The reason why we use the goddess Hecate in our logo is because of her relationship with darkness, creatures of the night and magic. It is also conceived as the guardian of the doors that lead to Hades. From the 5th century B.C. the goddess was associated with the darker side of the human experience; that is to say, death, witchcraft, magic, the Moon, dreams, ferocious dogs and the creatures that hide in the darkness of the night. Known as the hekataia, the earliest example of Hecate’s triple form is attributed to a figure guarding the entrance to the Acropolis of Athens, the 5th-century BC Hecate Epipyrgidia (“on the walls”) by the sculptor Alcámenes. The altar of Zeus in Pergamum, 2nd century BC. It has a three-headed Hecate attacking a snake-shaped giant, aided by a dog.
A common practice was to put images of the triple goddess on the city walls, especially at gates, entrances to holy places, and the entrance to private homes, where she was believed to act as a protector and ward off evil spirits. Finally, there is a reference to the goddess in the tragic works of Euripides and Sophocles, among others, and in Virgil’s Aeneid, where she acts as the Sibyl’s guide to the Underworld.
There is a veil that divides the supernatural from what we perceive as reality. Our mission is to help the spiritual awakening and to be able to help generate a look at what is behind this false reality. For this reason we are dedicated to the sale and collection of rare books on topics of witchcraft, occultism, mythology, legends and, of course, gothic literature.
BEHIND THE VEIL shop is part of the assignments done for the course “Knowledge and Techniques & Tools for Rare Books” of the Master Rare Books and Digital Humanities of the Université de Bourgogne Franche-Comté. This work is made for pedagogical purposes, where a fictious bookshop is presented, hence none of the books (and other items) mentionned are up for sale.
All copyrights of the cited books and manuscripts belong to their owners. The texts and images included in this website are used in accordance with “The educational exception”, provided for in e) of 3° of article L. 1225 of the Intellectual Property Code.