Pentagram/Pentacle
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To some people the very word pentagram conjuses up thoughts of evil. The association of pentagrams with devil worship is relatively recent.
The pentagram is one of the most potent, powerful, and persistent symbols in human history. It has been important to almost every ancient culture, from the Mayans of Latin America, to India, China, Greece, and Egypt. It has been found scratched on the walls of Neolithic caves, and in babylonian drawings, where it marks the patern the planet Venus makes on its traves - a secret symbol of the Goddess Ishtar.
The earliest pentagrams wer rough diagrams found scratched into stone age caves. While they are believed to have some spiritual significance, the meaning of the star-shape to early humans remains a mystery. In the civilizations that followed, it held different meanings, usually astronomical and religious. Pentagrams served to mark directions in Sumerian texts, and represented the five visible planets. Later, it was the sign of the goddess Venus and the Goddess.
A pentagram is a five pointed star. Because it can be drawn with a single line, it has also been called the Endless Knot.
A pentacle is a pentagram with a circle drawn around it. It can be made of wood, stone, metal or clay. It is a powerfull symbol of protection, there is usualy one on a witches altar.
According to the Greek mathematition and philosopher Pythagoras, five was the number of man, because of the fivefold divition of the body. According to Pythagoras, the five points each represent one of the five elements that make up man: fire, water, air, earth and psyche. (energy, fluid, breath, matter and mind)
The Pythagoreans held the pentacle sacred to Hygeia, the Goddess of healing, whose name (HGIEiA) was an anagram for the elements water, earth, spirit, fire and air.
This particular symbolism has persisted for centuries, and has greatly influenced theologies of diverse traditions. Later, the pentacle was important to many doctrines of esoteric Medieval and Renaissance belief systems - alchemy, kabbalah, and Ceremonial magick.
Ritual magicians, like the Greeks, used the Pentagram as a microcosm of the human body. Ritual magick was used to create a state of closeness with god through the use of symbols and rituals to imitate the divine state.
In the twelfth century, because of the writings of Hildegard of Bingen, a Benedictine nunn and abbess, the pentagram became the central symbol symbol of the microcosmos, the reflection of Earth of the divine plan and the divine image.
Hildegard of Bingen saw the pentagram as representing the human form because we have five sences - sight, smell, hearing taste and touch. And because we have five "members" two legs, two arms and a head. And, because humankind was made in God's image, she also saw the pentagram as representing God.
Other Christians saw the pentagram as representing the five wounds of Christ. As such it was considered a potent protection against evil, and because it could be drawn with one continious movement of the pen, the Alpha and the Omega as one.
It was also an expression of a secret Gnostic heresy, found hidden here and there throughout Christian history - a symbol of Isis/Venus as the secret goddess, the female principle.
The most notable instance of this symbolism is in the Arthurian Grail romances, which are Gnostic and kabbalistic teachings disguised as talese of knightly quests.
The pentacle as a symbol of the feminine principle was also embodied by the rose. The small, five petalled roses found
To some people the very word pentagram conjuses up thoughts of evil. The association of pentagrams with devil worship is relatively recent.
The pentagram is one of the most potent, powerful, and persistent symbols in human history. It has been important to almost every ancient culture, from the Mayans of Latin America, to India, China, Greece, and Egypt. It has been found scratched on the walls of Neolithic caves, and in babylonian drawings, where it marks the patern the planet Venus makes on its traves - a secret symbol of the Goddess Ishtar.
The earliest pentagrams wer rough diagrams found scratched into stone age caves. While they are believed to have some spiritual significance, the meaning of the star-shape to early humans remains a mystery. In the civilizations that followed, it held different meanings, usually astronomical and religious. Pentagrams served to mark directions in Sumerian texts, and represented the five visible planets. Later, it was the sign of the goddess Venus and the Goddess.
A pentagram is a five pointed star. Because it can be drawn with a single line, it has also been called the Endless Knot.
A pentacle is a pentagram with a circle drawn around it. It can be made of wood, stone, metal or clay. It is a powerfull symbol of protection, there is usualy one on a witches altar.
According to the Greek mathematition and philosopher Pythagoras, five was the number of man, because of the fivefold divition of the body. According to Pythagoras, the five points each represent one of the five elements that make up man: fire, water, air, earth and psyche. (energy, fluid, breath, matter and mind)
The Pythagoreans held the pentacle sacred to Hygeia, the Goddess of healing, whose name (HGIEiA) was an anagram for the elements water, earth, spirit, fire and air.
This particular symbolism has persisted for centuries, and has greatly influenced theologies of diverse traditions. Later, the pentacle was important to many doctrines of esoteric Medieval and Renaissance belief systems - alchemy, kabbalah, and Ceremonial magick.
Ritual magicians, like the Greeks, used the Pentagram as a microcosm of the human body. Ritual magick was used to create a state of closeness with god through the use of symbols and rituals to imitate the divine state.
In the twelfth century, because of the writings of Hildegard of Bingen, a Benedictine nunn and abbess, the pentagram became the central symbol symbol of the microcosmos, the reflection of Earth of the divine plan and the divine image.
Hildegard of Bingen saw the pentagram as representing the human form because we have five sences - sight, smell, hearing taste and touch. And because we have five "members" two legs, two arms and a head. And, because humankind was made in God's image, she also saw the pentagram as representing God.
Other Christians saw the pentagram as representing the five wounds of Christ. As such it was considered a potent protection against evil, and because it could be drawn with one continious movement of the pen, the Alpha and the Omega as one.
It was also an expression of a secret Gnostic heresy, found hidden here and there throughout Christian history - a symbol of Isis/Venus as the secret goddess, the female principle.
The most notable instance of this symbolism is in the Arthurian Grail romances, which are Gnostic and kabbalistic teachings disguised as talese of knightly quests.
The pentacle as a symbol of the feminine principle was also embodied by the rose. The small, five petalled roses found
...in many gothic cathedral ornamentation are not-so-secret pentagrams.
During the Inquisition, the pentagram first became associated with evil and the devil in the form of Baphomet, a goatlike creature thought to be a demon or a representation of the devil. In the popular imagination of the time, the pentagram was thought to represent the head of this goat, the devil, or a witch's foot.
Today the pentagram and the pentacle are symbols of the Wiccan faith and of Neo-Paganism.
A "point down" pentacle is nothing new - nor is it necessarily Satanic when it appears as such. Historical depictions of the pentagram were likely to be points down as point up - a distinction by one or the other was rarely made by the ancients.
Even today, one must not assume a point down pentagram is Satanic, as it is likely to be Masonic, Wiccan, or simply upside-down.
Some inexperienced Wiccans will occasionally claim that a point down pentacle is Satanic, but such a symbol has at times represented the Wiccan horned God, and is still today an emblem of the Second Degree initiation in Gardnerian Wicca.
During the Inquisition, the pentagram first became associated with evil and the devil in the form of Baphomet, a goatlike creature thought to be a demon or a representation of the devil. In the popular imagination of the time, the pentagram was thought to represent the head of this goat, the devil, or a witch's foot.
Today the pentagram and the pentacle are symbols of the Wiccan faith and of Neo-Paganism.
A "point down" pentacle is nothing new - nor is it necessarily Satanic when it appears as such. Historical depictions of the pentagram were likely to be points down as point up - a distinction by one or the other was rarely made by the ancients.
Even today, one must not assume a point down pentagram is Satanic, as it is likely to be Masonic, Wiccan, or simply upside-down.
Some inexperienced Wiccans will occasionally claim that a point down pentacle is Satanic, but such a symbol has at times represented the Wiccan horned God, and is still today an emblem of the Second Degree initiation in Gardnerian Wicca.
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