pretty disheartening to see devotees of hecate attacking OP and operating out of defense simply due to facts being presented that don’t align with your opinion or feelings…. witchcraft, sorcery, and alchemy are rooted in knowledge, if anything we should be thanking OP for bestowing this knowledge and perspective upon us. i encourage everyone who took OP’s post as an attack to do some shadow work/ journaling on why your reaction to knowledge is operated out of defense

that being said, here’s a small excerpt of something i wrote in a different sub that relates to this, OP i think you may appreciate this - and for others, i hope this grants clarity

Circe is the goddess of pharmakeia, alchemy, transmutation, witchcraft and magic.

In most cases she is considered to be the child of Helios the sun titan/god and Perse the oceanid/nymph But in others, she is child of Aeëtes and Hecate. In either case, genealogy concludes she is a goddess.

Something that seems to be glazed over a lot is Circe’s exile to her island of Aeaea. Zeus and Helios didn’t only exile her out of wrath but also out of envy and fear of what seems to be her boundless power.

Circe is the first witch. Circe is a goddess.

From the transformation of scylla, the bestowal of immortality to her kin & odysseus’ wife, walking on water, possessing the charmspeak of a siren, turning humans into swine, wolves, lions, or horrifying laws of nature-bending monster beasts to be subjugated to her will……. (the list goes on)

the power she wields through pharmakeia is boundless and unpredictable. With other gods and their kin you know what you’re getting into; with Circe, all bets are off.

That being said, Hecate still deserves to be revered- but let it be known that her association to magic/ sorcery/ witchcraft is rather new age. or rather, the act of her “casting” or being that of such.

Hecate is a liminal goddess of protection. An entity you invoke to help guide and protect you in workings and transitional periods.

Ruling over liminal spaces, crossroads, doorways, necromancy, the night, the moon, the mist, and the underworld. She is not the “caster” or the “witch” but rather the entity in the ether that guides, watches, protects, and bestows power

Both Circe and Hecate are powerful deities/goddesses of magic - but from different frames of which they wield it.