Pentacle: The Seal of Solomon
It is no secret that the pentacle, or upside-down five-point star and circle has held fear in the hearts of many since the mid-nineteen century. This directly came about because of the claims of a man named Éliphas Leví, who took it upon himself to characterize it in a sinister context. This inaccurate and painfully incomplete association of this symbol with evil has long deserved to be corrected and redeemed.
The truth is that the pentacle has a much more ancient origin than the Victorian era. It has come down to us through thousands of years.
Before it was assumed to be a tool of all things wicked, it was actually a symbol of the order and power of God. It was through this symbol, inscribed on a ring, that supposedly gave a king power to build a holy temple.
But even within the Victorian era, a contemporary of Éliphas Leví, Joseph Smith the prophet saw the upside-down pentacle's intrinsic value, so much so that he put it into the windows of the building that represented the pinnacle of their ideals and beliefs: the Nauvoo Temple.
In truth, the first chronologic connection of the pentacle to the supernatural, either good or evil, comes in the apocryphal Testament of Solomon. God gives Solomon a ring inscribed with this symbol. According to tradition, the son of David received this magic ring, and used it to control and dominate various demons, who were then forced to help him build the iconic structure.
The Temples of God generally have always been associated with symbols. These figures imply many beautiful and powerful ideas to those with eyes to see. Further, they are most often given through archetypal stories in order to provide context and convey a deeper meaning or message.
The question then arises, why would God inscribe a ring with this symbol if that figure was intrinsically evil? If God puts a symbol on something, what does it imply about that object? Moreover, what does it imply about the symbol itself?
Not only does the pentacle deserve to shed the unsavory associations put upon it by an ignorant advocate and his fear-mongering followers, but we must seek and knock and learn to understand the implied meaning God has placed upon it; there must be deeper meaning and truth at the center of what this symbol means; if we are patient and discerning, perhaps we may gain godly power from a more complete understanding and integration of the meaning of this symbol.
In the world of Wizarding in the Wild West, the pentacle is a prominent symbol on the distinctly non-magical Blackburn Family Crest. The brothers were born in 1802 in Cork County, Ireland to otherwise totally magic-less parents and well before the days of Éliphas Leví, and at the time, there was absolutely no association with black magic, or even magic in general.
If there was any occult association with the symbol, it was with Free Masonry; their sailor father was heavily involved in the local lodge, and had had this tradition passed down to him from father to son. As masonry has long had an association with secrets and societies, and the brother's mother happened to be a witch, secrets couldn't help but find such an unique and contrasting pair of boys. But at this point in time, the pentacle had nothing whatsoever to do with it.