by Megan Stoddard

Created on: September 30, 2009   Last Updated: October 04, 2009

This symbol of the divine is often used as a sign to ward off evil. In religious rituals, it is drawn with water on the foreheads of the faithful. Christians have historically worn it around their necks to identify their faith. In recent times, an upside down depiction of it came to be associated with devil worship. For many others, it is a symbol of the Goddess.

If you think this is a description of the cross, you are right. If you think this is a description of the pentacle, you are also right.

The pentacle is a simple five pointed star, surrounded by a circle (the star alone, without the circle, is called a pentagram). Through the first thousand years of Christianity, it was a clearly Christian symbol, representing the five wounds of Christ. Over five centuries before Christ, it was used by Pythagoras and his disciples to identify themselves. In still more ancient times, extending back over several millennia and forward as recently as the fourth century CE, the pentacle symbolized a Great Goddess worshipped through much of Europe and the Mediterranean. Best known as Kore, she is associated with goddesses as diverse as the Greek Persephone, the Roman Ceres, the Celtic Morrigan, and the Hindu Kali.

As a symbol of the Goddess, the pentacle has many meanings. In modern Paganism, it is usually described as representing the five elements, or five sacred things: earth, air, fire, water, and spirit. It is considered a powerful protective symbol against potentially harmful spirits, much like the cross is in many branches of Christianity. The casting of a circle, which is the most basic ritual in Wicca and in some eclectic forms of Paganism, often begins with a pentacle being drawn in water on the forehead of each participant and is completed by drawing a pentagram in the air.

Modern Paganism is a fairly new set of religions, as diverse from each other as are all the branches of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. Wicca, perhaps the best known form of Paganism, and certainly best known for using the pentacle as a symbol, began in the mid twentieth century. It, and other Pagan religions, have reclaiming of old gods and old words at their core.

Wicca is the Old English root of the words "witch" and "wicked." Before it acquired those negative connotations, a wicca, also spelled wicce, meant a wise woman, one who knew how to heal, one who understood the healing powers of herbs and natural energies. A wicca could work with natural forces to bring about the desired outcome

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