Hecate -  The Cosmic World Soul

By Renee Sosanna Olson
"For Hekate as the Cosmic World Soul, February 2018 - a CoH devotional 
project- www.hekatecovenant.com"

Photo Credit - Renee Sosanna Olson

From the beginning of time, human beings have set out to answer a single question. Where did we come from?  This hasn’t changed in our modern world. Even with the advent of tracking devices, heart monitors and the ability to see the face of a human before they leave the womb we still ask this question.  People join together in groups circling in on the ideology or ideologies they find most comforting.  While many would say their belief, structure is driven by a combination of faith and historical evidence, we know as each scroll is unfurled that answer is elusive.  That in reality, we as human beings will always look to the stars to find our place in the universe to answer the question, why are we here?

Our relationship to ancient deities helps us make that connection. We want to believe that our presence on this planet isn’t some random accidental event that happened when just the right combination of light, water and temperature met.  We want to believe that we were created intentionally. We were first an idea which was fashioned into existence by the hand of a divine deity.  We were indeed born of the gods.

Religions throughout antiquity have searched for the answer to this question. The devotees of Hekate are no exception.  In Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy, Hans Lewy repeatedly identifies Hekate with Plato’s Cosmic Soul (Lewy, 1956, p. 6, 47,83, 95, 121, etc.), while in The Chaldean Oracles, Ruth Majercik points out the conflation of Hecate with the World Soul (Majercik, 1989, p. 4, 7).  While one could argue that in this case Hans Lewy was looking for the source of Hekate, and not so much our own creation, I believe we can see that as human beings, if we identify who created us we simultaneously validate our own intelligent design.  Does that mean that Hekate is the Cosmic World Soul and by confirming her place in the creations of everything also define us as a product of the divine?

Even scholars cannot agree, in the chapter ‘Plato’s Timaeus and the Chaldaean Oracles’ in Plato’s Timaeus as Cultural Icon, Luc Brisson objects: “We must abandon the universally admitted idea according to which Hecate is identified with the World Soul... Hecate is too high in the hierarchy to be the World Soul; instead, it is the World Soul that emanates from her" (Reydams-Schils, 2003, p. 119). - Plato's X & Hekate's Crossroads - Astronomical Links to the Mysteries of the Eleusis - George Latura

Here Luc Brisson argues that Hekate can not be the Cosmic World Soul, but instead she is the creator of the soul, making her the supreme creatrix of all life in the cosmos.  We can look back at the reference to the first and second father’s and Hecate being the womb in which the idea of the soul is planted.  This is explained in detail by the Melammu Project below.

From the Cosmic Womb, all began to stretch forth towards the place beneath the wondrous rays, i.e., to the hylic world, where genesis was completed when physical structures were created. Thus, Hekate played the same role as the Cosmic Soul in the Middle Platonic doctrines. The Oracles agree on such a being though never use the word Demiurge, but instead they speak of an artisan of cosmic fire or second mass of fire. In other words, after Hekate had received the Ideas in her womb from the Paternal Intellect (God, the Father), she then transmitted these to the Demiurge, who embodied them in the Sensible world. Because of her role in receiving and then transmitting the seed (Ideas) onward, Hekate/Soul was understood as the “Mother of the World.” – The Melammu Project - http://www.aakkl.helsinki.fi/melammu/database/gen_html/a0001385.php

As we learn more about the world around us, we understand that perhaps our ancient ancestors were trying desperately to explain things of which they had no real comprehension.  To them, things we look at as common place today would seem to be magical tools given to us by the gods.

If I said to our ancient ancestors, I have a light emitting oracle that can answer all the questions of mankind. This oracle can open your eyes to worlds you have never seen and allow you to see and hear the voices of your brethren around the planet and even expand out into our galaxies.  Our ancestors, and oddly even some people today would scoff.  However, this exists today in the back pocket of every teen attending middle school today.  The simple internet enabled cellular devices that have become a necessity in our daily lives, provides information from books, movies and yes even the cosmos at our finger tips.

It is my personal belief that humanity creates deities to explain the unexplainable.  We want to have someone to blame when things go wrong. Humans have a long history of not taking personal responsibility for their actions. That goes hand in hand with the goal of most people do become better at what they are doing. Be it acting in a moving, getting a good grade on a test or becoming a master painter. I have watched my friends praise all things above them when they create something wonderful instead of stepping back and saying, look at all the hard work I put into this and just look at it. It is fantastic.  Or the flipside, I worked on this and I failed.  Maybe the gods are crazy!

The number of times I hear someone say they’re sick and someone must have put a spell on them is astronomical. While I think that there is complete legitimacy in thoughts bring forth action and will creates reality, I do not for a second think that we should jump headlong into the magical when the mundane is the more likely the culprit.  While we may not want to believe that the right ecological state created the space for we humans to develop, we have to evaluate the evidence.  We cannot jump from the unknown to “Aliens”.  There may be many explanations in between.  If we did not come from a murky pool of water, it doesn’t mean that we were created by the hand of a deity on a potter’s wheel.

In closing I would like to say that when I began my spiritual journey, my path was littered with the remains of an assortment of belief systems. I traveled each road looking for what everyone hopes to find in this journey. When I stumbled onto the crossroads, I found a powerful female presence that helped me see that not everything is as black and white as we would like them to be. There are many faces to the world and sometimes we need to understand that we will be faced with decisions that are right for today but may change as our energy ebbs and flows with the universe in tomorrow. We can look for that spark of life, the idea in the womb that brings forth the amazing energy that we use in our day to day dealings with others. That spark is there and it may show it self to the Christian as Jesus.  To the Muslim as Allah. Or to the Atheist as curiosity. To each, the message may arrive by a different method but it is the same message. It is upon us to see it, learn it and live it.

Reference:

Chaldean Oracles

Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy

Plato's X & Hekate's Crossroads - Astronomical Links to the Mysteries of the Eleusis

Melammu Project

The Gods Must Be Crazy

The Creation of Man from Clay

Note: The spelling of Hecate in this article is used as each source referred and as personal preference.