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Selene, Artemis, Hecate

Selene, Artemis and Hecate represent the same deity in different states of being.
Each one of them has her own stewardship in the specific state.
Below there will be a study about those three lunar deities.


Some other lunar deities are Pasifai, Kotys, lekipis, Eileithyia, Bendis, and some times Hera in the mythos of Endymios (read on).

Selene:

Selene is the dauter of Hyperionas and Theia, for others, her father is Pallas and for some others, Helios (sun). For others, Helios is her brother because they were born together.
In the theogony (god birth) of Atlanteans, Hyperion married his sister Basileia and gave birth to Helios and Selene.

She has the stewardship to come as the sun in the day and moon in the night so she can light the Earth night and day.
Her husband is the wind and she gave birth to a daughter, Droso.

She saw Endymios sleeping on the mount Latmos of Karya and she was astonished of his beauty, she rode the way from heavens to earth and bound him to her will.
And so she got down to the Earth every night and gave birth to fifty daughters with him. The handsome boy, Endymios got gifted by Zeus eternal youth and lethargy and that is the reason Selene fell in love with him, for she is the goddess of night.

For others, this mount was in Trahenia and was named Aselenon (with no moonlight) because when Selene got down to Earth to be with Endymios, she didn't light this place so the Gods would not see her.

Pan loved her but deceived her. He told her to choose whatever she wanted from his cattle and she chose a white ram but it had a black tongue. For some, Pan wore a rams fur and deceived her.

Also Zeus had a daughter with her, Pandeia.


She is the guardian of magic and witches invoke her especially for love magic because, as we will see below, Artemis is the goddess of birth. Witches of Thessaly bragged that they drew her down to earth. (Read the myth drawing down the moon by Endymios)

They painted this beautiful woman with two straight horns on her head for the shape of the new moon is straight.

Sit on a coach with two horses or bulls.

She being on a coach shows her faster speed than the other planets.
(The word planet has a different meaning in Ancient Greek)

Those animals were one white and one black because one side of the moon is lit by the sun. But she could only have two animals on her coach because Zeus had six and Sun had four.

Those animals symbolize the shape of the half moon, bull horns or horse hoops.

She got down to the ocean too, to bath and wear dresses more shiny than before and then she got up in the heavens again.

Her name comes from the word Sellas, which means moonlight


Artemis

Artemis refers to be name of five people but mythology charged the acts of them to one person. So her parents are said to be: Zeus and Persephone, Zeus and Leto, Oupis and Glauke, Ouranos and Phebe, Dionysus and Demeter or Isis.

The most official of all is this of Zeus and Leto and in her face they charged the acts of the rest.

She was born in Delos one day before her brother, Apollo and she helped her mother when she was giving birth to her brother. Efesians thought that she was born in Efessos because they had the legendary temple Ortygia.

Others say that she was born in Cecilia because there was a same temple there.

When she was still a baby, she got up to the skies and asked Zeus to give her eternal virginity, bows and arrows, all the mounts so she can hunt, sixty oceanean nymphs as companions, twenty Amnisidian slaves and all of them had to be of nine years old and virgins.

Zeus did not agree to her will and she rose her hand to touch his beard in stance of begging and then he calmed and gave her thirty towns, lots of islands and the stewardship of the docks and roads.

When she was three, she asked to see Hephaestus so he would make her hunting weapons.
So her mother got her to the isle of Liparan in the workhouse of Hephaestus. There, she sat on the laps of giant Vrontos and she was playing with his chest's hair. She cut some as her arrows, and that place on the giant's chest did not grow hair anymore.

From Pan, she got hunting dogs for her beast hunting.

When she got everything ready, she started hunting at Parasian mount of Arcadia where she found five deer with golden horns and she caught four with no dog hunting and left one for the labours of hercules.

She got on Olympus also and there she cut a pine tree and lit it with a thunder and used it as a lamp for the night. So she became the goddess of forest fires.

She had four arrows made from Hephaestus and wanting to try them she shot the first on a ptelian tree, the second on a dru tree, the third on a wild beast and the fourth to the citizens of a small town because they were wicked.

People painted her young with naked hands with arrows, bows, crossbows and hunting dogs, sometimes sitting on a couch with four deer with golden horns.

Artemis' allegory:

Goddess Artemis was named from the word artemes because she makes people healthy or because she helps babies be born healthy and safely. For some others she was named from the word aer (wind) and temno (intersect) because as Selene she intersects the wind. For others, she was named after the word artemis (pure) because she stayed a virgin.

Leto symbolizes the darkness, Apollo the sunlight and Artemis the moonlight. She is goddess of the night. Apollo is called Ecatos and Ekatevolos (brought by Hecate) and Artemis is called Hecate.
Apollo was born an overactive man, having the light. Artemis was born woman accepting the sunlight. So, she is allegorised as Selene.

The bow is symbol of action and light radiation
The arrow is symbol of light ray.

Homer allegorizes the moon eclipse with the myth that Hera beat Artemis and her arrows fell from her.

Guardian of the gates. The moon symbolizes the passing between two planes. The sun and matter. So she is the gate of souls that come to be born and souls that come to be gods.
She also is the guardian of roads

So, the rays of light are allegorised as shiny roads to the source of light, the holy sun in the day and the holy moon in the night for the corresponding mysteries/ceremonies that are acted during the day or night.

Guardian of child birth since the Aether plane gives birth to the souls in the plane of matter.

She is also allegorised as the fate of the inopportune dead virgin women since she murdered the daughters of Niobe and Apollo murdered the sons.

Sacred are her mountains, the forests and docks.
As mountain is symbolized the esoteric mountain and climbing of it as a magae (wizard) trial.
The forest as the place of hunting and virtues.
The dock as a place of parting and starting a spiritual trip and searching.

Guardian of the artemisia herb, of the dogs for hunting, deer for the speed, cats because they escape being caught by those who hunt them, goats for the horns and the treasure they offer as cattle.

Artemis as a hunter symbolizes the insistence of the magae on the art of virtue. The goddess hunts on the mountains gold-horned deer. The deer, symbol of the speed, crowned with the gold crown of the nature, horns, shows the sacred element. Theos (god) derives from theo which means "run", escaping the mind.
So the virtue, sacred element, escapes running from the mind. So he who catches a gold-horned deer is crowned with sacred crown of the nature, the golden horn which is the gift of god.


Hecate

Hecate is the daughter of Zeus and Asteria. Asteria was pregnant from Zeus but married Perses so some people said that Hecate is the daughter of Persus.

For others she is the daughter of Zeus and Demeter or Hera or daughter of Feraean Aeolos. For others, daughter of Aristaeus or Tartarus or Nyx. For others, of Persus and some Nymph.

Those who say that she was daughter of Zeus and Hera say that she was named an angel and was given to be raised by the nymphs.
When she was an adult she stole her mother's box where she kept her aromas, enshined her face and gave it to Europe. (Maybe an allegory about the phase of the moon which grows and becomes shinier within the windy skies)

When Hera found out, she was mad and wanted to scold her but Hecate run and hid in a graveyard. There came a man, carrying a dead body to the graveyard. So Hera stopped chasing her because she came close to a dead man and got contaminated. Zeus asked the Caberans to cleanse her.
Caberans got her and took her to Hades and there they bathed her in the Achaerusean lake and so she was cleansed. For this, she stayed down to Hades and she became the dean of the ones who just died.

Those who thought she was daughter of Zeus and Demeter say that she is the most brave of all and that Zeus sent Her to ask Persephone from Hades. But she stayed there with Persephone and was named Artemis, phylax (protector), dadouchos and phosphorous (one who brings the light) and chthonic.

Those who thought she was daughter of Zeus and Pheraia say that Pheraia gave birth to her secretly because she was married to another man and she left her to a tri-road and shepherds of Pheretos found her and rose her. For this, she is the guardian of tri-roads.

Those who say that she was daughter of Persus, say that she helped to the extermination of the titans and zeus honoured her and gave her authority in the skies, earth, seas and hades and those who invoke her shall enjoy what they ask of her.

(0060 001
DIODORUS SICULUS Hist.
Bibliotheca historica (lib. 1-20))

Others describe a historic woman with the name Hecate who was a hunter, brave but brutal. Living for the hunt and when she found no pray, she killed humans. Loving the art, she went to research the energy of the plants and was the first to found the synthesis and composion of many deadly poisons that she used to kill many strangers but she finally used to kill her father so she could become the leader and queen of her country.

She built a temple of Artemis and started killing strangers, sacrificing them to the goddess, defamating the Goddess for this brutality. She married her uncle Aetes and gave birth to Medea, Circe and Aegialeas, for this, she got the name of a witch and poisoner.
Many are those who confuse the Goddess Hecate with this woman so they think that the Goddess Hecate is the Goddess of witchcraft and medicine.

In hades, she is the protector of the dead especially those who have been out of hades for 100 years because their bodies were not buried. She is the sender of the dreams and fear and she sends to the people nightmares, the called Hecatean dreams.

Odysseus built a temple of her to Cecile to get rid of those dreams.

In the earth she is the protector of kings, councilors, market people, buildings, wars, cattle, fishers, cavalries, and all human possessions.

She is thought to be protector of magic and magae invoke her, she is also protector of the houses and the men of the house so people used to place a statue of her at the gates of the house.

When people gave offerings to other gods, they also gave offerings to Hecate to protect their houses and to ask the other god to give them what they asked.

Some people think of her as Selene, Hecate, Artemis and Persephone.
They call her Selene in the skies, Artemis on Earth, Hecate and Persephone in Hades.

They painted her as with three heads with the right head being of a dog, the left of a horse and the middle of a boar.

Some other times, she is drawn as a woman with black of white clothing with crown of dru (oak) on her head, holding a spear of staff. Some times she is drawn being followed by black dogs.

In other drawings she is pictured holding lamps, lighting the night or Hades or holding the keys of Hades or holding magical tools.

Other times the triple-headed goddess wears a Daphne crown on the one head, pilos on the other and a half-moon shape on the third. In rare occasions they also call her dragonic because of her bravery.

The goddess symbolizes the birth as a bringer of babies as moon, the life as Artemis and death as Hecate. Equivallent symbolism have the moon phases:

The new moon symbolizes the carrying and birth,
The waxing moon symbolizes the development and life in its youth,
The full moon is the most glorious moment and shows the fullness of life,
The waning moon shows eldership
and the new moon shows the death and rebirth.

The lamps are symbols of birth as they bring life to light.
Dragons show the endless dreaming
The spear shows the protecting of houses
The staff represents magic
The dogs symbolize the guarding of planes of existance
The three-roads show the three planes of existence, matter, ether and pyr.

The name hecate derives from the word Hecas like Apollo the Hecatebol, which means "from far away" and shows the acts of god from distance without being noticed with his physical pressence. So he has offerings the shinny stars that shine and bring the light from far away in our plane on Earth.

Another interpretation of the name is Hecato (one hundred) because she was always offered a hundred offerings for guarding the non-buried dead for one hundred years.

Hecate is also the goddess of mysteries and the occult cince she is goddess of Hades which dimly lights the way of the magae with lamps, showing the offers of the magae to learn more about the mysteries and his inner self.

Worship:

It is said that Egypsians had statues of Hecate at the Earthly part of tartarus and that Orpheus brought her Worship to Greece because the Aegineans worshiped the same goddess differently. They said that Orpheus started the ceremony that was done every year.

There was a temple of her in Argos, the Atheneans called her Epipyrgeda (from the towers since she was protector of the houses). The Beoteans and Phereans worshiped her too. There was also an isle near Delos called the isle of Hecate and had a temple of her.

The rich Atheneans cooked stew and offered it at her statues on the new moon. Those were called Hecate's meals and were then eaten by the poor civillans.


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My belief about Selene, Artemis and Hecate, under the Chaldaic myths says that the Goddes is called Selene in the plane of matter, Hecate in the ether place and Artemis in the Pyr plane (Hades). And this because Selene has as an offering the satellite of earth, moon, which is thought to symbolically be the border between two planes, the matter and the ether, so Selene is within the border of matter and ether. Hecate is protector of spirits and souls and demonarch (leader of the demons*). She is goddess of the ether plane which theologically is the plane of spirits. Finally, her Olympian form of the goddess is called Artemis and she is the protector of the plane of pyr which is full of light (Olympus) and she is the guardian of all lighted/lighting existence.

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*Demons were lesser gods in the ancient Greek mythology.