Hecate and modern esotericism

I. Female divinities associated with magic

The origins of Hecate are uncertain, but her worship extends to our days. Demonized by Christianity, her name reappears in the Malleus Maleficarum (a treatise on witchcraft written by the Dominican monks Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger in 1487), where she is recognized as the queen of witches. Currently, she plays a fundamental role in various forms of modern witchcraft, such as Hekatean witchcraft and Wicca, a contemporary neopagan religion in which her followers seek to connect with the universal energy of nature through the feminine spirituality of the goddess (identified in this context as «The Triple Goddessp»). In these new religions, Hecate reappears with some of the symbols that already identified her in antiquity and are now key talismans for summoning the goddess: the moon, the dogs, the snakes she carries in her hands, the keys that unlock all the mysteries of the universe, or the spiral or the wheel of Hecate (the «strophalos» mentioned in Chaldean oracles, a serpentine labyrinth with three arms converging into a central spiral of fire). 

Some of these elements are present in modern magical rituals performed in honor of the goddess, who has also been represented in the tarot and votive cards, as seen in the image. Her priestesses invoke her at crossroads on nights of the Full Moon, New Moon, Waxing, or Waning Moon (as she symbolizes all phases) to connect with her energy and power. Hecate thus emerges in modernity as a figure of female empowerment through whom the concept of ‘witch’ is redefined: it now refers to a woman who, far from the shadows to which patriarchy had relegated her, possesses superior wisdom thanks to her connection with the natural world (see Hekate, a folk song by Kathryn Hoss).

Ana González-Rivas