Faces of the Goddess Magazine SGC 21

Likewise, in the “Document to the Waning
Moon,” the sorcerer cries to Hekate-Selene:
Night, Darkness, broad Chaos, Necessity
hard to escape are you!
You’re Moira and Erinys, torment, Justice and
Destroyer[.]”xxx
In that same rite, Hekate-Selene is called the
“Spinner of Fate” – clearly conflating her with
Klotho, the Fate who spins mortal destinies on
her cosmic spindle.
And yet, after acknowledging that “awesome
Destiny is ever subject to you,” the ritualist
urges Hekate: “Thrice bound goddess, set free
yourself!” The concept of being thrice-bound
most likely references Hekate as being bound
by each of the three Fates – and yet being
capable of unbinding her triple bonds – with
the sorcerer’s help.
But to what end? Once free, Hekate-Selene,
the “Ruler of Tartaros,” is bid to “whirl up out
of darkness and subvert all things” – meaning
that she may unweave the skein of Fate to
do the sorcerer’s bidding. In that particular
spell, she is adjured to alter destiny by utterly
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destroying the sorcerer’s enemy.xxxi Hekate has
the power to un-make and re-make destiny, we
are told, for the hymn states, “Klotho will spin
out her threads for you.”xxxii
Thus, in just a few lines, Hekate-Selene is
said to be one of the Fates, to be bound by
the Fates, to be capable of breaking the bonds
of Fate, and to be able to direct the workings
of Fate. These are of course all contradictory,
but in the paganism of late antiquity,
contradiction is the hallmark of divinity.
So: Hekate is intrinsic to the adversarial
process of un-weaving and re-weaving Fate.
Now, the important is the question – What is
the sorcerer’s role in all this?
The answer is simple: She frees Hekate to do
so.
How does she do this? Ironically, by binding
Hekate to her will.
It is a great paradox: Hekate is freed through
subjugation. But how to subjugate a goddess?
How to bind an eternal, ineffable, ubiquitous
titan? The PGM is clear on this point: By
using the arcane knowledge bestowed on the
sorcerer by the demiurge himself in order to
become the demiurge himself.
The text in the PGM’s “Mithras Rite” is
explicit; in it, the sorcerer conjures the
hypercosmic demiurge, saying:
[B]e not angry at my potent chants
For you yourself arranged these things among
mankind
For them to learn about the threads of the
Moirai,
And thus, with your advice, I call your name:
HORUS
Which is in number equivalent to those of the
Moirai:
AKHAIPHO THOTHO PHIAKHA AIE EIA
IAE EIA THOTHO PHIAKHAxxxiii