The goddess of darkness is Hecate. Even in ancient Greece, she was considered the patroness of darkness, nightmares, revenge, debauchery and witchcraft. The goddess has a frightening appearance, snakes fluttering on her head instead of hair. At night, Hecate arranges a terrible, wild hunt, a pack of her hounds flee among the graves and ghosts.
Rejected lovers and murderers pray to Hecate. She inspires how to prepare decoctions for love spells and poisons.
But Hecate has other forms: in the daytime she appears before people as a harsh judge, and in the morning - as the personification of spirituality and in this form Hecate helps philosophers and scientists, "leads the souls" of people from the Kingdom of the dead to light and love. Thus, Hecate connects two worlds: the living and the dead. She is both darkness and light at the same time.
She is darkness and at the same time the moon goddess, close to Selene. Hecate can be considered a nocturnal analogy of Artemis, she is also a hunter, but her hunt is a dark night hunt among the dead, graves and ghosts of the underworld, she rushes surrounded by a pack of hellish dogs and witches. Hecate is also close to Demeter - the life force of the earth.
The Romans identified Hecate with their goddess Trivia - "the goddess of the three roads", who, like her Greek analogy, had three heads and three bodies.
In reality, Hecate is not dark, not black and does not represent the forces of evil and darkness. Hecate personifies the process, the elemental force of destruction for the sake of creation, the force of renewal through death.
Patroness of the world of the dead, she accompanied the souls of the dead to a new place, contributing to their rebirth. She also helped the living, giving initiation during rituals. Her strength is limitless, she is fearless and is known for showing the way.
Hecate was depicted with objects hinting at her occupation, for example:
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• Key as responsible for entering and exiting
• Scourge as exposing human vices
• Torch as a representative of the underworld
• Dagger as the goddess of vengefulness and malice
Hecate had a numerous retinue in the person of hellish dogs from the world of dead and restless souls. Her sacred animals are snake and owl dogs, representing the souls of the dead. In the terrestrial world, only dogs have the ability to see the goddess. They keenly feel when she is approaching and begin to actively notify about it by barking.
All black dogs are considered dedicated to the goddess, in ancient times they were sacrificed, and the soul of the dog replenished her ghostly retinue, most modern priestesses avoid this. During the ritual, hearing a dog barking or seeing a black dog is a very good sign.
Goddess Hecate - statue of Liberty
According to some scholars, the American Statue of Liberty is the goddess Hecate, and not someone else. The famous monument has the classic attributes of a goddess: a crown with spikes and a torch raised up. And the book in the hand of the statue indicates that Hecate is also the goddess of wisdom.
In ancient times, images of Hecate were placed at the crossroads of three roads. In the Roman period, Hecate was called Trivia ("three-faced"). There were temples in honor of only one of the hypostases of Hecate, because it is difficult for an ordinary person to realize the trinity of any god in general.
In a later time, Hecate was considered the female embodiment of devilish forces and was opposed to the Christian Trinity. Hecate was worshiped by adherents of satanic cults, black dogs were sacrificed to her, black candles or smoldering torches on black handles were lit. They smoked incense - henbane, grave periwinkle, often mixed with the blood of the victim. The time for Hecate's rituals is the first and third hours after midnight, preferably the first two and last two days of the moon. The place of the ritual is the crossroads of abandoned or deserted roads or paths, heaps of stones, islands in the swamps.
Incubi and succubi
In demonology, Hecate's closest assistants were considered incubi and succubi.
Incubus - night demons, assuming a masculine appearance (from the Latin incubare - "to lie on"); succubi - demons that take on a female form (from Latin succubare - "to lie under").
Researchers of different eras have several opinions about the nature of the appearance of succubi and incubi. Early demonologists believed that they were a kind of dream demons, real beings of another, parallel world. There is no space and time in our understanding. But it is possible that that world intersects at some level with our physical world, and this gives the otherworldly entities an opportunity to explore our life and ourselves.
• Meetings with succubi and incubi - today:
Ufologist G. Belimov, who lives in Volzhsky, tells about one of such cases. Once the mother of a 34-year-old woman approached him. She worried that, despite her youth, her daughter had already been married four times.
She believed that her daughter's personal life did not add up because of some creature visiting her and having sexual contact with her. The daughter's first meeting with an incubus happened when the girl turned 17 and men began to appear in her life.
The young woman said that at night she felt cold, heard steps and felt that someone was lying down next to her. Moreover, in whatever position she was lying, he always got up from the back, because she could not see the demon. Because the victims of the incubus always fall into a daze, there was no way to turn around and look at the voluptuary:
“I once saw his hand when he put it in front of me. An ordinary male hand, thin hair is clearly visible, the hand is cool. I tried to turn around, but he pressed on my shoulder, preventing me from looking. And he removed his hand. Sexual intercourse always takes place only in the position from the back. You can feel the weight of a normal large man. One could blame everything on a dream, but she clearly heard the creak of the bed, his breathing and other accompanying noises.
It should be noted that the demon did not appear in the presence of her husband. He appears only when the woman is alone. Moreover, intercourse always ended with an orgasm, which she received when she wanted. The woman noted that the sensations are much sharper than with an ordinary man. She suggests that her marriages fell apart due to the fact that she unwittingly compared partners.
In addition, her relationships with men were terminated due to strange force majeure circumstances that occurred with her partners. Now problems with work, then moving, then illness, then arrest, then alcohol. There was always something new, but it happened, however, too natural to be mistaken for an accident.
At Belimov's request, she tried to talk to the guest, but the dialogue did not work. When the woman began to persistently ask him the question: "Why are you coming?", The demon left and returned only a few days later, and for some time did not have sexual contact with her. She noted that, although she feels that his body is cold, it does not cause discomfort.
She did not feel the partner's seed. After he leaves, she immediately falls into a deep sleep. Nevertheless, after every night of love, the woman felt weak and sleepy. The demon appeared spontaneously, could appear several times a week, and it happened that only once a month, that is, the initiative came exclusively from him. But he never appeared on the "critical days".
• Description of the night visit to the incubus is available in the "Golden Legend" by Jacob Voraginsky: when St. Edmund, after long night studies, “suddenly fell asleep, forgetting to cross himself and think about the Passion of our Lord, the devil leaned on him, and so hard that he could not cross himself with one hand and did not know what to do, - however, by the grace of God, he remembered his blessed Passion, and then the enemy lost all his strength and fell from him "(Life of St. Edmund).
There were ideas about the extreme aggressiveness of the incubi (for example, Thoma from Cantempre claims that the incubi attack women even in the confessional; according to Luther, the favorite place of the incubus ambush is water, where they, having assumed the form of aquatic, copulate with their victims and conceive offspring) and about the deadly the dangers of dealing with them.
• The English monk Thomas Valsingham tells (1440) that one girl died three days after “the devil desecrated her,” from a terrible disease that swelled her body like a barrel; Caesar of Heisterbach tells about women, one of whom paid with her life for a devil's kiss, and the other - just for shaking the hand of an invisible incubus (Dialogue about Miracles, 164).
Incubi have an unusual physical nature: their genitals were depicted as forked or snake-like. Inhabited by incubi, according to Gottfried of Monmouth (XII century), "between the moon and our earth." From the connection of witches and incubus malefici, "monsters" are born; the child of a certain Angela de la Barthes had the head of a wolf and the tail of a snake.
Many extraordinary personalities of the Middle Ages and Renaissance were considered the offspring of incubi and ordinary women. The authors of "The Hammer of the Witches" Sprenger and Institoris explained this as follows: children born of demons are often stronger and better than ordinary ones: this is due to the fact that "demons can know the power of the poured seed", choose the most favorable time for intercourse and choose the most suitable woman. But in this way mostly villains are born, albeit outstanding ones.
• The famous "Robert the Devil", Duke of Normandy, father of William the Conqueror, famous for his incredible cruelty, was considered the product of a demon and the Duchess of Normandy. The 15th century English novel Sir Gowther can be considered a variation of the story about Robert the Devil. The young woman has a connection with a demon that appeared to her under a hazel bush in the guise of a "noble lord"; he himself warns his victim that the child conceived by him will be wild and cruel, and the child in fact shows a ferocious disposition from birth: he drains the breasts of all his nurses, so that nine nannies die in nine months. As an adult, he commits a lot of atrocities, for example, burns nuns in the church.
• As for the succubus, they, in a seductive female form, often tempted the holy hermits. The English hermit Richard Rollie (XIV century) himself described a visit to the succubus: one night, “a very beautiful woman whom I had seen before and who loved me very much with the noblest love” came to his bed; Rollie, fearing that she would make him sin, was ready to jump out of bed, cross himself and ask the blessings of the Holy Trinity for both of them, but she held him so tightly that he could neither move nor speak. Rollie realized that the night visitor was "not a woman, but a devil in the guise of a woman," he said to himself: "Oh Jesus, how precious is your blood!" And with his finger he made the sign of the cross on his chest: the demon immediately disappeared.
• The connection with the succubus could last for decades. Thus, the sorcerer priest Benoit Byrne, burnt at the age of 80, confessed that he had lived with a demon named Hermione for 40 years; at the same time, the demon remained invisible to those around him (J. Baudin. "On the demon mania of witches").
• Incubi and succubi often take on the appearance of the dead. In the story told in the XIII century. Walter Mep, his dead wife, recently buried by him, returned to a certain knight; she invited him to stay with him until he utters a curse. The knight lived with the incarnate devil for several years quite happily, and the succubus even bore him children, but one day the knight in forgetfulness uttered a fatal curse and the demon disappeared.
• In a story told by a Polish author of the 17th century. Adrian Regenvols (took place in 1597 in Vilna), a certain young man (Zakhariya), having received a refusal in her hand from the parents of his beloved girl (Bietka), fell into melancholy and strangled himself, but after a while he appeared to his beloved with the words: “I came to fulfill my promise and marry you. Biette, despite the fact that she perfectly understood who she was dealing with, agreed. A formal marriage took place, but without witnesses: after all, all Bietka's relatives knew that Zakhariya had died …
J. Delumaud
