xaos:

The direction of drawing is shown by the arrows; e.g. one draws the five sides of an ‘Air banishing’ pentagram by starting at Air and drawing away, following the coloured arrow.

The top pentagram shows (I believe) the traditional banishing, or closing, directions for the four elements. You can see how the Air-Water line is used twice, while while the Water-Earth and Air-Fire lines are both neglected. The four pentagrams (East, South, West, North) are drawn in both clockwise and anti-clockwise directions.

The Greater Ritual of the Pentagram explains that these unused sides are for banishing ‘Active Spirit’ and ‘Passive Spirit’. Meaning we’re cramming the concept of six into a five sided star to close the four quarters. No thank you. Especially when the Lesser Banishing Rituals tells us to use the traditional Earth Banishing for everything (forgetting ‘Active’ and ‘Passive’).

The bottom pentagram shows my Balanced Elemental Banishing Pentagram, which I’m certain other magi have worked out for themselves.

The drawing directions are all anti-clockwise (which I like for ‘closing’, rather than ‘opening’ or invoking) and this creates a pleasing spiral motion (thus spake Zarathrustra) and the whole pentagram is used in a balanced way (if including Spirit).

Invocation pentagrams would be the opposite.

This image is in support of my rant against traditional elemental pentagram drawing directions (the direction one draws a pentagram in), especially with regard to the Greater Ritual of the Pentagram, and to some extent, the Lesser Banishing Ritual.

Please read the linked article to get the full picture.

THIS is why I love chaos magick and chaos magickans. They are not moribund in the dogma. They are prepared to sort shit out and have it make fucking sense.