HECATE, THE OPENER OF DOORS – My Encounter with the Many-Faced Goddess

There are experiences that remain with us for a lifetime. As the years pass, we may discover new dimensions within them, recognize connections between events, and come to understand more deeply the significance of what happened. Yet certain words, once heard in the depths of our consciousness, continue to live within us as though they were spoken only yesterday.

More than thirteen years ago, during one of my first Ayahuasca ceremonies in Peru, the Divine Mother came to me.

She said:

“I have always been with you. You have never been without me.”

I remember those words to this day. Even now, when I speak them, tears come to my eyes.

They held something far greater than comfort or a promise of protection. For me, this was a direct encounter with the Divine Mother, whose presence I would later recognize in different spiritual traditions, in nature, in the human soul, in ancient goddesses, and in the very forces of life.

By that time, I already had considerable experience in spiritual practices, a foundation of knowledge, and an initiation into the Peruvian shamanic tradition. I was consciously engaged in exploring consciousness, spiritual development, and the deeper dimensions of the human soul.

My encounter with the Divine Mother was therefore not the beginning of my spiritual journey. It was one of the significant experiences along a path I had already been walking.

Today, I want to tell you about Hecate, one of the most ancient, powerful, and many-faced goddesses known to humanity. But first, I need to explain how I perceive the Divine and the place that gods and goddesses hold in my life and work.

For the story of my encounter with Hecate is inseparable from my spiritual worldview, many years of practice, and personal experience.

Gods and Goddesses: Beyond Religions and Human Perceptions

For many years, I have been engaged in spiritual practices, the exploration of consciousness, emotional healing, and human development. In my work, I draw upon psychological archetypes, including the archetypes of goddesses, because they help us understand different aspects of human nature.

But my perception of gods and goddesses extends far beyond psychology.

I believe in the existence of Divine beings with their own consciousness. To me, they are more than images created by the human imagination, symbols of certain qualities, or forces within the human psyche.

I perceive them as consciousnesses of another order, whose capacities and dimensions of existence extend far beyond our ordinary human understanding.

At the same time, I see no contradiction between the existence of many deities and one Divine Source.

We call it God, the Absolute, Supreme Consciousness, the First Cause, the Source of All That Exists. Different religions and philosophical schools offer their own explanations of its nature. But who among us can truly claim to know the full reality of what we call God?

All existence arises from one Divine Reality. Human beings, other forms of life, gods, and goddesses all belong to this infinite field of consciousness.

Deities are independent manifestations of this unity, each possessing its own nature, qualities, and possibilities of interaction with other beings.

Within the Hindu tradition, Shiva and Shakti are especially close to my heart. In my spiritual understanding, they represent one Divine Principle in which the masculine and feminine are inseparable. For me, Shiva already contains Shakti, and Shakti does not exist apart from Shiva. They are a wholeness capable of expressing itself through countless forms.

This is also how I perceive the Great Divine Mother.

Throughout different cultures, humanity has called upon Her by many names. She has been worshipped as the Creator, the Guardian of Life, the Mistress of the Earth, the Protector of Children, the Guide of Souls, and the Goddess of Love, Wisdom, Death, and Rebirth.

Gaia, Rhea, Demeter, Hecate, Durga, Kali, Lakshmi, Saraswati — all these figures reveal different facets of the infinite Divine Feminine Nature.

I am speaking of a spiritual unity that exists beyond the differences of names, myths, and traditions.

This understanding is part of my worldview and my experience of interacting with the Divine.

Deity, Archetype, and Egregore

There is another distinction that I consider very important.

When we speak about gods and goddesses, we often confuse three different concepts: the deity itself, its archetype, and the egregore that has formed around a particular image.

These are different levels of human interaction with the Divine.

A deity is an independent being, a consciousness that is not limited by what people think about it, tell stories about, or record in sacred texts.

An archetype is a particular image, principle, or collection of qualities through which we can recognize expressions of the Divine within the human psyche and our own lives.

For example, when a woman awakens the archetype of Aphrodite within herself, she may experience an awakening of sensuality, the ability to enjoy life, creative inspiration, love, and beauty. Yet Aphrodite herself is far greater than the psychological archetype we associate with her.

And then there is the egregore.

In esoteric understanding, an egregore is a collective energetic and informational field formed around shared beliefs, ideas, symbols, traditions, or human activities.

For centuries, people have called upon particular deities, prayed to them, created rituals, temples, and images, and passed their knowledge, experiences, and beliefs from one generation to another. Within esoteric traditions, all of this is understood to contribute to the formation of a collective field.

But the egregore of a religion is not the same as the Divine being itself.

The egregore of Christianity is not the same as Jesus Christ. The egregore of Buddhism is not the same as Buddha. The religious tradition associated with the God of Israel does not encompass the entirety of God.

I am Jewish by heritage, and the distinction between a Divine being and the religious system surrounding it holds particular significance for me. During meditation, I repeatedly received guidance not to identify God with the egregore of the religion that had developed around a particular understanding of Him. These experiences confirmed a distinction that was already part of my spiritual knowledge.

Religions can preserve spiritual knowledge, establish pathways of connection with the Divine, bring people together, and transmit experience across generations. At the same time, they inevitably carry the imprint of human history, culture, power structures, beliefs, and limitations.

The Divine exists beyond these boundaries.

This is why one deity may be associated with several egregores, different traditions, and even profoundly different perceptions of its nature.

When I began studying Hecate more deeply, I became particularly interested in the idea that different esoteric egregores had formed around Her. In The Black Book of Hecate, Maryana Romanova explores several such approaches to perceiving the Goddess.

This illustrates how great the difference can be between the Divine being itself and the image humanity has constructed around it over the centuries.

The Divine Mother and Plant Teachers

My conscious relationship with the Divine Mother took on a particular depth during Ayahuasca ceremonies in Peru.

I came to these practices with knowledge, experience, and an understanding of the processes I intended to work with.

This is why I have always emphasized the importance of approaching such practices at the right time, with inner readiness and a conscious understanding of what one is entering.

In the traditions I encountered, plants of power are regarded as more than plants containing particular chemical substances. They are recognized as living teachers with their own spiritual nature.

This understanding resonates deeply with me.

I believe that every living being possesses its own form of consciousness. The consciousness of a plant differs from that of a human being, but this does not mean that a plant has no inner life of its own.

In my practice, working with plant teachers became a way of exploring different states of consciousness and spiritual experience. I regard them as guides into the depths of my own being, where I consciously undertake inner work.

Ayahuasca became one of these teachers.

In Amazonian traditions, the process associated with Ayahuasca is often described as la purga — purging or purification. In my experience, this process was indeed connected with profound inner work.

I entered memories, experiences, painful emotional states, past incarnations, and deeper dimensions of the soul’s existence.

Many of these experiences were far from easy. But I understood why I was going through them.

One of the directions of my spiritual work was the retrieval of lost parts of the soul — soul retrieval.

This concept is well known in shamanic traditions. According to these spiritual teachings, intense experiences and trauma may lead to a loss of connection with certain aspects of one’s essence. Soul retrieval is intended to restore that connection and the person’s inner wholeness.

I was already familiar with this practice through my training and initiation into the Peruvian shamanic tradition. The processes I experienced were therefore part of conscious spiritual work, rather than accidental discoveries made in altered states of consciousness.

I worked with traumatic experiences, emotional attachments, old stories, inner limitations, and states associated in my spiritual practice with experiences from previous incarnations.

This was a process of restoring my wholeness, gathering parts of my soul from the spaces and states in which they had remained separated.

These are the very teachings I share with people through my work.

I believe that a spiritual guide must possess more than a theoretical understanding of the processes through which they accompany others. A guide needs personal experience of profound inner work, an understanding of its challenges, and the ability to recognize what a person may be going through at different stages of their journey.

My knowledge has developed through training, initiations, many years of practice, and the direct personal experience of the processes I work with today.

This is one of the foundations of my work: I share not only what I have been taught, but also what I have personally explored and lived through.

And throughout all of this, the Divine Mother remained beside me.

The One who had once told me that She had never left me.

Three Faces of One Goddess

Later, other plant teachers entered my life, including psilocybin mushrooms.

While Ayahuasca opened profound spaces for purification, my experiences with mushrooms were different. They were connected with other layers of consciousness, the living nature of the Earth, and another form of spiritual knowledge.

During these experiences, this energy introduced Herself to me in a remarkably tender and unexpected way — as Sister Mycelium, or Gribnitsa-Sestritsa, as I heard Her name in Russian.

I recognized Her as another feminine manifestation of the same Divine Mother.

Through these practices, I continued my conscious work of restoring inner wholeness, retrieving lost parts of the soul, and releasing accumulated experiences.

I knew what I was working with and why I was moving through these processes.

For me, profound spiritual development has always involved purification from everything that prevents a person from perceiving their true nature: old stories, trauma, resentment, imposed beliefs, and limiting ideas.

These teachings form the foundation of my work with others. I do not view spiritual development as a collection of beautiful states that can be achieved simply through intention or a particular practice. Inner transformation requires depth, a willingness to encounter oneself, and the capacity to move through difficult processes.

In my own experience, these stages prepared the way for another initiation, connected with the opening of the heart center and the awakening of Kundalini energy.

Today, I recognize three faces of the one Divine Mother in three plant teachers.

Ayahuasca, Sister Mycelium, and Santa Maria.

This is not a hierarchy in which one manifestation of the Goddess is higher or lower than another. These are three different ways in which one Divine Power revealed Herself at different stages of my spiritual journey.

In Greek mythology, we encounter Gaia, Rhea, Demeter, and, of course, Aphrodite — figures associated with different expressions of the Divine Feminine. In the Hindu tradition, these include Kali, Durga, Parvati, Lakshmi, and Saraswati. In the Egyptian pantheon, we find Bastet, Sekhmet, and Hathor.

I recognize a certain spiritual resonance between these and other manifestations of the Goddess and what I have experienced through my own initiations.

But my path is not a sequence that others must follow.

Every person has their own soul’s history, their own purpose, and their own ways of interacting with the Divine.

I am sharing how I personally moved through the very processes whose teachings I now offer to others.

A Ceremony Dedicated to Hecate

For many years, I have dedicated my spiritual practices and ceremonies to different goddesses.

For me, this has always been a way of expressing respect and gratitude to the Divine Powers with whom I interact.

In 2023, during the winter solstice, I dedicated a ceremony to the Goddess Hecate.

This is a special time of year. In the Northern Hemisphere, the night reaches its greatest length, after which daylight gradually begins to return.

I regard this period as a time of deep inner reflection, the completion of certain cycles, and preparation for a new stage of life.

And I wanted to dedicate this time specifically to Hecate.

Hecate is an ancient Goddess associated with crossroads, boundaries between worlds, torches, keys, hidden knowledge, and transitions between different states of existence.

She is far greater than the familiar image of a goddess of witchcraft or the underworld.

Hecate is one of the powerful manifestations of the Great Divine Mother, a many-faced Divine being whose nature cannot be confined to the three faces commonly associated with Her imagery.

In Hesiod’s ancient Theogony, Hecate receives extraordinary honors, and Her influence extends across earth, sea, and sky. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, She hears Persephone’s cries at the time of her abduction and later becomes her companion.

For me, this image is especially meaningful: a Goddess who knows the pathways between worlds and can accompany those who are passing through the unknown.

At that time, I had no idea how unexpectedly this story would continue.

When Hecate Opened the Door

The day after the ceremony, I was at home.

Someone offered me an edible form of cannabis.

Here, I need to explain something unusual about my previous experiences.

Over the years, I had tried cannabis in different forms, but I had never experienced the states of consciousness that other people described. Most often, I simply became sleepy. Even previous experiences with higher doses had not produced the effects I had expected.

So this time, I had absolutely no reason to anticipate anything extraordinary.

But something extraordinary happened.

I entered a profound altered state of consciousness that lasted for several hours. The experience was completely different from anything I had known before, or anything I had heard others describe.

After the difficult, sometimes painful, and emotionally intense journeys I had experienced with other plant teachers, I encountered an extraordinary state of bliss and joy.

It was a joy for which I can hardly find words.

And during the experience itself, I received a clear inner knowing: Hecate was initiating me. She was opening a door into a new dimension of spiritual experience.

I experienced this as the direct presence of the Divine Mother, as a continuation of the ceremony I had dedicated to Hecate the day before.

At one point, the person with whom I had conducted the winter solstice ceremony arrived. He was also a facilitator of plant-medicine ceremonies. Seeing my condition, he helped me navigate what I was experiencing.

It was then that I encountered the energy that revealed Herself to me as Santa Maria.

I share this story neither as a method of attaining initiation nor as a recommendation to use psychoactive substances. Such substances can produce unpredictable reactions, and any practices involving them require serious consideration, appropriate preparation, and an understanding of the potential risks.

Over the years, I have gained not only personal experience with plant teachers but also a deep understanding of the traditions in which they are used. Today, this experience is part of my professional practice. I organize and accompany private spiritual journeys in Peru, where participation in traditional ceremonies with experienced local practitioners may be considered when appropriate, following careful preparation and an individual assessment of suitability. I do not conduct these ceremonies myself.

I understand the importance of awareness, readiness, trust, and responsibility when approaching such practices.

What happened to me after the ceremony dedicated to Hecate became part of my personal spiritual experience, whose significance cannot be separated from the many years that preceded it or from everything that followed.

Hecate, the Keeper of Keys, had opened a door.

And beyond that door awaited an encounter with another face of the Divine Mother.

Santa Maria and the Opening of the Heart

My relationship with Santa Maria continued in the years that followed.

She revealed Herself to me not only as the spiritual being associated with the plant, but also as one of the manifestations of the Divine Mother, connected with the heart, love, and union with the soul.

Here, once again, I recognized a connection between different names and images of the Goddess.

The Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and the many images of Mary revered in different countries are, for me, connected with different manifestations of the one Divine Feminine Principle.

Santa Maria became another such manifestation.

Hecate continues to interact with me through this aspect of the Divine Mother. Through Her, new dimensions of spiritual knowledge, new possibilities of perception, and new ways of interacting with the Divine continue to unfold.

Over the following years, I experienced many states that I recognize as spiritual initiations, encounters with other deities, and the opening of new possibilities of consciousness.

Some of these abilities I already apply in my own practice. Others remain possibilities that I have yet to explore more fully.

But the most significant change was that my spiritual work gradually moved into the space of the heart.

I have often reflected on how easily people speak today about opening the heart chakra.

“Open your heart,” “live from your heart,” “fill yourself with love” — these expressions have become so familiar that we sometimes stop considering their deeper meaning.

My own experience was very different.

Before I could experience what I call the opening of the heart center, I needed years of inner work. Years of retrieving lost parts of myself, releasing pain, old stories, emotional attachments, and beliefs that had limited my consciousness.

For me, the opening of the heart became a natural continuation of this process of restoring wholeness.

I know that some people enter this life with an open heart as their natural state. Every person has their own path, and I have no intention of establishing universal rules for spiritual development.

But in my life, this particular sequence carried profound meaning.

Today, I recognize it as three manifestations of the one Divine Mother who accompanied me through different stages of my return to myself.

The Many-Faced Goddess and Her Many Names

When we speak of Hecate, we often recall Her triple form.

In modern depictions, She may appear as three figures facing different directions. This image is associated with crossroads, pathways, boundaries, and the ability to perceive what remains hidden from ordinary human awareness.

But to me, Hecate is far more than a three-faced Goddess.

She is many-faced.

Three faces may express a particular aspect of Her nature, but they cannot contain the fullness of Divine Consciousness.

Hecate belongs to those supreme manifestations of the Divine Feminine Power that encompass countless other expressions. This is why I recognize a profound spiritual connection between Her and Adi Shakti — the primordial Divine Power in Hindu philosophy.

The same Divine Mother can reveal Herself to a person under different names, within different cultures, and through different states of consciousness.

For me, Hecate revealed Herself in Her aspect as the Goddess who opens doors into another level of reality.

She opened the door to more than a single new spiritual experience. She helped me understand more deeply the interconnectedness of the Divine manifestations with which I had interacted over many years.

I also came to understand the meaning of initiation at an even deeper level.

For me, initiation is not about receiving a special status or belonging to an exclusive spiritual tradition. It can be an inner event after which one’s perception of reality changes, one’s understanding of one’s own nature expands, and new possibilities of interaction with the world become accessible.

This is how I understand what happened to me after the ceremony dedicated to Hecate.

Gratitude to the Goddess

I have wanted to write about Hecate for a long time.

In recent years, my life has changed. For now, I have fewer opportunities to conduct large ceremonies like the one I once dedicated to the Goddess. But my inner connection with the Divine has never ceased.

And now, as another December approaches, bringing the 12:12 portal and the winter solstice — both meaningful periods in my spiritual practice — I find myself returning once again to that experience.

I want to express my gratitude.

For the doors that have opened.

For the knowledge that has come.

For the encounters that have transformed my understanding of the Divine.

For the opportunity to continue discovering the many-faced Divine Mother in Her infinite manifestations.

I do not know how many more such doors lie ahead. Nor do I believe that human consciousness can ever fully comprehend the entire nature of the Divine.

But perhaps this is precisely the beauty of the spiritual journey: the more deeply we come to know the world, the more clearly we recognize its infinity.

I do not ask anyone to adopt my worldview or regard my experience as a universal truth.

Every person has their own path toward understanding life, consciousness, and what we call God.

I share what I have personally experienced and the knowledge that has become part of my life and my work with others.

For me, spiritual practice has never been merely the study of someone else’s teachings. It is a path of direct experience, personal transformation, and responsibility for the knowledge we pass on to others.

And today, I want once again to turn to Hecate — the Great, Many-Faced Goddess, Keeper of Keys, and Guide Between Worlds.

With gratitude for the door She once opened for me.

And for the journey that continues beyond that door, with Her presence accompanying me along the way.