alliekat.net: writings: essays: history of the pentagram

The Pentagram is the simplest form of star shape that can be drawn unicursally--with a single line--which is why it is sometimes called the Endless Knot. It’s also called the Goblin’s Cross, the Pentalpha, the Witch’s Foot, the Devil’s Star, and also the Seal of Solomon, although it would be more correctly attributed to the hexagram.

The five points of the Pentagram are symbolic in many ways. We have five fingers or toes on each limb. Five-fold symmetries are rarely found in non-organic life forms, but are inherent to life in the human hand, starfish, flowers, plants, and many other things. This pattern of five exists even down to a molecular level. The number five is a prime number that embodies the form and foundation of life.

We have five senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch, and taste. We perceive five stages in our lives: birth, adolescence, coitus, parenthood, and death. The number five is associated with Mars, denoting severity, conflict, and harmony through conflict. Because it is a symbol of this conflict, the Pentagram is believed to be a potent protection against evil that shields the wearer and the home. There were five wounds of Christ on the cross: both hands and feet, and head. There are five pillars of Muslim faith and five daily times of prayer. The Wiccan Kiss is Fivefold: feet, knees, womb, breasts, lips--Blessed be.

The Pentagram has five spiked wards and a womb shaped defensive, protective pentagon at the center. There are five elements, four of matter--earth, air, fire, and water--and the quintessential element, spirit. The world "quintessential" derives from this fifth element. The five elements can be arrayed around the Pentagram’s points. Tracing a path around the Pentagram, the elements are places in order of density: spirit (or aether), fire, air, water, earth. Earth and fire are basal, fixed; air and water are free and flowing. Traditionally, each of the five angles have been attributed to the five metaphysical elements of the ancients:

When a single point is upwards, it signifies spirit ruling matter, or mind over body, a symbol of rightness. With two points upward, and one, spirit, pointing downwards, or subservient, the emphasis is on the carnal nature of Man. The inverted Pentagram is seen by many as representing the dark side and is abhorred as an evil symbol, but it should be seen as the need of a person to learn to face the darkness within so that it may not later rise up and take control.

The Pentagram may be shown as an interlaced line symbolic of the web-weaving power of magic. The descending spirit-earth line may pass under, signifying male, or over, signifying female, the water-air line to give two slightly different forms.

A Pentagram may be open, without a surrounding circle, as is sometimes seen. This is the active form symbolizing an outgoing of oneself, prepared for conflict, aware, and active. If one is wearing an open Pentagram, one must be aware simply to avoid any sharp points sticking their skin! A circle around a Pentagram contains and protects. The circle symbolizes eternity and infinity, and the cycles of life and nature. The center of a Pentagram implies a sixth, formative element of love and will, which controls from within, ruling matter and spirit by will.

The geometric proportions of the Pentagram are those of the Golden Section. The Golden Proportion is one beloved by artists since Renaissance times, and is also found in post-Hellenic art and in the geomantic planning of Templar sites, since the proportions of a rectangle were considered most pleasing to the eye. The ratio of the lengths of the two sides is equal to the ratio of the longer side to the sum of the two sides. Or a/b = b/a+b = a+b/a+2b = a+2b/2a+3b = 2a+3b/3a+5b and so on. The ratio of 0.618:1:1.618 is also referred to as Phi. If a square is added to the long side of a golden rectangle, a larger golden rectangle is formed. Continuing this progression forms the basis for a nautilus spiral. The ratio of the distance between two points of a Pentagram to its total width is in the golden proportion. This ratio forms the foundation of the Fibonacci series of numbers 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, etc., where each number is formed by adding the previous two numbers. The Fibonacci series is much found in nature in the pattern arrangement of a fivefold symmetry in flower heads, leaves, and fruits.

The earliest known Pentagram dates back to around 3500 BC at the Ur of the Chaldees in Ancient Mesopotamia. It was found on potsherds with other signs that are associated with early developments of written language. In later Mesopotamian art, the Pentagram was used as a royal inscription, symbolizing the imperial power extending to the four corners of the world. Its meaning in the cuneiform period, around 2600 BC, seems to be a Heavenly Quarter, and also the four directions: forward, backward, left and right, with the fifth direction being "above." The four directions corresponded to the planets Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, and Saturn, with Venus, the Queen of Heaven, above.

The Pentagram was associated with Truth and to the five books of the Pentaleauch, the FIve Books of Moses, amongst the Hebrews and Jewish people, and in Ancient Greece, it was called the Pentalpha, literally meaning "five A’s." They see it as being geometrically composed of five A’s.

To the Gnostics, the Pentagram was the "Blazing Star," and for the Druids, it was a symbol of the Godhead. To the Pagan Celts, it was a symbol of the goddess Morrigan, wife of the Dagda. The number five appears in many Celtic contexts: Ireland had five great roads, five provinces, and five paths of the law. The fairy folk counted by fives, and the mythological figures wore five fold cloaks. In Egypt, it was a symbol of the "underground womb" and was symbolically related to the pyramid.

Pythagoras considered the Pentagram a symbol of perfection and used it as part of his theories on mathematical correlation to music and sound. It is possible that Pythagoras became acquainted with the Pentagram during his travels to Egypt and Babylon. Pythagoreans call the Pentagram "Hugieia," which is literally translated as "Health," but has more of a connotation to a sense of soundness or wholeness, or, more generally, any Divine Blessing. Hugieia is the Goddess of Health, and her name is a fairly common inscription on amulets. Pythagoreans apparently labeled the points or angles of the Pentagram with the letters UGIEIA. The fact that UGIEIA has six letters is merely an inconvenience, and it is observed that Pythagoreans wrote upsilon, gamma, iota, theta, and alpha at the points, perhaps because an adjacent epsilon and iota (EI) look something like a theta (T). The letters labeling the corners of the Pentacle are the first letters of Greek words for the Elements.

Though the theta may be explained as a joined Epsilon and Iota, either is an abbreviate for the Fiery Element.

Early Christians used the Pentagram to represent the five wounds of Christ. It’s form symbolized truth, religious mysticism, and the work of the Creator. Emperor Constantine I, after gaining the help of the Christian church in his takeover of the Roman Empire, used the Pentagram, together with the chi-rho, which is a symbolic form of the cross, in his seal and amulet.

In the legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Stanzas 27-28, the Pentagram, called the Pentangle, was inscribed in gold on his shield to symbolize the five knightly virtues: generosity, courtesy, chastity, chivalry, and piety.

"Then they showed him the shield of shining gules,
With the Pentangle in pure gold depicted thereon.
He brandished it by the baldric, and about his neck
He slung it in a seemly way, and it suited him well.
And I intend to tell you, though I tarry therefore,
Why the Pentangle is proper to this prince of knights.
It is a symbol which Solomon conceived once
To betoken holy truth, by its intrinsic right,
For it is a figure which has five points,
And each line overlaps and is locked with another;
And it is endless everywhere, and the English call it,
In all the land, I hear, the Endless Knot.
Therefore it goes with Sir Gawain and his gleaming armour,
For, ever faithful in five things, each in fivefold manner,
Gawain was reputed good and, like gold well refined,
He was devoid of all villainy, every virtue displaying
In the field.

Thus this Pentangle new
He carried on coat and shield,
As a man of troth most true
And knightly name annealed.

First he was found faultless in his five wits.
Next, his five fingers never failed the knights,
And all his trust on earth was in the five wounds
Which came to Christ on the Cross, as the Creed tells.
And whenever the bold man was busy on the battlefield,
Through all other things he thought on this,
That his prowess all depended on the five pure Joys
That the holy Queen of Heaven had of her Child.
Accordingly the courteous knight had that queen’s image
Etched on the inside of his armoured shield,
So that when he beheld her, his heart did not fail.
The fifth five I find the famous man practiced
Were- Liberality and Lovingkindness leading the rest;
Then his Continence and Courtesy, which were never corrupted;
And Piety, the surpassing virtue. These pure five
Were more firmly fixed on that fine man
Than on any other, and every multiple,
Each interlocking with another, had no end,
Being fixed to five points which never failed,
Never assembling on one side, nor sundering either,
With no end at any angle; nor can I find
Where the design started or proceeded to its end.
Thus on his shining shield this knot was shaped
Royally in red gold upon red gules.
That is the pure Pentangle, so people who are wise
Are taught.

Now Gawain was ready and gay;
His spear he promptly caught
And gave them all good day
For ever, as he thought."

The "Endless Knot" referred to in Sir Gawain was a symbol of Truth and was a protection against demons.

During the period of the Inquisition, when many accusations and lies were made, the Pentagram was seen to symbolize a goat’s head, or the Devil as Baphomet, whom the Knights Templar were accused of worshipping. In this purge of witches, the Pentagram first came to be seen as evil and was called the Witch’s Foot.

In Freemasonry, the Pentagram was used, interlaced and upright for the sitting Master of the Lodge, and was also incorporated into the 72 degree angel of the compass--the masonic symbol of virtue and duty. The women’s branch of freemasons uses the inverted five pointed "Eastern Star" as its emblem. Each point of the star commemorates a heroine of biblical lore.

No known graphical illustration of the Pentagram is associated with evil until the nineteenth century. Eliphaz Levi Zahed, the pen name of Alphonse Louis Constant, a defrocked French Catholic abbé, illustrated the upright Pentagram as microcosmic man beside an inverted Pentagram as a goat’s head of Baphomet.

The microcosmic man expresses the saying "Every man and every woman is a star." Leonardo da Vinci called it "the Divine Proportion." We can juxtapose Man on a Pentagram with head and four limbs at the points and the genitalia exactly central. This symbolizes our place in the Macrocosm, or Universe, and the Hermetic/Tantric philosophy of associativity: "As above, so below."

It was Zahed who was instrumental in taking tarot reading from being a gypsy fortune-telling device to a powerful set of symbolic images relating closely to the Kabbalah, or Qabalah. It was also he who renamed the suit of "coins" as "pentacles."

In the 1940s Gerald Gardner used the Pentagram with two points upward as the sigil of second degree initiation in Wicca. The one-point upward Pentagram together with the upright triangle symbolized third degree initiation. It wasn’t until the 1960s that the Pentagram became known as an amuletic symbol to be worn.

When Anton LaVay established the Church of Satan, they adopted the inverted Pentagram after the Baphomet image of Satan that Eliphas Levi Zahed depicted. The Christian Church reacted to this by condemning as "evil" everyone that took the Pentagram as a symbol, and condemning the symbol itself.

Today the inverted Pentagram forms part of the highest award bestowed by the United States, the Medal of Honor, which is presented "to those who have risked their lives above and beyond the call of duty." The upright Pentagram also forms part of the United States Distinguished Service Medal for the Navy-Marines.

The antiquity of the Pentagram is certain, it’s meanings and associations have evolved and richened throughout it’s history. Its use is as important as the cross has been to the history of Christianity and in understanding its history is to understand your own history and origins. With education, people will come to see it not as a symbol of good or evil, but as a symbol that is rich with history and symbolism.

I worked hard on this paper. Please do not copy this work in whole or in part without written permission from me. This work is copyrighted material.

The History and Symbolism of the Pentagram