Customer Reviews

Bearing Torches: A Devotional Anthology for Hekate

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This Book, "Bearing Torches" a devotional & anthology for Hekate is more than a devotional book. It is filled with poems, prayers,& personal accounts of people, who pray and interact with this Goddess. Some history about Her is also included, which is a bonus.
I recommend this book for those who love and honor this Goddess. Books on Hekate have been rare, but slowly Hekate is becoming a Goddess more people are interested in and want more information about Her.

Happy Reading,
Donna Swindells

[Disclaimer: I have several pieces included in this anthology.] Hekate is an old and extremely complicated Goddess, being associated with everything from conception and midwifery, to the sea and fishing, to material wealth, to ghosts and magic and the Underworld. In this devotional anthology, editor Sannion brings together essays, personal recollections, meditations, short stories, poems and rituals in honor of the Goddess. The wide variety of entries serves to underscore Hekate's complex nature; some devotees are drawn to her more maternal qualities, while others reference her liminality or her links to the Underworld. There are a few scattered typos throughout the text (missing commas, misspelled words, et cetera), but, overall, this is an excellent addition to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina line. Recommended to anyone interested in Hekate and/or the Hellenic pantheon.

{Disclaimer--I have work in this anthology}

As with other books by this press this is a finely produced volume with good graphics and cover. Among the offerings is a gem of an essay on Hekate and the Chaldean Oracles by Edward P. Butler. It's a fountain of rich theological insights, and shows the pagan traditions offer depths of illumination comparable to those of Hinduism and Buddhism. Check out his excellent henadology website:[...], too. There's an interesting piece by Tim Ward, "Hekate at Longina and Catalhoyuk", personal and at times fervid. And an intriguing one by Phillip Bernhardt-House, "Hekate's Bitch: Hekuba and Other Greek Traditions of Cynanthropy". I hadn't realized that Hekuba, Priam's queen, was connected to animal transformation. Rich, dense, hearty fare. There's a lot of enjoyable poetry, and some practical rituals. This is a high quality volume of diverse material about a complex and seductive deity.

One of the many fascinating things about Hekate is how she so obviously changed over the course of time (or if you prefer how her worshipers have held such different conceptions of her during different historical periods). I cannot subscribe to the thesis put forth by Jacob Rabinowitz in his _Rotting Goddess_ (though, it's worth a read) and given credence by Ward that this reflects a degeneration. So she was bright and maidenly for Hesiod, and dark, smoky and chthonically abject for the Alexandrian magicians and hermeticists--why is that a decline? (Of course, this view is redolent of sweet matriarchy.) They are certainly different but I like dark and chthonic. I gravitate toward those who can give me keys to explore the dark and hidden, and I think this a perquisite for real spiritual growth. It also gives the lie to the narrower cast of reconstructionists who are trying to `get' that true historical fix. Gods like humans change. After all Hekate is popular today among many diverse paganisms. So it's good to see a bunch of different points of view in this book.


A few highlights:

"The Key Bearer" by Michael Routery
"Hekate's Bitch: Hekuba and Other Greek Traditions of Cynanthropy" by Phillip A. Bernhardt-House, PhD
"Hekate Soteira" by P. Sufenas Virius Lupus
"Long Beach, Hekate" by Todd Jackson
"Flower of Fire: Hekate and the Chaldean Oracles" by Edward P. Butler
"Trivia" by Sannion
"Gatekeepers, Way -Clearers, Mediators: Wepwawet (or Anubis and Hermanubis),
Hekate, and Ianus in the Practices of the Ekklesia Antinoou" by P. Sufenas Virus Lupus
"Hekate's Deipna and Other Devotional Acts" by Venus Clark

I enjoyed this book. I read anything about Hekate that I can get my hands on. If your interested in her as well its worth reading. I recomend it!