There has been considerable debate about the exact difference in meaning between the words “pentacle” and “pentagram”. Currently, the leading view (as enshrined on many Web sites devoted to Paganism and occultism) is that a pentagram is simply a five-pointed star, while a pentacle is a pentagram with a circle enclosing it.
However, a different view takes its cue from the presence of the Greek-derived suffix -gram in pentagram, meaning “written artifact”, and determines that the pentagram is the written form of a pentacle – with or without the circle. In this view, any of the illustrations on the “pentacle” and “pentagram” entries in this lexicon are pentagrams; the items worn by Neopagans are all pentacles, regardless of the presence or absence of enclosing circles around them.
Unfortunately, this distinction has some trouble with the signs “drawn” in the air during magickal rituals. Is this “drawing” sufficient to qualify as a pentagram, or is it still a pentacle?
In actual practice, most people seem to use the terms more or less interchangeably, and few people are so anal as to sneer at others for using a different definition. (Of course, those few are sufficiently anal to get into prolonged debates and even arguments about it at parties. This gives the rest of us a chance to drink the rest of the liquor and escape.)
<& ./navbar.m &>