The Eternal Knot: Article by Robin Thomas Malburn

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The Eternal Knot

With over 5000 years history, the pentacle, a five-pointed star, has been known under many names, pivotal in many religions and cultures and has seen many changes to its stature and standing in the views of its peers. With significance ranging from deeply spiritual to political, from mathematical to even recreational, it’s hard to imagine how the icon could have fallen into such disuse in past centuries, let alone imagine how it could have even suffered such misrepresentation as to become an icon of the horror genre. Modern media certainly portrays the pentacle in almost universally poor light; horror novels and films alike associate the sigil categorically with demonic forces and Satanism. The pentacle’s use in these media forms, whilst going someway to demonise the emblem, has also made it a symbol of modern popular culture. Appearing everywhere from the album artwork of bands eager to capitalise on its darker connotations, to pendants, posters, T-shirts and more; the pentacle has not enjoyed this level of exposure in several hundred years. Whilst enjoying a life in the limelight of popular culture, however dubious some interpretations may be, the symbol has thankfully managed to retain, and in the last century regain, much of its previous significance and meaning. The Neo-pagan, Wiccan and gothic movements, amongst others, of the last century have gone some distance to re-establishing the pentacle as more than a symbol of pop culture and as more than a horror plot device. Re-establishing the pentacle’s roots to divinity, the Goddess, nature and protection, the new age of spiritual awareness and freedom enjoyed in modern society certainly is an excellent tool to restore the sigil to it’s former glory and perhaps to help assuage the cultural and religious aspersions cast against the pentacle.

What is the heritage of the emblem though? Which role is more befitting; pop icon, horror plot device, or spiritual icon? What brought about the change in stature of the pentacle? There’s a myriad of questions that can be asked of the Eternal Knot’s history. The earliest evidence of the pentacle dates back to as early as 3500BC, where it was discovered in ancient Mesopotamia alongside some of the earliest forms of written language. With a continued usage throughout the centuries beyond its Mesopotamian roots, it’s undeniable that the pentacle has as rich, ancient and important a history as any spiritual icon, and yet unlike many of its alumni of spiritual iconography, its usage has far from remained a spiritual exclusivity.

At the creation of the initial Olympic games (known to date back to, and most likely predate 776BC), it was originally the pentacle that was heralded as the Olympic symbol. The ancient Greeks viewed the pentacle (known in ancient Greek circles as the “pentalpha”, drawing its name from the five (“pent” in Greek) A’s (Alpha) that make up the symbol’s arms) as both a symbol of divinity and of perfection. In later centuries, Pythagoras and his followers would associate the symbol with the Divine Proportion, mathematically known as phi ( φ), cementing their ancestors’ claims of perfection. Alongside it’s mathematical and aesthetic worth to the ancient Greeks, the symbol also had very strong ties to divinity, and to the very heart of the Olympics. The pentalpha was an easy icon to associate with the Greek goddess Aphrodite, as the planet Venus (representative of Aphrodite, and indeed her counterpart in ancient Rome), traces a perfect astrological pentacle every eight years. This astonishing link to the divinity of Aphrodite is two fold, as it was half of this Venusian cycle that would be the cornerstone of the Olympic four year tradition. With links to divinity and perfection, the pentalpha seemed perfectly set to be the symbol of the original Olympics, yet it was not to be. In a final decision by the founders of the Olympics, it was decided that the five interlinked circles we know today would be a better emblem for the games – their circlic image representing inclusion better than the pentalpha counterpart. The pentalpha, though, did not find itself completely removed from the games; the use of five circles is certainly far from coincidental and is representative of the pentacle’s five points. The pentacle’s usage in ancient Greece is far from limited to the divinity of Aphrodite and the athletic perfection of the Olympics; as mentioned, the symbol would also go on to have tremendous mathematical meaning to Pythagoras and his followers. As well as associating the pentacle to mathematical perfection and uncovering its strong links to the Divine Proportion (also know as the Golden Mean or Golden Section), the Pythagoreans would go on to give their own name to the symbol – Hygieia, the Greek goddess of health. With the significance Pythagoras attributes to the pentacle, it’s certain that at least he and his follows viewed the pentalpha as far from a mere icon.

Besides being so deeply entwined with Pythagorean and Olympic history, the pentacle makes appearances as far afield as to be a suit in the minor arcana tarot deck, where it is, by some, thought to be representative of the Earth element. This use in the tarot deck would in later centuries evolve in to what card players today know as the suit of diamonds. The pentacle found itself replaced by diamonds out of the mere mundane pursuit of profits; the tarot designs for the four suits were too costly to continually reproduce, so in approximately 1480AD, the simpler French designs we use today replaced the minor arcana suits for use on playing cards. The pentacle would make a far more pronounced appearance in the Arthurian legends of the mid 12th century, particularly being associated with Sir Gawain, the Knight of the Goddess. The pentacle finds itself as the glyph of the knight, representing the five knightly virtues; generosity, courtesy, chastity, piety and chivalry. Embossed in gold, the sigil rested on Gawain’s shield, and features in many pictorial representations of the knight. Given that Gawain was a noble Grail knight, this stands as a cultural testament to a time when the icon was far from frowned upon.

Despite influencing prose, mathematics, recreational pass times and even athletics, the reach of the pentacle still spreads further afield. Mesopotamian artwork would go on to associated the pentacle with royalty; the five arms of the star representing the royal authority reaching to the four corners of the world. The icon would have further political and regal implications during the rule of Emperor Constantine I, a man vastly influential in the spread of Christianity in Rome, who would incorporate the pentacle into his seals and amulets, along with the chi-rho (also known as a Christogram). Proving yet more and more widespread in its usage, the pentacle was also representant of the five books of the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Old Testament, or Torah) in Hebrew times, and in post Inquisition-eras, the symbol would become very important to the then rapidly growing occult science of Alchemy.

Regardless of the pentacle’s many and varied uses, the symbol will always be synonymous with spiritual and religious uses, first and foremost. Spiritual and religious movements ranging from Druidic to Christian, from ancient Egyptian to Neo-pagan, from Wiccan to ancient Greek and many more have attributed significant meaning to the pentacle. More controversial meanings would be attributed to the icon in more modern times, deepening aspersions cast against the symbol, by practitioners of “black witchcraft” and most notably by the Church of Satan, established by Anton La Vey in 1966.

The pentacle plays a vastly important role in the Wiccan faiths, including the “white” and “dark” strains of Wicca that have appeared in the last few decades. To the “white” Wiccan, the pentacle is symbolic of the mind over the world of matter; the upward point representing the mind or spirit, with the other four points representing the four natural elements – Earth, Air, Fire and Water. Practitioners of the “black” Wiccan and Satanic faiths use an inverse pentacle, which bears quite literally an inverted meaning, representing the more mundane concept of the world above spirit – the pursuit of worldly gains above the pursuit, and possibly at the cost of, spiritual gains. The divide between the inverse and true pentacles has not always been quite so strongly defined, but with the symbol being attributed to the Church of Satan and to the darker side of Wicca, the newly emerging Wiccans of the last century, particularly the ‘white’ Wiccans, were eager to differentiate themselves and their symbology from that of the inverse pentacle’s darker connotations. The divide between the positive true pentacle and the negative inverse pentacle was partly set in motion and greatly defined by Eliphaz Lévi (a pen name for the defrocked Catholic Abbot Alphonse Louis Constant), who illustrated the true pentacle beside the inverse pentacle, the latter bearing the visage of Baphomet – the medieval devil whom the Knights Templar were accused of, and persecuted for, worshipping.

Despite the modern Christian church frowning upon the pentacle, the symbol was actually used in the early stages of their religion, representing the five wounds of Christ. The pentacle would also be used as the symbol for the annual feast of Epiphany in the Christian faith, before being replaced in more modern times by a less controversial form of star. As mentioned earlier, the pentacle’s use with the Grail knight Gawain can also be seen as evidence of a less unholy past in Christian circles for the symbol.

Beyond these uses, the pentacle has many other meanings; to the ancient Egyptians, it was symbolic of the “underground womb” and carries a symbolic relationship with the pyramid designs. Despite a hidden and lost history, the pentacle is attributed to the Druidic faith, and is representative of their gods and goddesses (a certain credence can be leant to the strength of the relationship between the pentacle and Druid faith when it is taken into account that the pentacle would also be known as “the Druid’s Foot”). Beyond strictly religious connotations, the pentacle was viewed widely as a symbol of truth and protection, until being demonised in later centuries. An encircled pentacle can be seen as representative of man as the microcosm and his place with the macrocosm of the universe. Both the union of man and the pentacle and the idea of the microcosm and macrocosm can be seen in various pieces of art over the centuries, perhaps most famously in Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Vitruvian Man” and Cornelius Agrippa’s “The Microcosm”. Both pieces show man encircled and with his limbs stretched out to form a human pentacle. Agrippa would take the symbology a step further by actually including the pentacle around the body in his work the “The Microcosm”.

With such a rich, varied and seemingly universal usage, it seems incomprehensible that the pentacle could fall into massive disuse for centuries, let alone now be viewed as an evil and demonic emblem. How could such a vastly important symbol have its meanings and usage quelled in such a massive way? With 5000 years history and use, when could such a thing have happened? The truth is, the vast part of the pentacle’s fall from grace has happened in the relatively short space, compared to the lifespan of the emblem, of the last six or seven hundred years. It’s perhaps a testament to the symbol’s strength and spiritual significance that already the aspersions that would see the emblem demonised and driven underground are so quickly being washed away.

The pentacle would suffer the first major accounts of its slander in the early 14th century at hands of the infamous Inquisition. Though the pentacle became a victim, it was not, at least initially, the actual target of the Inquisition’s attacks and prejudice; ironically, the target of the slings and arrows of the Inquisition was the holy order of the Knights Templar. On October the 13th 1307 AD, the Knights Templar across Europe were arrested and handed over to the Inquisition by order of King Philip IV of France and Pope Clement V; the Templars would face charges of heresy and blasphemy, the truth behind which still remains a mystery to this day. One of the most major accusations to be raised against the monastic order, was that of worshipping a false idol, namely Baphomet. Though descriptions of Baphomet vary vastly from account to account (perhaps a sign the supposed idol worship was less than legitimate), the most famous representation of Baphomet would come to be that of monstrous demon with the head of ram, and the pentacle emblazoned on it’s forehead. The pentacles placement on Baphomet’s head alongside the symbolic similarity between an inverted pentacle and goat’s head appearance of Baphomet quickly made the pentacle a target of the Inquisition. Curiously, the pentacle does appear in many pieces of Templar architecture, alongside Saint David’s star and other symbols; perhaps the appearance of the pentacle in Templar architecture leant credence to the Inquisitions’ vigorous distaste for the symbol.

Though the roots of dissent for the pentacle may have rested with the trials of the Templars, the Inquisition would not draw the line there, and would go on to attribute the unwholesome image of the pentacle to other factions – namely the pagans and Wiccans of the time. One school of thought suggests that the Inquisition slurs against the pagan and Wiccan use of the pentacle is perhaps born out of fear and distrust. At a time when new herbs, plants and indeed poisons where being imported from the far east and orient, Wiccans and pagans, stereotypically associated with herbalism, were easy targets for suspicion when these new finds of the far east were applied to assassinations and murders, especially those aimed at the Inquisition. Whether this school of thought is correct or not, it cannot be doubted that the Inquisition associated the pentacle with the “witches” of the time. The association is so strong, that the pentacle would even come to be known as the “Witches Foot”.

Though the origins of dissent and demonising can be traced easily and convincingly back to the Inquisitions of the 14th century, the pentacle has suffered misrepresentation just as severely in the last two hundred years, as well. Ironically, the synergy between medieval aspersions and modern day demonising is quite staggering. As noted earlier, the false idol Baphomet was the inspiration for much of early distaste for the pentacle, but what is interesting is that the most commonly known image of Baphomet is in fact the illustration of the 19th century Eliphaz Lévi, already mentioned as being responsible for associating the inverted pentacle with the head of Baphomet. Lévi’s representation of Baphomet is not without accuracy; it does match a number of the accounts given by the tortured Templars, and the image certainly resembles the gargoyles associated with Templar churches and architecture, but whether this is the Baphomet is certainly a matter of some debate.

Lévi’s dual representations of Baphomet, both associated with the inverse pentacle and even bearing the pentacle on its forehead, unquestionably would be influential in later generations’ view of the symbol. Baphomet’s head inscribed within the inverse pentacle would rapidly become popular amongst Satanists and those who follow the “Left-Hand path”. The most staggering adoption of the “Baphomet Pentacle” would be by Anton La Vey and the Church of Satan, who would use Lévi’s pentacle as the main symbol of their religion. This variation of the symbol would then of course become watered down to the stage where merely in an inverse pentacle would become synonymous with devil worship and Satanism, and in some circles, merely the pentacle in any form is viewed as an evil and heretical icon. In the 1960’s when the pentacle first began to resurface as an amulet - an icon to be worn and respected, not hidden away in fear of reprisals - the resurgence of the emblem was not met fondly, particularly in the Christian church. With La Vey’s Church of Satan adopting the symbol, the Christian church was quick to condemn the pentacle, in all its forms, as a sign of evil; attributing the same venomous hatred to the symbol as the post-war world had attributed to the swastika.

With such strong resentment towards the pentacle, it’s a wonder the icon was able to re-establish itself the way it has, instead of merely taking the aspersions and retreating back underground. However, re-emerging in an era of increased interest in the pentacle - a time when Wicca and witchcraft were becoming increasing popular, and less biased books were being written on the topics – can be greatly thanked for the vigour with which the pentacle made its return, and the stamina with which it endured its accusations. Gone are the days when religious and spiritual freethinking would be crushed under foot as “heretical”, and the pentacle found itself brought back to a world perhaps more accepting and open-minded than at any other point in the last millennia. The pentacle can perhaps offer a slightly shamed modicum of thanks to its ascent to pop culture icon. Though horrendously misrepresented, the pentacles’ bombarding appearance in movies, books, on album covers and T-shirts, as pendants and rings, assured one thing for the symbol; misrepresented or not, it was not going to be driven back underground this time.

Robin Thomas Malburn