When I myself entered the classroom, I found someone had doodled this on the board:
This was just a quick freehand sketch, obviously, but it demonstrates some of the geometric properties of the pentagram (five-pointed star), and of stars whose points touch the points of other stars.
Sometimes, as a way of focusing my mind, I like to do some traditional geometric construction work with a compass and straightedge. Just this morning, I had done this:
After finishing this, I noticed that, as a by-product of the process of constructing the pentacle, I had drawn a circle below it, with four of the six vertices of a hexagon already marked. I intended to use these to construct a hexagram (six-pointed star), two of the tips of which would touch two of the tips of the pentagram. Unfortunately, I had to go to work and didn't have time to finish this last step. Then later in the day I found an extremely similar geometric concept illustrated on my whiteboard!
Update: This is what I had intended to draw, and did finish drawing after the class.
Update 2: In the 1990s, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints changed their logo so that the name "JESUS CHRIST" was much, much larger than everything else -- presumably under the misapprehension that this would put an end to the whole "Mormons aren't Christians" thing. Yesterday, after posting this, I wanted to look up when exactly this happened, and in the course of researching the history of the Mormon logo, I ended up perusing a post by architect Brandon Ro called "Sacred Geometry in new Church Symbol." Mr. Ro writes:
About six years ago I had a memorable lunch conversation with a couple of friends who were in the process of working on a new symbol/logo for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They told me that the symbol needed to emphasize the importance and centrality of Jesus Christ within the Church. It also needed to speak a universal language applicable to people around the world through iconography and symbolism. From a cross, star of David (6-pointed star), squared circle, pentagram (5-pointed star), and seal of Melchizedek (8-pointed star) just about everything was considered. I provided them with a few resources on sacred geometry and symbols.
Besides being another synchronicity, isn't that just weird? How could they possibly have considered the star of David (universally recognized as a symbol of Judaism) or the pentagram (associated in the popular mind with Satanism) as potential symbols of Mormonism? (The symbol they finally ended up with looks an awful lot like the Catholic "Mary on the Half Shell.")
Of course I have to comment on the eight-pointed star, too. (Hi, Debbie!) I'm not exactly a stranger to sacred geometry, but this was the first I'd ever heard of the "seal of Melchizedek." It turns out this is a fairly recent bit of Mormon folklore, derived from a illustrator's caption in one of Hugh Nibley's books. Pre-Nibley, there's no tradition of associating the eight-pointed star with Melchizedek (A separate bit of Mormon folklore postulates that Melchizedek was the same person as Shem, son of Noah, one of the "eight souls saved by water," so there's that.)
It's a striking symbol, and an easy one to draw in MSPaint, but I think the Church was right not to go with it. It looks either Islamic or New-Agey and would reinforce the unwanted association between Mormonism and such "cults" as Scientology and Raelism.
7 comments:
Yesterday, I was also doodling a pentagram on my mobile phone drawing app because I was randomly reminded of the fact that back in school a fellow classmate was doodling pentagrams on paper and had challenged me if I was able to draw them in one motion (without lifting the pen off the paper). I’m not making this up!
Johann Joseph Fux’ book on counterpoint is called “Gradus ad Parnassum”, steps ascending on Parnassus, with mount Parnassus being the home of the Muses, but I suppose it also might be an allusion to the musical scale itself.
I just ate a five-pointed chocolate star/snowflake? from my Advent calendar.
@ben
If it was five-pointed, my money's on star rather than snowflake.
William,
Hello to you too William ;-)
As I'm sure you know, the Eight Point Star aka The Union Jack is EVERYWHERE, as it is the steering wheel of navigation.
I believe that The Octagon are the One Eye on the detached capstone who (the Octagon, are the 1 percent OF the 1 percent) and were/are the original navigators of the seas(i.e sees) hence the one eye.
Interesting the symbolism of the 144 in the Bible and 14/41.
Switzerland's national moto; All 4 1
and 1 4 all.
Queen Elizabeth's royal casket ( which was made with oak and lined with lead) sat
on top of an octagon platform.
It also took 8 Pallbearers to carry it.
Also check out the photo of the Octagon in front of Holyroodhouse Palace in Edinburgh, Scotland (link below) where Queen Elizabeth's was laid to rest overnight.
Do note that lead is symbolic of Saturn.
I found this information interesting about lead (link below )
Note the reference to the reddening.
"Prime Matter is matter-cum-energy. The first substance identified as such was lead. When gently heated it becomes red and redness means soul or energy so that lead was potentially red or soul-like and as such dual natured. Mercury also becomes red and can return to white metal. It was thus dual natured and was the second substance recognized as Prime Matter. First lead alone and then lead and mercury were considered as the source of all metals."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
America also has symbolic ties to the Octagon.
According to this article (link below ) The Octagon House ( built in the 1800 after the burning of The White House by the British ) played a significant role in America's history.
I personally don't believe all of this is a coincidence.
P.S. Another interesting 'octagon' trivia is this:
The Beatles 1965 movie, Help, working title was: Eight Arms to Hold You.
Interestingly in the movie Help the plot is centered around an Eastern cult and mad scientists trying to steal RING-O's Ruby ring.
If you recall, I previously commented about the movie Help and Elias Howe the inventor of the Sowing(Sewing) machine.
The Beatles also released a 1969 song (written and sung by Ringo ) titled Octopus's Garden,
and of course, Lennon and McCartney song (courtesy of Tavastock) titled: Eight Days a Week.
Interesting how much is hiding in plain sight.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3336634/
The Octagon of Washington, D.C.: The House that Helped Build a Capital
https://www.axios.com/2022/09/11/queen-elizabeth-coffin-edinburgh-scotland
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/21/queen-elizabeth-coffin-lead-burial/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help!_(film)
I just came across this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_eternity_sign). It looks like it's mostly depicted without the eight-pointed star, but there is a picture of the symbol with the star around it.
Then again, seeing as none of the others on the page had that frame, maybe the Armenian symbol isn't associated with the eight-pointed star and that was just decoration.
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