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Post subject: Unicursal Hexagram & Flower: Petal up or petal down?
 Posted: Oct 04, 2007 - 05:24 PM
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Joined: Jun 01, 2007
Posts: 55
Location: Rainy Maine
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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? |
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Aum418 |
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Post subject: Re: Unicursal Hexagram & Flower: Petal up or petal down?
Posted: Oct 04, 2007 - 05:37 PM
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Joined: Oct 01, 2006
Posts: 814
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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":
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?
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. |
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Erwin |
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Post subject: Re: Unicursal Hexagram & Flower: Petal up or petal down?
Posted: Oct 04, 2007 - 06:26 PM
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Joined: Feb 15, 2007
Posts: 314
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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. |
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morphon |
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Post subject:
Posted: Oct 04, 2007 - 10:59 PM
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Joined: Aug 25, 2006
Posts: 15
Status: Offline
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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 |
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kuniggety |
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Post subject:
Posted: Oct 04, 2007 - 11:07 PM
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Joined: Nov 27, 2006
Posts: 88
Location: Okinawa, JPN
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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. |
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Montvid |
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Post subject:
Posted: Jun 18, 2008 - 02:03 PM
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Joined: Jan 12, 2007
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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? |
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Camlion |
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Post subject:
Posted: Jun 18, 2008 - 04:05 PM
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Joined: Apr 23, 2004
Posts: 409
Location: Los Angeles, CA, USA
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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. |
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Montvid |
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Post subject:
Posted: Jul 01, 2008 - 06:04 PM
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Joined: Jan 12, 2007
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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. |
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Walterfive |
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Post subject:
Posted: Jul 01, 2008 - 09:46 PM
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Joined: Jun 08, 2005
Posts: 170
Location: 13th Floor Elevator, Enron Hubbard Bldg. Houston, Texxas
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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.  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!  |
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Montvid |
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Post subject:
Posted: Jul 02, 2008 - 08:15 AM
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Joined: Jan 12, 2007
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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? |
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