Pagan, Shinto & Spiritual Book Reviews June 2016

 Vivienne Moss, Pagan Portals – Hekate: A Devotional

(Moon Books, 2015)

I’ve been interested in Hekate for quite some time. As Goddess of magic, she seems to be the perfect bridge between the deity-worshipping world of Paganism, and the practical yet mystical world of witchcraft. But I hadn’t read any books about her specifically and I wanted to get to know her better.

Vivienne Moss’ Hekate: A Devotional is part of Moon Books’ “Pagan Portal” series exploring various aspects of Paganism in concise little books by different authors. They’d also published an excellent book on Brigid by Morgan Daimler that successfully managed to blend historical research with personal experience, and I was expecting something similar from Hekate: A Devotional.

However, Hekate: A Devotional is quite a different book from Daimler’s Brigid. There’s comparatively little detail about Hekate’s worship in ancient Greece. Instead, this book is Moss’ highly personal interpretation of the Goddess. Moss is a Hedgewitch, and as such her relationship with Hekate is based more on her visions and messages on Hekate rather than what’s written in books. The language and imagery used by Moss to describe Hekate is beautiful and poetic (if perhaps suffering from Too Many Capitalised Words at times), and the reader gets a strong sense of the essence of the Goddess and the emotions she arouses. In fact, the whole book reads like one long prayer to Hekate – the subtitle “A Devotional” is indeed apt, and Moss’ sincere dedication to Hekate is palpable throughout.

Those who already know Hekate intimately may well appreciate Moss’ imaginative and lyrical approach in this book. However, the uninitiated may come away lacking sufficient historical knowledge of Hekate in order to have the confidence to reach out to her and perform rituals in her name. Those new to Hekate might be better off reading something with more basic knowledge of this Goddess before progressing to this more artistic interpretation.