Hecate

[Michael deHaven Newsom]

Fascinating!  Eugene has managed to top this one off.  Maybe, therefore,
there is an EC problem, and a serious one at that!  The idea that there
might be one troubles me greatly, but, what the heck, life is not fair.
I do think, however, that some religious ideas have been so secularized
that the EC problem disappears, even as the religious ideas still retain
their religious significance for somebody -- think Christmas and
Channukah displays, with the plastic Santa Claus and reindeer.  So now
we have to decide whether Hecate has been sufficiently secularized.
Well, if we have to ask the question, we could not pick a better time of
the year.

Happy holidays to everybody!


Michael deHaven Newsom
Howard University
School of Law



"Volokh, Eugene" wrote:

>
>
>         A quick google.com search and a quick LEXIS search reveal that
> there definitely is some worship of Hecate going on, though I can't
> claim anything about the magnitude of the phenomenon.  See, e.g.,
> University Wire, Oct. 31, 2000 ("The Ames-based Hecate's Broom Coven
> sponsored a public Samhain ritual Sunday evening."); St. Petersburg
> Times, May 19, 2000 ("Cerlin, a Full Moon Circle member and third
> degree high priest of Hecate . . ."); St. Petersburg Times, Oct. 31,
> 2000 ("'I have two candles on the altar that are dedicated to the
> goddess Hecate, the crone goddess,' Granby, a Pinellas Park resident,
> said. 'She is the  mistress of death. She is the one that ushers the
> souls into death.'"); http://www.sacredcircle.com/Hecate/ (which does
> appear to be a sincere religious site, though I might be missing some
> deeper literary or humorous component).
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