Who is the Goddess Hecate? This class will investigate the way she was understood in the Greek and Roman world from the Archaic to the Roman eras. During a period spanning roughly a full millennium, the nature of her identity went through several transformations and became the site of a battle between Platonic and Pre-Platonic understandings of paganism as well as a battle between paganism in general and the rising influence of Christianity in the Roman world. Drawing on archeological evidence, the work of Hesiod and the classical era Greek poets, Platonic writings including the Chaldean Oracles, and the Greek Magical Papyri – this class will ask what the different conceptions of this goddess mean. How does Archaic paganism differ from Platonic paganism? How do these changes influence the views and practice of magic, as either goetia or theurgy respectively, under the auspices of the Goddess Hecate and how do they dictate different approaches to the goddess? What can be learned from the Platonic and non-Platonic polytheistic approaches to the fight against the rising influence of monotheism?
 
About the Presenter:
Kadmus is a practicing ceremonial magician and pagan. He recently published the book True to the Earth: Pagan Political Theology through Gods and Radicals Press, presented his paper "True to the Earth and a Pagan Conception of the Self" at the conference Rewriting the Future: 100 Years of Esoteric Modernism and Psychoanalysis, and taught classes at the Salem Summer Symposium in 2019 and the Salem Witchcraft and Folklore Festival in 2020. Most recently Kadmus taught two classes on Teiresias and Medea for The Cauldron Black Mighty Dead series.
 
**Attendees will have access to this recording until the end of 2021 - class recording links will be emailed to attendees within 7 business days of purchase. To protect the IP of our presenters, class recordings will not be downloadable.**