Hathor, the Goddess of Love: Powers, Rituals, Prayers, Offerings..

Hathor is the goddess of love, femininity, and nature in the Egyptian pantheon of gods. The cult of Hathor dates back over 4,000 years ago and was known throughout Mesopotamia, as evidenced by the many temples and religious buildings built in her honor. The pharaohs revered Hathor and swore allegiance to her.

She is the goddess of the sky, nature, and love, which share one common quality – a sense of infinity. Out of boundless chaos, Hathor gave birth to Horus, the light of truth that follows those who worship Hathor as mother nature. Hathor and Horus are very close, just like freedom and choice, passion and love.

She was also considered the protector of the pharaohs. She is the embodiment of the archetype of femininity, primordial nature, and the innocence from which all other human qualities spring like flowers on fertile soil.

Considering her attributes and powers can bring heightened pleasure, satisfaction and positive emotions into your life, you might wish to connect with her. The purpose of this article is to share valuable information about goddess Hathor as well as prayers and rituals you can perform to achieve those benefits.

Hathor Correspondences

Main symbols: love, sun and sky

Element: air

Planets: Sun and Pluto

Spirit animals: cat, lion, cow, snake, gazelle

Mental qualities: passion, creativity, concentration

Virtues: beauty, femininity, pleasure, sexuality

Plants: henna, myrrh tree, fig, date palm, papyrus

Gemstones: turquoise and malachite

Metal: gold and copper

The Powers of the Goddess

Typically, Hathor is portrayed as a beautiful woman and sometimes she was associated with a cow. The cow is symbolic of reproduction. All those qualities, things, thoughts, objects, or places that are conducive to love point to the realm of Hathor.

Being a beautiful woman means not only external attractiveness, but also something much more. Hathor embodies the image of the original nature of consciousness, virgin and pure. This is the primary state from which the practitioner becomes aware of subtle energies.

The most important and fundamental energy is love. When the ancient people worshiped Hathor, they stimulated those psychic forces that can only be called life-affirming. The reproductive instinct is only the most primitive manifestation of Hathor’s divine will, while her main power is to stimulate the magician to love and accept life as it is.

Worshipers of Hathor will recognize her power as boundless love, creativity, joy, happiness, inspiration, romance, and beauty. However, the practitioner must remember about the reverse side of Hathor, the unbridled and sometimes devastating passion.

How to Worship Hathor

Although as a magician I am not all too interested in “worship” per se, Hathor, like any other god or goddess, can be worshipped through prayers and setting up an altar and providing her with traditional offerings and sacrifices. Some offerings that one can present to her are:

Offerings

Foods: bread, cheese, figs, wine, beer, water

Herbs: chamomile, rose, jasmine, cedar, cinnamon, myrrh

Gems: malachite and turquoise

Metals: gold and copper rings, chainlet, brooch, pins

Candles: white, pink, and red

Misc: jewelry, fabrics, amulets, and mirror

Esoteric meaning

The offerings should be varied in order to activate as many subtle sensations as possible. From these sensations, the practitioner creates the image of the goddess and the door to her real power.

What should be used as an offering?

Firstly, there are drawn or print images of love, motherhood, fertility, and passion. You can also draw animals (cow, hawk, cat, vulture, or lion). Hathor likes herbs like myrrh, rose, cedar, cinnamon, and chamomile.

The practitioner should not forget about food and drink. You can put slices of bread, eggs, cheese, dates, grapes, a mug of beer, and even perfumes to heighten Hathor’s resonance through scents. Each type of offering is a kind of bombardment of your senses.

Be a lifetime learner!

Find a genuine interest in the cult of Hathor. Learn its history, myths, and rituals. Look at the historical context and you will understand why and how the ancient Egyptians worshiped her.

Practice her virtues and powers!

Watch your emotional background and behavior. Try to avoid negative thoughts and habits and at the same time cultivate love, empathy, kindness, and caring. You need to become the embodiment of her power to understand how Hathor uses them to attract positive benefits to her.

Make an Altar!

The Goddess of Love adores material, tangible objects. Almost any comfortable place in your home can serve as an altar. You can depict her symbols, put her herbs, stones, metals, and other attributes on a shelf or a small table.

Make Offerings!

Eat and drink what the goddess Hathor loves. Bread, wine, cheese and other foods not only have a symbolic meaning, but also bring pleasure, and pleasure is important in the realm of Hathor. Soft, subtle incense corresponds to the subtle energies of love and is well suited for both evocation and invocation practices as well.

Communication

All of the above practices and preparations are meaningless unless you communicate with the goddess directly through prayer and rituals. Communicating with Hathor, you will discover love in your own soul and use it like a trampoline to reach the divine realm.

Prayers to Hathor

All-holy Hathor, goddess of love, care, and protection,

Be my helper today and always

Blessed mother, soul of heaven,

You sit near the Throne of Ra

You work miracles and heal despair

Hathor, merciful eye, deliver me from despondency

May your grace and great power descend on me

Let me see my weaknesses

That torment my soul

Fill me with your joy and light

I pray for your divine attention. Amen.

***

O Hathor, creator and cradle of life,

I ask you to grant me healing

Wash my mind with rays of light

Guide me and bless the path

Which leads to salvation and healing

Thoughts of you are like a balm for my soul

In your presence the pain goes away

I turn to you and call

Hear my words Hathor, glory to you

With a cleansed soul, I believe in you evermore

Rituals

It may take years to change a practitioner’s personality and thinking, to make their perception more pure and sensitive enough to register subtle vibrations in one’s mind. Evocation practices are an integral, preparatory part of ritual magic.

In turn, invocation is quite different. When the magician conducts an offering ritual, reads prayers, and synchronizes many attributes of the goddess in one place and time, he or she seems to be telling the higher powers that they’re ready for direct communication. Let’s take a look at several rituals, their esoteric core, and external form.

Cleansing

Cleansing begins with diet and proper sleep patterns. The magician will not be able to adequately assess one’s powers or use them if he or she eats little food or, on the contrary, overeats.

Your sleep pattern should follow natural, circadian rhythms, meaning you need to go to bed no later than 11 PM and get at least seven hours of sleep. The cleansing ritual is a continuous practice that allows the magician to accumulate enough energy to move on to more complicated psychic work.

Vibrations of Music and Body

Hathor lives in the realm of pleasure, so you can find her in dance and music. However, since the practitioner needs to be focused on their experiences, noisy public events are unlikely to serve your purpose. Light the candles, turn on the music, and speak to the goddess. Ask her to light your inner fire.

Listen carefully to the music and pay attention to body language as you dance. You need to be at one with yourself to hear the whisper of the goddess. At first, it will be difficult, but the more you spend time in music and dance, the sooner you will feel the presence of Hathor as an impulse of movement and life itself. This aspect of her divine nature you need to remember and cultivate.

Tantric Practices

The ritual in honor of Hathor can be episodic or long lasting. Temporary rituals are when you create the most romantic atmosphere with your partner and consciously dedicate yourself and your bodies to her service. You feel each other, but do not forget that the feeling of merging is a manifestation of the goddess.

Long-term practice, also known as tantra, is when you sublimate sexual energy for days or even weeks and avoid any carnal pleasures. The reason for this austerity is that it makes you much more sensitive to your thoughts.

Sublimation of sexual energy is one of the most traditional and powerful tools in the magical arsenal. Perhaps it would not be out of place to say that intimate relationships near the altar and in the name of Hathor can also pleasantly surprise you.

Ritual of Invocation

Through a ritual, the magician comes into direct contact with the powers and mental qualities of the goddess Hathor. To do it correctly, you will need at least three different attributes of her, for each sensory modality, respectively.

Take the image of the symbol of Hathor (sun, sky, love, etc.) and place it on the altar. Take a stone or crystal to feel solid matter with your fingers. Light a fire, a candle, or a bonfire, and stand close enough that the warmth touches you. Turn on meditative music and listen to the rhythm. Place the herbs of the goddess near the fire to fill the room with their scents.

Now, you see, hear, and feel the vibrations of Hathor. While your senses are overloaded, stay in this state for as long as you feel comfortable and stalk your sensory input.

When the inner balance is achieved and the whole ritual becomes one integral sensation, address the goddess. Say that you want to give her an offering (any of her attributes). Drink the wine from the cup or chalice and say that the offering has been made. Blow out the candles, turn off the lights, and sit yourself in silence.

Don’t try to conceptualize an integral experience. It would be a gross mistake. Instead, let the power of the ritual guide you. Don’t expect an answer right away. You have come into contact with the power of the goddess Hathor and soon you will begin to notice what thoughts bring you closer to her divinity.

This ritual should always end at the peak of your emotions, sensations, and expectations. The ritual is a dialogue, so always say goodbye to the goddess and thank her for any forthcoming experience.

Signs that Hathor’s Heard You

The language of the gods is symbols and signs, circumstances and events that, like words and sentences, convey a message from a transcendent reality. Rituals and offerings give us the opportunity to approach the border of our consciousness, but the answer will never be what we imagine it to be.

You may start to see her signs everywhere. You can meet her name and mythical references. You may dream of dancing, celebrations, musicians, and her spirit animals. It means your subconscious has already tuned in to her subtle energies, trying to convey her message to you.

The only difficulty left for you is to correctly understand, interpret, or decode these symbols. If you practice the magical arts regularly, then you already know that only regular practice brings tangible results, or having someone who is highly effective at it perform a ritual on your behalf.

Your communication with the deities also changes and becomes more evident when you approach them regularly. Then you no longer need to believe. You know that the deities and other spirits can hear you and respond to you.