From: eddie@hermes.oit.unc.edu (Edward M. Averett)
Newsgroups: alt.magick
Subject: Re: The pentagram
Date: 14 Sep 92 21:31:13 GMT
Organization: University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

In article <192j84INN2ib@early-bird.think.com> cward@Think.COM (Christopher) writes:
>and, hence, the point-downward is inverted.  I doubt the hundreds of books,
>schools and teachers who also agree with me are "both fallacious and ignorant".

Um. ..it has been my lifelong impression that whenever "most" of the world
thinks something is correct, it ain't. I certainly refuse to subscribe to any
viewpoint which thinks that 10,000 average viewpoints are worth one informed
one.  And no, I don't think that most of the "teachers and schools" out there
are either informed or reliable.  If you are Very lucky, any one grouping may
have 1 person at the top who has a good notion of what's going on, and these
folk have generally consented to address one particular focused plan of attack
(viewpoint, worldview, set of disciplines) in order to try to get a "group" 
to congeal around them.

In my experience the best sources to date really don't give a damn in what
direction the pentagon is pointing.  A 5-sides star points in 5 direction. 
Which side of a square is up?  A right triangle? A hexagram (point up or side
up?) Does a circle "point" in any direction?  All these are tailorable to 
the specific work you're doing and what you want to accomplish.  It's like 
saying that the altar cloth for south should be "red".  How silly.  Use what
you have and what works for you Then And There. 

To say that you should always use a red cloth is to imply a basic fundamentalist
approach, which is what Tagi is suggesting about the pentagram, at the very
least. More likely, he is implying (correctly) that in Western Judeo-Christian
Civilization, in the past 1900 years or so, that lots of folks Do and Did 
believe that it mattered.  And that to subscribe to such a viewpoint in these
modern and enlightened days is to subscribe to a fundamentalist viewpoint in 
magick.  Fundamentalism doesn't mean Fundamentalist Christian. 

You don't have to know it's origins in order to ascribe it to being fundy. 

I will further add that at its root, a pentagram is a geometrical figure. 
If you want to know where pentagrams likely come from, start looking in 
history for people who started playing with geometrical shapes.  These do 
in fact lead to some of the same sources folks have been quoting, but maybe
some for different reasons.  I will point out that the greeks popularized 
the use of the five regular polyhedrons and their corresponding faces quite
a lot through the European theater.
 
>The actual origins are shrouded in such mystic obscurity that a 
>"fundamentalism" is not applicable here. (see all previous posts, most notibly
>on how the "correct" position corresponds to the human form - head up for
>most of us).  I'd rank point-up=correct right up there with North being
>reffered to as "up", protons are positive, electrons negative.
>
One of the most important symbols of a human figure, where it's "position" is 
important, in magick, is in the tarot trump, the hanged man.  Note that 
here he is upside down.  One might suggest that if you're in the default
position, it has less magical impact.

Also and again, the words we pick help define our reality.  We're such "word
dependent" people.  Do you think people in the southern hemisphere use
"north" as a default up?  Is it possible you are hemisphere-oriented or even 
biased?  Aussie terminology being an exception, or course, having pride in 
being displaced Britishers.  Many models of our world have a tendency to 
stop being thought about once people have easy labels for them.  People make
the craziest assumptions based on the words we pick, including your example
of protons and electrons. ....The definitions can limit our model in 
unseen ways.  If you have an opportunity to free yourself from the limitng
influence of thinking of pentagrams as having a correct orientation, no 
matter what it is, then you will have opened your mind up to new magical 
doors.  

Tagi was "trying" to do ya'll a favor.  -) 

Please note that if in a particular working, or with a particular group in 
a specific situation, if you want to say, "Today, we'll use point-left as 
the correct orientation, and so point-right will be inverted", then you 
are using it by point-and-consensus, and you will have actually strengthened
the work you are doing thereby. 

Everything you know is wrong. Nothing is true, Everything not Forbidden is
Compulsory. 

				-eddie@legba.oit.unc.edu
Newsgroups: alt.magick