Pentacular Manslaughter:

The Pentacle/Pentagram are two very well known Occult symbols, which pretty much goes without saying, but for me, they mean more than just their usual interpretation.

I personally prefer the Pentacle, as I tend to bind all of my symbols and sigils in circles, so instead of constantly typing out both terms, I shall instead focus on that one in particular.

Also keep in mind that I am not trying to redefine the commonly accepted meanings behind this symbol, as much as I am simply expanding on that in order to explain what it signifies to me and my path.

Inverted, the Pentacle represents a funnel, one meant to symbolize the drawing in of energy. The downward point symbolizes grounding, an embrace of the physical. Whenever I wear an inverted pentacle, it is expressing that I am on the hunt, seeking to draw energy into myself, while remaining steadily bound to the material world.

Right-side-up, the Pentacle represents an ascension of my nonphysical self, which I refer to in my path as my Phantom.

Bear with me here, I’m going to try and explain my used of that term.

For me, there are 3 sides to my being. The Physical, which is my fleshy, mortal shell, the pupa in which I spend the first stages of my journey in this life. The Mental, which is where logic, reason, emotions, and in my case, lunacy are stored, and finally the Spiritual. I believe that the mental and spiritual portions make up the soul, and that once we die and cast away our flesh, all that we are carries over to our next form. Since this form tends to be intangible at times, and since I have access to it anytime I exit my body for whatever reason or another, I began referring to it as my Phantom as a way to distinguish it from the soul or spirit.

The terms I use in my path are ones that I came up with years ago, in order to explain things I experienced, a very long time before I ever encountered my first piece of literature on the Occult, so some of them don’t exactly mesh well with what most people are used to. What can I say? After that long, I became stuck in my own way of doing things. Plus “Astral projected self” doesn’t work for me since I don’t tend to go to the Astral, and plus it’s a bit of a mouthful.

Moving on….

Basically, my Phantom is everything that I am outside of my flesh. It is the me that transcends the physical for the purposes of spiritual journeys, shifting, or the hunt. (Which is a totally different type of hunt from the one mentioned above.) So whenever I wear a Pentacle that is not inverted, it expresses an intention on my part to seek beyond the physical world, focusing my attention past materialism and anything else that binds me to my flesh.

While I also adhere to the Pentacle’s myriad of other meanings and symbolisms, these in particular are the foremost on my mind anytime I happen to have one on my person, and dictates just how I choose to wear it.