UNICURSAL HEXAGRAM

The 'unicursal hexagram' is a hexagram or six pointed star that can be traced or drawn unicursally, in one continuous line rather than two overlaid triangles. This is significant as the triangles are often used to represent opposites such as fire and water or male and female. The unifying of the symbol into one represents the synthesis of opposites.
The ability to draw it in one continuous movement, like the pentagram, is significant in ritual magick, where the magickian might decide to use a continuous line when drawing an invoking or banishing hexagram.

Contents

History

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

Aleister Crowley and Thelema

Notes

Further reading

External links

History

The hexagram, like the pentagram, was and is used in practices of the occult. The hexagram can also be depicted inside a circle with the points touching it.^[1]

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

The traditional design of the unicursal hexagram symbol was devised by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and later adapted by Aleister Crowley as a device of personal significance. It is often worn by Thelemites as a sign of religious identification and recognition.
Crowley is credited with creating both designs by some historians. But many believe that he amended the original and placed a five petaled 'rose' in the center. The original was devised and used by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The unicursal hexagram originates from the Golden Dawn document "Polygons and Polygrams". When Israel Regardie published his book "The Golden Dawn", he did not have access to this document. Consequently the hexagram was first published by Crowley, which led to the general misconception that Crowley originated the unicursal hexagram. However, he credits the Golden Dawn with this.

Aleister Crowley and Thelema

The unicursal hexagram, as pictured to the right, is one of the key symbols within Thelema, the tradition founded by Aleister Crowley in the early part of the twentieth-century. Crowley did not invent the unicursal hexagram, the emblem was created by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and adapted by Crowley for his own use.^[2]
Crowley's adaptation of the unicursal hexagram placed a five petaled rose, symbolizing a pentacle (and the divine feminine), in the center; the symbol as a whole making eleven (five petals of the rose plus six points of the hexagram), the number of divine union.
Combined with the Marian Rose, the unicursal hexagram becomes Crowley's personal sigil, which is the magical union of 5 and 6 giving 11, the number of magick and new beginnings.
When Crowley introduces the unicursal hexagram in his ''The Book of Thoth'' he writes that ''"The lines, however, are strictly Euclidean; they have no depth."''
The ritual where he makes use of the unicursal hexagram is 'Reguli' (He also uses the "averse" pentagram in it). In the commentary he writes that

"...for the True Will has no goal, its nature being To Go. Similarly, a parabola is bound by one law which fixes its relation to two lines at every point; yet it has no end short of infinity, and it constantly changes its direction."

and

"Perhaps he may come at long last, leaping beyond the limits of his own law, to conceive of that sublimely stupendous outrage to Reason, the Cone! Utterly inscrutable to him, he is yet aware that he exists in the nature thereof, that he is necessary thereto, that he is ordered thereby, and that therefrom he is sprung, from the loins of so fearful a Father."

Notes

1. http://altreligion.about.com/library/grimoires/bl_goetia8.htm,
2. Alt Religion ''[www.altreligion.com].'' [1]

Further reading

★ Regardie, Israel. ''The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic''.

External links

★ Unicursal Hexagram - About.com

★ Hexagram (Shatkona, Seal of Solomon) from AltReligion