Finding Herais and The Charm of Hekate-Ereshkigal - Exploring Correspondences in Ancient Spells

This talk comes from the Hekate’s Keys of The Cauldron course, that I taught live during the spring and summer of 2026, and is rooted in the chapter on correspondences in my book, Entering Hekate’s Cauldron. As we explored the vast world of correspondences, which are the plants, stones, symbols, objects and other items that can be incorporated into magickal practice, I wanted to bring them to life by exploring how witches of lore and legend utilized them in their spells, expanding the focus from “lists” (all those correspondences tables) to “lineage,” the practitioners – from goddesses to fabled witches to historical figures - whose echoes reverberate in our modern witchcraft.I use the term "pharmakides," as a catch-all descriptor for ancient female practitioners of magick. I introduced this term and the practice of pharmakeia in my book, Entering Hekate's Garden: The Magick, Medicine and Mystery of Plant Spirit Witchcraft.In this lecture, I enliven Herais, whose sapphic spell in The Greek Magical Papyri (PGM) brings visibility to a queer woman, especially important to me as a lesbian. This is a brief spell, but it exists. With Herais as a composite woman of all the unknown ones, I explore the correspondences in her spell. I also discuss the unnamed daughter in the Mithras Liturgy in the PGM.

Then I transition to one of my other favorite spells in the PGM, The Charm of Hekate-Ereshkigal as a case study in the use of correspondences, while maintaining the focus on centering the feminine. Get ready to hold your heel and make a cake. Seriously, the epithets invoked, the body movements, and the magickal ingredients are compelling, and we can learn so much from this spell. A bit of cursing inspiration, too, if you are so inclined.

For more on correspondences in Modern Hekatean Witchcraft, check out Entering Hekate’s Cauldron: Spells, Spirits, Rites and Rituals by me, Cyndi Brannen.If you found this video meaningful and would like to know more about my writing and teaching, go to keepingherkeys.comDownload the PDF from this talk - https://keepingherkeys.com/free-resourcesTo the unnamed pharmakides whose names were never written,Whose hands knew the weight of roots and the texture of leaves,Whose voices shaped incantations that never reached the page,Whose bodies became the first altar, the first correspondence,Whose knowledge passed from palm to palm, from breath to breath,Who brewed healing in kitchen vessels and cursed with kitchen ingredients,Who were erased from history but never memory.We call you forward.We remember you.We speak your language still.

PS: There is another ancient queer Herais, that you can learn more about HERE.

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