Transcript
Speaker: Do you feel drawn to learn more about witchcraft and the occult, but feel lost on where to start? then welcome to Get In Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft. a podcast all about what it means to be a witch and where to get started on your journey.
Speaker: Join us as we navigate through various witchy topics and share what we've learned about the craft. So get in, witches, for part two of our Symbols and Witchcraft series. This time, we're taking a look at the pentagram, pentagon.
Speaker: and crows and ravens.
Speaker: I am excited, though, because by the time this episode comes out... We will. Have. All ready! received the newest release of...
Speaker: That. ACOTAR bug. And yeah the new, um the like the final book in the Alex Stern. series.
Speaker: I'm both sad and excited for that one. Like I'm sad that it's going to be over. The only thing I'm like. ah about is the fact that like we have two books we have to read for book club so i can't focus on any of these releases right now.
Speaker: And then... Also, the newest, um what is it? The Night in the Moth, the newest book of that just came out too. And I got that book and I love it so far, but I have to like, I can't. read it as much as I want to read it because Of everything else we have to... Choo! And it's so sad because I just want to read it. It's so good.
Speaker: Yeah, and... I also just got Reliquary by Rachel. No, not Rachel, Hannah. Hannah Witten. And it's her first.
Speaker: It's her first horror book. Ooh, hopefully it's better than... That one series that I hated that she did. I liked that series and she also did For the Wolf King or For the for the Wolf and For the Throne, I think.
Speaker: were the other two, and I really liked to those. oh nice yeah yeah maybe I'll have to give the other stuff she does a chance I did not what was that What was that?
Speaker: It was very cold. the um I remember we read it for book club and I was like, I know. I am not reading this again. Oh my gosh.
Speaker: My brain. Something about the poisoning is some sort of poison. No, I think it's like. The Foxglove King. The Nightshade Crown. That's the Nightshade Crown. I did not like that series.
Speaker: Yeah, I liked it. I have not read the last one because I've just had Too much going on since it came out and too much I was already reading. Mm -hmm. But there's a wild – she does a – duology called The Wilderwood.
Speaker: And the first one is for the wolf. And the second one is for the throne. And it was just kind of a really interesting take. on like little red riding hood kind of like oh cute Not a retelling, but kind of a retelling.
Speaker: Mm. So. It was pretty good. Yeah. But yeah, I'm excited for. All of the books that are coming out soon. I can't wait to read them. I just wish I had more time. yeah That's the problem. I don't have enough time to read all the books that I want to read. So.
Speaker: Bye. We're not talking about books today, although... we You guys seem to love the book banter. Yes. And you know what? We will be due for another quarterly.
Speaker: Catch up, Sash. Yeah. That'll come eventually. You'll get a ah book episode again. Yes. yeah But no. What are we talking about today? We are talking about some symbols in witchcraft.
Speaker: And I am just going to preface this one with an apology in advance for my pronunciations because I'm going to be discussing some different cultures um and their mythology and folklore around crows and ravens. And some of the pronunciations were almost impossible to find at best and even harder to pronounce when I did find them. So just bear with me. And if I say it wrong, know that I tried really hard. Okay.
Speaker: She's lying. She didn't try hard at all. I didn't try at all, actually. I didn't even look them up. No. All right, so. Just a little history and background. When looking at why blackbirds have such an enormous place in folklore, we have to consider that crows and ravens have long captured the human imagination.
Speaker: Because of their striking appearance, their intelligence. and the tendency to appear around death and human settlements. Their presence can feel mysterious or even ominous, making them natural subjects for folklore and superstition.
Speaker: which in turn means that they simultaneously are associated with death and wisdom, darkness and prophecy, as well as trickery and divine knowledge. Crows and ravens occupy an interesting symbolic middle ground, so they can represent death, darkness, and destruction, but also wisdom, prophecy, and divine knowledge. Their connection to battlefields and the dead likely contributed to their darker associations.
Speaker: While their remarkable intelligence helped create associations, with knowledge and foresight. Corvids. which is the type of bird that these two fall under. are exceptionally intelligent birds capable of problem solving, remembering individuals,
Speaker: using tools and learning from one another. Long before we understood animal intelligence scientifically, These behaviors may have been contributed to the idea that crows and ravens possess supernatural knowledge or wisdom.
Speaker: Although they are closely related, Crows and ravens are different birds. The raven is generally larger and having a heavier bill and shaggier throat feathers.
Speaker: Their symbolism overlaps considerably. but different cultures and modern traditions sometimes distinguish between them. So I'll try to keep that distinction throughout the episode.
Speaker: Corvids are often referenced as a liminal creature. Crows and ravens often appear at the boundaries between the familiar and the unknown in instances around death, Battlefield Wilderness.
Speaker: and human settlements. This has helped establish them as liminal creatures, often imagined as messengers or guides between the worlds and the living and the dead. When looking at their social behavior and adaptability,
Speaker: Crows and ravens are highly social, intelligent, and adaptable birds that live in complex family groups. and can thrive in environments ranging from forest, and farmland. to densities.
Speaker: Their ability to learn, problem solve, and adapt to human environments has likely contributed to our perception of them as unusually clever or almost human -like. And then there's their ability to scavenge as well as their relationship with humans.
Speaker: So as opportunistic scavengers, Corvids have long been found around farms, battlefields, cemeteries, refuse, and other places where food and sometimes the dead can be found.
Speaker: Their association with corpses in the battlefield likely helped connect them with death, while their close proximity to human communities made them familiar figures in folklore and superstition.
Speaker: So looking at the mythology, I'm only going to cover a few. Because... They're... There is a lot. There's a ton.
Speaker: of mythology across different cultures. That's around the crow and the raven. And also these are going to be very brief because again. There's so much information.
Speaker: So starting with the Norse, you have... The Hugin, Munin, and Odin. So in Norse mythology, Odin is accompanied by two ravens, Huginn and Muninn.
Speaker: who are often translated as thought and memory. They fly throughout the world and return to Odin. with what they've seen, connecting the raven with knowledge, observation, memory, and wisdom.
Speaker: In Celtic mythology... we've got the Morgan and the battlefield. So the Morgan and figures associated with her, particularly. This one, there's two, and I know we have brought this up on the podcast before. in um the episode where we covered the Morrigan. There's two pronunciations and I don't know which one is right. It depends on the source that you're getting it from, but it's either Biv or Bov.
Speaker: They're strongly connected with war, fate, death, and prophecy, and the crows and ravens become closely associated with these battlefield manifestations. So this is one of the traditions that helped establish the Corvid as a symbol of death. and warfare.
Speaker: but also of supernatural knowledge and prophecy. So Biv or Bav and the war goddess. So she's particularly associated with the battle, and she can appear in a crow -like form, with her presence sometimes functioning as an omen of death or impending conflict.
Speaker: The important piece here is that the bird isn't simply causing death, but rather it's being seen as an observer. or supernatural messenger revealing what is to come.
Speaker: Then there is the mythology surrounding Bronn or... Bendigade, Ron. in Welsh tradition. The Giant King Bendigaveron. often called Bronn the Blessed, is associated with the raven.
Speaker: And his severed head is said to continue to protect Britain. And this gives us another fascinating connection, again, between the raven death protection. kingship, and the continued presence of the dead.
Speaker: Looking at Greek and Roman, ah Mythology. Apollo... the raven, and prophecy are all kind of tied together. So ravens and crows were associated with apollo and apollo is a god connected with prophecy and divination so in ovid's metamorphosis apollo's raven discovers infidelity and reports it to him.
Speaker: Making the bird a messenger who possesses knowledge. but also suffers for speaking it. And so from this story, we learn why the raven is black.
Speaker: So Ovid also tells us that the raven was once white. But Apollo turned its feathers black after becoming angry over this message that was brought to him. The story creates that link between the Ravens, black coloring, truth.
Speaker: bad news and the consequences of revealing what you know. Greek mythology also uses augury and omens. More broadly, birds played an important role in the ancient Greek and Roman divination, with their behaviors, their flight, their appearances being interpreted as signs from the gods. This gives us an early example of the bird as a messenger between the human and divine worlds.
Speaker: And then this is where I'm really going to apologize. So... We're going to talk about some indigenous traditions. And these pronunciations are all over the place on the internet. So I went with the ones that seemed...
Speaker: the most used in hoping that that meant that they were probably more correct. So among the Tlingit of Southeast Alaska and the Pacific Northwest,
Speaker: There's a story of Yale. or Raven. So. In their tradition, Raven was the creator and bringer of light.
Speaker: Raven has a major role in traditional stories as a creator. and Transformer. In one well -known cycle, Raven releases the stored daylight. bringing light into a previously dark world.
Speaker: He is also associated with teaching humans and with trickster -like behavior. Cling it! Raven traditions can include different raven figures or aspects like one associated with creation and another with the mischievous.
Speaker: Hungry trickster. So even within one culture's tradition, Raven isn't simply good or evil. He's a complicated figure capable of creation. transformation, and deception in teaching.
Speaker: In Haida tradition, Raven is pronounced. Y 'all. And is a central creator trickster figure. So famously associated with bringing light into the world, stories of Raven involve transformation, cleverness, and acquisition or redistribution of things necessary for human life.
Speaker: making him a very different figure from the purely ominous raven found in some European traditions. Lastly, Tsimshian traditions also contain important Raven stories, including narratives concerning the acquisition of light and the ordering of the world.
Speaker: Like neighboring traditions, Raven can occupy several roles at once. being a creator, a transformer. trickster, and bringer of knowledge. rather than putting into the good or bad category.
Speaker: And I want to point out that across these traditions, The raven keeps appearing at the boundaries, so between darkness and light. life and death, the human and the divine, knowledge and mystery. What's especially interesting is that.
Speaker: While this symbolism changes from culture to culture, Raven repeatedly emerges as a figure who knows something. see something or bring something from one world into another.
Speaker: So let's ah talk about the various meanings and symbolisms tied to these two. So first we have light versus shadow. When light is tied to crows and ravens, we're looking at things like wisdom, intelligence, knowledge, memory, prophecy.
Speaker: divination, insight, observation. adaptability, resourcefulness. protection, guidance, transformation, and independence. When shadow is tied to them.
Speaker: It's in Death, War, Destruction. grief, bad omens, secrets, the unknown, trickery, theft, deception, isolation. or the shadow self.
Speaker: The crow and or raven doesn't necessarily represent good or evil. It represents knowing. They're watchers. They see what others don't. They exist around death, but they aren't necessarily agents of death.
Speaker: They're intelligent enough to exploit situations. rather than being inherently sinister. Crows specifically. Their symbolism typically includes cleverness, adaptability.
Speaker: Trickster behavior, community, everyday magic, observation. resourcefulness, messengers, and urbanism or being near human spaces. Raven's symbolism typically includes wisdom, knowledge,
Speaker: Sears, solitude, mystery, prophecy. transformation, divine messenger, and wilderness or threshold spaces. And then there's this idea of counting crows.
Speaker: And I want to kind of preface this section a little bit with. this like quote -unquote TikTok folklore. I feel like this year Sam and I have been harping on discernment in our episodes, but it's honestly so, so, so important.
Speaker: when it comes to these types of practices. and how to interpret them. Many of you have probably seen videos describing different symbols and what more than one of them mean.
Speaker: Crows and ravens are often seen in this way. where one crow means one thing, but. 2. crows mean something different. What we need to ask ourselves in these situations is, Is this actually historically accurate practice?
Speaker: Or did the internet just decide that crows mean X? And if there's different meanings, Where did these come from and in what context? This is just another situation.
Speaker: where it's so important that you're always doing your own research. you're cross -referencing your sources, and you're using discernment in your practice. But... for the sake of symbolism.
Speaker: Here's the numbers versus the general meaning, because this is also going to depend on where your like source is coming from. So the general meaning is that one crow is traditionally associated with. sorrow, bad luck.
Speaker: or the impending difficulty. This is closely related to an old one for sorrow counting tradition, although the original rhyme was primarily about magpies rather than crows.
Speaker: Two crows are often interpreted as joy, good fortune, companionship. or positive change, where the traditional rhyme gives us two from earth.
Speaker: Three crows can vary quite a bit, but the traditional versions associated with three was the wedding or celebration. While modern spiritual interpretations are often connect three crows with change, transformation, or something coming into being.
Speaker: The full rhyme being one for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for death. Five for silver, six for gold. Seven for a secret never to be told.
Speaker: I also came across a similar but slightly different version of the rhyme that went one for sorrow, two for joy. Three for a girl, four for a boy. So.
Speaker: It all just really depends on where you're getting your information from on what the. meanings are going to be. um Another one is finding a crow feather. So in modern witchcraft and spiritual practice, it's often interpreted as a symbol of wisdom.
Speaker: protection, transformation. or a message that deserves your attention. The meaning isn't really a single piece of established folklore, though. So this is a good example of where personal or modern magical interpretation comes to play.
Speaker: When a crow appears at your window, this is often interpreted as a message or a visitation, particularly something calling you to pay attention or take notice. Interestingly, there are also specific folk traditions behind this. For example, one indigenous American tradition.
Speaker: Recorded by the USC Digital Folklore Archives holds that a crow calling outside the window means that a guest is coming. And the important thing to remember here is that there isn't one universal like crow dictionary. A single crow might mean... death in one tradition, a warning in another, and simply just...
Speaker: A clever bird looking for breakfast. in another culture. so you know. Context and personal interpretation matter with ease. When we're looking at crows and raven ties to witchcraft. These symbols and divination can be used in several forms of practices. Some of these include omens, bird augury, watching flight patterns, calls, the number of birds, direction of movement.
Speaker: where they appear and the time that they appear. When it comes to magic in general, these birds can be used as symbols for protection. banishing, shadow work. transformation, divination.
Speaker: Spirit communication. ancestral work, death and rebirth symbolism. knowledge and learning, and breaking patterns. And when used as symbolism in witchcraft in general, Crows and ravens have been used for a plethora of practices. imagery and symbols and a few of these include in familiar imagery altar imagery, the use of their feathers. um in art, statues.
Speaker: as jewelry and tattoos. spell symbolism, and deity work. And then lastly, I just want to like. Put a little note out there for ethics and cultural appropriation. So there are questions that we need to consider in some spaces of practices surrounding the use of crows and ravens within witchcraft. So questions that we should be considering are, can we borrow indigenous raven traditions for modern witchcraft?
Speaker: What constitutes appreciation versus appropriation? Are we taking sacred stories out of their cultural context? Should certain practices be left within the communities that hold them?
Speaker: And how do we cite living traditions differently from ancient mythology? You know that we stand on business when it comes to not appropriating other cultures practices as always do your own research.
Speaker: If a practice is a closed practice and you're not part of that culture or that community, that means that it's not for you to practice. and really truly understand the difference between appreciation and appropriation.
Speaker: Because those are two very different things. Okay, so moving on to the pentagram and the pentacle. And before I begin, I want to preface it with the fact that When we're talking about pentagrams and pentacles today, we are using the modern pagan distinction, but historically, these terms have not always been used so neatly.
Speaker: So just as a... dis I guess a brief description for anyone who is confused on. Either one. The pentagram is a five -pointed star and a pentacle is a five -pointed star enclosed within a circle.
Speaker: And this of course is more of a contemporary pagan distinction, but and in older grimoires, a pentacle could refer more broadly to a magical talisman, and many historical pentacles were not five -pointed stars at all. Some grimoires contained magical diagrams that included planetary symbols and other geometric forms as well, and were also referred to as a pentacle. So to make it Even more confusing. there you go
Speaker: So looking at some background history and symbolism of the two, looking at the pentagram first, the word pentagram comes from... from Greece relating to five and... line or writing, so aka describing a figure composed of five lines.
Speaker: The pentagram is much older than any sort of modern witchcraft interpretation and has appeared across thousands of years of human history and has accumulated different meanings depending on the time period and the culture.
Speaker: Some of the earliest known appearances of a five -pointed star symbol comes from ancient Mesopotamia thousands of years ago. The pentagram during this time didn't necessarily relate to witchcraft at all, and the meaning and usage changed depending on the location and the culture in ancient Mesopotamia.
Speaker: So looking at ancient Greece, the pentagram became significant for followers of Pythagoras known as Pythagoreans. They referred to the pentagram as a pentalfa because the interlocking shape can also be understood as resembling five overlapping Greek alphas.
Speaker: For the Pythagoreans, the pentagram was symbolic of harmony, proportion, health, mathematical perfection, and the order of the universe because the geometry of the pentagram contained repeated relationships associated with the golden ratio.
Speaker: Yeah. And in medieval Christianity, I thought this was very interesting. The pentagram was actually used as a Christian symbol. Its five points were supposed to be representative of the five wounds of Christ, and the pentagram was also appeared in the 14th century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Speaker: where Sir Gawain's shield contained a pentagram which represented faith and virtue. Interesting, Christian. Very, very interesting. So looking at the symbolism of the pentagram, In modern witchcraft, the five points of the pentagram are often associated with the five elements, so spirit, air, fire, water, and earth.
Speaker: When the pentagram is upright with one point at the top, this is often interpreted to mean that the spirit is positioned above. or guiding the material elements. In this, the pentagram represents balance the relationship between spirit and matter, protection, harmony, and the natural world.
Speaker: Looking at the inverted pentagram on the other hand, there is a lot of misconceptions that an inverted pentagram is associated with evil. But the association of the inverted pentagram with satanic or evil imagery developed through 19th century Western occultism.
Speaker: Eliphas Levy was influential with promoting a symbolic distinction between the upright pentagram and the inverted pentagram, and eventually through time, the inverted pentagram became associated with satanic imagery, particularly when combined with a goat's head and other symbolic imagery. But it's important to note here that an inverted pentagram doesn't necessarily mean evil. The meaning depends heavily on the tradition, surrounding symbols, and the context in which it's being used.
Speaker: Looking at the pentagram in media and pop culture, The pentagram has largely been misinterpreted in horror films, games, books, movies, and in paranormal media as a symbol for evil activity, satanism, demons, demonic possession, devil worship, curses, summoning rituals, and black magic.
Speaker: How the pentagram can actually be used in and magical workings, though, is totally different from any of that. um This obviously varies depending on the practice, but the pentagram can be used to symbolically represent elemental and spiritual balance. You can use a pentagram in a variety of ways, like in protection work, elemental meditation. drawn in your ritual spaces and to bring in balance into your magical workings.
Speaker: So now taking a look at the pentacle. In modern witchcraft, the pentacle is a pentagram enclosed within a circle as i mentioned at the start The star is still a five -pointed figure associated with the elements, but the circle adds another layer of symbolism usually interpreted to represent unity. wholeness, infinity, cycles, protection, interconnectedness, or even containment.
Speaker: The five points are often representative of distinct forces, while the circle represents the fact that those forces are connected and part of a whole. So looking at the history of the pentacle,
Speaker: While today its meaning is a pentagram with a circle around it, historically, as I mentioned earlier, it could mean something much more broader. In historical ceremonial magic and in some specific traditions, a pentacle could refer to a magical object, a talisman, a seal, or a diagram. and It didn't have to be a five point star.
Speaker: and An example of this is in the Key of Solomon, one of the most influential traditions of European ceremonial magic. There contains numerous magical pentacles designed around different planetary and spiritual purposes, and these historical pentacles are very different from the pentacle that we most often see today.
Speaker: The pentacle became an important symbol in modern Wicca and pagan practices as a symbol of faith and is often worn as jewelry in the form of a religious symbol and as a protective charm. or even as a representation of a spiritual path, most often for Wicca. The pentacle is often most commonly associated with earth among the traditional ritual tools of Wicca, and there are other ritual tools that are connected to the other elements, but the pentacle itself is seen as grounding and the earthly material aspect of the practice.
Speaker: So looking at symbolism here. The pentacle contains two powerful symbols, the star that represents the five elements, humanity, spirit, and matter, protection and balance, and the circle representing unity, cycles, boundaries, protection, and interconnectedness.
Speaker: This makes the pentacle suited for workings focused on grounding and protection, on stability. harmony, manifestation, and connection with nature. So looking at the pentacle in media.
Speaker: as is Not a surprise for any of us. The pentacle is often swept into that same media stereotype as the pentagram. It is often shown to represent a demonic portal, satanism, cults, summoning, and evil witchcraft. The problem here with both the pentagram and the pentacle is that we often learn symbolism from
Speaker: media, so from the horror movies that we are watching, rather than history or even talking to other practitioners. So if you've already associated the pentacle and the pentagram with evil, then you see somebody wearing a pentacle necklace, you may assume wrongly that they represent some sort of evil satanic cult.
Speaker: Additionally, in mainstream media, the pentagram and pentacle are often used interchangeably, which just adds to the confusion. So looking at how the pentacle can be used and addtal in actual magical workings.
Speaker: The pentacle can be used as an altar tool associated with grounding and the material world, as a method to charge objects, in earth and in grounding magic and also in home protection. And that's just kind of like a brief overview. It can be used in a plethora of different ways.
Speaker: But an important last thought here. The pentagram and the pentacle are not interchangeable, even though they are often treated that way. The pentagram is the five pointed star while the pentacle is traditionally a star enclosed in a circle.
Speaker: Both have long and complicated histories, and neither symbol is inherently good or evil. Their meanings change based on the culture, the religion, and the magical tradition and historical period in which they were used.
Speaker: And the pentacle. And the pentagram.
Speaker: That's a wrap on this episode of Get In Loser We're Doing Witchcraft. We hope you had as much fun as we did. If you love this episode, we'd be eternally grateful if you left us a five -star review wherever you listen to your podcasts. It helps more witches, seekers, and magical misfits find our show.
Speaker: Want even more get and loser content? Join our Patreon or Supercast Coven. As a member, you'll get early access to episodes, exclusive printable shadow work and more pages, access to our witchy book club, promo codes for merch, and so much more. Just check the show notes for the link or search Get In, Lose Your Way Doing Witchcraft on Supercast and Patreon.
Speaker: You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at Get In Witches or email us at we're doing witchcraft at gmail .com. Join us next week for part four of our Magical Creatures series. Until then, stay magical, stay curious, and as always, bless the beavers.
