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A Male and Female Polarity, One Half Further Split in Three

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A Male and Female Polarity, One Half Further Split in Three

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Wiccan Deities gathers five figures of modern Wiccan theology, arranged around a single male and female polarity in which the female half is itself further divided into three further aspects tied to the phases of the moon.

The Horned God is the male polarity, imaged with horns or antlers and associated with wild nature, the hunt, and the cycle of death and rebirth across the Wheel of the Year, standing alongside the Goddess as the tradition's central sacred pair. The Triple Goddess is his female counterpart, understood as one Goddess in three aspects, Maiden, Mother and Crone, correlated with the waxing, full and waning moon and with the stages of a woman's life.

The Maiden holds the waxing moon and stands for beginnings, independence and enthusiasm, the season turning toward spring. The Mother holds the full moon and everything at its height, fruitfulness, nurture and the fullness of summer, and in Wiccan practice she is the aspect most often invoked at the Esbats, the full moon workings kept distinct from the eight seasonal festivals. The Crone holds the waning moon and the end of a cycle, wisdom, judgement and letting go, and the tradition is emphatic that she is not a figure of dread.

Each of the three aspects is described by the tradition itself as an aspect rather than a separate deity, and the whole scheme is a twentieth century one: the atlas describes it as Wiccans describe it, rather than as a survival from an older religion.

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