Friday, November 27, 2015

30 Days of Devotion to Hekate: Day 14

14. Has worship of this deity changed in modern times?

I think it's safe to say the worship of ALL deity have changed over the years. Life has evolved over the past millenia. It's just a fact of life. Even taking worship out of the equation, look back to what life looked like in countries all over the world 2000 years ago, how different from that it was 1000 years ago, again 500 years ago and even 50 years ago. We are constantly changing and while we may retain some or even most characteristics from the generation before us, things are different.

The same is true of worshipping deity. Today more places are pretty diverse, while a region might be predominantly one religion, it's likely that there's a couple others here and there. My city for instance is largely southern baptist, it's the religion I was raised in, most churches around here are SB. There are however, almost as many methodist churches, a catholic church (and school), a Russian orthodox church, a synagogue and a Unitarian Universalist. Those are the ones I've seen personally or been to. My city is small but not tiny, smaller cities may have even less. In decades/millenia past, whole cities followed one pantheon or deity. Greeks followed the Greek Pantheon, Romans the Roman Pantheon, Egyptians the Egyptian Pantheon, etc. Wars have been fought over religion. Still are truth be told. But for the most part, several religions live and worship in the same general location. It's like watching the world evolve in front of your eyes. Growing and evolving.

Even if you wanted to worship Hekate in the EXACT same way as the ancients did, it's nearly, if not totally, impossible. A lot of information has survived over the years but some things were lost. Hellenic Reconstructionists generally spend a lot of time familiarizing themselves with the knowledge that remains, information that has been passed down, and theories that have been developed over the centuries. This is how they form their modern practice. But again, it may be closer than some others but it's not identical.

It's also a bit different in that while, if you can find a group of like minded pagans, you can perform semi public rites but mostly you're not going to get the majority of your city to show up in the temple square, most ancient temples are completely gone, turned into Christian places of worship or are little more than basic rubble and ruins. I can't walk (or drive) down the street to a magnificent temple to my patroness. If I had the means (financially for example) I could perhaps build one, and there ARE modern sanctuary, just not exactly the same or as wide spread.

Many modern pagans and especially wiccans have strayed from much of the ancient ways and instead fit the two together in a more modern way. Wicca especially is a fairly recent path vastly different from even the ancient Greeks in terms of their rites and rituals. These days we give offerings in much the same way except locationally we might not be able to offer the same exact things as readily though we can order a lot from all over easier than say, 500 years ago. Most modern pagans that I know of also do not sacrifice animals anymore either, granted, several ancients preferred to "sacrifice" representations instead of actual living animals but it did happen much more than modern worshipers.

Other ancient practices *can* be done, just again, differently than how it was done. You can go to a sanctuary if you're near one or make a trip if you have the means. You can offer animals, already killed animals and/or their blood from butchers. You can chant and sing hymns and pray publically to your deity, though you'll probably face some funny looks by some of the less ... open minded. I kind of wish I had a big group of Hekateans and a local santuary. I can just imagine the celebrations. Nostalgia is in full force.

For 11/25/15

No comments:

Post a Comment