The Goddess Directory

Hecate: A Guide to the Underworld and Inner Wisdom

Hecate is an ancient goddess. It is believed she predates the Olympians gods, and was originally worshipped as an Earth Mother in Caria, Asia Minor long and was then later syncretized into the Greek pantheon. She is often seen as a triple goddess and that is because she is goddess over many different domains and the journey she has been on as changed her worship immensely. Her three aspects are connected and yet very separate from each other and they evolve as her worship changes through the ages.

She was first and foremost, a Great Goddess, a universal figure of worship and there were many temples and cults in her place of origin. After Zeus and the pantheon arrived from the Indo- european relighion, she still found a place in the pantheon and was highly respected as a goddess of liminal spaces and the in-between. She was classed as one of the titans, but not of the original twelve. She was extremely powerful but stood alone, apart from the major gods and goddess of the Greek pantheon. She became a goddess worshipped at transformative times and transitions. They would worship her at childbirth, marriage, death for example. She was a bridge, a messenger between mortals and gods. She connected the three male domains (sky, sea and underworld) together and passed easily between all the worlds. She has now shifted from Universal goddess, an earth mother to a liminal goddess, her second role. Her third aspect is as a chthonic goddess. Which is how she is most well regarded in modern times. As she was worshipped in transitions and transformations, she became associated with magic, witchcraft, death and the underworld. She was worshipped at crossroads where the unfortunate dead where often buried and she became connected and associated with ghosts and was known as the mistress of souls. She now as three different faces, but she is still only one powerful ancient goddess.