Pentacles, Pentagrams, and Witchcraft

Disclaimer

This is NOT a page about Wiccans or neo-pagans, and I do not advocate the belief that Wiccans are Satan-worshippers and/or baby-killers. I am well aware that they are not. This is a starting point for historical research into the great witch craze of 1100-1700 AD. And please, don't ask me for spells.

Pentacles and Pentagrams

A pentacle is a five-pointed star with a single point upright. A pentagram is a drawn or written representation of the pentacle.

Although pentacles, they were prominently used as a Christian symbol. Up until Medieval times, the five points of the star represented the five wounds of Jesus Christ on the cross. Some churches still have pentagrams, even inverted ones, in their stained glass windows.

The pentagram, especially the inverted one, was not considered a symbol of evil until perhaps the 1300s.

Perhaps beginning with the destruction of the Knights Templar by the combined treachery (my opinion) of King Philip IV and Pope Clement V, the inquisition of the church began. Starting with the Templars, whom fell partly under accusations of worshipping an idol called Baphomet. It is highly unlikely that the Baphomet of the Templars (if it existed at all) resembled anything like Levi's Baphomet. Still the order was squashed by torture, death and Papal dissolution by 1314. Like the torture of the Albigensian Cathari, and the aforementioned Templar order, the church began to destroy all who opposed the rule of the Holy See. Heretics, Pagans witches all met with the same fate of conversion or death.

It was at this time that the horned gods still worshipped by the peasants and folk peoples of Europe, such as Pan became the accepted (by the Christian Church) imagery for the Devil. Therefore in the eyes of the church if the peasants worshipped false, evil Gods, then the Pentagram symbol (used as a symbol of security) must therefore be evil as well (DaFoe)

As a Ward

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Pins and Witchcraft is copyright 1997-1998 to Shantell Powell.