Pentagram and pentacle
The five-pointed star, once a sign of health and Christ's wounds, now a symbol of Wicca and, inverted, of Satanism.
Also: pentacle, pentangle, five-pointed star, inverted pentagram
The pentagram, a five-pointed star drawn in one line, appears in Mesopotamia and Greece, where the Pythagoreans used it as a sign of health. In medieval Europe it was a Christian symbol, linked to the five wounds of Christ, and Sir Gawain's shield bears it in the English poem. Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa drew a human figure within it in 1533. In the nineteenth century Eliphas Levi drew a version pointing down with a goat's head, which later groups took as a sign of Satanism. In modern Wicca the pentagram inside a circle is called the pentacle and stands for the four elements and spirit. In earlier ceremonial magic, a pentacle meant a disc or talisman. Meanings depend on who uses it.