Can You Mix Deities From Different Cultures?

Added: 2026-05-07

[00:00:00]So, when it comes to knowing deities, there is no one right answer.

[00:00:07]But, I have been met with many questions about it. I educate about it on my channel. And so, I want to answer this question once and for all, hopefully, about deities being linked to one another. Is it respectful? Is it disrespectful?

[00:00:24]So, for example, is it disrespectful to say that Hecate and Areschigal could be one in the same, in a sense? Is that wholly disrespectful?

[00:00:36]Or, are we misunderstanding not just deities, but one another?

[00:00:41]Right, let's unpack this. Let's get into it.

[00:00:45]>> [music] >> So, if you're new, welcome. If you're not new, welcome back. I'm Sarah, that divination witch.

[00:00:53]You know what to do if you want to stick around. This is the the place where I share my gnosis, and we help each other out, and all that stuff, yeah? And I want to just say thank you to each and every person that's ever supported me, whether it's buying a reading or a service from me, or you learning from me on Patreon. I do teach on there.

[00:01:11]Whatever you do. Or, even if you just like to watch my videos, thank you, everyone. Seriously, thank you. When it comes to deities, first and foremost, to say something's respectful or disrespectful is going to depend on you, your worldview, and how you approach them, and how you do or don't believe in them. It's a complex topic.

[00:01:31]Deities are higher powers to us.

[00:01:35]And for the most part, world mythologies, they have their own character traits. They are embodiments of different archetypes, and they've got their own personalities.

[00:01:46]They've got their own history.

[00:01:48]Their own embodiment of energy. The way they approach things will be different.

[00:01:54]They will reflect things to us in different ways, even if deities embody the same archetypes, but if from different cultures, I'm thinking of Aphrodite and Freya as an example.

[00:02:06]They are going to both approach things in a very different manner.

[00:02:11]Does that mean they are not one in the same?

[00:02:14]Well, yes and no, okay?

[00:02:17]I think people are getting lost in their feelings about this. And look, I'm not here to diminish your beliefs, because I used to be like that, too.

[00:02:28]Okay? I would get really in my feelings about Hecate at one point in my life.

[00:02:32]You know, you love these deities so much if you are in a practice with them.

[00:02:36]You're very passionate about these things. You really want people to understand them and not misunderstand and not misrepresent, right?

[00:02:45]So, you do get in your feelings, and you get on your high horse about stuff.

[00:02:49]But, ultimately, there is no deity police. There is no one right answer here.

[00:02:56]Because even say with the Greek deities, the Hellenic Greek deities, right? How many different paradigms can you look through that lens to who and what they are?

[00:03:07]And and how many different beliefs are there around them? And even back in ancient times, like how many different ways of worship there were? It's It's wild.

[00:03:16]There were so many cult centers of worship. There was worship centered around the family, depending on the city you were from, and and all sorts, right?

[00:03:26]So, even back then, they couldn't police people. But, take the Greeks as an example, right? You could be a Hellenic polytheist. You could be somebody that is a practicing Hellenism. You are reconstructing ancient beliefs, and you're doing it with the utmost integrity, and you're doing it from your heart, and you're you're trying to recreate For the most part, you do recreate you know, what you feel is right and respectful to your gods, okay?

[00:03:58]That's great.

[00:04:00]That is your paradigm. That is how you're looking at them. So, there may be certain procedures that you'd follow to pray to them. There may be certain things you do to give them an offering.

[00:04:11]There may be certain holidays that you decide to acknowledge in honor of them.

[00:04:19]That, if that works for you, is great, okay?

[00:04:23]There are other belief systems similar to that, different pantheons, different cultures, right? Heathenry, Kemetism as examples.

[00:04:36]On the whole, the religion itself, Hellenism, kind of died out. I am not saying that the people died, absolutely not, you know.

[00:04:47]I am not Greek.

[00:04:49]So, that's not for me to say. There is still culture that lives there for thousands of years, you know, and that is a Greek person's culture, right? I'm not talking over that.

[00:05:00]But, as a recognized religion, and a lot of the things that people practiced and did have have long since died out.

[00:05:11]And we're reconstructing them. And there's some stuff that's still a mystery.

[00:05:16]And I think that's, on a personal level, a a beautiful thing to put the puzzle pieces together. And I do see the fascination with it, like I myself have had a dab hand at some sorcery before.

[00:05:30]And I do see the fascination, but that's not for me, and it's not for everyone, right? You can't you can't police that, okay? So, I would never say to somebody, you know, who is a Hellenist reconstructing, and and like their world belief on Hecate, for example, the way they see Hecate, I I would never say it's wrong. Because it's not wrong. It's It's their belief, and it's reconstructed from what we've got from history. And you know?

[00:05:59]That's the way they see it, and that's that, right?

[00:06:02]Cool.

[00:06:04]So, you could be somebody like that. But then, you could also be a bit like me.

[00:06:09]I If I have to label myself, I would say eclectic polytheist.

[00:06:15]Um more left-hand path. I am within more left-hand path philosophies, you could put.

[00:06:24]Um If But, if I have to label myself, eclectic polytheist, eclectic pagan, because I don't stick with one paradigm.

[00:06:34]I don't stick with one viewpoint or one pantheon.

[00:06:38]You see, you could be an eclectic polytheist.

[00:06:41]You could be doing like modern neo-pagan kind of practices. You could be finding your own way and working with just the Greek pantheon, and that's fine as well, right?

[00:06:51]Or, you could mix it up a bit.

[00:06:53]You might not just work with Greek pantheon. I don't know. You You maybe you have Slavic ancestors, or maybe you are from a Slavic country, and you incorporate the spirits of that into your practice and into your life, too.

[00:07:10]Who's to say?

[00:07:12]Right?

[00:07:14]There is no such thing as deity police.

[00:07:18]So, when somebody like myself or others, like when I talk about my practice online, and when I share my gnosis, I am not telling you what to believe.

[00:07:29]I'm just giving you food for thought.

[00:07:31]I'm just giving you my opinion, my understanding, right?

[00:07:36]I used to be more like that. I I'll never forget I made videos saying Hecate's got nothing to do with clip the clipoth, which is part of left-hand path philosophy. It's It's from Kabbalah, right?

[00:07:51]She absolutely does.

[00:07:54]She Anyone and everyone, technically, could, right? It's archetypal work.

[00:08:00]It's It's complex. I don't want to get too much into it. But, I used to be that person go, "Oh, she's got nothing to do with that." And I would have died on that hill.

[00:08:08]And I would be long gone by now if that was, indeed, my stance, because there is no one right answer. And she She working with Hecate has shown me that that is the case, okay? You could have some gnosis you have attained through life experience. You You could understand something today, and then tomorrow, you could have something thrown in your path that makes you question that. And actually, your viewpoint changes. And that, I think, is a healthy spiritual practice to not box yourself in and close yourself in. Even if you do work within rules and paradigms, if that's your comfort If If that's what you are drawn to do, like Hellenism as the example, you know, it's not to say that you're going to be doing that forever. It's not to say that you can't think outside of that, but it doesn't mean you have to do that, right? It's personal. And it's not disrespectful to think that way, right?

[00:09:03]I think the gods are beyond such paradigms. The only people it would disrespect, in my view, is is people.

[00:09:13]So, this dichotomy comes from religion.

[00:09:17]I remember when way back in I think it was 2016, I went to the Vatican um the Vatican Museum.

[00:09:24]And I went cuz I wanted to see the Roman artifacts, right? But, even going to the museum, which is packed all the time, thousands of tourists, you know, people from all over the world go there. Even just going there, I remember it was August time in Rome. It was red hot. I had a summer dress on. I was forced to cover my shoulders out of respect.

[00:09:44]That's man-made. I did it cuz I wanted to see things. I wouldn't have been allowed in, otherwise. Because as a woman, you cannot have your shoulders out. Oh, clutch your pearls. God's going to smite you. They're going to get so offended.

[00:09:59]That I respected their culture because I was in their zone. I don't know how zone. But yeah, I say zone because Vatican's technically a country, right?

[00:10:10]But I was in their world, you know?

[00:10:14]I'm not going to be an about it.

[00:10:16]But do I think even if I was a Christian, which I'm not, >> [laughter] >> do I think God would smite me if I have my shoulders out? No, it's not like my boobies are out, right?

[00:10:26]It's not like I'm flashing all of Rome, I think a few people would have gotten a bit shocked.

[00:10:32]>> [laughter] >> Um you know, it's man-made stuff. It really is. It really is. Now, the caveat as well, you know, if you are sitting in a in a closed practice, you know, Ifa is the example. There's certain traditions and and things that come along with that that the spirits themselves adhere to.

[00:10:53]I've spoke about it on YouTube before.

[00:10:55]I've spoken with Oshun myself and asked her about it. And they adhere to those human traditions because there's many bloodlines, ancestral lines of humans that are tied to it. And it's something that never ever died out. It wasn't lost to time. It wasn't replaced with something else.

[00:11:18]So, it it's a human thing, really. So, even if you are somebody who thinks, "Oh, that's disrespectful to compare Hecate and Ereshkigal."

[00:11:28]Which I'm sticking with that because that was a a recent question, let's say, that I had about it.

[00:11:35]It's it's it's your projection of what is respectful or not.

[00:11:41]Because I really don't think a higher power is going to give a a a toss, in a sense, about your shoulders being out or, you know, calling Hecate and Ereshkigal the same or similar.

[00:11:56]It is not to say that Hecate is exactly the carbon copy of Ereshkigal, by the way. This is cultural fusion. This is This is again humans. So, speaking of me dabbling in sorcery before, so the PGM, the Greek Magical Papyri, is a book that many of you may have heard of. It was something that was out in the Greco-Egyptian time period. Now, that time period there was fusion of cultures happening even then. Even in ancient times, people traveled.

[00:12:29]Cultures traveled. We influenced one another. It was human beings who did that.

[00:12:35]So, the Greek Magical Papyri actually does call on Hecate as Ereshkigal and uses Ereshkigal as a name for Hecate and vice versa, right?

[00:12:45]It doesn't mean that Ereshkigal is the carbon copy of Hecate. They have their own backstories. They come from different cultures. Ereshkigal is ancient Sumerian Mesopotamian Babylonian underworld goddess. She is the underworld queen, sister of Inanna.

[00:13:00]She has a very different mythology to Hecate, but they rule over a lot of the same things, right?

[00:13:08]Same with Inanna. So, Inanna has similar themes to Aphrodite and Astarte. Let's not forget her, the Phoenician goddess Astarte that did inspire Aphrodite.

[00:13:23]Cultures, humans move with time.

[00:13:26]We influence one another. History proves that.

[00:13:30]So, the Romans, when they got involved, I mean, they were they were inspired by the Greeks a hell of a lot. But they're inspired by other cultures, too. I mean, even close to home for me, there's a British goddess called Sulis Minerva. Sulis being the Celtic goddess of of healing, of spring spring water healing. Minerva, obviously, wisdom, warfare, creativity. She was one of the main patron goddesses of the Romans.

[00:13:58]They fused their culture together with the native culture and something new was born from it, right?

[00:14:05]So, the concept of divinity itself is so vast and so complex that somebody like Hecate and Ereshkigal can absolutely work in tandem. Hecate herself, obviously, this is going to be my personal gnosis, but I've shared it on the channel before. She tested my understanding of this years ago when I first started to see through me [clears throat] being like that as well cuz like I've already admitted, I used to be one of them people going, "You can't do that with Hecate." You know, we get in our feelings about this.

[00:14:36]No, right? So, Hecate introduced me to a goddess called Trivia, which is actually the Roman name for Hecate.

[00:14:46]But also, funnily enough, Romans also knew her as Hecate, too.

[00:14:50]Again, it's complex. So, they manifested as separate goddesses in my life. And there was a time where I was heavily working with Trivia for different things that I would normally go to Hecate for. And she acted very differently. Uh she had a different energy about her. She was very stoic, very regal, very present, very firm.

[00:15:14]Um I had things happen with her in astral projection where Hecate and Trivia manifested separately as two separate beings at the same time. So, I thought they were separate, like sisters, you could say, right?

[00:15:34]Ages down the line, I was cleaning up my altars.

[00:15:38]Me and mine Trivia's work had come to an end a while ago, but I had a separate altar for her and everything. And Hecate said, "Oh, you can put her stuff on mine." I'm like, "Why?" "Yeah, it was me the whole time."

[00:15:48]This is how complex divinity is. We can't define them by human labels.

[00:15:53]Divinity themselves, they are intrinsically connected to one another.

[00:16:00]So, one day you made might have Trivia in your room or whatever helping you, and then the next it it could be Hecate or it could be I don't know, another side of her, Phosphorus, or it could even be Ereshkigal or whoever, right?

[00:16:17]They are so multifaceted. Even the ancients knew that with all the epithets there are, especially the Greeks again.

[00:16:25]Not just Hecate. Hecate's got loads of by the way. Uh Aphrodite does. All of them do. Zeus does. All of them. They're so complex. It's hard to put it into words as human beings.

[00:16:38]So, what I would say, if you're one of these people, cuz I've been it, too, and I'm trying I'm not being nasty here, but I'm going to be firm about it. If you're going to get in your feelings and project onto me or somebody else for sharing gnosis online, go, "You're disrespectful. You shouldn't do this."

[00:16:54]Cuz I've had this a few times recently.

[00:16:57]And it's not the first time, and it won't be the last.

[00:17:00]What I would advise you is to ask yourself why you're so triggered, okay?

[00:17:04]Nobody's disrespecting anybody's culture here. I'm I'm not.

[00:17:10]I would never for a moment do that knowingly, you know?

[00:17:15]But divinity is beyond culture.

[00:17:18]Divinity is beyond human conception. We can't It's so hard to put it into words.

[00:17:27]But it's the humans, you know? So, again, just to add, like if I wanted to go to a love goddess for strength and vitality and to learn to love myself, right?

[00:17:40]Personally, me with my ancestry, and my genes, and my past lives, and all of this, like I would not go to Oshun.

[00:17:47]I'm mentioning her again, one of the Orisha.

[00:17:50]I have no not to my knowledge any past lives in in that area of the world, the Caribbean or Africa area.

[00:18:00]I don't. I have no ancestral link there, either.

[00:18:04]Why would I go there?

[00:18:06]It's no There's no logical explanation.

[00:18:11]I do have ancestry from Denmark. I could go to Freya.

[00:18:16]I do have a smidge from Eastern Europe.

[00:18:21]I could technically go to a Slavic deity.

[00:18:26]But no, it's not for me.

[00:18:29]I do have a little smidge more in Germanic areas as well, but it's not all about your ancestry, either.

[00:18:39]I have another story to say where she's tattooed on me, whether that's respectful or not, that that's in between me and her, is an Amaterasu She is a Shinto kami, goddess of creation.

[00:18:53]She and I I've I've shared the story before, but in a nutshell, strongly linked.

[00:19:00]I have not one drop of Japanese blood in me, you know?

[00:19:05]Um but whether you want to believe it or not, I have had past lives there.

[00:19:10]However, I explored that with the utmost of respect cuz Shintoism is an open practice.

[00:19:17]So, I I made sure of that before I delved into it, right?

[00:19:24]I explored that. We worked closely together for a time, but we've parted ways, and not because I don't love her, not because she doesn't love me and won't would guide me, but because that's not my place, right?

[00:19:37]But someone else might think it is.

[00:19:40]That's that's up to you, but I I feel if I was to go down that path on a human level, I would have to practice Shintoism.

[00:19:49]That's what I'd feel.

[00:19:51]I'd feel on a human level as well, that would be very difficult to do although there are Shinto temples outside of Japan.

[00:19:58]Um, they're in North America, Europe, etc. Shintoism is very tied to the land.

[00:20:06]I feel you need to be on the Japanese islands to be able to That's just my view, right?

[00:20:13]And it just wasn't for me and I think to know that on a human level is to be respectful. That's what I mean, right?

[00:20:21]I'm being very vulnerable with you guys.

[00:20:23]I'm opening up about some of my personal experiences and practices over the years, okay?

[00:20:30]Izanami is very tied to the lands of Japan.

[00:20:33]Hecate is very different. She's worldwide. She is known as the world's soul as well. It is very very different, you know?

[00:20:41]Um So, there you go. I hope this made sense and I hope it's answered the question once and for all because I'm sick of hearing it if I'm truthful. I'm I'm sick of it. I want to just add on a personal level. Right, lately I am sick of seeing people sniping at each other left and right in the spiritual and witchcraft and pagan communities.

[00:21:02]This is not just online as well. I feel like there is no sense of real community because ego's getting the way and validation gets in the way.

[00:21:11]>> [snorts] >> And if you say one wrong thing, oh, you know, the world's going to end.

[00:21:17]It's ridiculous.

[00:21:19]>> [laughter] >> I still my head in personally. So, there you go anyways.

[00:21:24]>> [snorts] >> If you have any questions though, I'm happy to help where I can. Help each other out as well. Let me know your opinion. Just keep it civil. That's all cuz I can't be asked with this sniping at each other. It's Life's too short and it's not spiritual. It's not spiritual at all.

[00:21:39]Okay.

[00:21:40]Take care. Stay safe. Stay witchy.

[00:21:42]Bye-bye.

[00:21:44]>> [music] [music] [music]