A Look At Symbols and Their Meaning

I once had a discussion with a friend of mine about pentagrams. I told him a little bit of the history of the pentagram, about how it represented different things to different people. At the time my understanding of the symbol was that it represented fire, earth, wind, water, and spirit to paganists.

Now the point of the discussion that I had had was the idea that Christianity saw the pentagram as a satanic symbol. That somehow this shape (and lets not fool ourselves, thats really all it is) encapsulated all of the evil in the world. I made the point that it was really just a symbol that had been taken from the pagans and then used by the satanists. Why they chose this symbol I'm not sure. He was apt to agree and see the point.

That however was not the end of the debate as later on it reasserted itself with some of my other friends as we again discussed it. This time my friend (the same one mentioned earlier) was the one to bring it up and he added some facts that I wasn't aware of, mainly the fact that Christians had used this symbol before the satanists had. I was a little shocked cause I didn't know anything about this. One of the other people we were discussing it with was hard pressed to let go of his upbringing and bring himself to take an objective look at it. He felt that satan/evil/ and darkness where inexorably tied to this simple shape. To be fair he is rather young, only a sophomore in high school still living at home and unwilling to question his beliefs and the beliefs of his parents. This time around I brought up the point that the pentagram was and is exactly what the name implies: a five pointed star and nothing more than that. A shape that you would learn in geometry no different from a square or an octagon. That different people see different signs and symbols in different ways and that if that is the case then how can there be truth in a symbol? How can there be universal truth in shape, at least as far as its symbolic meaning is concerned? If Jesus hadn't died on a cross but had hanged instead wouldn't Christians venerate the noose instead of the cross? Then I dug this up, for the purpose of this little blog I did a little bit of research (I looked it up on wikipedia) and pulled this from it: "Pentagrams were used symbolically in ancient Greece and Babylonia. The pentagram has magical associations, and many people who practice neopagan faiths wear jewelry incorporating the symbol. Christians once more commonly used the pentagram to represent the five wounds of Jesus,^[1][2] and it also has associations within Freemasonry." An interesting little tidbit, one that I think most people are totally ignorant of. Certainly something I was ignorant of. To think that people once wore pentagrams to symbolize the wounds of Christ, but now they attribute such a symbol to satan worship.

It was an interesting idea to me and one worth revisiting. This idea of symbolism and of personal symbolism at that. As we all have some sort of personal symbolism in our lives. What certain shapes and certain things represent to us, may not translate to others. There is no power in shapes and symbols unless someone puts it there. But even then it doesn't carry to recreations of that symbol. Perhaps there was power in the cross that Jesus actually died on. However I don't think that that power translates to the crosses people created to wear around their necks.

Although people would make the argument that they don't truly believe that the symbol holds any power that it simply represents Jesus's death on a cross and his resurrection, but somewhere in their subconscious is a deep rooted notion that it does in some way hold power. This is shown to be true simply in the choosing of the symbol. Why a cross and not something else?

At the same time isn't the power of this symbol simply in the crosses representation? If only the power to remind people of their salvation? Then, however we come again to the point that it is only a PERSONAL SYMBOLISM. That although the power may exist it only exists for that one person, and is only true for that person who clings to those beliefs. For a pagan the cross is simply that, a cross, it doesn't represent anything to them.

Then the question changes, is it possible for a person to put power into an object? Does it require the Great Divine or is a persons own power, having been placed within them by the Great Divine, enough? Is it possible for someone to work the raw "winds of change" within themselves? What of the story of our Order about the man who asked for a double portion of power, that he might have twice as much power as his teacher? Then received the robe from his predecessor and struck a river with that same robe and the river parted. Are we to believe that the robe held the power or the man held the power? If it was just the robe than what of the Great Divine? How did he factor into this, did he simply infuse the man with the asked power? Then why the need to have the robe in the first place? There are stories from our Order of people praying over water and using it to heal the sick. What of this? Then there is the story of one of our Order who was told by the Great Divine to speak to a rock so that water would come from it, but he disobeyed and struck the rock, but water still came.

In the end we return to the original question: "Is a pentagram inherently evil?" or we can ask a more broad reaching question which I think is better anyways, "Can symbols be inherently evil or good?". I believe that the answer is a solid and resounding, NO. How is it possible that a shape could be evil. If this was the case wouldn't school children everywhere be releasing darkness and demonic forces as they draw space scenes (cause as we are all aware most children draw pentagrams when making stars)? Wouldn't everyone wearing a cross be somehow changed simply by the wearing? We know this is not the case.

Side Note: there is some interesting reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagram to be had there. Especially the geometry part.