Pentagram

A five-pointed, equal-armed star, used as a primary religious symbol by Wiccans and various other Neopagans. Also used as a mystical glyph or sigil by many other groups, including its use in the LBRP. However, it is widely acknowledged as a standard symbol of Paganism and Pagan belief.

There is some controversy over the exact difference between a pentacle and a pentagram; in most situations, the two words are used nearly interchangeably. There is a slight tendency for ceremonial magicians to prefer “pentagram”, and for Neopagans to prefer “pentacle”.

Ceremonialists also have a much more complex system of different types of pentagrams – instead of the usual Pagan system of invoking and banishing pentacles, ceremonialists have an invoking and banishing pentagram for each element, for use in rituals such as the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram and the Supreme Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram. Additionally, the element of spirit has two different types of pentagrams, “active” and “passive”, which can each be drawn in invoking or banishing mode. The full system is as follows:

	Invoking	Banishing
Spirit (Active)			The active pentagrams of Spirit are used in conjunction with the “active” elements (Fire and Air).
Spirit (Passive)			The passive pentagrams of Spirit are used in conjunction with the “passive” elements (Water and Earth).
Air			In general, the system is such that pentagrams of a particular element are drawn starting along the line that element shares with Spirit; starting the motion towards the element invokes it, and starting away from it banishes it. However, this can’t always be done. Water and Air don’t share any lines with Spirit, and so they have to be drawn towards and away from each other. This means that the invoking pentagram of Air is the same as the banishing pentagram of Water, a less-than-ideal situation. New systems to fix this have been proposed, but have not caught on. Probably the best such proposal is: all pentagrams should start at the point of their element; invoking pentagrams should proceed in a clockwise motion (going left-to-right across the horizontal stroke), and counter-clockwise motion should be used for banishing pentagrams. This system has much to recommend it; its main drawback is that it’s not yet standard. Note that the use of invoking and banishing pentagrams by Neopagans is simply the pentagrams of Earth, leaving out the other elements.
Fire
Water
Earth

To confuse matters slightly more, some ceremonial mages refer to invoking and banishing pentagrams of Spirit only as “equilibrating” and “closing”, respectively. So the “equilibrating active pentagram of Spirit” is the same as the “invoking active pentagram” – and the phrase “of Spirit” can be left out, since no other pentagram has active and passive versions.