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Thelema - Unicursal Hexagram & Flower: Petal up or petal down?

jw - Oct 04, 2007 - 05:24 PM
Post subject: Unicursal Hexagram & Flower: Petal up or petal down?

The unicursal hexagram is a popular image for representing thelema. Thelemapedia and Wikipedia represent thelema with this image including the central five-petal flower, like so:

It was pointed out somewhere on some board or other that that image is upside-down. For example on an old edition of Magick it appears "petal up":

So I'm curious why the petal down version is used at all? Is it an accident that has just been copied over and over unthinkingly? Or is there some reason why people have adopted the petal down version?

Aum418 - Oct 04, 2007 - 05:37 PM
Post subject: Re: Unicursal Hexagram & Flower: Petal up or petal down?

jw wrote: › The unicursal hexagram is a popular image for representing thelema. Thelemapedia and Wikipedia represent thelema with this image including the central five-petal flower, like so:

It was pointed out somewhere on some board or other that that image is upside-down. For example on an old edition of Magick it appears "petal up":

i see no reason to prefer one over the other, one is ascent of matter into spirit hte other is descent of spirit into matter... both necessarily. I heard it was a mistake that was propagated though.

Erwin - Oct 04, 2007 - 06:26 PM
Post subject: Re: Unicursal Hexagram & Flower: Petal up or petal down?

Aum418 wrote: › hte other is descent of spirit into matter

Or the emerging of matter from spirit, if you want to avoid dualistic connotations. The downward pointing pentagram can refer to the same thing. You can superimpose it on an image of a tree and see spirit as the root of matter.

morphon - Oct 04, 2007 - 10:59 PM
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93

It could be a visual expression of what is happening in Liber V Vel Reguli, when the Magician is portrayed as upside down in Hir Universe.
As Liber V Vel Reguli is a Ritual to unite the 5 and 6, it seems quite fitting with the Unicursal Hexagram symbol.

93 93/93

kuniggety - Oct 04, 2007 - 11:07 PM
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I saw somewhere where Jim Eschelmann from the College of Thelema/Temple of Thelema wrote how the design was originally up (in the old Golden Dawn 4=7 grade papers) but it got misprinted upside down originally in Crowley's Book of Thoth I believe it was. It was a printer/publisher mistake and Crowley didn't bother getting it flipped back over. From there people used it either way.

Montvid - Jun 18, 2008 - 02:03 PM
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I don't understand how people can be so unintelligent. If you look at the ross + cross symbol you can see, that in the middle it has 5 petals like the pentagram - not the inverse pentagram. in Equinox I there is a Tree where are the practices shown and Tiphareth is marked with a pentagram. In liber ABA - Magick practice a Tree is shown with the unicursal hexagram and a 5 petal pentagram - the inverse pentagram symbolyzing Malkuth ant the heptagon - Kether. Sepher sephiroth - abrahadabra shows a pentagram on the hexagram.
The people that use the inverse pentagram on the unicursal hexagram show that they don't understand anything about the origin of the symbol. And I see a lot of those people. I have a mate who told me he was doing magick for 10 years and he couldn't grasp my explanation and still uses the inverse pentagram...
Could someone comment more on this?

Camlion - Jun 18, 2008 - 04:05 PM
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Yes, see the illustration on the dust jacket of the 'blue brick' edition of Book Four. The unicursal hexagram is shown corrected from the error in Thoth, with the rose of five petals upright. The inverted pentagram is represented below.

Montvid - Jul 01, 2008 - 06:04 PM
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But it is interesting to mention that Liber Reguli is the only (isn't it?) ritual Crowley uses the unicursal hexagram but with reversed pentagrams and NOT pentagrams.

Walterfive - Jul 01, 2008 - 09:46 PM
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Montvid wrote: › I don't understand how people can be so unintelligent.

I don't think it's a question of intelligence. No need to be so dismissive of "people" who otherwise probably think quite like you. Rolling Eyes

I've certainly never seen where Crowley addressed it as a matter of protocol. If it was originally point up in the early editions of Magick and Book 4 and the like, well, hey, most of us have never had access to those rarified early editions.

So it's rather become more a question of what one is used to seeing.

IIRC, the design (as I first saw it) on the card in the Large Thoth Deck has it point down, once you orient the card's back as though the Cross on the back were normally situated. For many years, I don't recall seeing it any other way, as is evident (IIRC again) in the Castle Press Edition of MIT&P.

Irregardless, I'm sure the mold Bonnie Cabal (a papered XI degree) made for the silver Unicursal Hexagrams sold by the Magickal Childe in the 80's and 90's were the same way, I wore one of those for many, many years. The one I wear now merely has a round blood-red gemstone in it's center, and not a proper Rose of either direction.

I've had it explained to me that unicursal hexagram's actual symbolism was the Tudor Rose placed over the X-Cross of St. Andrew, and placed in the center of a stylized Masonic square & compass. That person claimed it was originally of Jacobite origins, and that it related to King James IV of Scotland, and the House of Stewart. That it wasn't even originally Thelemic, to them it was more along the lines of a Heraldric symbol. I don't know if it's true or not, but I can certainly see those elements as comprising the design.

In the end, what does it really *matter* anyway? Symbols convey meanings that transcend mere words or simple explanation.

Really-- the silly arguments about wether a sign or symbol such as rose or pentegram is right-side-up or up-side-down should be left to the Wiccans and Pagans, we have much loftier things to disagree about! Wink

Montvid - Jul 02, 2008 - 08:15 AM
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I saw Kenneth Anger's film Lucifer Rising 1973 the other day and he got the petals inverted too. It seems it was a "back in the day" phenomena. Interesting is the Castle Press ed. of MT&P version too.
But let us look at Kenneth Grant's Hidden Lore wich has the same symbol as the new MT&P. It is written that it was first published in ten parts 1959-1963. Of course it was a very limited edition and not everyone had it.
Now the Thoth Tarot was first published in 1969. Someone made an error or just didn't know?

S.G.L. - Nov 13, 2008 - 08:17 PM
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kuniggety wrote: › I saw somewhere where Jim Eschelmann from the College of Thelema/Temple of Thelema wrote how the design was originally up (in the old Golden Dawn 4=7 grade papers) but it got misprinted upside down originally in Crowley's Book of Thoth I believe it was. It was a printer/publisher mistake and Crowley didn't bother getting it flipped back over. From there people used it either way.

I was interested in the same thing. Is it with one petal up or down? And I found out that indeed, the one publishing The Book of Thoth printed it upside down.

P.S. Greetings everyone. This is my 1st post here Rolling Eyes

peregrinus93 - Nov 14, 2008 - 05:30 PM
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93

I have a unicursal hexagram pendant that I wear all the time with the petal down. To my eye, this can be viewed as follows: The petals form the inverted pentagram, but the spaces between the petals form rays which terminate in the points of an upright pentagram. The way I look at it, the 'inner' or 'hidden' image is of a pentagram aright, and the petals fill in the spaces between; This is consistent with the idea of Spirit ruling over the elements being concealed by the grosser material world (the more noticeable petals). Hence it is a perfect symbol of the 'occult' Truth of the 5 within the 6.

Whether any of this was originally intended I don't know, and consider it more or less academic.

93/93

Camlion - Nov 14, 2008 - 06:01 PM
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LOL All rationalizations for inverting the petal aside, I believe that precedent had it upright. Of course, nothing really matters unless it matters to the beholder, but it is interesting how things can be gotten wrong or even backwards and yet, over time, become widely accepted - as we become accustomed to the revision. Probably a lesson in there somewhere? Wink

michaelclarke18 - Nov 15, 2008 - 05:33 PM
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''I don't understand how people can be so unintelligent.''

What an awful, elitist and narrow minded statement.

aishmlchmh - Nov 16, 2008 - 09:34 PM
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My understanding of the unicursal hexagram is that this is shown with the five petaled rose in the centre whereas no five petaled rose is indicated with what the old G.D. called the "Pseudo-Hexagram" (mentioned in their 4=7 "Polygons and Polygrams" paper; omitted from the Stella Matutina version). Not surprisingly, Regardie and others fail to make the distinction between the two figures although this would appear to differentiate them (although this would not necessarily be the case with the "Hexagram of the Beast" in Liber V). As far as a printers error goes in respect to "The Book of Thoth" which clearly shows this image reversed, a citation to substantiate this claim would be nice. Hymenaeus Beta's footnote (#336) in Book IV doesn't make any mention of such a discrepancy and provides a useful history and a number of quotes from Crowley in respect to this figure.

Montvid - Nov 18, 2008 - 02:41 PM
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Gayatri yantra, Rajastan, XVIII century, gouache.

Found in Lithuanian translation: Upanišados - Audrius Beinorius, 2006
Translation source: Sri Sankaracaryagranthavali. Prathamo Bhagah: Isadidasopanisadah Sankarabhasyayuktah, ed. Sri Govinda Sastri (Dilli: Motilal Banarsidass, 1992)

An inverted pentagram in a hexagram. What's that? Anyone care to comment? Smile

I think the inverted part has something to do with the feminine? Anyway interesting to note that there is something like an inverted pentagram in India!!!

aishmlchmh, could you quote Hymenaeus Beta's footnote (#336)? I don't have the book. Or pm it to me. Wink

Montvid - Nov 18, 2008 - 02:48 PM
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Montvid wrote: › But it is interesting to mention that Liber Reguli is the only (isn't it?) ritual Crowley uses the unicursal hexagram but with reversed pentagrams and NOT pentagrams.

Why noone can answer THAT question? Now looking at the Gayatri yantra it looks like Crowley's Liber V has something to do with Gayatri.

amadan-De - Nov 18, 2008 - 10:30 PM
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Quote: ›
I don't understand how people can be so unintelligent

Really? How many people have you met? I frequently stagger myself with my own stupidity and see no reason to think others are any different.

Quote: ›
it looks like Crowley's Liber V has something to do with Gayatri

or similar 'problems' provoke similar 'solutions'...

Walterfive - Nov 19, 2008 - 06:23 PM
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Montvid wrote: ›

Montvid wrote: › But it is interesting to mention that Liber Reguli is the only (isn't it?) ritual Crowley uses the unicursal hexagram but with reversed pentagrams and NOT pentagrams.

Why noone can answer THAT question?

Perhaps because it is not *phrased* as question?

"I'll take Liber Reguli for $500, Alex..."

Walter Five

(Who is realizing that probably only the Americans got that Jeopardy! reference...)

Montvid - Dec 17, 2008 - 04:32 PM
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Hehe I see the Russian Thoth Tarot Muller version has corrected the petals as to the petal up. My English Thoth Tarot Muller version has it down. Smile

Has anyone seen English Thoth Tarot decks with the petal up? Or is this the Russian inovation? Very Happy