The Elements and The Pentagram
The pentagram is one symbol heavily associated with magick and wicca. It is a very ancient symbol with the first known drawings of a pentagram dating from 3500BC at Ur in Ancient Mesopotamia. The Hebrew people considered it to be a symbol for the truth and representative of the Pentateuch (the first 5 books of the Old Testament). The Ancient Greeks, such as the Pythagoreans called the symbol the Pentalpha, as it can also be composed of 5 A's (or Alpha's). The pentagram is a symbol of the microcosm (man) as opposed to the macrocosm (the universe/God), which is symbolised by the hexagram.
The pentagram is the simplest of all geometric stars. It is generally formed by marking 5 equal points on a circle and drawing connecting the diagonally opposite points. When contained within a circle is is called a circumscribed pentagram or a pentacle.
Alternative ways of constructly a pentagram are by extending lines out from the sides of a pentagon out until the these lines meet at a point or by creating lines between the diagonally opposite corner points within a pentagon.
The elements are represented on the pentagram with Quintessence (Spirit) at the top, the highest point, symbolically representing perfection and attainment, as this Fifth Element only comes into existence when the four primary elements (Earth, Air, Fire and Water) are in harmony. Moving clockwise around the points of the pentagram the elemental correspondences are Water, Fire, Earth and Air.
The placing of the magickal or alchemical elements on a pentagram is similar to the four elemental squares of John Dee's 'Great Tablet of the Watchtowers'. The pentagram has the elements in the same places as the corresponding squares, with the top point, Quintessence, corresponding to the 'Tablet of Union'. The two top squares of the 'Tablet of the Watch Tower' are Air and Water, which correspond to the middle two points of the pentagram, while the lower two squares, Earth and Fire, correspond to the lower two points of the pentagram respectively.
The Inverse Pentagram
It is only in modern times that the Inverse or Inverted Pentagram (two points at the top, one point at the bottom) has become associated with black magick and Satanism. In the ancient world there was no distinction relating to the orientation of the points.
With regards to the Magickal Elementals, an inverse pentagram would have the Quintessence, Spirit, at the lowest position, with the physical lower elements above it. This is certainly symbolic of the Left Hand Path concept of a physical path, over a spiritual path.
