O Culto à deusa Hékate no Brasil Contemporâneo e os Novos Movimentos Religiosos (NMRs)

Abstract

The present study seeks to understand the emergence of the cult of the goddess Hekate as a new religious movement present in the Brazilian context. Coming from the new paganism, this religious manifestation seeks to reformulate the practices of worship of Hekate originating from the ancient city of Stratonikeia and the sanctuary of Lagina, at the heart of the 20th and 21st centuries. It characterizes this cult as a “new religious movement” or NMRs, insofar as the NMRs are constituted, mainly, as religious groupings different from the traditional ones, which seek new types of religious experiences and come from the processes of secularization and religious pluralism, new experiences made possible by modernity and capitalist development. From Social History, the present work proposes to stipulate a historiographical discussion about the cult of Hekate in contemporary Brazil, problematizing, mainly, who are the historical subjects that make up this new type of religious manifestation, their interpersonal relationships, their practices of cult on Brazilian soil and its main influences.