The pentagram in Freemasonry

"There is nothing so indestructible as a symbol; but nothing is capable of so many interpretations."
Goblet d Alviella

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The pentagram in Freemasonry

The masonic significance of the pentagram is controversial. While it often appears on masonic regalia and decorative illustration, nowhere is it mentioned in masonic rituals or lectures. Coil’s Encyclopedia asserts: "The Pentalpha is said to have had a great many symbolic and mystical meanings, but it has no application to Freemasonry...."

On the other hand, Waller Rodwell Wright, who had a part in the revisions of the Craft ritual which took place between 1809 and 1815, records a letter written "London Jany 7, 1815": "There is a small lamp used only in this Degree [3rd] whose light is seen from a five-pointed star." Colin Dyer notes "The use of a small lamp in the form of a five-pointed star will be noted. It will also be remembered that this was one of the features deleted when the ritual came up for approval before Grand Lodge in June 1816." ¹

There are other opinions: "By the early Christians it was used to represent the five wounds, the stigmata of the Consolator Mundi, by the Rosicrucians, the five elements and the five senses. Our five-pointed star is in all probability derived from it and is hermetic in origin. Bro. Oliver connects it with the star of manifestation, and builds up a Johannite theory of Christian Masonry upon it. But as according to the old hermetic teachers the Star of Hermes, the great Teacher, was to brighten up the seekers after Light along the misty pathway of this earthly life, to illuminate the darkness of the shadows of death with the radiant gleams of an eternal existence and everlasting truth, there seems to be a great analogy between hermetic and masonic use and teaching. The Pentalpha is also a masons' mark, and is found, I believe, in all countries where masons marks do abound, and also in all ages, more or less."²

Lau. Dermott in the "H. R. A. Grand Chapter Register" ("Ancients") C.F. Kell, Litho, 8, Furnival St Holborn, E.C.

Master Mason’s Jewels. 1880

Royal Masonic Institute for Girls.

1. Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, vol. lxxxix (1976), pp. 202-03.
2. "Freemasonry and Hermeticism," Rev. A. F. A. Woodford. pp. 38-45. AQC, vol. i (1886-88). p. 42.

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