I call upon you, Mother of all men,
You who have brought together the limbs of Meliouchos,
even Meliouchos himself,
OROBASTRIA NEBOUTOSOUALETH
Entrapper, Mistress of Corpses
Hermes, Hekate, [Hermes?], Hermekate,
LETH AMOUMAMOUTERMYOR
I conjure you, the daimon that has been aroused in this place,
and you, the daimon of the cat that has been endowed with spirit;
Come to me this very day and from this very moment,
and perform for me the NN deed…
PGM III 45-52 (of the spell III 1-164), trans. Betz.
The combination of Hermes and Hekate as Hermekate, or elsewise Hermekateleth, according to the footnotes in Betz.
This is the only occurrence of this name of which I am aware.
We don’t know if this is a combination of Hermes with Hekate, somehow become one. Or is this the name for a child-god born of the two? Or perhaps, as my friend over at A Witch Alone at the Crossroads suggests, this is a Herm associated with Hekate?
The spell in the PGM that invokes the name also invokes Helios multiple times, and seems to also reference Sekhmet-Bastet (according to Betz). It is a complicated process, beginning with drowning a cat while speaking the first formula (not something I could ever do.) Overall the spell is a perfect example of the merging of many different cultures that occurred in late antiquity. After all, here we see scraps of Coptic, Greek, Kemetic alongside many voces magicae. Seth-Typhon is invoked to his responsibility as the guard of Re’s bark. Satis too is mentioned. The spell’s ultimate goal is to make a chariot race go in the favor of the magus.
None of which enlightens us as to the nature or meaning of Hermekate. Some practitioners have built on it nonetheless to envision (encounter?) a god that bears traits of both masculinity and femininity. This would be far from the only such being. The epithets near the name suggest elements of both Hermes and Hekate.
I have not worked with this being, and don’t really feel called to do so, but others are obviously drawn that way for whatever purpose. We each walk individual paths, even when they briefly seem to be going along the same way.
Hekate Ourania, “Hermekate,” in A Witch Alone at the Crossroads: http://awitchalone.com/crossroads/index.php?post/2015/12/05/Hermekate
P. Sufenas Virius Lupus. “Gender and Syncretism: Rarely the Twain Doth Meet?!?” in Speaking of Syncretism on polytheist.com: http://polytheist.com/speaking-of-syncretism/2015/06/30/gender-and-syncretism-rarely-the-twain-doth-meet/
Betz, Hans Dieter. The Greek Magical Papyri in Transalation: including the Demotic Spells, 2nd ed. Chicago, 1992.
Lysippos. “Young Seated Hermes,” bronze, photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen (2011), from the Naples National Archaeological Museum. Found in the Villa of the Papyri in Herculaneum. Via Wikicommons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Resting_Hermes_MAN_Napoli_Inv5625_n02.jpg
Francesco de’ Rossi. “Hecate (the Moon),” fresco in the Palazzo Vecchio Museum, 1543-1545. Via wikicommons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Francesco_Salviati_-_Hecate_(the_Moon)_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg
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