Margaret Murray

Thus according to Murray reports of Satan actually represented pagan gatherings with their priest wearing a horned helmet to represent their Horned God. Regarding this Jacqueline Simpson comments that:
Her manipulation of sources is sometimes so blatant as to be naive for even a cursory reader can spot what is going on. Her portrait of messianic (self-) sacrifices of these figures make for entertaining speculation but they have not been taken seriously as history even by her staunchest supporters though they have been used in novels (e.

Primarily known for her work in Egyptology which was "the core of her academic career" Margaret Murray is also known for her propagation of the Witch-cult hypothesis the theory that the witch trials in the Early Modern period of Christianized Europe and North America were an attempt to extinguish a surviving pre-Christian pagan religion devoted to a Horned God. Margaret Alice Murray (13 July 1863 – 13 November 1963) was a prominent British Egyptologist and anthropologist. Whilst this theory is today widely disputed and discredited by historians like Norman Cohn Keith Thomas and Ronald Hutton it has had a significant effect in the origins of Neopagan religions primarily Wicca a faith Margaret Murray supported.