Rite Of The Hierodule
By Paul B. Rucker and James Runnels

    This event had begun an hour earlier with hurried last-minute preparations by myself, my ritual partner, and our priestess for the evening, Muse. We had hung floor-to-ceiling curtains of garnet-colored organza to separate the stage from the floor of the theatre where our ritual was to be held. Behind the curtains we had rolled out the rug, placed the chair at the end of it, and beside the chair sat a table for our priestess's platter, in which she would place our offerings. Soft pink string lights glowed at the edges of the room. We set out and lighted all our candles, hung bells from the overhead pipes, and arranged the muffin tins with shabbat candles in them to form a path down the steps of the stage and out to the main floor where our circle would be formed. Finally on the floor in front of the stage we placed an altar with lit candles, a censor of sandalwood incense, and a large ceramic chalice full of sweet red wine.
    After the preparations were complete, our priestess changed into her ritual garb and disappeared behind the curtains on the stage, while I went into the lobby of the theatre and summoned the other men in our group, who had been waiting there patiently. Donning our ritual garb and masks, we proceeded silently into the dimly lit theatre and formed a circle on the floor, sitting about four feet apart. The masks we wore were plain white universal masks from a theatrical supply company, and their purpose was not disguise but to de-emphasize our individuality and make us see ourselves as stereotypes of the modern Man confronting romance and glamour. Later in the ritual we would take them off and be revealed as individuals. While I was getting the men ready, my partner had started playing Trance Tara, a CD of neo-Indian and Tibetan music consisting of chanting, flutes, and drums in praise of the Goddess Tara. All this careful preparation--colors, incense, candles, masks, and music--was designed to focus our minds on the business of the evening, to open our hearts to the Goddess.
    Our men's group originally formed because of a woman's dream. Her dream inspired a script for a ritual in which a men's tribe would select one of their number to go forth from his fellows and ritually receive the anger, sorrow, and fear of the women's tribe for injustices done to themselves, to all women, and to the Earth. The woman whose dream inspired this ritual described its focus as "deep feelings and sharp, pointy objects." The men invited to participate were seasoned individuals with several years involvement in the Pagan community, whose overall attraction to the work proposed was its intensity. Although we could not decide which of us ought to embody the "sacrificial king" (or victim), we found ourselves bonding quickly, though initially most of us did not know each other well.
    As we discussed and planned the ritual, some of us became angry that this was asked of us, and spent several passionate evenings discussing in what way any of us deserved this role, which seemed like punishment just for being a man rather than a ritual healing. Was there any way we could accept this? After our first year of preparation, a way appeared. To the original script we added a final act of mourning and regeneration, in which the champion was to be healed and nurtured by the circle of men, followed by a kind of hieros gamos-a sacred wedding of the two tribes under a canopy of peace The women rejected our plan, but the two tribes agreed to work separately for a time to see if some concord could be achieved in the future. The men's tribe pressed on, with deeply focused discussions about ourselves and our lives. (So far the ritual has still not taken place, and the original women's tribe has dissolved)
At this point our group took a profound inward turn. We began sharing personal secrets known to no one outside our circle and explored emotional themes through ritual, theatre, and dance. Always we begin our meetings with check-ins-round-robin explanations of where we are emotionally and in other ways at that time. Sometimes check-ins are so lengthy that they constitute all we do that particular evening. Nevertheless no one ever questions their necessity. We all cherish the opportunity to be open and honest among other men that we trust. As our trust in one another increased, our connection grew and with it, our freedom.
    When common threads appear in our check-ins, they often reveal where our next growth should be directed. This is how one of our most powerful rituals, The Rite of the Hierodule, came into being. Discussions about the women in our lives revealed some shadows and sorrows of desire-where we desired but felt it was inappropriate, where we felt we had lost desire, or who we desired but never came near. A note of longing hung in the air; the tension grew. Someone humorously suggested visiting a strip joint with candles, drums, and incense, to bring the blessing of the sacred back to the spectacle of the erotic. Another man replied, "Why not? Let's do it!" But although we realized we could not bring a ritual to honor the erotic Goddess to a place as banal as a strip joint, we could create our own ritual to evoke the feminine blessing that we yearned for. We visualized a journey to the Goddess; we wanted to give Her gifts, speak words of love to Her, and see Her manifest Her splendor in dance.
    It was my intuition, later confirmed by Barbara G. Walker (p. 886) that the last vestige or clue we have today of specific rites performed by the hierodules of long ago is preserved in the story of Salome. The Dance of the Seven Veils ritually reenacts the descent of Inanna, and the veils themselves "signified the layers of earthly appearances or illusions falling away from those who approach the Central Mysteries of the deeps". Although the context Walker presents and which is part of the story of Salome as we know it is that this dance led to the sacrifice of the Sacred King, we felt that its essential theme was revelation-the perfection of the universe expressed in the body of a woman.
    As inspiration for our hierodule and ourselves, the three of us who planned the ritual watched the dance sequences in two different film adaptations of Salome's story. The dance was to be taken as an outer expression of an inner knowing-so that the shape of the ritual journey became that of a pilgrimage. To the world of the Gods-the glowing Otherworld within all our psyches, separated from ordinary awareness-we would go. This separation was given form in the ritual by using the filmy veil to divide "world" from "otherworld," the home of the Goddess.
    On this pilgrimage we would one at a time present Her with rich gifts, to honor and celebrate Her as the Abundant One within and speak the words of our innermost hearts to Her. She would then deal with us in a manner unique to each of us, to extend her blessing, and when all of us had made the inner journey, we would call Her to manifest on the earth. In this calling, the holy dance of the veils would become both a symbol and a reality.
    When we were all seated I announced what we were there for: to show our devotion to the Goddess of love, of passion, of glamour, of romance, She who throughout the ages and in many lands has had many names: Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, Ashera, Lakshmi, Parvati, Aphrodite, Erzulie, Oshun, and many others. I reminded them that for too long She has been demeaned and degraded but that we had learned that without Her in our hearts there was no joy in our lives and that tonight we were gathered to begin the process of reclaiming Her and restoring Her to Her rightful spiritual place in our culture,
    Since I knew the ritual, I was the first to approach the stage; so here I was, before our priestess, the woman whom we had chosen for the role and who had eagerly accepted. She was an intelligent and beautiful ex-model and exotic dancer and at that time manager of an erotic art gallery. Although she was not formally trained in Wicca, she had performed full moon circles and healings in her home and understood intuitively what her role would encompass. Tonight she was swathed in sheer pastel veils; only her kohl-lined eyes, burnished-gold nails, and gold-sandaled feet visible. Around her brow curved a narrow fillet of gold , many bracelets encircled her wrists and on her fingers were many rings.
    From the very conception we knew that we could accomplish the ritual only by working with an actual woman, for although it would have been possible for us to evoke the Goddess on the astral plane as it were, we craved an intimacy that could occur only by the Goddess' acting within a person. As in drama therapy, where significant emotional themes are enacted by people chosen to personify the principal figures in someone's life story, dramatic ritual illuminates spiritual meanings through immersion of the senses as well as the soul. This immersion brings the experience of immanence, of the Gods within us, outside of us to be beheld, accepted, and re-embraced. Therefore in Wicca, we not only worship the Gods and Goddesses, but we can go a step further and become them.
    In addition to the ability to incarnate transpersonal force, we needed a woman who was finely attuned to the sacredness of sexuality and play and would be comfortable transmitting that sense to a group of men. As noted by Friedrich (p. 22), in ancient days such a woman was known as a hierodule (from the Greek hierodoulos, meaning temple servant or prostitute) and was considered both the instrument and the presence or incarnation of her Goddess. These hierodules dwelled in their Lady's temples, and their lives were consecrated to the Goddess. As Her representatives, they were able to give the blessing of the Queen of Heaven and Earth, a blessing that included but wasn't limited to, the sexual mystery.
Although we intended the Erotic Goddess of this ritual to reveal Herself however She chose, how She chose to do it felt a lot like Freymer-Kesky's description of Inanna (p. 48):
    Inanna is the sexual joy (hi-li) of the cosmos, and also the goddess who brings the joy of life to mankind. The power of sex is the power of joy, and Inanna brings happiness to children, brings dances to young women. Inanna is the spirit of play. Her feasts are festivals of games, dances, and music, and she herself is sa-at me-li-si-im, 'the one who brings joy.' Inanna's sexual essence if the source of joy and play for all.

    Seeming to smile behind her veil, she motioned me closer and asked what I had brought for her. My partner and I had encouraged lavish gifts, appropriate for the Goddess of love, romance, and glamour; our group responded enthusiastically, bringing bundles of incense sticks and bouquets of flowers, a jadeite statue of Ganesha, a drawing of a beautiful woman with flowers growing from her hair, an orchid floating in a crystal bowl of water, borealis rhinestone earrings, bracelet, and choker encased in a silver box lined with purple velvet, a pomegranate, a velvet bag full of silver coins, a necklace of cowry shells, a box of Godiva chocolates, a pair of scarlet silk panties. As I began to bring my gifts out of the folds of my robe and offer them to her one by one, she asked me why I had chosen them for her and what they meant. One at a time she accepted them, looked them over, then placed them on her platter.
    After I had completed giving her my gifts, she asked me if there was anything else that I wanted to give her. Yes, I replied, I wished to kiss her feet, and I asked her not to be afraid of my passion. She smiled, and I threw myself at her feet and kissed them repeatedly and hungrily, at last pressing my face against the rug and placing her feet on the back of my head, to show utter submission. Finally I stood up again before her, she stood also, and indicated that I was to sit; then she knelt before me, placed her head on my knees, and stretched her hands along the tops of my thighs. I could feel the warmth of her arms and hands and the energy flowing from them into me; it was a serene , calming energy, soothing the ardor that I had generated in kissing her feet. At our rehearsal, my partner and I had advised Muse to be sensitive to the moods and needs of each different man who came into her sanctum, and now she was showing herself intuitively capable of feeling exactly what we needed to guide us through this experience and when we needed it. She stood again and asked me what I wanted from her.  "That peace that is born beyond the land of satisfied desire," I replied.  She moved behind me and, picking a vial off her table, held it up my nostrils, where I inhaled a sweet and pungent aroma. "What do you smell?" she asked.  "The womb of the Goddess." I responded. 
    At that she removed my mask and began to anoint my forehead and temples with the ointment from the vial, and I closed my eyes and melted into the warmth of her fingers until I heard her voice saying "behold your Goddess." I opened my eyes to see that she was holding before my face an elaborately framed mirror reflecting my own face. Although I am a very ordinary-looking man, the face that I beheld in that mirror was serene and beautiful. She had succeeded in accomplishing what we had hoped, to invoke our own inner Goddess, that Goddess which each of us, man or woman, carries within.
    After holding the mirror before my face for a few seconds, she took it away, stepped in front of me and, just for a moment, lifted the veil from her face, giving me a brief glance of divine beauty, before dropping it again and bidding me arise and descend back to the floor. As I left her presence I felt wonderfully quiet and serene, empty in a good way, as if I had completed a task or reached the end of something that needed no addition. I walked down the ramp opposite the steps , sat on the floor, and wrapped my robe around me. 
    The next man followed the path of flame and entered the realm of the priestess, and then the next, and the next. Some came out like me, quiet and relaxed and either sat or lay in silence; others fairly skipped down the ramp and danced around in the candlelit room while the remaining men visited the priestess and proved their devotion and took their blessing. Later I asked those men how they had felt when they left her presence, and one of them said that he felt utterly electrified, like he had connected with a light socket. I think that our priestess skillfully gave each of us what we most needed from her, whether an ecstatic breakthrough or a peaceful serenity.
    My partner was the last to go, as planned, and when he emerged from behind the curtain, he went to the CD player and changed the music to a more energetic Middle Eastern melody which had been supplied by the priestess. As we men resettled ourselves in a large circle, she arose from her throne and descended the ramp slowly, symbolizing her willingness to enter the mundane world. While we sat in silence, she began to dance around and among us, slowly at first, then more quickly and energetically, throwing off her veils one by one, caressing us with them as she removed them, before casting them out of the circle. When she was down to only two veils, we got up too and began dancing in a circle around her, matching her speed and clapping our hands in time to the music.
    She was supposed to have pulled us up one by one, but it seemed to us as if she were in a trance state and had become nearly oblivious to her surroundings She removed the last two veils and was dancing in the center of our circle gloriously naked except for the gold fillet still on her brow. She had spread gold glitter gel on her arms so that they shone and shimmered in the candlelight; and she had glued imitation jewels over her chakras: gold over her solar chakra, red over the heart, green at the throat, etc.
    Suddenly she fell to the floor in a heap. It may have looked to the other men as if she had fainted, but this was part of the script for the ritual: that when she felt the energy of her dance had peaked, she was to stop abruptly and fall to the floor, drawing the energy to a head, as it were, in preparation for the next step.
    After she lay there for a few seconds, my partner helped her to her feet, stood before her, and gave her a Fivefold Kiss of his own devising, starting with the crown of her head and ending at her feet, to draw down and ground the energy created by her dance. These are the words he spoke as he kissed her: "Blessed be Thy crown, the seat of Thy spirit and the throne of the worlds; Blessed be Thy lips which utter the sacred mysteries and which laugh in holy joy; Blessed be Thy breasts, formed in strength and beauty; Blessed be Thy sex, which is the well of delight; Blessed be Thy feet, which dance in ecstasy on the sacred ways." 
    Next I went to the altar in front of the stage, picked up the chalice and, turning, held it before her, asking "Will you drink from this chalice, bless it, and give it to us to drink from, that we in turn may be blessed?" She took the chalice from me, held it over her head and asked the blessing of the Goddess, then drank from it and offered it to me with the words "Will you drink from the same chalice as your Goddess?" Would I ever! I took it from her and drank deeply of the warm, sweet red wine, Lambrusco laced with honey, then returned it to her. One by one she went around the circle offering the chalice to each man, finally holding it overhead again to ask the blessing of the Goddess on all of us. I took the chalice from her and returned it to the altar, then we joined hands around her and opened the circle; "the circle is open but unbroken, merry meet, merry part, and merry meet again."
    At this point she was to have returned to the stage, and I was to have led the men out of the theatre into the waiting room to change back into their street clothes and leave; but the ritual took an unplanned turn. 
    The act of going into a trance in order to be possessed by a Goddess is known as drawing down the Moon; that this activity is as old as Pagan worship itself is an article of faith among most neo-Pagans today.  Drawing down the Moon is not easily accomplished even by trained and experienced priestesses. Most modern Witches have seen many drawings that were not authentic compared to the handful we have known that were. The change of energy in the ritual space as well as in the voice, character, and actions of the priestess is unmistakable. Women (and men) who are most effective in "drawing" are either naturally mediumistic or actors who understand how to let their personas take a back seat.
    It looked as if our priestess had become possessed by the Goddess and didn't want her party to be over. After all, the Goddess of romance and glamour loves a good party nearly more than anything. Suddenly she shot her hands into the air, threw her head back, and yelled "Hug me!" She didn't need to ask us twice. We all moved in to hug her in the center of our circle. Then when the energy felt evenly dispersed among all of us we moved out again, and she began dancing wildly to the music which was still playing. Evidently dancing was the order of the day, so all of us began dancing for what may have been ten or fifteen minutes.
    At the end of one song, our priestess went over to her pile of veils, chose a sheer one to put back on, then lay down on the floor; and without a word the rest of us sat down in a tight circle around her. For a few minutes we sat in silence, and then one by one we began to massage her toes, fingers, hands, feet, head, and neck. It felt as if we were giving back to her the blessing she had given to us. As we did this she just lay in silence, smiling and breathing slowly and deeply. This was a real tribute to trust: a nearly naked young woman being massaged late at night in a deserted theatre by seven men, only two of whom she knew even slightly. She could sense the reverence and awe that we felt for her as the incarnation of the Goddess and knew that no harm would come to her from us.
    There was an unspoken communication among us; simultaneously we all felt that her blessing had been repaid, so we stopped massaging her, sat back quietly, and waited. When she opened her eyes at last, we could see that the Goddess was gone and Muse had returned. She simply stood up, thanked us, gathered up her veils, and went up to the stage to get dressed in street clothes, pack up her gifts, and drive home. The ritual was over. Nothing was left but for the rest of to clean up the place and pack up our props.
So what, if anything, had we accomplished? For our own group, we had strengthened our bond and created a ritual that was more intense and magickal than anything we had done before. In addition, we had opened our own hearts wider, enabling us to see the Goddess more clearly in the women with whom we share our lives. Muse believes that her part in the ritual was a first step for her in a deeper involvement in feminist spirituality; as she poetically put it, she is turning into a butterfly and this was her first flight. Finally, we believe that our ritual strengthens the return of the Goddess of love and passion into the modern world. In this small step, our ritual reactivated feelings and attitudes that were common thousands of years ago but have lain dormant for too long. The Goddess is returning, and men can give her a hand.
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NOTES
Tikva Freymer-Kesky, In the Wake of the Goddesses: Women, Culture, and the Biblical Transformation of Pagan Myth (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1992). Although it has been generally assumed that sexual activity was part of the worship of many ancient Mediterranean Goddesses, Freymer-Kesky believes that, with the exception of the concretely documented hieros gamos the Sacred Marriage of the God-King of Sumer to the High Priestess), "temple cultic prostitution " was a myth. Academic tradition has consistently mistranslated the Biblical qadesh to mean priest/esses whose roles involved sex, she says, citing a lack of corroborating evidence in Mesopotamian texts to support the idea that hierodules were sexual in nature. "The whole tradition of considering ancient pagan religion sexy . . . speaks more about its adherents than about the ancients. " (p. 202) In my opinion, this does not negate the erotic component of Her worship, whether or not Freymer-Kesky's suspicion is true, for in all appeals to pleasure and joy, one honors the Goddess whose erotic energy pervades the world. It is distinctly right to approach Her through the senses, regardless of how that is done!

Paul G. Friedrich, The Meaning of Aphrodite (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).

Barbara G. Walker, Encyclopedia of Women's Mysteries (New York: Harper & Row, 1983).
4,299 words
© 1998 Paul B. Rucker and James A. Runnels

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