Signs & Symbols of the Occult

The marks that carried the meaning: pentagram, ouroboros, Seal of Solomon, Eye of Providence. Where each sign first appears, what it meant, and how the meaning changed hands.

Yin and Yang

Esoteric Symbol / Cosmological Diagram Chinese cosmology (the Yijing and Daoism); the swirl diagram from Song-Ming Neo-Confucianism

Yin and yang are the two complementary aspects of Chinese cosmology: yin the shaded, receptive, cool side, yang the bright, active, warm side, neither one good nor evil. The swirling black-and-white diagram that stands for them is the taijitu, the 'diagram of the supreme ultimate.' Though the concept is ancient, rooted in the Yijing and Daoism, the familiar symbol is much younger: a diagram fashion of Song-dynasty Neo-Confucianism (Zhou Dunyi, 11th century) simplified into the interlocking spirals by the Ming author Lai Zhide in the 16th century, and adopted as a Western pop icon only in the 1960s. The same swirl, strangely, appears on Roman army shields around 430 CE, seven hundred years before the earliest Chinese diagram.

The Sanctum Regnum Seal

Esoteric Symbol / Pact Seal French grimoire tradition (the Grand Grimoire / Sanctum Regnum)

The Sanctum Regnum seal is the pact emblem reproduced in Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal to illustrate its entry on making a pact with the devil. It belongs to the Sanctum Regnum, the pact-making section of the Grand Grimoire (Le Dragon Rouge), the manual for summoning Lucifuge Rofocale and compelling him to hand over treasure. At the center of the disc is a scaled, clawed, many-legged creature, one of the beasts of evil; around it run alchemical and planetary characters and jagged strokes, and an outer ring of Latin. The Latin is Psalm 91:13, a verse of divine protection about trampling the powers of evil, printed here on a seal whose whole purpose is to bargain with them.

The Pantacle

Esoteric Symbol / Solomonic Talisman Solomonic magic (Arabic and Latin grimoire tradition)

The pantacle, or pentacle, is the engraved talisman at the center of Solomonic magic. Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal calls it the thing the whole science of the Key of Solomon depends on, a disc inscribed with the ineffable names of God and used to command spirits. The seal illustrated in the 1863 edition is a hexagram, the Seal of Solomon, enclosed in a ring of Arabic writing, the Islamic-Solomonic layer that fed the Latin grimoires. The Dictionnaire even gives the recipe: made on a Wednesday in the first quarter of the moon, on virgin parchment, with three concentric circles of gold, cinnabar, and green, an exorcised ink and quill, a triangle carrying the words reformatio and transformatio, and the great name AGLA.

Seals of the Goetia

Esoteric Symbol England, 17th century

Each of the 72 spirits of the Ars Goetia has its own seal, a unique geometric mark the operator engraves in metal and wears as a lamen to compel the spirit. Weyer's 1577 demon catalog, the text the Goetia was built from, has no seals at all. The full set first appears in an English manuscript around 1687, and the versions everyone recognizes today were fixed by the Mathers and Crowley edition of 1904. The visual signature of Western demonology is younger than Shakespeare's plays.

Blasting Rod

Esoteric Symbol France (Grand Grimoire tradition)

A forked hazel wand from the Grand Grimoire, nineteen and a half inches long, cut at sunrise with a bloodstained blade. The forked tips are fitted with steel and magnetized with lodestone. Prayers during construction invoke Moses and Jacob. The grimoire attributes it to Solomon and claims it is the same instrument God used to drive Adam and Eve from Eden. During the summoning of Lucifuge Rofocale, the rod is thrust into a fire of brandy and camphor to compel the spirit's appearance.

Chi-Rho

Esoteric Symbol Roman Empire (early Christianity)

A monogram formed by overlaying the Greek letters chi (X) and rho (P), the first two letters of Christos. Emperor Constantine reportedly saw the sign before the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in 312 CE and adopted it as a military standard. Eusebius described a vision in the sky. Lactantius described a dream. The Chi-Rho appeared on Roman coins, military standards, sarcophagi, and churches throughout the 4th century. It was the dominant Christian symbol before the cross took that role in the 5th century.

Monas Hieroglyphica

Esoteric Symbol England (John Dee)

A composite glyph designed by John Dee in 1564, combining the symbols of the sun, moon, elements, and fire into a single figure. Dee published it with a treatise of twenty-four theorems explaining how the symbol encoded the unity of all creation. The glyph appears in the Chymische Hochzeit (1616), the third Rosicrucian manifesto, linking Elizabethan occultism to the German Rosicrucian movement. Dee dedicated the work to Emperor Maximilian II and spent twelve days composing it in what he described as a state of inspired concentration.

Tauroctony

Esoteric Symbol Roman Empire (Mithraic mysteries)

The central cult image of the Roman Mithraic mysteries, showing Mithras slaying a bull surrounded by a fixed set of symbolic animals: dog, snake, scorpion, raven. Wheat sprouts from the wound. Sol and Luna watch from above. Two torchbearers flank the scene. The image appears on hundreds of reliefs across the Roman Empire with near-identical composition. Ulansey read it as encoding the precession of the equinoxes. Beck read it as a star map. No surviving text explains its meaning.

Sigil of Baphomet

Esoteric Symbol France (Templar trials / Lévi)

An inverted pentagram with a goat's head inscribed in its points, enclosed in a double circle with Hebrew letters spelling Leviathan. Anton LaVey adopted it as the emblem of the Church of Satan in 1966. The image originates from Éliphas Lévi's 1856 Sabbatic Goat drawing. The name Baphomet first appeared in the trial records of the Knights Templar in 1307, when the French crown accused the order of worshiping a mysterious idol. The etymology remains disputed: candidates include a corruption of Muhammad, an Atbash cipher for Sophia, and a compound of Greek words for absorption and wisdom.

Rose Cross

Esoteric Symbol Germany (Rosicrucian pamphlets)

A rose placed at the intersection of a cross, the emblem of the Rosicrucian brotherhood. The symbol emerged with the Fama Fraternitatis of 1614, which announced a secret order founded by the fictional Christian Rosenkreuz. Interpretations include the union of spirit and matter, the blood of Christ, and the alchemical reconciliation of opposites. The Golden Dawn elaborated it into a complex ritual tool in the 1890s. Luther's coat of arms, a rose surrounding a cross, predates the Rosicrucians by a century.

Caduceus

Esoteric Symbol Ancient Greece

The staff of Hermes (Mercury to the Romans), a rod entwined by two serpents with wings at the top. In Greek mythology it granted Hermes safe conduct between the worlds of the living and the dead. It was a symbol of commerce, eloquence, and diplomacy. In 1902 the US Army Medical Corps mistakenly adopted it as a medical emblem, confusing it with the Rod of Asclepius, the single-serpent staff that actually represents healing. The confusion persists in American medical iconography.

Eye of Horus

Esoteric Symbol Ancient Egypt

The stylized eye of the falcon god Horus, torn out by Set in their battle for the throne of Egypt and restored by Thoth. As the wedjat (the whole one), it became the most common protective amulet in Egyptian culture. It was placed over the incision on mummies, painted on the prows of boats, and worn by the living as jewelry. Its six component parts were used as hieratic notation for fractions of the hekat grain measure. The missing 1/64 of the sum was said to be supplied by Thoth's magic.

Ankh

Esoteric Symbol Ancient Egypt

The Egyptian hieroglyph for life, shaped as a cross with a loop at the top. Gods hold it by the loop and offer it to the living and the dead. It appears on temple walls, coffins, amulets, and royal jewelry from the Old Kingdom through the Roman period. The Coptic Church adopted it as the crux ansata, reading the loop as Christ's resurrection. Its original form may derive from a sandal strap, a knot of Isis, or a cervical vertebra seen from above. No scholarly consensus exists on which came first.

Ouroboros

Esoteric Symbol Ancient Egypt

A serpent or dragon eating its own tail, forming a closed circle. The oldest example comes from the tomb of Tutankhamun in Egypt, dated to the 14th century BC. Greek alchemists in Hellenistic Egypt adopted it as the central symbol of transformation, where destruction and creation are the same process. The Chrysopoeia of Cleopatra, a manuscript from around the 3rd century CE, shows the ouroboros encircling the Greek phrase hen to pan, the all is one. It has been the emblem of cyclical return, self-renewal, and the unity of opposites ever since.

Seal of Solomon

Esoteric Symbol Hellenistic Jewish / early Christian

A hexagram formed by two interlocking triangles, attributed to King Solomon's power to bind demons and command spirits. The Testament of Solomon, a Greek text from the 1st to 4th century CE, describes a ring bearing the seal given to Solomon by the archangel Michael. With it, Solomon enslaved demons and forced them to build the Temple in Jerusalem. The hexagram passed through Islamic magic, medieval grimoires, alchemical tradition, and Kabbalah before becoming the Star of David and the emblem of the State of Israel.

Eye of Providence

Esoteric Symbol Renaissance Christian art

A single human eye enclosed in a triangle and surrounded by rays of light. The symbol originated in Renaissance Christian art as a representation of the Holy Trinity's all-seeing nature. Freemasonry adopted it in the 18th century. Charles Thomson placed it on the Great Seal of the United States in 1782 as a symbol of divine providence watching over the new nation. It now appears on every American one-dollar bill, making it the most reproduced esoteric symbol in history.

Square and Compasses

Esoteric Symbol England / Scotland

The principal emblem of Freemasonry, combining a builder's square and a pair of compasses, often with the letter G at the center. The square represents morality, the compasses represent self-restraint, and the G stands for God or Geometry. The symbol comes from operative stonemasonry and was formalized after the founding of the Grand Lodge of England in 1717. It appears on lodge buildings, Masonic rings, gravestones, and public architecture around the world.

Pentagram

Esoteric Symbol Sumer / Uruk

A five-pointed star drawn in a single continuous line, documented from Sumerian Uruk around 3000 BC through Pythagorean geometry, medieval Christianity, Renaissance occultism, and modern Satanism. Each era assigned its own meaning to the same shape. The Pythagoreans used it as a sign of health and mutual recognition. Sir Gawain carried it on his shield in the 14th-century poem as a symbol of five virtues. Agrippa inscribed a human body inside it. Lévi inverted it and declared the downward-pointing version demonic. LaVey adopted the inverted pentagram with a goat's head as the emblem of the Church of Satan. The geometry never changed. The meaning never stopped changing.