Further Examinations on Pyramid and Pentagram

I have had a change of thinking. I would like to reexamine a couple of esoteric symbols thanks to some recent reading.

In my post on the Witch's Pyramid, I wrote the following:

It has come to my attention that, in recent years, the Witches Pyramid has had ascribed to it a fifth principle: "To Go." I believe this is happening from a misguided attempt to correlate the pyramid with the pentagram. The pentagram is a very different symbol and does not discuss the hermetic principle symbolized by the pyramid. The pentagram is a symbol of the unity of the five elements of the universe, not the principles employed by hermetic students to understand how to evolve the spirit. Though I'm fine with people developing whatever mnemonic device they feel is helpful, I do not agree with inventing something that never was while claiming that it did. The pyramid has older names including the "Hermetic Quaternary" and the "Four Powers of the Magus." Both of these names specify four principles, not five, because the new principle that has been invented is clearly not necessary. The four principles are forward-moving principles, so to state that one must then go is redundant to the goal. It also shows a failure to understand what is being taught.

The hermetic magical principles are not symbolized by the corners of the pyramid, but by the faces. There are four triangular faces representing the principles. They are supported by a square face that is hidden. Triangles are symbolic of active properties. Squares are symbolic of manifestation. The surprise to most is that we are not trying to metaphorically travel to the peak of the pyramid. Too many people assume incorrectly that the only way to symbolize the attainment of higher states of being is with a literal movement upward. However, in this case, what is revealed comes from looking at the face of the pyramid that we cannot see. On each of the active faces rests one of the elemental angels, as we saw in the Wheel of Fortune, above. On the base is the manifested figure of the Sphinx herself, for she represents the unity of the elements. Only through unifying the powers of the elements do we gain manifestation. This is the core lesson of magical work.

My change of thinking is not about the reinvention of the Witch's Pyramid to have 5 principles. I still believe contemporary magicians should not try to muck with an axiom that works. Rather, I am seeing more connection between the pyramid and the pentagram. This change of thinking is not simplistically caused by the fact that both feature the number 5; there are deeper connections at work. I would like to explore them and expose more of my thinking on the matter.

I also wrote in the previous entry a little about the riddle posed by the sphinx to Oedipus. Let's look at that riddle so we have it before us (Apollodorus, 3.5.8).

And having learned a riddle from the Muses, she sat on Mount Phicium, and propounded it to the Thebans. And the riddle was this: What is that which has one voice and yet becomes four-footed and two-footed and three-footed? . . . Oedipus found the solution, declaring that the riddle of the Sphinx referred to man; for as a babe he is four-footed, going on four limbs, as an adult he is two-footed, and as an old man he gets besides a third support in a staff.

Note that I stated that squares are symbolic of manifestation. That is an important link to understand the potential divinity in man. Our bodies are material things, made up of the four elements unified on this material level. But on a divine level, there is a reflection of our bodies ("as above, so below"). That reflection is also made up of the unified elements, but in the divine sense; the elements are not material, they are spiritual. They are the elements about which Levi spoke. They are the non-material principles that together make up the spirit. That which is opposite to the peak of the pyramid is the base of the pyramid. So if the peak is our spirit self, which is conveniently represented as a point with no dimension, the base is our body, which is also conveniently represented by the square, the symbol of the material in balance. I have already mentioned in the last entry that the base is also represented by the sphinx herself, a being still in this material plane, but incorporating all of the elements. She is the Magus.

What changed the connection between the pyramid and the pentagram was a passage from an occult writer I greatly respect, though more current than Levi. Here is a passage (translated) from The Practice of Magical Evocation by Franz Bardon:

When practicing evocation or invocations of beings, it is desirable to draw within the center of the circle in which one is to stand another smaller circle or a pentagram with one of its points upwards, the symbol representing man. This is then the symbolization of the small world, of man as genuine magician.

So here we read that Bardon reveals the symbolism of the pentagram be symbolic of man. Allow me to provide an image that may help illustrate this point. It is by Agrippa, from book two of his Three Books of Occult Philosophy, 1651.

Next, let's recall the associations between the pentagram and the elements, which has come down to us through tradition from the mystery schools.

So we can see that the pentagram embodies both the elements and the body of man. But does this analogy only seem solid because both coincidentally incorporate the number five? Does the connection between the pyramid and the pentagram go deeper? Considering the image above, what happens if we lose one element? Five becomes four. Suppose that the element above called "spirit" is more correctly "divinity." Without the divine, one is a creature with four elements only, much like the sphinx - the base of the pyramid.

For one to travel from the base of a pyramid to its peak - to metaphorically evolve from the material plane to a divine one that is without dimension - one must travel up each (perhaps all) of the four triangular faces. To do this on a material pyramid, one would travel a distance that the Greek mathematicians called "phi"

The value of phi was so important to the Greeks that it was used as the basis of all of their architecture and was called the Golden Mean and the Divine Portion. Interestingly, the same value is found all over the pentagram.

The shape of man's body is also packed with phi, which is illustrated by this image very well (represented by any section labeled M, where E is the value of 1).

So it is true that the Hermetic principles are symbolized by the faces of the pyramid, rather than by the corners. But it is also true that there is a divine relationship between the symbolism present in both the pyramid and the pentagram. Both are helpful to understanding the lessons found in the witch's pyramid as a guide to evolving the spirit. Both point to the power inherent in man.