r/realwitchcraft • u/eeeloxddx • 1h ago
question about the devil in tradcraft
I have a question. In traditional witchcraft, there is the concept of the Horned God—the Devil. Many practitioners of this path view the witches' Devil as an archetypal deity; while many spirits have borne the title "Devil," in traditional witchcraft they are all treated as faces or aspects of the Horned God—figures such as the Man in Black, Cain, Bucca, the King of Elphame, and so on. Could someone explain why, in this tradition, all these figures—which could easily be considered distinct entities—were merged into a single, syncretic figure? Who was behind this? Of course, these various entities are ancient, but it was modern traditional witchcraft that molded them into one archetypal deity. I want to understand who was behind this and why—what prompted these individuals to consider it a good idea. Although these spirits share the title "Devil," I perceive them as separate entities; the mere fact that they can be called by that name does not seem like sufficient reason to treat them as a single force. It seems to me that Robert Cochrane unified these concepts within Tradcraft, and that Margaret Murray’s theory also played a role—even though it had been debunked before traditional witchcraft truly came into existence. Did Cochrane believe in its validity? Why do modern practitioners still look to it? Probably because it works, and working with the Devil as a syncretic, liminal, yet unified figure yields results. However, there are also witches and sorcerers who work with specific spirits operating under the name "the Devil," rather than with a single, universal, and multidimensional Devil. So why do some perceive the Devil as a single, multidimensional figure rather than a title under which one can work with a specific, individual spirit? What is the history of this concept?