods.

Friedrich Max Muller traced religion back to "an
ineradicable feeling of dependence" upon some higher
power that was innate in the human mind.  And Sir
James George Frazer (in The Golden Bough) defines
religion as being "a propititation or conciliation of
powers superior to Man, which are believed to direct and control
the course of nature and of human life".
This higher power the "Ultimate Deity" is
some genderless force which is so far beyond our
comprehension that we can have only the vaguest
understanding of its being.  Yet we know that it is there
and, frequently, we wish to communicate with it.  As
individuals, we wish to thank it for what we have and to
ask it for what we need.  However do we do this with
such an incomprehensible power?.

In the sixth centure BCE the philosopher Xenophones
remarked on the fact that deities are determined
by ethnic factors.  He pointed out that the black Ethiopians
naturally saw their gods as negroid, whereas
the Thracians' gods were white, with red hair and gray eyes.
He cynically commented that if horses and oxen
could carve they would probbly represent their gods
in an animal form!  About seven hundred fifty
years later Maximus of Tyre said much the same thing:
that men worship their gods under whatever form seems
intelligible to them.
you've already seen how, in their early development,
people came to worship two principle deities:
the Horned God of Hunting and the Goddess of Fertility.
These, then, were our representations ourunderstandable
forms of the Supreme Power which actually rules life.
In the various areas of Wo/Man's development we see
that these representations became, for the ancient
Egyptians, Isis and Osiris; for the Hindus,
Shiva and PArvati; for the Christians, Jesus and Mary.
In virtually all instances (there were exceptions)
the Ultimate Deity was equated with both masculine and
feminine... broken down into a God and a Goddess.
This would seem most natural since everywhere in
nature is found this duality.  With the development of
the Craft, as we know it, there were also, as we have seen,
this duality of a God and a Goddess.

Deities' Names

As mentioned before the names of the deities
would vary depending upon locality. And not
only locality.  With the Goddess, especially, the
question of names could become quite involved.
For example, a young man with problems in his
love life might worship the Goddess in her aspect
of a beautiful young woman.  Yet a woman in childbirth
might feel more at ease relating to the Goddess as a
more mature "middle aged" female.  Then again an
elderly person would tend to think of the Goddess as
herself being elderly.  So thre we have three separate
and very distinct aspects of the same Goddess, each
having been given a different name yet all being
the same deity.  As if that weren't enough the deities
would have names known to the general worshippers
but also other, secret, names (often two or three)
known only to the priesthood.  This was a protective
measure.
In Witchcraft today there aqre many traditions that
continue this multiplicity of names.  Traditions with degree
systems, for example, frequently use different deity names
in their higher degrees than
in their lower.  Gardnerian is one example of this.

So we have this idea of an Ultimate Deity,
an incomprehensible male and a female.  To these we
have given names.
It would seem that by so doing we are limiting what is, by definition,
limitlyless.  but so long as you know, and keep always in the back of
your mind that "IT" IS limitless you will find that this is the easiest
path to follow.  After all, it is pretty difficult to pray to a "Thing",
a Supreme Power, without being able to picture someone in your mind.

The God and Goddess of Witchcraft

A general complaint about Christianity by Witches is that there is
the worship of the male deity to the exclusion of the female.  In fact
this is one of the main reasons for people (women especially) leaving
Chrisianity and returning to the Old Religion.  And yet it is a strange
paradox that many if not the majority of Witchcraft traditions are guilt
of this same crime of Christianty , if in reverse.. they laud the Goddess
to the near, or even total, exclusion of the God.

Witchcraft is a religion of nature, as any Witch will tell you.
Everwhere in nature there is male and female, and both are neceaary
(I have yet to meet anyone who does not have both a mother and a father).
It follows, then, that both the God and the Goddess are important and
should be equally revered.  There should be balance, But balance is
as woefully missing in most traditions of the Craft as it is in Christianity.
We are all every single one of us made up of both masculine and feminine
attributes.  The toughest, most macho man has feminine aspects just as the
most traditionally feminine woman has male aspects.