Feeding the Hekate Altar Bottles

Mene is vanished, obscured from the sky; her horns are made dissipate amidst the darkness, letting only

the light of her Mother shine through the Heavens. As Asteria fills the skies with her clusters of stars,

only then does the Maiden Hekate dance beneath a speckled sky. Hekate Chthonia haunts the meeting of

three paths at midnight, followed by multitudes of monsters with teeth sharp, snarling dogs, and the

spirits of the Dead and Silvered. It is then that offerings of eggs, alliums, honey, cypress, myrrh,

fermented fruit, and wine are given to the Goddess, that she may look kindly upon our works of sorcery.

The Deipnon is a sacred, mensual celebration of Hekate and her mysteries, when she walks the Earth

followed by her hordes of spirits. It is then that this bottle was assembled and presented to Hekate as a

home for her and her spirits together – a place wherein she may reside along with the monsters under

her command, the spirits of the Dead she leads, and the Hounds that guard her and her supplicants.

As the Dark Moon rose, over twenty ingredients were used to cement the influence of our patroness,

including a variety of worts sacred to Hekate and the Dead, animal curios, mineral powders, dirts from

sacred locations, as well as talismanic tinctures and oils of the Moon. Each was prayed and sung over,

fumigated with myrrh and mastic, and placed within the vessels to serve as intermediaries for the

powers of the Goddess. Together, they serve as a repository of power and Hekatean virtue, through

which she and her spirits may manifest to aid us in our acts of sorcery; whether to raise power, to

protect the home, to animate the Dead, or for calling on the powers of her spirits combined.

The bottle can be worked in a variety of ways; it can be used as the centrepiece of a Hekatean altar, or

actively worked with to conjure the shades of the Dead. It can also be used to call on any of Hekate’s

horde, to enact a variety of sorcerous deeds through their intercession, or yet again employed as a

battery to fuel spellwork performed under the guidance of Hekate. Below, I offer instructions on feeding

the bottle, as well as a variety of methods and techniques to work with the bottle for calling the Dead,

protecting the home, and obtaining the counsel of spirits.

Feeding the Hekate Bottle

Feeding the bottle is a simple deed. This should be done monthly, on the night of the Deipnon, when the

Moon is obscured by Earth’s shadow and Hekate Chthonia walks among us. This rite is ideally

performed at the meeting of three paths, but can be performed in the home of the practitioner,

especially if an altar to Hekate has been erected. If performing this rite indoors, dirt from a three-way

crossroads should be scattered on the work surface, a crossroads traced within it.

Prepare a small bottle of red wine, a brazier, three hard-boiled eggs, a bulb of garlic, a red onion, a small

bottle of honey, and the following incense recipe:

[See Patreon for the recipe to Hekate’s Fire Incense]

For the sake of feeding the bottle, this incense can be replaced by simple Frankincense, but I highly

recommend its use to ensure the bottle remains as powerful as can be.

This done, the rite should be opened by incanting the Hymn to Hekate three times while knocking or

stomping on the center of the crossroads. The offerings should be laid out around a large vessel, or a

hole dug into the ground, held high above the head and announced before being placed onto bare earth.

Place your brazier right above the hole or vessel, and light it, saying:

All hail mightiest Hekate, Titaness Goddess; Twice-Transcendent Angel of God!

In the Skies, Earth, and Sea I praise your name!

Hallowed Mistress of descretated grounds,

Teacher of magic, leader of legions, Goddess of childbirth;

Go-between, daughter of the night sky, bull-horned maiden;

Enodia! Ereshkigal! Ourania!

You who are within this vessel with your spirits, I lay these offerings before you and ask that your power

may be magnified and nurtured;

That your spirits may be fed by this smoke and by this blood, to thus feed me in turn.

Sprinkle a good amount of incense onto the coals, and hold the bottle in the smoke until it is heavily

perfumed, and the incense burns out. As you do so, meditate on the presence of Hekate and her spirits

within it. When the smoke has ceased, add more incense, and open your bottle of wine and jar of honey.

Hold the bottle above the hole or vessel, pouring the honey onto your hand and the bottle, making sure

the remainder falls into the hole. Wash your hand with the wine, ensuring that the bulk of it falls into

the hole. Burn one last pinch of incense, fill the hole with the offerings laid around it, and cover it with

dirt so that it is flush with the ground. Take any remaining dirt with you as you head home without

looking back. If the rite is performed at home, half dirt sprinkled on the work surface is to be added to

the vessel along with the offerings, and everything should be disposed of at a crossroads as soon as

possible. The remaining dirt should be placed in a dish and the bottle set standing on top of it. As you

feed this bottle each month, this vessel of dirt will grow, and can be used to supplement crossroads or

graveyard dirt, or as the base for powders of Hekate.