"In
the science of magic the pentalpha is called the holy and Mysterious pentagram.
...the pentagram in the star of Magians; ...by virtue of the number five,
it has great command over evil spirits because of its five double triangles
and its five acute angles within and its five obtuse angles without, so
that this interior pentangle contains in it many great mysteries."
(Encyclopedia of Freemasonry, pp.762-763.)
The pentagram or pentacle. It has five points and the number "5"
has always been regarded as mystical and magical, yet essentially "human".
We have five fingers/toes on each limb extremity.
We commonly note five senses - sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste.
We perceive five stages or initiations in our lives - eg. birth, adolescence,
coitus, parenthood and death.
In Christianity, five were the wounds of Christ on the cross.
There are five pillars of the Muslim faith and five daily times of prayer.
Five were the virtues of the medieval knight - generosity, courtesy, chastity,
chivalry and piety as symbolised in the pentagram device of Sir Gawain.
The Wiccan Kiss is Fivefold - feet, knees, womb, breasts, lips - Blessed
be.
A circle around a pentagram contains
and protects.
The circle symbolises eternity and infinity, the cycles of life and nature.
The circled pentagram is the passive form implying spiritual containment
of the magic circle, in keeping with the traditional secrecy of witchcraft,
and the personal, individual nature of the pagan religious path, of its
non-proselytising character.
The pentagram has long been believed to be a potent protection
against evil, a symbol of conflict that shields the wearer and the home.
The pentagram has five spiked wards and a womb shaped defensive, protective
pentagon at the centre.
There are five elements, four of matter (earth, air, fire and water) and
THE quintessential - spirit. These may be arrayed around the pentagrams
points.
The word "quintessential" derives from this fifth element - the
spirit.
Tracing a path around the pentagram, the elements are placed in order of
density - spirit (or aether). fire, air, water, earth. Earth and fire are
basal, fixed; air and water are free, flowing.
Single point upwards signifies the spirit ruling matter (mind ruling limbs);
is a symbol of rightness. With two points up and one (spirit) downwards,
subservient, the emphasis is on the carnal nature of Man.
A pentagram without a surrounding circle
is the active form symbolising an outgoing of oneself, prepared for conflict,
aware, active.
History of the Pentagram
The pentagram has
long been associated with mystery and magic. It is the simplest form of
star shape that can be drawn unicursally - with a single line - hence it
is sometimes called the Endless Knot. Other names are the Goblin's Cross,
the Pentalpha, the Witch's Foot, the Devil's Star and the Seal of Solomon
(more correctly attributed to the hexagram). It has long been believed to
be a potent protection against evil and demons, hence a symbol of safety,
and was sometimes worn as an amulet for happy homecoming. The potency and
associations of the pentagram have evolved throughout history. Today it
is an ubiquitous symbol of neo-pagans with much depth of magickal and symbolic
meaning.
To the Gnostics, the pentagram was the 'Blazing
Star' and, like the crescent moon was a symbol relating to the magic and
mystery of the nighttimes sky.
For the Druids, it was a symbol of Godhead.
In Egypt, it was a symbol of the "underground womb" and bore a symbolic
relationship to the concept of the pyramid form.
The Pagan Celts ascribed the pentagram to the underground goddess Morrigan.
Early Christians attributed the pentagram to the
Five Wounds of Christ and from then until medieval times, it was a lesser-used
Christian symbol. Prior to the time of the Inquisition, there were no "evil"
associations to the pentagram. Rather it's form implied Truth, religious
mysticism and the work of The Creator.
In Medieval times, the "Endless Knot" was a symbol
of Truth and was a protection against demons. It was used as an amulet of
personal protection and to guard windows and doors. The pentagram with one
point upwards symbolised summer; with two points upwards, it was a sign
for winter.
During
the long period of the Inquisition, there was much promulgation of lies
and accusations in the "interests" of orthodoxy and elimination of heresy.
The Church lapsed into a long period of the very diabolism it sought to
oppose. The pentagram was seen to symbolise a Goat's Head or the Devil in
the form of Baphomet and it was Baphomet whom the Inquisition accused the
Templars of worshipping.
In the
purge on witches, other horned gods such as Pan became equated with the
Devil (a Christian concept) and the pentagram - the folk-symbol of security
- for the first time in history - was equated with "evil" and was called
the Witch's Foot.
The Old Religion and it's symbols went underground,
in fear of the Church's persecution, and there it stayed, gradually withering,
for centuries.
AFTER THE INQUISITION
In the foundation of Hermeticism , in hidden societies of craftsmen and scholarly
men, away from the eyes of the Church and it's paranoia, the proto-science
of alchemy developed along with it's occult philosophy and cryptical symbolism.
Graphical and geometric symbolism became very important and the period of
the Renaissance emerged. The concept of the microcosmic world of Man as analogous
to the macrocosm, the greater univese of spirit and elemental matter became
a part of traditional western occult teaching, as it had long been in eastern
philosophies." As above, so below" The pentagram, the 'Star of the Microcosm',
symbolised Man within the microscosm, representing in analogy the Macrocosmic
universe. The upright pentagram bears some resemblance to the shape of man
with his legs and arms outstretched. In Tycho Brahe's Calendarium Naturale
Magicum Perpetuum (1582)occurs a pentagram with human body imposed and the
Hebrew for YHSVH associated with the elements. An illustration attributed
to Brae's contemporary Agrippa (Henry Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim) is
of similar proportion and shows the five planets and the moon at the centre
point - the genitalia. Other illustrations of the period by Robert Fludd and
Leonardo da Vinci show geometric relationships of man to the universe. Later,
the pentagram came to be symbolic of the relationship of the head to the four
limbs and hence of the pure concentrated essence of anything (or the spirit)
to the four traditional elements of matter - earth, water, air and fire -
spirit is The Quintessence.
No
known graphical illustration associating the pentagram with evil appears until
the nineteenth century. Eliphaz Levi Zahed (actually the pen name of Alphonse
Louis Constant, a defrocked French Catholic abbé) illustrates the upright
pentagram of microcosmic man beside an inverted pentagram with the goat's
head of Baphomet. It is this illustration and juxtaposition that has led to
the concept of different orientations of the pentagram being "good" and "evil".
