DRAWING DOWN THE GODDESS: THE ANCIENT {FEMALE} DEITIES OF MODERN PAGANISM

Marguerite Johnson

The rise of neo-Paganism and its scholarly analysis is now an established fi eld of academic enquiry, yet there is a paucity of analysis as to the ancient (Greek and Roman) origins of this multifaceted religion.1 This paper is an attempt to begin to rectify this under-researched area of neo-Pagan studies and to offer some possibilities as to the infl uences of ancient religious and magical traditions on modern spiritualities. The focus is on the societies of Greece and Rome, which were imbued with magical and occult sensibilities that permeated many facets of day-to- day life, and it is the female deities of the ancients that are of chief consideration. Therefore, the modern practitioners discussed are, in the main, followers of non-Celtic paths, non-Druidic paths (among others) but are, rather, Pagans from the United States, writers and public fi gures who have openly chronicled their experiences with such goddesses. A much discussed topic in the study of ancient magic is the extent to which magic and religion were interchangeable. While I would posit that on a public level the ancients differentiated between the two,2 existing evidence concerning the multifarious magical traditions in operation in antiquity indicates that practitioners and, in particular, their clients, were not concerned with the distinction but recognised the difference in approach to the deities and the intentions that motivated this. There was a consistent incorporation of a variety of deities from the Greek and Roman pantheons into spells, magical invocations and related activities. Indeed the gods and goddesses were fl exible entities that were worshipped by the people and their religious offi ciates yet also called upon to activate the will of a magician. Admittedly the

1 See, for some discussion, Frew (1998) and Hutton (2000). For a more complete overview, see Campbell (2000). 2 In the form of, for example, legislation and public pronouncements, which tended to favour active discouragement of such practices, thereby distinguishing between state-ordained religious rituals and the much more private activities of occultists. See, Phillips (1991) and Dickie (2001). 312 marguerite johnson format of invocation varied between a religious and magical operation, nevertheless the gods remained the same, as did their various portfolios of infl uence.3 The goddess Hecate (or Hekate) remained the quintessential deity of ancient magic in both Greek and Roman societies.4 An ancient goddess, incorporated into Greek religion from the Near East, possibly Caria (south-west of modern Turkey),5 Hecate is fi rst mentioned in Greek literature by the Archaic poet Hesiod (c. 8th Century BCE), with the fi rst inscriptional evidence confi rming her worship in Greece dating to the 6th Century BCE.6 In Hesiod’s Theogony, an account of the creation of the universe, the gods and humankind, Hecate is the only child of the Titans, Perses (god of destruction) and Asteria or ‘Starry One’ (409–11). Although Hecate goes on to become synonymous with witch- craft of the most sinister kind, and is embraced as the patron goddess of magicians, her origins, as refl ected by Hesiod, are far removed from any magical associations. Hesiod’s long and textually unexpected hom- age to the goddess, which occupies 41 lines of the poem (lines 411–52), presents her “as a deity closely involved in the affairs of the community with powers broadly founded in the natural world” (Marquardt 1981: 243). What is a noteworthy detail in Hesiod’s account is that Hecate’s power and authority remain independent of the supreme reign of the Olympian conqueror of the Titans, Zeus. While the latter reigns over all gods, Hecate retains her pre-Olympian agency, receiving honours on the earth, and in the sea and sky. Her infl uence traverses these three realms as she aids, for example, legislators busy making decrees (the earthly sphere) and fi shermen in the harvesting of bountiful catch (the aquatic sphere), while her heavenly infl uence is based on the intermedi- ary role she performs between gods and humankind, carrying prayers from an individual to the heaven-dwellers. This positive, all-encompassing portrait of the goddess by Hesiod will be further discussed below, as we now turn to the dramatic change

3 Aphrodite/Venus, for example, was a regular source of invocation in love or erotic magic, her chief religious function being relegated to areas of fertility, successful unions, and so on. 4 For a discussion of Hecate, see Berg (1974), Marquardt (1981), Boedeker (1983) and, for a more general approach, Von Rudloff (1999). 5 See Kraus (1960: 24–56) and Marquardt (1981: 250–51); for a counter argument, see Berg (1974). 6 This is on a temple to Apollo at Miletus where Hecate appears with this god in their capacities as the protectors of entrances.