Eliphas Levi stated that the inverted pentagram was satanic:
"The Pentagram with two points in the ascendant represents Satan as the goat of the Sabbath; when one point is in the ascendant, it is the sign of the Saviour."
-Ritual of High Magic, ch. 5
"A reversed pentagram, with two points projecting upwards, is a symbol of evil and attracts sinister forces because it overturns the proper order of things and demonstrates the triumph of matter over spirit. It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns, a sign execrated by initiates."
"The flaming star, which, when turned upside down, is the hierolgyphic [sic] sign of the goat of Black Magic, whose head may be drawn in the star, the two horns at the top, the ears to the right and left, the beard at the bottom. It is the sign of antagonism and fatality. It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns."
"Let us keep the figure of the Five-pointed Star always upright, with the topmost triangle pointing to heaven, for it is the seat of wisdom, and if the figure is reversed, perversion and evil will be the result."
- Eliphas Levi
What he said is correct, we don't approach the spiritual by means of the "earth pole"- "triumph of matter".
Rudolf Steiner on the pentagram:
"We're always surrounded by five ether streams in the world around us on earth. They're called earth, water, fire, air and thought ethers. These etheric streams are also active in man: earth ether from the head to the right foot, from there water ether to the left hand, from there fire ether to the right hand, from there air ether to the left foot, and then thought ether back to the head.
"This is the occultist's sacred pentagram, the symbol of man. Its point is directed upwards, which indicates that the spirit streams to man from the heights. The pentagram is present in many flowers and other things in nature. The sign of black magic is a pentagram with one point at the bottom, through which magicians attract bad forces from the earth and send them out of the two top horns into the environment by means of their bad will in order to use soul and nature forces for their own egotistical, evil purposes."
This links in with another process used in Black Magic- drawing up forces through the feet.
Rudolf Steiner:
Streams of ether are always circulating out of the cosmos through the human body. One such stream enters through the head, passes from there into the right foot, then into the left hand, then into the right hand, then into the left foot, and from there back to the head. If we think of a man standing in the position just described, with outstretched arms, then the streaming has the form of a pentagram.
It would be bad for man if the stream did not enter into him through the head but through the feet. All evil influences enter the human body through the feet. The black magicians make use of this.
-Guidance in Esoteric Training, Talks & writings 1903-1913, GA#245
Healing is a return to grace, in soul or in stature, we pray that:-
Let there be no further insult to our being -
This being of Man, and our being of Christ.
Within each one of us there is that undertow which summons us back,
Back to the perfection of Love
Whose pinions brush past and carry twofold.
In strength of the soul,
Great and fantastic goodness does multiply,
Whilst virtue's draughts infill our being
With momentous tribute to this Life we are living
And compounded to.
We pray, as we wake,
That our first choice is made and made well,
And may each of our brothers and sisters also come to this World
In full happiness, and health -
The health of a happy spirit,
Who understands the Grace of God
Which smiles with constancy and Love
Undeterred, unharmed, unmarred.
Christ give us the patience,
Whilst we are incomplete,
To forgive ourselves of that which makes us weak,
And know only of Love as is perfect.
AMEN
-B.Hive
Amethyst is
the final gemstone of the Apocalyptic ring. Since 610 A.D. it has been
the gemstone of the bishop's ring in the Roman Catholic church. It
mainly appears in pyramidal hexagonal violet crystals. The color stems
from iron together with titanium and manganese, two of the higher
congenial elements of iron. So, we have before us a scale of higher ego
aspects together with the violet color which involves the blue of
devotion and the red of the blood forces. Add to these the sun-like
hexagonal symmetry and we have the basic features of what in the Gospels
is called love of one's neighbor. The Greek word amethustos means:
sober, not inebriated. How true it is that love of one's neighbor should
be free from any intoxication.
By the
way, amethyst is the third gemstone with hexagonal crystals. The three:
amethyst, emerald and beryl form a triangle within the circle. The
Greek author Lucian, in the second century A.D., describes in his Vera
Historia the city of the Islands of the Blessed. The walls of this city
are of emerald, the temples of beryl, and the altars therein of single
amethysts.
Complementary
qualities appear in amethyst and carnelian, love of one's neighbor is
both conditional to and as a result of the way which leads to
resurrection. They are the response (German: Antwort) on the Word of
God.
Bringing
now together the qualities which arise between the pairs of gemstones
we recognize the "armor of God" St.Paul describes in the sixth chapter
of his epistle to the Ephesians:
"Stand therefore, having your loins girt
about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness and
your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all,
taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the
fiery darts of the wicked and take the helmet of salvation and the
sword of the spirit, which is the Word of God. Praying always with all
prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all
perseverance and supplication for all saints."
- Dr. Simon van der Heide, Haarlem, Holland- past Secretary-General of the International Union of Geological Sciences.
Carnelian,
also called cornelian or sard, is the sixth gemstone. It is a
chalcedony coloured by iron hydroxide. The name carnelian stems from the
wonderful red color, a real incardanine. It is indeed a gemstone
related to the process of incarnation. Max Stibbe, one of the first
Waldorf teachers in Holland, considered the sequence of gemstones on the
high-priest's breastplate as a reflection of the spiritual way of the
old Jewish history. These twelve gemstones begin with carnelian, the
gemstone of consanguinity, and is finally leading to jasper, the
gemstone of unselfishness. That means: the blood had to be kept pure in
such a way that it would provide unselfishly the body and the substance
in which the incarnation of Christ could take place.
The twelve
gemstones of the apocalypse represent the way of Christendom, beginning
with the ego endowed unselfishness of jasper and completing its way in
amethyst, the gemstone of the love of one's neighbor. Stibbe's problem
was, what is the role of carnelian in the Apocalyptic sequence? Here we
should look at the ultimate goal of incarnation: that is resurrection,
the "Geistesmensch".
In the
aspect of gemstone of resurrection carnelian is one of the two
gemstones representing the highest divine being in the vision of
Apocalypse chapter four.
- Dr. Simon van der Heide
Hyacinth,
facing sardonyx in the ring of the twelve gemstones, is a marvellous
fiery red, totally transparent stone. In chemical terms it is zirconium
silicate. Zirconium is an element with an enormous light capacity. In
the previous century zirconium light was used in the same way as
magnesium light. At the same time, zirconium is an element with great
resistance (it is used in nuclear plants) and a good transparency: it is
the raw material for production of enamel.
Evidently
hyacinth has a relation to light, but in a totally different way than
chrysolite. The latter is more connected with sun-processes, the former
has the light in itself, even to the extent to produce some radioactive
radiation.
The capacity to produce light from inner sources may in a way be considered as an image of the capacity of imagination.
The
relation between sardonyx as the gemstone of inspiration and hyacinth
as the gemstone of imagination is of course clear, also in the sense
that imagination (the transparent hyacinth) has a closer connection to
our thinking, and inspiration (the practically untransparent sardonyx) is
distinctly linked to the forces of the will. The way which leads to
imagination and from imagination to inspiration is the way which makes
our one-sided view of the world whole again. Between hyacinth and
sardonyx there is the way of wholesomeness. The Bible uses the word
“soteria”, translated by salvation.
- Dr. Simon van der Heide
