Solomonic pentacle

What the source describes

In the Key, 'pentacle' names a class of written or engraved figures rather than a five-pointed star. Book I groups them by planet and gives each a particular textual purpose. Their designs combine divine names, characters, geometric figures, and biblical verses; the explanatory verse is part of the object, not a decorative caption added afterward.

Historical setting

The Key of Solomon survives as a family of manuscripts rather than one authorial master copy. Instrument names, drawings, preparation details and even which tools appear can differ between witnesses, so this page follows the cited edition and records its variants.

Common uses

The operator selects a pentacle appropriate to the work, prepares it under the book's stated conditions, and carries, wears, or displays it while reciting the associated material. The Key attributes protective, constraining, revelatory, and other powers to different pentacles. This catalogue reports those literary claims without treating them as demonstrated effects.

Form, materials and reconstruction

The witnesses and editions differ in drawings, letter forms, and sometimes the assignment or wording of a figure. Historical instructions use metal, parchment, colour, planetary timing, incense, psalms, and prayer in different combinations. A faithful reconstruction therefore begins with one named manuscript image; a clean modern redraw assembled from several witnesses can look authoritative while belonging to none of them.

Element: No fixed element

This source does not assign this particular instrument a fixed element. Its materials or effects should not be turned into an elemental correspondence without a named source.

Sources and variations

The Golden Dawn Earth Pentacle is a coloured elemental disc; the Key's pentacles are a planetary series of textual images. The similarly named pantacle in Crowley's Book 4 is again different, representing the total field of the practitioner's knowledge and experience.

Primary account used here

Key of Solomon, Book I, Book I, chapter XVIII, holy pentacles ↗

Further references

• Key of Solomon: introduction and contents ↗Editorial history and an overview of the manuscript-based edition.
• Hebrew Key of Solomon ↗A different witness with its own section on magical instruments and requisites.