Smells like witch spirit: How the ancient world’s scented sorceresses influence ideas about magic today

By Britta Ager, Assistant Professor of Classics, Arizona State University

Most perfume ads suggest that the right scent can make you sexy, alluring and successful. A blend by Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs, meanwhile, offers to make you smell like Hecate, the three-faced Greek goddess of witchcraft.

As a classics scholar who studies both magic and the senses in the ancient world, this idea of a witch-inspired perfume fascinates me – and “Hecate” is just one of many magic-inspired…

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