Who and what is Ananke? First, she is extremely potent among the powers of the cosmos. Plato cites only two great cosmic forces: Reason (nous or mind) and Necessity (ananke).17 Reason accounts for what we can understand, for what follows reason’s laws and patterns. Necessity operates as a “variable”— sometimes translated as “erratic,” “errant,” or

Ananke derives from a root that spreads through Old Egyptian, Akkadian, Chaldean, and Hebrew terms for “narrow,” “throat,” “strangle,” “constrict,” and the yokes and rings laid on the necks of captives.18 Ananke takes you by the throat, holds you prisoner, and drives you like a slave.

An unpredictable “luck of the draw” plays its part in who we are. In Plato this random cause was named Ananke; the formidable goddess of necessity, she defied reason and, in Plato’s myth, governed the lots our souls selected. And it was called Tyche and Moira, who are personifications of fate. From Roman times into the Renaissance this principle wa