Paganism 101: What Does The Pentacle/Pentagram Mean?

Paganism 101: What does the Pentacle/Pentagram mean?

When some people see a practioner publicly displaying this symbol their mind probably flashes to some scenes from a horror movie, or some unsavory characters in dark robes doing gods knows what in the woods at the midnight hour. 

As long as there will be Pagans or any minority group around no one takes time to learn about and understand there will always be social stigma and sterotypes.

Does the whole of Christendom get critisized for White Supremists/KKK members who burn crosses, a symbol of Christianity and that of redemption? Before the Nazi's used the swastika, did you know it was an acient symbol of peace? These are extreme examples, but it is to demonstrate that a symbol is just that a symbol and it means nothing unless someone gives it meaning and a purpose.

So what does the Pentacle/Pentagram mean to modern Pagans?

For one, it is a symbol of empowerment, some see it as a protection symbol, some as a symbol of the goddess, in short there is no straightforward meaning, it could mean anything depending on the individual practioner. While some people use it for their own gain, and the purpose of this article and this site is not to pass judgment on anothers path, but to empower the community to find commonground in our diversity, and to reach out and help others unfamilar with our beliefs to understand them better.

Typically to most Pagans especially those that Follow a Wiccan or Wiccan inspired path and also those practioners of Witchcraft out there, the Pentacle represents the four classic elements.

Earth

Air

Fire

Water

Some see the top point as representing the "fifth element" - Spirit. Or our connection to the divine.

When the five point star is encircled it creates the Pentagram, which is seen as a symbol of protection, the star representing humanity being encircled and protected by the divine as represented by the circle.

Historic fun fact: Some Ancient Christians used the Pentacle to represent the five wounds of Christ, and looked at depictions of the Star of Bethleham recently? Yup, Pentacle.

What does the Pentacle/Pentagram mean to you?

           http://thepaganheretic.webs.com

New Activity on "The Pagan Heretic", Twitter, Blogging, Chatting, and more!

A Message to members/Potential members:

Hello,

I have been busy trying to relaunch the site,

Writing blog entries on http://thepaganheretic.blogspot.com

Relauching twitter and putting the twitter gnomes to work tweeting follow us @ThePaganHeretic http://twitter.com/ThePaganHeretic

I have tried to repost on our Facebook page. "Like" us at https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Pagan-Heretics-Book-Of-Shadows-Neo-Pagan-Networkingresource-site/218825084129

I also added the site to the free listings on the "Witches Voice" Website http://www.witchvox.com

And what I am personally exicted about is I added an IRC chat so people can come and talk in real time on any subject that intrests them. Apparently webs only allows free sites to have 10 pages now. Luckily I got grandfathered in with more then that, but if I want to add more pages or a different page I have to delete my existing ones down to less then 10. I don't want to do that, so I added the chat to the About Us/Contact page. It is now the About/Contact Us/Chat Page.

http://thepaganheretic.webs.com/aboutcontactuschat.htm

I have done just about everything that I can to utilyze free word of mouth advertising, this is just a hobby of mine abeit a serious one, I dont have 1000s of dollars to sink into advertising. And Id really like us to take off. It is up to you MEMBERS! to get excited and post and participate and tell your friends about us, and the public may see we are an active community and want to join and be a part of it!

If anyone is still interrested and has ideas on how to get us more web presence and more active participation. Please let me know.

Be Blessed!

Paul "The Pagan Heretic" (Site Owner/Moderator)

"Earth Day" is a Pagan Conspiracy!

Earth Day is a Pagan Conspiracy!

What? It is? I have identified myself as a "Pagan of some persuasion since about 2006, though I have not actively practiced since about 2009-2010, yet this is the first I am hearing that "Earth Day" which at the time of this writing falls on Tuesday April 22nd 2014, today in fact, was some kind of pagan conspiracy, I knew it was a "liberal conspiracy" but not a Pagan one. Then again I guess Paganism and Liberalism go hand in hand, I know I am probably in the minority being a libertarian/conservative leaning person in the greater Pagan community, that is neither here nor there and I digress as that is not the point of this writing.

Anyway, I found this out by accident, while trying to restart intrest in the website I tried to start in 2009, but could not facilitate great intrest in. It is a website dedicated to neo-pagan networking, with a blog, a discussion forum, and resource links and recommended books. (http://thepaganheretic.webs.com) cheap plug, ha!

Anyway, I decided I would try again and use word of mouth, er uh, typing to see if such a site would be needed and well received and so I reactivated a twitter account I made for it that I had long deleted and searched #Pagan, and #Paganism to see if there were other pagans on twitter. What I found amazed me.

One person was quoted as saying:
 "True Christians don't participate in Earth Day, High Holy Day of Paganism...."

and another:
 " Worshiping the earth is paganism, respecting the environment is the same as being a good steward, encouraged by Christ."
Well that one is probably true but still....

"#earth day is a #pagan holiday" and similar tweets along those lines.

Last I checked most modern neo-pagans follow the wheel of the year and Earth day wasn't one of them.

Let us review some history on earth day:
According to Wikipedia - " Earth Day is an annual event, celebrated on April 22, on which events are held worldwide to demonstrate support for environmental protection. It was first celebrated in 1970, and is now coordinated globally by the Earth Day Network,[1] and celebrated in more than 192 countries each year.[2]

In 1969 at a UNESCO Conference in San Francisco, peace activist John McConnell proposed a day to honor the Earth and the concept of peace, to first be celebrated on March 21, 1970, the first day of spring in the northern hemisphere. This day of nature's equipoise was later sanctioned in a Proclamation written by McConnell and signed by Secretary General U Thant at the United Nations. A month later a separate Earth Day was founded by United States Senator Gaylord Nelson as an environmental teach-in first held on April 22, 1970. Nelson was later awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom Award in recognition of his work.[3] While this April 22 Earth Day was focused on the United States, an organization launched by Denis Hayes, who was the original national coordinator in 1970, took it international in 1990 and organized events in 141 nations.[4][5] Numerous communities celebrate Earth Week, an entire week of activities focused on environmental issues."

I Don't see anything about a high holy Pagan holiday, do you? While it is true most pagans revere the earth and take great concern for ecological matters, being interested in ecology is not exclusive to just Paganism. Anyone that cares about the environment should have a vested intrest in "earth day", rather you are a Pagan, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Atheist, a Christian, follow Native American Spirituality, Seeking, Don't care, or just plain unsure. In fact we should make every day 'Earth Day'.

Lets look at two brief examples, according to the website "why Islam" they quote the Quran as saying " Corruption doth appear on land and sea because of (the evil) which men’s hands have done, that He may make them taste a part of that which they have done, in order that they may return. (Quran 30:41)"

They go onto say: "According to the verse cited, God is giving us a taste of our own medicine so that we may return from the wrong directions we have taken in life. If we are to reverse the deterioration of our environment then we have to make some hard choices and change our practices. In other words, ecological change calls for personal change."

The site goes onto talk about Conservation quoting the Quran again: "But waste not by excess: for Allah loveth not the wasters” (Quran 6:141, Yusuf Ali translation)." They go onto talk about other ecological topics and quote applicable excerpts from the Quran.

A Google search of "Environmentalism and Christianity" will lead you to the Evangelical Environmental Network. A Christian based environmental group, which according to the statement on their page is; " a ministry dedicated to the care of God's creation. EEN seeks to equip, inspire, disciple, and mobilize God's people in their effort to care for God's creation. We believe that creation care is truly a matter of life and that pollution harms the vulnerable, especially children and the unborn. We believe the body of Christ should be an example of what God's people can do in the world to solve some of the great challenges of our time.

Founded in 1993, our ministry is grounded in the Bible's teaching on the responsibility of God's people to "tend the garden" through a faithful walk with our Lord Jesus Christ. Based in the scriptures, EEN publishes and develops material for churches, ministries, families, and individuals to use as they seek to know the Lord more fully, especially his care for all that he has made.

We hope that you will use our ministry as a resource as you seek to faithfully follow God's call to care for His creation in your home, family, church life, and vocation. On the site you will find ways to get started, ways to connect with others, daily devotionals, bible study resources, our interactive blog, and programs/initiatives which cover a wide range of creation care topics."

As I have just demonstrated to the skeptics, Earth Day is not a Pagan Conspiracy, conservation and ecology are not the tools of the devil, and Earth Day should be a "High Holy Holiday" of every human that lives on earth and wishes the earth to stick around so we can live on it some more, and not just a concern for Pagans, Wiccans, Witches, Heathens, Native American Spiritualists, and others of an earth based spirituality or religion.

Footnotes: tweets found by searching #Paganism, #Pagan, and #Pagan Earth Day

Earth day info found via Wikipedia entry - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Day

Islam views on Ecology and Conservation found via "Why Islam" - http://www.whyislam.org/social-values-in-islam/social-ties/environment-and-islam/

Views from Evangelical Environmental Network found on their website - http://www.creationcare.org

About my webpage and Online Networking and resource sites.

Hello and Greetings!

I am not sure how many people still check this site or if it was forgotten about. I didn't forget about it but just have not had anything new to add. I still hold my beliefs but in recent years have shifted to non-practicing. Debating politics and working full time have taken up a lot of my time, plus attempting to be a micro farmer and plant vegetable gardens and have our own chickens, ducks, and turkeys.

I didn't know how to get people interrested. I advertised on my personal facebook. On myspace when it was still a thing. On gather.com when i had an active account there. Made a youtube video advertising it. And when facebook still had groups and fan pages that were easy to get to I had those to. I made a blogspot blog. And had a twitter.

My witchvox account was unpublished for inactivity, I re-established it and updated it. This was spurned by talking to people on an gamesite I play on which is political themed about a recent article on CNN's relgion blog that dipicted paganism negatively. I went to look over my resources as I have not debated the history or merits of paganism in some years and I was saddened to see that many of the resources I valued and helped me start out between late 2005-2010 no longer existed on the internet. File den where I had my BoS posted to no longer exists so I lost that, as the computer I had the file saved on got fried many years ago during a severe storm. MaidenMoon a free wicca 101 style e-book the website mantained by the author no longer exists. I had a copy uploaded again to file den. Luckily I googled it and others had it uploaded on sites such as scribd so I resaved it. Wicca Explained a site maintained by pagans I met on myspace years ago no longer exists, as well as Wicca For The Rest of us, a traditional non-ecclectic approach to teaching.

I can't get wicca.com to work either which had a good explaination of the wheel of the year and the holidays.

It really depresses me to know a lot of the good resources no longer exist. Maybe in 2014 it is no longer fashionable to maintain sites or it is no longer popular to seek to study and learn from and understand paganism. In the instant gratification world of smartphones, twitter, and facebook pages, maybe there is not a need for dedicated sites. Especially the sites such as mine that simply direct those interrested to resources to learn from.

I know not everyone understands paganism, and they think we are weird or misguided or simply rebelling. But I wish the resources still existed to show people we have sincerely held beliefs, and though we may think differently and though not everyone still actively practices their fath or path all we want to do is live in harmony with one another and the earth. And to worship or not worship the unexplainable divine as best as we can. The first part of understanding is learning. And jt saddens me there are less learning opportunities available in todays instant information society.

I would really like to get this site up and running again. And provide up to date resources. And network with like minded or even different minded indivduals.

Comparative religion studies has not been my main hobby in quite some time. But that doesnt mean one should stop learning or processing new information or refsmilarize oneself with older forgotten information.

I just don't know how to do it.

If anyone is still interrested and has ideas. Please let me know.