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A serpent or dragon consuming its own tail, it is a symbol of infinity, unity, and the cycle of death and rebirth. Pentacle: Mesopotamia: An ancient symbol of a unicursal five-pointed star circumscribed by a circle with many meanings, including but not limited to, the five wounds of Christ and the five elements (earth, fire, water, air, and soul).
Necromancy (/ ˈ n ɛ k r ə m æ n s i /) [1] [2] is the practice of magic involving communication with the dead by summoning their spirits as apparitions or visions for the purpose of divination; imparting the means to foretell future events and discover hidden knowledge.
Dictionary of Occult, Hermetic and Alchemical Sigils, written by Fred Gettings [] in 1981, is a reference, guide, and source book, which examines variations in, developments of, and meanings of sigils and symbols, used by occultists, alchemists, astrologers, hermeticists, magicians and others, over the past millennium.
A sigil (/ ˈ s ɪ dʒ ɪ l /) [1] is a type of symbol used in magic. The term usually refers to a pictorial signature of a spirit (such as an angel , demon , or deity ). In modern usage, especially in the context of chaos magic , a sigil refers to a symbolic representation of the practitioner's desired outcome.
The ouroboros is often interpreted as a symbol for eternal cyclic renewal or a cycle of life, death and rebirth; the snake's skin-sloughing symbolises the transmigration of souls. The snake biting its own tail is a fertility symbol in some religions: the tail is a phallic symbol and the mouth is a yonic or womb-like symbol. [9]
In Buddhism, the symbol of a wheel represents the perpetual cycle of death and rebirth that happens in samsara. [6] The symbol of a grave or tomb, especially one in a picturesque or unusual location, can be used to represent death, as in Nicolas Poussin's famous painting Et in Arcadia ego. Images of life in the afterlife are also symbols of death.
The terms esoteric and arcane can also be used to describe the occult, [4] [5] in addition to their meanings unrelated to the supernatural. The term occult sciences was used in the 16th century to refer to astrology, alchemy, and natural magic, which today are considered pseudosciences.
Items and symbols such as crosses, crucifixes, silver bullets, wild roses and garlic were believed to ward off or destroy vampires. Peisistratus hung the figure of a kind of grasshopper before the Acropolis of Athens as apotropaic magic.