How many times have you been wearing a Pentagram and people come up and act as though you are evil? It's the sign of Satan? Yet it represents the four elements - surmounted by spirit. Nothing evil there. And it worn my Pagans, along with other symbols - yet its the only one which is considered evil.
To most Pagans it is like the Cross is to the Christians. Yet many Christians say we shouldn't wear it...and they would be up in arms if they were told they shouldn't wear their crosses. But at Christmas time it's alright to place one on top of a tree?
Movies and the church of Satan have helped hurt the poor Pentagram. The Church of Satan uses an inverted Pentagram and Movies use both. A Satanist (a worshiper of Satan, not a member of the Church of Satan) would wear an inverted crucifix. (Even the inverted Pentagram is used by some Wiccans as it is the symbol of a second degree Gardnerian)
I think it's interesting how people look at symbols. A cross was a sacred symbol of many Pagans religions, yet today it is a Christian symbol. The Pentagram is used as a symbol seen in many places, but wear one around you neck and it looked on as something evil. (The Pentagram is a Five pointed Star - much like the stars in the American flag and used my many law enforcement agencies.)
I wear my Pentagram all the time. When working I wear it under my shirt, Not because I've been told to, but because I'm a business man and your place of work is not a place for religious debate. I would love to see the Pentagram accepted, and people were not offended by it.
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Comments: 12
Symbols can mean a lot of things to different people; prior to WWII, the Boy Scouts had a group called the Order of the White Swastika. Several Native American tribes use the swastika as a symbol of the sun, which is what provided the inspiration for the name & symbology of this group.
The swastika also shows up in Germanic and Nordic history, sometimes as a sun symbol and sometimes symbolizing Thor's hammer Mjolner, radiating lightning. The Nazis decide it would make a nifty looking flag, and all of a sudden the poor, innocent swastika is no longer a symbol of the sun, but of hatred and racism.
White swastikas vanish from the Boy Scouts, and the group eventually becomes known as the Order of the Arrow, which still exists today.
The only way to change how a symbol is viewed is education, and that start with wearing it when you can, openly and without shame or fear.
This makes sense, either way, to me ....... If your religion was in the process of being wiped out or driven underground by a very powerful, invading religious group that had no qualms about kiling any and all who refused to acknowledge them ........... well, we all would do what we had to do .... to survive ..... even if it meant paying lip service to the invaders while continuing to practice the pagan religion in private ... in secrecy ....
What do you guys think? .... Make sense?
Satanists are not misusing the pentagram. They are using it in their own fashion and with their own meanings. The only time a symbol is misused is when a person distorts what the symbol means to the people who are using it. For example, "Pagans use pentagrams because it stands for the arms, legs, and head of a naked woman about to be raped on an altar" is misusing the pentagram.
As a side note, that explanation for what the pentagram means isn't one I made up - I heard it more than once on Christian talk shows in the 1980's.
Anyway, it's perfectly legit for Satanists to use the pentagram, especially inverted or as a Baphomet (Inverted pentagram with a goat's head in the middle) due to those symbols being used in the classic Black Mass, by the Church of Satan & related groups, etc. I don't like it, myself, but there's not much I can do about it. Satanists get grumpy when you tell them to stick to things like blaspheming Christian symbols. ;-)
To be honest, I think Paganism as a whole would be a lot better off abandoning the pentagram simply due to how much misunderstanding it causes. That'll never happen, of course, because the pentagram is deeply embedded in modern Pagan eschatology. Aside from that, a lot of the really authentic Pagan symbols, the ones actually used in ancient times, aren't safe to display at work, and would probably require a lot more explanation than the pentagram does.
I guess we should stick with it after all. ;-)
I think LaVay when he made the upside down pentagram as the symbol of the Church of Satan was hitting at the Pagan's of that time. He wanted to make a religion that was a money maker and had a lot of showmanship to it. When he found out the pagans of the time were not interested in his brand of religion he went to the one topic that he wouldn't have people claiming he was not "real" and that was Satan. So I would say the members of the Church of Satan are not mis-using the Pentagram - the founder, yeah he was - he knew that Witchcraft and other Pagan religions were trying to get acceptance and taking the symbol they were using and tying it to Satan would cause some extra problems for them. (and Hollywood was already doing there part)
Many authentic Pagan symbols are used by a lot of people on a daily basis without any knowledge of there relationship to ancient religions. Such horrid things as Crosses, trees, animals, all have been used. True large representions of certain body parts would not go over so well...
The Pentagram has been a part of Magick for as long as its been recorded - and since Witchcraft has always been a religion with Magick - who knows how long its been part of the Craft.
Just a aside that I found funny the other day. At work a lady came up and she was wearing a very Christian T-Shirt with the name of her church on it and wearing a pair of Winged Isis earrings, which appeared to be copper, which was a sacred metal to Isis - Wonder what she would do if she found out she was wearing earring representing a pagan Goddess made out of her sacred metal!
I don't like not wearing one every day, as I have done so until I got this job. I am flirting with the idea of a tattoo, but can't decide where I want it.