The Horned One

This image dates to 2600–1900 BCE in the Indus Valley. The image was discovered during the excavation of the Mohenjodaro archaeological site. The depiction is identified as Pashupati "Lord of Animals". Some authors argue that this was a prototype of the god Shiva.The Hindu deity Shiva is known as "the destroyer", the one who dissolves the Ego. He wears garlands of skulls and snakes to signify his primal cthonic nature. Shiva is often depicted holding a stag, a symbol of wisdom. He is worshipped as a teacher of yoga, music, and wisdom. Hindu iconography sometimes shows him sitting on a deer-throne and surrounded by sages receiving his instruction, other times Shiva sits in ascetic isolation. I find the image strikingly similar to that of Cernunnos below. 

This 1st century image was found on the Gundestrup cauldron, the largest known example of European Iron Age silver work. It was found in 1891 in a peat bog near the hamlet of Gundestrup in the Aars parish of Himmerland, Denmark. The cauldron can be thought of as the product of a fusion of cultures, each inspiring and expanding upon one another. What this may signify is a sharing of religious concepts across the continent, from India in the east to Gaul and Britain in the west.

Deer in Britain and Ireland were considered "fairy cattle", herded and milked by fairy giants. The stag was considered a symbol of rulership by the Anglo-Saxons. The Old English poem Beowulf makes reference to a great mead hall called "the Hall of the Hart". Hart is an archaic term for a full grown stag. In the Poetic Edda, a stag called Eikþyrnir lives on top of Valhalla, the hall of the gods. The Greeks associated deer with Artemis, goddess of the hunt. It was believed that Artemis had a chariot drawn by deer. In India, deer are associated with learning. Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge, takes the form of a red deer in the Aitareya Upanishad. To encourage learning, Hindus use deer skin as clothing and mats to sit upon.

This image is from the Tarot of Marseilles. Notice the stag antlers on each figure. This Tarot deck was probably invented in northern Italy in the 15th century. A similar figure with antlers and wings is described by 16th century Goetia.

He is named Furfur, Great Earl of Hell. He was invoked to cause love, passion, storms, thunder, lightning, and to teach secret and divine things. Some authors described him as an angel. This may suggest that the 'Lord of Animals' worshipped as Cernunnos may have survived in the medieval mind as a cthonic spirit, a kind of devil who may be invoked by magicians or witches. This medieval image inspired a 19th century image of the 'Sabbatic Goat'.

This image was created by Eliphas Lévi, a French occult author and ceremonial magician. His most famous book was titled Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, translated into English by Arthur Edward Waite as Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual in 1910. The introduction described 20th century occultism: "Behind the veil of all the hieratic and mystical allegories of ancient doctrines, behind the darkness and strange ordeals of all initiations, under the seal of all sacred writings, in the ruins of Nineveh or Thebes, on the crumbling stones of old temples and on the blackened visage of the Assyrian or Egyptian sphinx, in the monstrous or marvelous paintings which interpret to the faithful of India the inspired pages of the Vedas, in the cryptic emblems of our old books on alchemy, in the ceremonies practised at reception by all secret societies, there are found indications of a doctrine which is everywhere the same and everywhere carefully concealed."

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