Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Oriel - Pagan Tattoo



The term PAGAN refers broadly to a wide variety of religions outside the Abrahamic monotheistic group of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Spiritual belief ranges from polytheism (belief in more than one god), to animism (belief of spirit in all things).
Since the late 20th Century modern scholars have begun to apply the term to three separate groups of faiths: Historical Polytheism (such as Celtic polytheism and Norse paganism), Folk/ethnic/Indigenous religions (such as Chinese folk religion and African traditional religion), and Neo-paganism (such as Wicca and Germanic Neopaganism).
Thus the designs used by the followers of Pagan religions are based on ancient magical symbols, gods & goddesses, natural objects and forces of nature, eg. the Green Man, the Tree of Life, .
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paganism

A common Pagan “badge” is the Pentacle – a five-pointed star used in magical evocation.  Each of the five angles represent the five metaphysical elements of the ancients: earth, fire, water, air, spirit. The Circle around the star represents the God-Goddess. The origins of the pentagram go as far back as pre-Babylonian Sumer. In ancient Greece, Pythagoras (586 - 506 BCE) established a school that pursued knowledge in mathematics and other specialties; his followers used the pentagram as a secret sign to identify themselves to each other.
From: http://www.helium.com/items/1039979-the-meaning-of-the-wiccan-pentacle
http://altreligion.about.com/?once=true&
http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/contemporaryissues/ig/Pagan-Tattoo-Gallery/index.01.htm

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