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Hekate is trending on witchtok, so I take this as a sign to combine this and this article I wrote for PopDust back in 2020, when the Dua Lipa video for “Levitating” (featuring the Hekatean Wheel) was super popular. Both the articles are oldies-but-goodies, with lots of history, advice, and resources from experienced Hekate teachers Jason Miller, Cyndi Brennan, Jack Grayle, and Jeff Cullen. Enjoy the repost!

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It may seem ironic that, during times of great turmoil, there’s a great deal of succor to be found in Hekate, long venerated in Central Asian and Greek lore as the dark goddess of sorcery.

Often considered the Queen Bee of witches, Hekate’s rise in popularity also mirrors the rise in witchcraft, paganism, and the occult in the mainstream. Witchy activities, such as astrology and tarot, have become such a “normal” part of American society that even therapists are starting to learn them in order to relate better with their patients (who are often enthusiasts of these esoteric arts).

“Pop culture in relation to magic is an interesting thing. When a spirit or god or practice has a serious impact, it will often show up in pop culture,” says Jason Miller, who has taught over 900 students in Sorcery of Hekate, a online class that mixes of Western traditions and Eastern esoteric techniques he learned when initiated as a ngakpa (non-monastic Buddhist monk). “Sometimes this is simply because pop culture is a reflection of peoples’ lives. Sometimes it may be something more, like the spirit itself moving the artists.”

Even if you’re not officially a witch, Hekate is a powerful and potentially accessible symbol of liminal power. Many try to gatekeep Hekate, but she sidesteps the human ego, a dancer who slides up close to any and all who are learning to face their shadows.

“The first time I led a large ritual of Hekate at a pagan festival, over a decade ago, most of the participants either had never heard of her or had a very limited understanding,” says Cyndi Brannen, who writes the Hekate blog Keeping Her Keys. “‘How do I know if it is truly Hekate calling me?’ This is perhaps the most popular question that I’m asked…if speaking her name yields a soul stirring, that is more than enough to truly know.”

My interest in Hekate started a little over two years ago (in 2018), as an intellectual interest in this goddess with the large reputation. I’m actually an atheist who fell into witchcraft after a whimsical sigil netted me $500 within three hours; I didn’t think Hekate would be a long-term thing. Even now, I don’t concern myself with such boring questions like: is Hekate real? A movie isn’t real, and yet it can completely shift your paradigm, change the course of your life.

Like all great spiritual truths, Hekate is a unique and personal experience. And yet, even when she dances at the fringes of my life, her fragrance still fills my room. Her hand, her touch, has steered my life with a deftness that I never anticipated.

Who is Hekate, anyway?

Hekate (also spelled Hecate, and pronounced in many different ways) is most often considered a Greek goddess, but her roots go back more than 3,000 years to ancient Iraq, to a Sumerian goddess named Gula.

“Gula was a powerful, androgynous goddess who ruled over spirits, and acted as a judge and healer. She was associated by her worshippers with dogs, torches and crossroads,” says Jack Grayle, teacher of ancient magickal techniques (such as those in the famed “The Greek Magical Papyri,” a Greco-Roman Egyptian text from 2,000 years ago), Jack helps the modern occultist and witch connect with Hekate in his 13-week online course, Hail Hekate: Walking the Forked Path. “She was then (and is now) honored and celebrated for being androgynous, ambiguous, undefinable, unclassifiable, cross-cultural, and uncontrollable by the more mainstream gods and goddesses.”

In the sixth century BC, people in what is now Southwestern Turkey also honored a very similar goddess to Gula, whose nickname was “The Far-Worker”—or “Hekate” in Greek. Soon, Hekate’s cult became massive and spread throughout the Greek and Roman Empires.

“There is a wonderful saying of her that while the other gods loved her, ‘they trembled in her presence,'” continues Jack. “In Renaissance England, Shakespeare portrayed her as the imperious Witch Queen in his play ‘The Tragedy of Macbeth.’ Over time, Hekate has taken on an increasingly dark aspect in the popular imagination, due to her association with magic, witches and ghosts. But this dark Hekate would have been recognizable even in Roman times. She has always been respected; she has never been safe.”

Today, Hekate is often depicted as a triple goddess (representing Maiden, Mother, Crone), or as an old, stereotypically hideous witch. This diverges from how the ancients saw their gods and goddesses as young and beautiful (yes, even Hekate).

A bit more consistent throughout history is Hekate’s reputation as a psychopomp (a guide for souls traversing the Underworld, as she was for Persephone in ancient Greek myths). Also consistent is Deipnon, which is food and drink laid out for Hekate at a crossroads during the Dark Moon, to ask her blessings through the coming month.

“‘The Chaldean Oracles’ (spiritual texts used by Neoplatonists philosophers between the 3rd and 6th century) name her as the cosmic and transcendent spirit of Wisdom and Virtue in the second century…Michael Psellus, a Byzantine Monk, writes about her almost a thousand years after that,” says Jason. “Hekate endures…[she] is a goddess accessible to anyone that has the bravery and tenacity to follow her twin torches into the dark and learn her mysteries.”

Hekate in pop culture

For many, Hekate first came whirling into pop consciousness in Netflix’ “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” a show that hired a real-life witch as a consultant and was praised within the witch community for the authenticity of the spellwork and invocations. Of special note is the ritual for Hekate, which happened in Season 3 Episode 6.

But Hekate has been most recently by Dua Lipa in her video “Levitating.”

Instead of literal personification, Hekate actually shows up in the video through a sigil (a magickal symbol) called the Strophalos, or Hekate’s Wheel. The Strophalos first appears at 8-seconds on a grainy TV, but appears consistently throughout the video on everything from a spinning record, graffiti, even on little candy that is suggestively eaten.

While the original serpentine design is from a tomb outside the Mycenean temple of Aphrodite (and is thus called “the Mycenean Button”), the Strophalos is the most popular symbol associated with Hekate today.

“[In fact] The traditional strophalos dedicated to Hekate was actually an iynx wheel,” says…. “These tools often resembled modern whirligig or buzz saw toys, a wheel that has been threaded with cord and wound up so the tension causes it to spin rapidly,” says Jeff Cullen, a lifelong Hekate devotee whose book on modern Hekatean devotion and magickal technique, Liber Khthonia, was fully-funded on Kickstarter within 24 hours of the launch.

In ancient times, the iynx was seen as a powerful way to draw down the gods into physical form, so the Mycenean Button drawn on this spinning wheel has long been used as away for Hekatean devotees to connect with the goddess. In Dua Lipa’s video, the spinning record emblazoned with the iynx symbol may be seen as an electronic iynx.

“As a witch recites hymns and prayers to Hekate, they should have the wheel spinning towards them to manifest Her in the physical world…this isn’t to say She will show up as a colossal Goddess, but perhaps a phantom light, shadow, sound, or animal,” continues Jeff. “If used while casting witchcraft, [the iynx] can send forth our intentions, call lovers together, or even summon the dead.”

While the Strapholos is a well-known way for Hekate’s devotees to connect with her, but it’s not the only method.

Hekate as a symbol of resistance

Hekate has, simply by her nature, lingered in the edges of the mainstream, but with the advent of the Internet and social media, she is being exposed to the most wide and diverse audience in the history of humankind. And that she’s getting shout-outs from popular media that gets millions of views, likes, and shares is an exciting new phenomenon.

“Many young people nowadays identify as marginal, non-mainstream, gender-fluid, mixed-race, non-binary, multicultural, and sexually atypical,” says Jack. “Hekate mirrors them perfectly. She was a strange, beautiful, useful but frightening goddess who existed at the margins of all things. Young people [who are] searching for a relatable spiritual power…relate most easily to her.”

Throughout dynamic periods of history, whether during the times of the Chaldeans, Greeks, or Shakeapearen England, Hekate has always surged in mainstream culture. As long as humans crave a connection to an ancient energy, an archetype, a full-on deity that deals with the liminal, the changing, the mutability of life’s cycles, and the gravitas of finding solid ground during chaotic transitions, Hekate will always be around.

“Pop culture has always played a role in how the Gods manifest and communicate to Their devotees,” says Jeff. “Modern depictions such as ‘The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’, and the use of Her wheel in Dua Lipa’s video for ‘Levitating’… speak to certain witches who may not have been aware of Hekate before, [by] planting the seed, so they begin to research, and perhaps then are moved to serve Her.

How does a new witch work with Hekate during their first month? To keep reading, put in your email below and make sure you’re subscribed — it’s totally free!