Ancient Psychedelia: Alien Gods & Mushroom Goddesses
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 (42i) Bendis. Similar Scene, Cleaned Up Hecate was one of many goddesses associated with the underworld. She was also a goddess of the moon and the night. She rules over ghosts and demons and is regarded as the goddess of the crossroads who keeps evil away from the dangerous locations. (109) Hecate is also associated with lunacy on the dark side, and the “Giver of Vision,” on the positive side. (110) Hecate is popularly known as the “Triple Moon Goddess” because she is often depicted with three faces to her or three heads. This is another misappropriation, it appears to me. In some depictions of her, she has three mushrooms above her head, as featured on an amulet c. 100-600 AD, in the Berlin Museum currently (39g), which might imply she was like the dioscouri, Castor and Pollux, or Cain and Abel, Jachin and Boaz; a triple mushroom deity rather than a double mushroom deity. She is also depicted as a triple headed-mushroom goddess on an ancient stele, where her whole body becomes the mushroom cap and her mid-section robe hanging down over her middle leg takes the shape of the stem (42f), and on a Roman statue from 200-300 AD, where she also has a mushroom atop her head (42g). Hecate is not the only goddess or god depicted with three heads either. There are male gods depicted like this as well as we can see from the Mayan and Aztec culture (80a, f). There does not appear to be any historical source for a goddess representing the three phases of the moon. This was likely a “New Age” adaptation from what I can tell. In some ancient depictions, she clearly looks like a mushroom deity. Hecate was associated with Artemis as a birth goddess and carried the torch of Eileithyia. (111) |
  R: (42g) Hecate. Roman c. 200-300 AD  (39g) Abraxas Variation with Hecate (r.) c. 100-600 AD L: (80f) Tlatilco, c. 1500–1200 BC    M: R: (80a) 3 Personas Mayan / Aztec c. 600-900 AD (109) Cult of the Mother Goddess, p. 152-53 (110) Goddesses and Gods, p. 198 (111) Healing Gods, p. 326; Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, p. 519 |
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