One of the greatest things about Paganism is the way you come to know your God(s) and Goddess(es). A Wiccan can be a polytheist, a monotheist, or even an atheist. This means that they may believe in multiple deities, or they may believe in only one deity, or they may not even believe in any deities whatsoever. Paganism insists that perceptions of higher powers depend completely on the individual's spiritual beliefs.
For the believers, the general idea of a God and a Goddess is the totality of the male and female energies of the Universe. There is also the common belief that our Earth is our Mother Goddess, and the Horned God (no, not the devil), our Father.
There are countless deities in the mythologies of the Earth. Thousands. So of course I won't list them all, I can't. So here's a list of just a few of the main deities that are worshipped by Wiccans (some have more names than those provided):
- Aphrodite/Venus: Goddess of love and beauty.
- Athena: Greek Goddess of wisdom and war. Her symbol is the owl.
- Artemis/Diana: Goddess of the hunt, virginity, and childbirth. Often associated with the Moon.- Astarte: Goddess of fertility, sexuality, and war.
- Cerridwen: Celtic Goddess of transformation, of the cauldron of inspiration, and of prophecy.
- Demeter: Greek Goddess of the harvest and of grain.
- Ereshkigal: Mesopotamian Goddess of darkness, death, and gloom.
- Flora: Roman Goddess of flowers.
- Fortuna: Roman Goddess of fortune.
- Lalita: Hindu Goddess of Beauty.
- Gaia/Tara/Yemaya/Cybele/Shakti/Radha/Danu/Durga/Hathor: Earth Mother, Divine Mother. She has many names due to her worship within many cultures.
- Hecate: Greek Goddess of witchcraft and magick, crossroads, and the harvest moon.
- Hel: Queen of the Dead. (Presumably where the term 'Hell' came from. Just another Wiccan thing that was flipped by opposers...)
- Hera: Roman Goddess of the Hearth, of women, and of marriage.
- Inanna: Sumerian Goddess of sexual love, fertility, and warfare.
- Luna/Selene/Rhiannon: Goddess of the Moon.
- Rosmurta: Goddess of abundance. She is also the Goddess of business success.
- Voluptas: Roman Goddess of pleasure.
As you may have noticed, these are all Goddesses I have mentioned. There are Gods, too, of course. Although the main God that Wiccans worship is the Horned God. There's a lot to say about this guy, so, to save myself the typing, I'll just give you the link to someone else's page who explains Him quite admirably: http://whisperingworlds.com/wiccan/wiccan_god.php
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