Most observed star in the world today is the pentagram, which happens to be used extensively in flags of nations, corporate emblems, cultures, religions and in gem & jewellery. In addition to generic names of pentangle and star pentagram ascribed to, pentagram is curiously dubbed as pentacle, by adherents of Wicca, modern day manifestation of pagan beliefs. Pentagram symbology is steeped in beliefs and traditions, few of the highlights given below give credence to these illustratively.
1. Formation: Pentagram is formed by drawing a continuous line in five straight segments without lifting your pencil. Once finished your drawing looks like a star, and for that matter picture of all stars on earth is generally drawn like this.
2. Legend: The legend of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knights” brought the pentagram to the fore. According to this legend, a pentagram was inscribed as a glyph on the shield of Sir Gawain reflecting five knightly qualities: generosity, courtesy, chastity, chivalry, and piety.
3. Civilizations: Sumerians, Mesopotamians, Pythagoreans (Ancient Greece), Egyptians, Romans and Indians have used pentagram in sometimes or other in their chequered history.
4. Religions: Adherents of established religions use pentagram as symbology for their noble truths. Early Christians considered it as indicating the five wounds suffered by Lord Jesus. Followers of Islam, took the pentagram introduced by Mongolians seriously and replaced the hitherto used hexagram (Star of David). Since then pentagram is the avowed presenter of Islamic beliefs. Gnostics of both these religions too, recognized pentagram as a searching tool for hidden knowledge.
5. Cultures: Neo-pagans such as Wiccans and selective groups including Masons have healthy admiration for pentagram. There is an opposing spectrum of pentagram as well. Kabbalists from Judaism receive positive flow of energy from the star whereas Satanists tend to derive negative cosmic flow.
6. Five Elements: For Hinduism, pentagram is similar to the hand with five fingers, each denoting an element. The order of the elements run thus: fire, spirit, air, water and earth. Joining them in the league Wiccans also accept the five elements phenomenon calibrating this symbology within a circle and re-arranging the order of the elements as spirit, water, fire, earth and air. Chinese as usual are too imaginative to reformulate elements as water, wood, fire, earth and metal, which find expressions in their acupuncture, medicine and Feng Shui.
7. Mystical Quality: Mystics find five senses, sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste in a pentagram and connect it with geometrical dimensions; as each of the five points is placed 72 degrees afar. This mystical number has connotations to the Crown Chakra that houses the brain, being the sixth sense has the capacity to manage and control the rest of the elements.
8. Microcosm in Macrocosm: Picturing a man head raised at the top and hands and legs spread sideways in a pentagram sounds like someone trying to imitate a Procrustean bed; no, this is about telling a basic mundane truth about the position of a man in the universe. He is just a microcosm in the macrocosm of larger universe. His head denotes spirit, left hand air, left leg water, right leg earth and finally right hand holding the fire element.
9. Modifications: In Celtic lore, pentagram was often pictured as five pointed insignia with a circle of lesser contour drawn inside the pentagram. Then there is inverted pentagram where it is turned upside down so that it does not look up but looks down. This modification attracts many distractors from religions and traditions, who chide the use of inverted pentagram as an insignia of Satanism.
10. Cosmics: Pentagram made as a continuous loop and pitching on the middle position of the number five is easily sized upon by most powerful nations, organizations and corporate bodies in order to garner the power of cosmics. As a star it figures in the flags of USA, Russia, China and host of other nations. Surely the cosmic power of pentagram has come to stay forever.
Muthu Ashraff
Cosmic Adviser
Mobile: +94 777 265677
Skype: cosmicgems
E-mail: cosmicgems@gmail.com
Web: http://www.cosmicgemslanka.com
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