Connecting with the God Hermes

Throughout history, in modern times, and across cultures, gods and goddesses have played key roles in people’s beliefs. They have been and are invoked in prayer and meditation to help a person or society receive wisdom and provide grace in the area overseen by the deity. This article, and ones that follow, will look at various deities, their roles, and how to invoke them as guides and benefactors. The deity for this article is Hermes, the Greek god of communication and travel.

Who is the God Hermes?

Hermes is considered the messenger of the gods. He protects, travelers, thieves, merchants, public speakers, and anyone moving throughout the world regularly or for a specific purpose. He is often depicted in art and literature as wearing winged sandals, which allow him to travel anywhere, from the underworld to the mortal plane, to the divine realm of Mount Olympus. Hermes also functions as a soul guide, conducting souls into the afterlife.

Hermes is the son of Zeus and Maia, and known as the god of boundaries, as well as a trickster, much in the same way as Coyote in Native American lore. His attributes and symbols are numerous and include

• the herma,
• the rooster,
• satchel or pouch,
• talaria (winged sandals),
• and winged helmet,
• the palm tree,
• goat,
• and incense.

However, his main symbol is the caduceus, a winged staff intertwined with two snakes, which connects him to medicine. In essence, he rules the flow of energy, not just communication devices, but language and the air through which sound travels.

• Connecting with the God Thor

His Most Famous Symbols

Caduceus

The staff or rod is a symbol of commerce and is widely used as a symbol across many fields.

Talaria, the Winged Sandals

The winged sandals allowed the God Hermes to travel anywhere in the world and beyond. He used them to deliver messages between the god, especially the commands of Zeus.

His Winged Hat

His winged hat shows up in modern comic book art through the Golden Age Flash, which made his debut in the 1940s and has been reintroduced and reused in current DC Comics stories since the 1980s.

A Modern Take

Here is his card in the oracle deck, Gods and Titans, by Stacey DeMarco:

From the booklet:

Hermes facilitates communication on all levels, in particular between gods and humans, and he is lord over all nature of physical exchange. Sometimes delivering messages needs a fair dose of cunning, and Hermes is just right for the task. As early as his birth, he was a tricky customer, naughtily stealing Apollo’s cattle while still a baby.

More seriously, he is considered a herdsman of the dead, someone who escorts the newly deceased souls to the afterlife (often, these beings are called psychopompos). Because of this ability to cross barriers and the accuracy of his message transmission, he is also the god of divination. He learned the art further from the Thriae, the three nymphs of Greek tradition.

Why Invoke the God Hermes?

You would choose to invoke Hermes when you need to travel, generally, but especially if you are going somewhere unknown or foreign. You also want to invoke him when you have important communications you what to share, or you need to understand what someone is trying to communicate to you. And you can all upon him when you are trying to figure out how to solve a problem or use instructions to accomplish a task.

Hermes is also a god to invoke when you need to get out of a tight spot or manipulate a situation to your advantage. He is, in essence, a neutral god, not concerned with the “goodness” or “badness” of a person or situation, but rather with the cleverness, clarity, and facilitation of any exchange. He is, basically, the god of transactions, be they relationships between two people or commerce between two businesses.

• Connecting with the God Horus

Specific Request, Temporary Guide, Council Member

All deities are available to us. Some may prove to be spiritual council members for us, while others serve as temporary guides, or best fulfill a specific request.

You can ask the God Hermes’ guidance for a specific request, such as, “I need to have a difficult conversation with my father; how do I best manage it?” Or, “My company went bankrupt and I lost my job; please help me get in touch with the people who would want to hire me for a new job.” If you decide to ask for a specific request and he is not a member of your council, then be sure to make a proper sacrifice or payment ahead of or during your request. You may honor him by burning incense, doing something friendly for a stranger, or helping someone get where they need to go.

You can ask him to be a temporary guide through a drawn-out hiring process, legal struggle, or courtship. Any process that will take many steps or a significant amount of time can be something Hermes can help you get to the end of, successfully. The greater the request, the greater the honor, so you might want to burn incense daily until you reach the goal. Or, you might donate money to a public transport project or public department, like the fire or police department.

If you recognize that Hermes is a member of your council, he does not need to be the head of your council, just a valued member. If you travel for a living, work in the service and hospitality industries, or work in the communications field, as a teacher, speaker or technician, then the God Hermes most definitely should be on your council.

• Connecting with the God Hades