Hekate and Dreams

Here in the Northern Hemisphere we are slowly nearing the Spring Equinox, after which the days will again be longer than the nights as the Sun grows in his power and strength. I am looking forward to the summer, with the hope that this year here in the UK we will have a better one than we have done for the last couple of years when wet and cold predominated even on the Summer Solstice!  The dark half of the year however does hold its own magic, when I see the Earth cold and frosted, covered in snow I cannot help but think of the Cailleach, who is of course the primordial Celtic Crone of Winter.  On a more personal level I find that the colder, darker months also awakens the need for more psychic and astral work, and especially dream work.  And this is of course also another area where the Goddess Hekate holds sway.

The function of Dream Oracle is one which Hekate shared with her mother (according to Hesio) Asteria, Goddess of the Night Sky.   There is some evidence to suggest that an alternative name for Asteria was Brizo and that the following passage from Pausanius (2nd century BCE)  refers to the Oracle of this goddess:

“From Oitylos to Thalamai [in Lakedaimonia] the road is about eighty stades long. On it is a sanctuary of Ino and an oracle. They consult the oracle in sleep, and the goddess reveals whatever they wish to learn, in dreams. Bronze statues of Pasiphae and of Helios (the Sun) stand in the unroofed part of the sanctuary. It was not possible to see the one within the temple clearly, owing to the garlands, but they say this too is of bronze. Water, sweet to drink, flows from a sacred spring. Pasiphae is a title of Selene (the Moon), and is not a local goddess of the people of Thalamai.”  
[Jones translation quoted here from Theoi.com]

There are many examples linking Hekate to spells and charms related to sleep.  In one such example from the PGM (Greek Magical Papyri) the charm given could be used both for revealing answers during sleep, or to cause someone else to not sleep.  These types of spells can be found in many different magical traditions and a very similar one occurs in the Jewish Sepher ha-Razim (Book of Mysteries) in which the head of a black dog which had never seen the light is used.  This spell which dates to the fourth century CE echoes not only the connection to dream oracles of Hekate, but of course that of the black dogs which were sacrificed to her, as well as a further connection to iron (a metal sacred to Hekate).  There are many examples of cross fertilisation from Greek magic into later systems, reminding us that viewing any system of magic, ancient or modern, in isolation, is a mistake when your quest is for knowledge and understanding. 

Another fragment, which we discussed in Hekate Liminal Rites in chapter 16 (From Sleep) is that from the fifth century BCE Greek poet Aeschylus who is sometimes known as the ‘father of tragedy’  as he also refers to Hekate’s influence on the realm of dream, when he wrote:

“but either thou art frightened of a spectre beheld in sleep and hast joined the revel-rout of nether Hekate …”
(Smyth translation)

From the same period in history we also have a reference to Hekate in a similar role from Hippocrates’  On the Sacred Disease:

“If the patient is attended by fears, terrors, and madnesses in the night, jumps up out of his bed and flees outside, they call these the attacks of Hecate or the onslaughts of ghosts”
(Ogden translation)

I hope you find these little glimpses in the world of dreams and of Hekate interesting, I know I do, especially in the light of how many people I have met over the years who had their first vivid experience of this goddess in a dream, or in a waking dream (sleep paralysis, cataplexy) often leading to very dramatic changes in their lives.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To find out more about Hekate Liminal Rites – click here
To find out more about the Goddess Asteria – click here