Customer Reviews

Hekate Liminal Rites: A Study of the rituals, magic and symbols of the torch-bearing Triple Goddess of the Crossroads

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This is a very nice book. I enjoyed the academic references put into the work and the language is profound. I am half-way through the reading and I have a hard time putting the book down even for a few minutes. I highly recommend this book.

This is a must read for any devote to Hecate. Finding ancient symbols not only takes work but they are so powerful. The herbs and the amulets will only help person continue to grow on a spiritual path. It is wonderful to see so many books coming out about this Goddess that for to look has been forgotten or ignored. Maybe simply passed off as the Goddess of Witches and nothing more. But there is more and this book will show you the way and illuminate your path. Do the rituals and learn from the Goddess herself.

It was worth reading but not really worth buying. Alot of it bored me, it was more of a history lesson than I was expecting. Gets really deep into how ancient greeks worked their magick with Hecate but alot of it wasn't helpful in practicing witchcraft in modern times.

I know what to expect from David Rankine and Sorita d'Este - a book that relies on research of texts and resources other than those published by "other pagans" and offers key insights and opinions rather than parroted neo-pagan hearsay and prattle. Knowing this, I purchased the Kindle version of this book with confidence and was not disappointed.

Within these pages are well researched references to the historical nature of Hekate of the Greeks and the Romans. The book looks at the written references of various scholars and scholarly works that have been carried down through the ages and traces the impact and effects of Hekate, her rituals, the magic and her followers. Discussion focuses on the centers of her worship, her mysteries, her better known followers, her rituals and rites, her history through the ages and what she was best known for - the magics that are attributed to her.

It's very interesting, though if you were looking for one of those new age story books on gods and goddesses, this is more than just some stories. You will find interesting and different information presented; this is more a work for the serious follower of Hekate who is looking to connect with the Goddess on more than a casual level and emerse themselves in all that is Hekate.

While there is much here to ponder, there are some surprising insights into the Goddess, her rituals, magic and the practices associated with her followers. The vegetarian followers suprised me, as it seems to have done with a few other reviewers, but then that is what research does turn up. Sometimes it is a confirmation of what we already know, sometimes it's a deep insight into what we practice but had no knowledge of why, and then sometimes it's the little bits of surprising information that makes the reading that much more interesting. And I am one of those people who appreciates having all this research gathered into one place, rather than having to look for something specific over and over again on the web. It's all in this book. I can reference it myself thanks to the work of these two authors.

I enjoyed this book. BTW, the Kindle edition is very good in the formatting, many of the features worked flawlessly so the formatting was spot on, and these old eyes enjoyed reading a book in a typeface I didn't have to squint to read or tire my eyes to the point where I couldn't read. The experience overall was quite enjoyable.

Again, a great book to add to your library if you are a Hekate follower and want some real food for thought on the goddess Hekate. - Boudica

To know Hekate is to love Hekate. Scholars David Rankine and Sorita d'Este do an excelent job of informing us about who Hekate is. This awesome book tells us the origins of Hekate and inform's us about the rituals that were dedicated to Hekate. The book comes fully armed with a bibliography and references.

Hekate the liminal cthonian Goddess was extrmely popular in Greece. There were several temples dedicated to her and shrines dedicated to her in Temples dedicated to Demeter and Persephone. A common sacrifice tyo Hekate was dogs. Dogs were not usually sacrificed to Greek born deities but were regualarly sacrificed to deities who came from abroad. Where was Hekate from origninally? THe fact that she was often depicted with lions might hint that she came from the Middle East? In fact she did come from elsewhre. Her origins are Thracian mostly from the city of Caria. She was considered a Titan that was allowed to remain after Zeus and cohorts asserted their supremacy over the Titans. She is mentioned in several different texts and their are several different accounts of her parentage. The most commonly accepted is that her parents are Parceles and Arestia. Parceles is the Persian sun God and Aresstia is the star Goddess.

He daughters or priestesses are Circe and Medea. They have the power the to draw lunar power from the sky. They also had the ability to work with Herbs and cast spells. In addition to these there were several pertinent follower, Emphedocles was a well known follower who urged vegetarianism as did several of his other followers. He is famous for having informed the world about the elements of air, fire,water and land in the use of magic. He also believed himself to be immortal and he tried to prove this by jumping into a volcano. He was never seen again and al that was left was a bronze sandal.

Porphrys was another follower of Hekate who was of Phoenician descent. He alos advocated vegetarianism and he even changed or improvised some of the rituals and sacrifices for Hekate. He turned the worship away from the use of animals towards the use of incense atr certain times of the day.

Hekate was usually invi=oked in loves spell and binding spells. Many spells involving her were used to call upon spirtits who had met a violent death. It was believed thpower for magic was extremely powerful. Poppets were used as were herbs. The withces of THessaly were often known for their root work and their devotion to Hekate.

Hekate was linked to many Goddess and she also aborbed many Goddesses. She aborbed Brimo and Baubo as lunar Goddesses and many times she was summoned using these name. In certain other works she is linked to Isis, Erishkigal, Selene, Cybil and Diana just to name a few. When linked to another Goddess she is called upon using a hyphenated name like Isis-Hekate.

Hekate is ofent called a three faced or three headed goddess. THe head in many of the illustrations were animals heads such as a dogs head,goat heador a snakle head to name a few. Hekate is also unique in that she is named in charms that invoke Hebrew names for deity and also angels and king Solomon. This is indicative of a crossover between Greek and Jewish Magic.

THis is one incredible book one that I stongly advise getting.

Great informative book about the early findings and her relationship with other Goddess' and Gods, a must have for devotees of Hecate!

This is an excellent sourcebook of material on how the ancient Greeks and Romans actually perceived and worked with the Goddess Hekate, ritually and magically. While definitely not a contemporary neo-pagan "how to" book with lots of spells and personal speculation, it's rather a work filled with footnoted and sourced genuinely historical information covering a broad span of time. The authors quote many ancient sources, some not widely available, and seem keenly aware of keeping their own personal speculations to an absolute minimum. Previously published works on Hekate tend to fall into two camps. On the one hand you have allegedly "objective" classical scholars with no personal connection to Hekate who simply reiterate what the old sources say, while putting their own particular and often clearly biased academic spin on things. Invariably Hekate is made out as a mostly dangerous and spooky "minor" Goddess, with older material showing Hekate in a positive light largely ignored or relegated to the anomaly pile. Scholarly works on Hekate have also tended to focus on a particular area or time period of Hekate worship - like Illes Johnston's Hekate Soteira or Rabinowitz's The Rotting Goddess or even Von Rudloff's Hekate in Ancient Greek Religion. The other camp is the often highly speculative modern Wiccan or neo-pagan side which sets out to show how overwhelmingly positive and inspiring Hekate is, yet ignoring much of the darker albeit later material that remains or else reframing it in a culturally acceptable or pop form in what appears to be an effort to sell books and seminars to Goths or Dark Pagans, or those with a minimal historical background.

Authors d'Este and Rankine do none of this - instead they manage to walk a fine line between being scholarly and genuinely liking their subject but not sugar coating or padding it; or going in the opposite extreme of trying to appeal to a Goth or Dark Pagan crowd exclusively. Rather they give us the facts pure and simple, both bright and dark, both literary and historical. While a fairly slim volume - as all books on Hekate tend to be owing to the relative dearth of historical material available, the authors manage to cover a plethora of categories and situations in which the Greeks and Romans called upon Hekate.

If you are looking for a real source book on who Hekate was and by extension who She continues to be for many, this is it. Coupled with author Sorita d'Este's previous anthology Hekate: Keys to the Crossroads, which covers the more personal and contemporary side of Hekate worship, this newest offering rounds out the actual reality of who Hekate is for many today, minus wildly speculative nonsense by "Hecate gurus" and their endlessly spamming followers, and Wiccan reductionism.

Hekate: Liminal Rites is Classical Hekate in all her many forms.

I have read a number of books on Hekate and each had something to offer. Of course there is going to be a great deal of overlap between the various books about Hekate but where I feel that this book differs is that a lot of the information in it has been meticulously researched and is fresh and I would say original - much of the information just cannot be found in many of the other books - and I have to question some of comments in some of the reviews as to the information presented in this book being found on the internet. I have done a few searches and yes, there were one or two snippets of information there, but NOT to the extent that is presented in this book. And I'm sorry, but some of the information in the book just CANNOT be found online(one example is the link between vegetarianism and the priesthood of Hekate and I have done a lot of research into Greeks and Vegetarianism and this was the first place I read about the link between Hekate and this aspect and it is all referenced for you to go and check the sources for yourself!). In fact, most of the links online regarding this aspect pointed to this book so that makes me wonder where those reviewers got their information from! I would challenge them and urge you the reader not to be prejudiced by those comments and find out for yourself why this book is so special!(I am a bit suspicious that the negative reviews maybe from the same person, since they are fond of using the same word "roster"!)

As for the content, I won't comment, as other reviewers have already done so and I would not want to repeat them but I would agree with them wholeheartledly!

If Hekate is your thing and you need more information about this Amazing and Great Goddess, her rites, he associates, her spells, her charms,her hymns, her incantations, then this book will fill in a lot of the gaps you have been looking for!

This book has been a wonderful addition to my ever growing library! The historic backgrounds highlighting the many different aspects of Hekate filled in soooooo many blanks for me in the way that she was seen way back in the way back when machine! The intellectual aspects and research that are showcased in the book still feel organic to me, as opposed to many of the other more academic texts that are out there on the subject. This was a very pleasant surprise, and I intend to check out much more by the author. I have fallen head over heels for this book!

This is the best Hekate book on the market. Much better then the edited anthologies of people's personal experiences. This is probably the most accurate book I've run across. It's an easy read, it's not dry or boring, and it has information you won't find on internet searches. Well worth buying.