A while back, I was asked by a close friend of mine to help come up with a daily devotional to Hekate for her.
Hecate
Hekate has been revered throughout many cultures and many ages and has worked with many different practitioners and worshipers in various guises. One of the best ways to connect with a deity and begin honoring them is to heavily research their history. Below is my best attempt to give devotees and those who are new to this goddess, a wider perspective of Her throughout the ages. The following book ranges from classical texts & legends, scholarly writings, modern perspectives to coloring books devoted or heavily focused upon Hekate. Discover the Hellenic & Classical Hekate, The Wiccan Hecate, The Chaldean Hekate Soteira, the Luciferian Hecate, the Hecate of Macbeth and more. I hope that this is helpful. Feel a crucial book is missing? Please mention it in the comments below.
The Aeneid – Virgil
Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Collection of Ancient Texts – Georg Luck
Bearing Torches: A Devotional Anthology for Hekate – Bibliotheca Alexandrina
Book of the Witch Moon – Michael W. Ford
The Chaldean Oracles: Text, Translation and Commentary – Ruth Majercik
Crossroads: The Path of Hecate – Greg Crowfoot
Curse Tablets and Binding Spells from the Ancient World – John G. Gager
The Goddess Hekate – Stephen Ronan
Hekate: Die dunkle Göttin – Geschichte & Gegenwart (German Edition) – Thomas Lautwein
Hecate: Death, Transition and Spiritual Mastery – Jade Sol Luna
Hecate II: The Awakening of Hydra – Jade Sol Luna
Hecate – The Witches’ Goddess – Gary R. Varner
Hekate Her Sacred Fires: Exploring the Mysteries of the Torchbearing Goddess of the Crossroads – Sorita d’Este
Hekate in Ancient Greek Religion – Ilmo Robert Von Rudloff
Hekate Liminal Rites: A Study of the rituals, magic and symbols of the torch-bearing Triple Goddess of the Crossroads – Sorita d’Este
Hekate Soteira: A Study of Hekate’s Roles in the Chaldean Oracles and Related Literature – Sarah Iles Johnston
The Homeric Hymn to Demeter: Translation, Commentary, and Interpretative Essays – Helene P. Foley
Knowing Hekate: A Spiritual Coloring Experience – Sara Croft
Lunatik Witchcraft – Shay Skepevski
Macbeth – William Shakespeare
Magic, Witchcraft and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds: A Sourcebook – Daniel Ogden
Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion – Christopher A. Faraone
Mantike: Studies in Ancient Divination – Sarah Iles Johnston
The Metamorphoses of Ovid – Ovid
The Orphic Hymns – Orpheus
A Paean for Hekate – Shani Oates
Pagan Portals: Hekate: A Devotional – Vivienne Moss
Protection and Reversal Magick – Jason Miller
Queen of Hell – Mark Alan Smith
Restless Dead: Encounters Between the Living and the Dead in Ancient Greece – Sarah Iles Johnston
The Rotting Goddess: The Origin of the Witch in Classical Antiquity – Jacob Rabinowitz
The Temple of Hekate – Exploring The Goddess Hekate Through Ritual, Meditation And Divination – Tara Sanchez
Thracian Magic: Past and Present – Georgi Mishev
The Voyage of Argo: The Argonautica – Apollonius of Rhodes
An epithet is an honorary and praiseful descriptive title used as part of a name. For example, Alexander The Great. In polytheistic religions, specifically that of Greece and Rome, an epithet was not only a praiseful description
Deep in trance Hekate appeared before me. I’m always delighted and honored when Hekate appears to me. As a devotee of hers in my personal practice, I have found this is not always the case. She usually appears to me, bestowing revelations yet speaking in very few but very powerful yet stoic words. Then she stands back.
A hooded woman leads myself and a handful people away from the campsite with nothing but a lantern. We walk in silence, not knowing what to expect. The sun is beginning to set as we reach a three-way crossroads. “This is a very Hekatean area”, I quietly remark to myself.
There’s a lot of magickal self-defense books out there. Some are better than others but this book is my hands-down favorite. Jason Miller’s Protection and Reversal Magick: A Witch’s Defense Manual is exactly what it claims to be and more. While this may not be the best book for anyone who half-heartedly dabbles in the magickal arts, it’s a fantastic book for the more serious practitioner. Jason Miller himself is one of the occultists that I’m a huge fan of and whose work I deeply admire.
The book itself is heavily Hekate-centric, which I love. In fact, she’s essentially the main spirit worked with in this book. I particularly love that Jason doesn’t have a light understanding – or as is more common – a huge misunderstanding of Hekate. He focuses on her evolution as a more chthonic deity which occurred sometime around the 5th Century BCE, becoming one of the main spirits invoked in the Greek Magical Papyri and Curse Tablets around that time. Jason writes that “she has been identified as a goddess used in both defensive and offensive magick; a goddess both of darkness and of light. Her image, called a Hekataion, was once so prevalent as a defensive amulet that it was mentioned by Aristophanes in the Wasps as being on every door in Athens, thus making her an excellent choice as a protector. Her darker and more sinister aspects were often invoked by those seeking justice, and thus she makes an ideal goddess for reversing and counter-magick work.”
While Jason does have a great understanding of the importance of the historical Hekate throughout the ages, this doesn’t stop him from also providing some of his personal gnosis. He shares the name of four protective spirits related to Hekate that he personally received, each having the head of an animal sacred to her. These spirits are used as a protective guardian of each quarter. That being said, despite being personal unverified gnosis, they definitely come when called. I have found that these names, just as everything else in the book, work – and well at that.
Throughout the book Jason provides advice not only on protection but also on recognizing the symptoms of attack and creating early warning systems to alert you of magickal attacks. He provides methods of reversal, counter-attack, exorcism and healing. My favorite technique is “The Sphere of Hekas” which is an amazing Hekatean alternative to the more common LBRP techniques done by ceremonial magician traditions like the Golden Dawn, which is great for those like me who have a bit of a hard time or resistance connecting to the Hebrew and chanting his names. This book is not only one of my favorite books on “defense against the dark arts”, but is actually one of my favorite books in my whole library.
Deity tends to be one of the most mysterious things in my experience. My relationship and views on deity constantly change. Sometimes people ask me if I’m a monist, a dualist, a soft polytheist (seeing all godforms as the same divinity) or a hard polytheist (seeing all the godforms as individual and distinct). Sometimes I ask myself this. The answer always turns out to be “yes”. The gods themselves are a paradox. One of the things that has always intrigued me is the evolution of a god. We see throughout ancient history that gods often evolve, are conflated or synthesized with others and absorb attributes of others.
Vivienne Moss’ Hekate: A Devotional is part grimoire, part poetry, part devotional and part spiritual diary. There are many published books on Hekate, most of them scholarly, academic or historical. This on the other hand is not that. The book is a time capsule containing mostly the relationship between Hekate and the author, a solitary hedge witch from Indiana. Sharing personal gnosis is a brave and vulnerable gift to the world, especially when it goes against what is established about a deity. Yet this book is not about fanciful reveries or made-up information, it is about the living spirit of Hekate in today’s age and much of it can be verified by the personal gnosis of other practitioners, even if it does not abide by history’s records.
Much of this book breaks the orthodoxy of the established history of Hekate, which is part of what I loved about this book. Humans often like to put things into nice and orderly boxes, including the gods themselves. However, if there’s one deity who defies dogma, orthodoxy and established rules it is most definitely Hekate. From fighting with the Olympians against her fellow Titans in the Titanomarchy to being the patron goddess of witches and outcast who defy conventional norms. She appears in extreme different forms and aspects throughout culture to culture and time period to time period. The vast spirit who is Hekate always challenges preconceived notions of who she is. She is not some relic of ancient history but rather a living spirit who shifts within history from Titan to Goddess to World Soul to Witch Queen.
I have found Hekate within this book, many of the experiences paralleling my own and many that were very different than mine. This includes many experiences that I have not read in any other book. While it is a small book at only 96 pages, the book itself is brim full of soul. It is completely evident to me as a devotee of Hekate that Vivienne is indeed in contact with Her. While an oddity amongst my other books on Hekate it is perhaps one of my favorites for this reason.