In September 2017 I wrote the article: The Illusive Goddess in which I examine some cases of false dedication we see in the modern religious community of the Goddess Hekate. I continued to see those cases online. Recently, I have noticed that more devotees take a weird way, worshipping a Goddess they prefer to call Hekate, but She isn’t Hekate, at least, Hekate was never seen in that way in the past, only the last decades. Some friends of the Covenant of Hekate justify those people by telling that there isn’t only the Hellenic religion, in which we should be based. However, Hekate appears in the history in the Hellenic mythology and all the information and qualities we draw related to Hekate originate to the Hellenic history and mythology. We can see Her appear for the first time in the Orphic Mysteries with the first orphic hymn to Hekate. Later we find Her again, to be one of the deities in the Eleusinian Mysteries. More information about Her, appears on the ancient Hellenic texts. From the perspective of the archaeological evidence we see that she was largely worshipped of over Hellas. If not Hellas, then where?
In this article we are going to see some cases of weird views that exist in the modern community of the Goddess Hekate. People who influence others with their books, their articles, the power of being a priest/priestess of a doubtful tradition, the power of having a title or publications on magazines or people who are famous online and lastly we are going to see people who find difficult ancient texts and they prefer modern interpretations from people who also haven’t read the ancient texts. The whole blog post will be divided in three parts. Part one will include the following categories: fake writers, fake priests and fake oracles. Part two will include devotees of all Gods, followers of none tradition and haters. Part three will include a combination of previous categories and I will be specific presenting two examples.
The purpose of this blog post is to inform beginners and devotees of the Goddesss Hekate for the situation as it is the latest years. I hope that it will add filters to many devotees, so that they know what to expect at a conversation, seminar, ritual, article, book regardings our Goddess and not take a wrong way, at least from mine perspective, wrong.
Fake Writers
In this category there are people who are not devotees of the Goddess at all. They claim to be devotees or priests/priestesses for a while until their book sells some thousands of copies. They never respond to online discussions, to questions written by their readers and they do not present any kind of practical work. They just post photos occasionally, with an altar or a shrine or a group ritual, which in many cases, Hekate isn’t the main Goddess! Those writers just want to make money and continue writing books on different subjects. They do anything possible to promote their book in its first release and then they restrain their marketing to some photos or lectures on friendly festivals.
As usual, they copy from others who have done the hard work of collecting the information and they don’t even bother to check the validity of their work. They put emphasis on an aspect they see right for them, an aspect that will provoke others to read that book and they further develop those aspects with their imagination.
If the reader is well informed on ancient history or theology, he will easily understand that something is going wrong because the book is partially based on historical truth and validity and partially on personal views of the writer, which are contradicted with the historical truth. The well-informed reader understands that he reads a book, in which ancient texts are presented partially, with limited or no understanding from the point of the writer and of course, the writer doesn’t care a lot, as he has done his job, he wrote a book, he published it and now he thinks his next title.
If you still believe that those people aren't fake, imagine that you have a person in your environment that makes easily commitments but he rarely keeps them. Or a person that is close to you only when he has something to gain from you. I bet you had enough fake friends in school or your working environment.
Devotees who support those books do not understand how much they degrade the work of other serious writers when they try to present valid information. At this point we should ask ourselves how an academic would see the religious community of Hekate today if he examines those kinds of actions happening and being accepted, by a small yet significant, amount of devotees. For example, in the Golden Dawn community, there are people who mix Thelema with Wicca and the Golden Dawn. The community isolates those incidents with articles and actions. Also, there are people who ask for a lot of money to offer astral initiation. Again, the Golden Dawn community reacts against them. Even when journalists in my country, associated the political party Golden Dawn with the Order of the Golden Dawn, the community responded with articles, comments, images, blog posts. On the other side, the community of Hekate is fairly open to all opinions and views. And that’s inevitable because everyone can be a devotee of Hekate and start speaking for Her. There are too many devotees who follow the Goddess and Her path and no one can say that they do it wrong as there is no Hekatean Tradition. But organizations devoted to Hekate have not the mood to respond to misinformation and attacks.
Fake Torchbearers/Priests
The role of a Torchbearer is fairly self-explanatory. A priest/priestess of the Goddess Hekate who brings others to the Goddess, provides knowledge, advertises his/her work, lives by being an example and the voice of the Goddess, thus drawing other people towards the light he/she carries. The Torchbearer ought to not only has read and understood all about the cult of Hekate but he/she is also available to help or train a stranger to come closer to the Goddess. As in antiquity, the Torchbearer plays a significant role on the ancient mysteries.
In reality, we see people who honor their title and bring others closer to the Goddess, but on the other hand there are people in the modern cult of Hekate who not only remain hidden by choice but also they don’t even believe to the existence of Hekate. If this may get worse, there are Torchbearers who are Satanists and lie in public to draw attention, students and manipulate others in the name of the Goddess!
But how Satanists, worshippers of (the deity) Lucifer and Qlippoth have found a link with the ancient Goddess Hekate whose cult originates in ancient Hellas? They have created their own mythology, denying the well-known myths of thousands of years, ancient hymns, rites, texts, philosophy, history and religion. They even state that ancients are dead, so we shouldn’t stay with their dead teachings. The ideas they carry are totally strange and opposite with the most basic teachings of any philosophical school of ancient Hellas.
There are priests and priestesses who use an existent name of an ancient God and they attribute to him modern ideas and interpretations. Those priests lack the information of the basic elements of ancient theology and they have no problem to discuss with people who have spent a fair amount of time studying that field. The God they present has come out of their imagination and they justify the fact with contradictions by stating that the ancient God evolved to a new form, and he contacted them.
A torchbearer is usually a well-educated devotee who accepts to bring others closer to Hekate. A torchbearer doesn't have only the appearance and the attitude of a spiritual person, he is also purified. It is a service to the Goddess to spend your time providing information to beginners and other devotees who have a lot of questions to ask. There are torchbearers who deny to give their time to strangers, they don’t write articles, blog posts, they don’t make videos, they don’t invite people to conversations, they don’t invite them to temple work etc. They just hold the title and interfere to debates only when they have interest, like to gain something.
On that point, let's remember Epictetus questions on fake Hierophants, Keryxs and Torchbearers: " Why are you careless? Why do you undertake a thing that is in no way fit for you? "
Except from the non active torchbearers and Satanists, we also see the atheist torchbearers. They also get support from polytheists torchbearers. If a polytheist accepts atheism as a normal -theism, then he also accepts the possibility of his beliefs to be wrong and other things can be said for his inner world. For the ancients, atheism was serious disease and this is something you are going to read in ancient Hellenic philosophy. We have also addressed this subject on the article Plato on Piety presenting Platon’s teachings and the commentary article Why Plato Says Atheism is a Disease presenting Plotino’s teachings. In a circle, when your co-worker is an atheist, this will affect your magick and all persons inside the circle. Moreover, you cannot teach on unification with the One God, the Ultimate En and deny the existence of him or of the Goddess. If there is no Goddess, no God, then can we have spirituality? A man denying to accept the existence of the God will turn his interest in himself and his whole world will become self-centered, which automatically means no interest in helping other people as he will be very busy with himself. The most serious western spiritual order, the Esoteric Order of the Golden Dawn, forbade an atheist to be members. Before proceeding to sign a member, he should accept the belief in a Supreme Being or Beings. It was characterized as “indispensable”. And again, if this person lied, his life was going to be a mess as he was elevating through the grades.
Fake Oracles
A wound in the body of modern devotees is when people who practice oracular techniques or divination ask for the Goddess they call Hekate to give them a message for another person, for a situation or for the whole community. They use that power of manipulation to guide persons who will believe those oracles. And yeah, oracles can be right if they will be performed in the right way, drawing the right energy, testing the deity and asking the right questions, as it is in all divinatory methods. But when the oracle is linked with a deity that isn’t Hekate, but a spirit, then the oracle will be wrong. If the person uses wrong technique or he isn’t a good vessel then the oracle will be wrong. If the question is wrong, the answer will be too general that the interpretation will be useless or wrong.
An oracle I read when I was a beginner in the cult of Hekate was that Hekate left this world. How can someone say that or believe that or even advertise that? A deity can never leave this world as the physical world is the emanation of another one to which the deity is eternally present. This results in the deity to be always present in the physical world as well. We can’t interpret the world of Nous (where the gods exist, the Intelligence World) according to the laws of the physical world. Different worlds should be treated according to their laws and functions otherwise the interpretation will fail and lead to misinterpretations and wrong information. Basic thought we met before the pre-socratics in Hesiod’s Theogony. Maybe they haven’t understood that too or any other ancient Hellenic cosmology, not to mention Parmenides. Another oracle I read recently was that Hekate told to the oracle that Her mythology is wrong. Yeah, right! In the same oracle, Hekate is presented like She had a personality crisis. Dear oracles, those are spirits that you call, not the deity.
And don’t believe that people can’t lie and pretend to give oracles in public when they just say whatever they want to say to act like politicians. It’s like channeling. You say whatever you want to say. The bad thing about those wrong sessions is that people actually believe and change their lives, go to seminars and buy books that have nothing to do with the ancient Goddess Hekate. Show some self-respect and don’t believe what others tell you in the name of the Goddess. It is your life, your decision, your choices.
Links
It amazes me how so many traditions follow these ancient protocols and roles,