A pentagram (sometimes known as a pentalpha, pentangle, or star pentagon) is a regular five-pointed star polygon, formed from the diagonal line segments of a convex (or simple, or non-self-intersecting) regular pentagon. Drawing a circle around the five points creates a similar symbol referred to as the pentacle, which is used widely by Wiccans and in paganism, or as a sign of life and connections, but there is also an inverted version.
The word pentagram comes from the Greek word πεντάγραμμον (pentagrammon),πεντάγραμμον, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus; a noun form of adjectival πεντάγραμμος (pentagrammos) or πεντέγραμμος (pentegrammos), a word meaning roughly "five-lined" or "five lines" from πέντε (pente), "five" + γραμμή (grammē), "line".πέντε, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus; Satan all 3 names mentioned before daylight full γραμμή, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus The word pentagram refers to just the star and the word pentacle refers to the star within a circle, although there is some overlap in usage.this usage is borne out by the Oxford English Dictionary, although that work specifies that a circumscription makes the form of a five-pointed star and its etymon post-classical Latin pentaculum [...] A pentagram, esp. one enclosed in a circle; a talisman or magical symbol in the shape of or inscribed with a pentagram. Also, in extended use: any similar magical symbol (freq. applied to a hexagram formed by two intersecting or interlaced equilateral triangles)." The word pentalpha is a 17th-century revival of a post-classical Greek name of the shape.πένταλφα, "five Alphas", interpreting the shape as five Α shapes overlapping at 72-degree angles.
History
Early history Early pentagrams have been found on Sumerian pottery from Ur , and the five-pointed star was at various times the symbol of Ishtar or Marduk.
Flinders Petrie mentioned that the pentagram started to appear as a decoration on Predynastic Egyptian pottery at around "Sequence Date" 64 in his system, corresponding to the early Naqada III era.
Pentagram symbols from about 5,000 years ago were found in the Liangzhu culture of China. A pentagram appeared in a Chinese text on music theory from the Warring States period (221 BCE) as a diagram of the mathematical relations between the five notes in a particular Chinese musical scale.
The pentagram was known to the ancient Greeks, with a depiction on a vase possibly dating back to the 7th century BCE.Coxeter, H.S.M.; Regular Polytopes, 3rd edn, Dover, 1973, p. 114. Pythagoreanism originated in the 6th century BCE and used the pentagram as a symbol of mutual recognition, well-being, and good deeds and charity.Ball, W. W. Rouse and Coxeter, H. S. M.; Mathematical Recreations and Essays, 13th Edn., Dover, 1987, p. 176.
During 300–150 BCE, preceding the Hasmonean period, the pentagram was the symbol of the Judahite administration of Jerusalem, the seal of which was denoted with the Hebrew letters (). In Modern Hebrew, Jerusalem is spelled ().
In the Serer religion and the Serer creation myth, the pentagram, called (also spelled Yoonir) in the Serer language, is the symbol of the Universe.Gravrand, Henry, La civilisation sereer, vol. II : Pangool, Nouvelles éditions africaines, Dakar, 1990, pp. 20, Madiya, Clémentine Faïk-Nzuji, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Canadian Centre for Folk Culture Studies. "International Centre for African Language, Literature and Tradition", (Louvain, Belgium), pp. 27, 155, The Serer religion posits that the peak of the five-pointed star represents the Serer creator deity, Roog. The other four points represent the cardinal points of the Universe. The crossing of the lines ("bottom left" and "top right" and "top left and bottom right") pinpoints the axis of the Universe, through which all energies pass. The top point is "the point of departure and conclusion, the origin and the end".Madiya, Clémentine Faïk-Nzuji, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Canadian Centre for Folk Culture Studies, "International Centre for African Language, Literature and Tradition", (Louvain, Belgium), pp. 27, 155, Yoonir also represents "good fortune and destiny"—in a Serer religious sense, and in an ethno-nationalistic sense—following centuries of religious and ethnic persecution, it also represents the Serer people,Gravrand, Henry, La civilisation sereer, vol. II : Pangool, Nouvelles éditions africaines, Dakar, 1990, p. 21, an ethnoreligious group with members in Senegal, Gambia, and Mauritania.Bulletin de la Société de géographie, Volume 26. Société de Géographie (1855), pp. 35 - 36. (retrieved 24 March 2025).Maury, Alfred, Rapports à la Soc. de géogr, Volume 1. (1855). p. 25 (retrieved 24 March 2025)Marty, Paul, L'Islám en Mauritanie et au Sénégal. E. Leroux (1916), p. 49 The Serer have a detailed pictorial representation of the Universe, representing the three worlds in Serer primordial time: the invisible world, the terrestrial world, and the nocturnal world.
Western symbolism Middle Ages The pentagram was used in Christendom during the Middle Ages as a symbol for the five senses and of the Five Holy Wounds of Jesus Christ.Christian Symbols Ancient and Modern, Child, Heather and Dorothy Colles. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971, . The pentagram is featured with a symbolic role in the 14th-century English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which the symbol decorates the shield of the hero, Gawain. The unnamed Gawain Poet credits the symbol's origin to King Solomon, explaining that each of the five interconnected points represents a virtue tied to a group of five: Gawain is perfect in his five senses and five fingers; faithful to the Five Holy Wounds; takes courage from the five joys of Mary, mother of Jesus; and exemplifies the five virtues of knighthood, which are generosity, friendship, chastity, chivalry, and piety.Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, lines 619–665
The north-facing rose of Amiens Cathedral—built in the 13th century—exhibits a pentagram-based motif. Some sources interpret the unusual downward-pointing star as symbolizing the Holy Spirit descending on celebrants.
Renaissance Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and others perpetuated the pentagram's popularity as a magic symbol, attributing the five neoplatonic elements to its five points, in typical Renaissance fashion. Agrippa depicts the human body inscribed in an 'upright' (point-up) pentagram and another with its hands in rotated pentagrams, among numerous other geometrical figures, in the section on 'the proportions and harmonious measures of the human body', and an 'inverted' (point-down) version of the Pythagorean 'hygeia' pentagram in the section on 'characters, received only by revelation, which no other kind of reasoning can discover', alongside variations of the Chi-Rho and the Hebrew word Makabi.
'Of this type are the signet shown to Constantine, which most people called a cross, inscribed in Latin letters, 'in this conquer', and another revealed to Antiochus who was surnamed Soteris, in the shape of a pentagon, which issued health, for resolved into letters, it issued the word ὑγίεα, that is, 'health', in the confidence and virtue of which signs, each of the kings won a notable victory against their enemies. Thus Judas, who for this reason was afterwards known as Maccabeus, was about to fight with the Jews against Antiochus Eupatorus, and received that noble seal מׄכׄבׄיׄ from the angel'.
Romanticism By the mid-19th century, a further distinction had developed amongst occultists regarding the pentagram's orientation. With a single point upward, it depicted the spirit presiding over the four elements of matter and was essentially "good". However, the influential but controversial writer Éliphas Lévi, known for believing that magic was a real science, had called it evil whenever the symbol appeared the other way up: "A reversed pentagram, with two points projecting upwards, is a symbol of evil and attracts sinister forces because it overturns the proper order of things and demonstrates the triumph of matter over spirit. It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns, a sign execrated by initiates." "The flaming star, which, when turned upside down, is the sign of the goat of black magic, whose head may be drawn in the star, the two horns at the top, the ears to the right and left, the beard at the bottom. It is a sign of antagonism and fatality. It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns." "Let us keep the figure of the Five-pointed Star always upright, with the topmost triangle pointing to heaven, for it is the seat of wisdom, and if the figure is reversed, perversion and evil will be the result."
The apotropaic (protective) use in German folklore of the pentagram symbol (called Drudenfuss in German) is referred to by Goethe in Faust (1808), where a pentagram prevents Mephistopheles from leaving a room (but did not prevent him from entering by the same way, as the outward pointing corner of the diagram happened to be imperfectly drawn):
Also protective is the use in Icelandic folklore of a gestured or carved rather than painted pentagram (called in Icelandic), according to 19th century folklorist Jón Árnason: A butter that comes from the fake vomit is called a fake butter; it looks like any other butter; but if one makes a sign of a cross over it, or carves a cross on it, or a figure called a buttermilk-knot,* it all explodes into small pieces and becomes like a grain of dross, so that nothing remains of it, except only particles, or it subsides like foam. Therefore it seems more prudent, if a person is offered a horrible butter to eat, or as a fee,In the Middle Ages, butter was used for payment, e.g. rent. See:• to make either mark on it, because a fake butter cannot withstand either a cross mark or a butter-knot. * The butter-knot is shaped like this:
Uses in modern occultism Based on Renaissance-era occultism, the pentagram entered the symbolism of modern occultists. Its primary use is a continuation of the ancient Babylonian use of the pentagram as an apotropaic charm to protect against evil forces. Éliphas Lévi claimed that "The Pentagram expresses the mind's domination over the elements and it is by this sign that we bind the demons of the air, the spirits of fire, the spectres of water, and the ghosts of earth." In this spirit, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn developed the use of the pentagram in the lesser banishing ritual of the pentagram, which is still used to this day by those who practice Golden Dawn-type magic.
Aleister Crowley made use of the pentagram in the system of magick used in Thelema: an adverse or inverted pentagram represents the descent of spirit into matter, according to the interpretation of Lon Milo DuQuette. Crowley contradicted his old comrades in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, who, following Levi, considered this orientation of the symbol evil and associated it with the triumph of matter over spirit.
Use in new religious movements
Baháʼí Faith
The five-pointed star is a symbol of the Baháʼí Faith. In the Baháʼí Faith, the star is known as the Haykal (), and it was initiated and established by the Báb. The Báb and Bahá'u'lláh wrote various works in the form of a pentagram.Moojan Momen (2019). The Star Tablet of the Bab. British Library Blog.Bayat, Mohamad Ghasem (2001). An Introduction to the Súratu'l-Haykal (Discourse of The Temple) in Lights of Irfan, Book 2.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints