Pentagram altar tile

How to Use It

Witchcraft & Folk Magick

• Consecration: new tools, jewellery and crystals are set on the tile and blessed with salt, water, smoke and flame.
• Charging: a candle, charm or petition is left on the tile overnight before it is used.
• Trivet: the large cut-out tile sits under a hot cauldron or candle on the altar.

Ceremonial & Occult Magick

• Elemental Earth: placed at the centre or north of the altar as the tool of Earth, receiving offerings of salt and bread.

A Simple Working

• Place the pentagram tile in the centre of your altar.
• Set the object you wish to bless on the tile.
• Sprinkle a pinch of sea salt around it and say ‘by earth’.
• Pass incense smoke over it (‘by air’), a candle flame (‘by fire’) and a few drops of water (‘by water’).
• Lay your hands over it and say: ‘By spirit, you are blessed.’
• Leave it on the tile until morning.

Pairs Well With

• Sea salt: for the earth part of consecration.
• A chalice: to hold water for blessing.
• An athame: to rest across the tile between rites.
• A Tree of Life cast iron cauldron: to stand on the cut-out tile as a trivet.

What You Receive

Pentagram altar tile in three styles: 2 3/4″ in white metal with an interwoven pentagram; 4″ carved and stained wood; and 5 3/4″ silver-tone cut-out pentagram, large enough to use as a trivet.

Origin & Lore

In modern witchcraft the pentacle is the altar tool of Earth, a flat disc or tile bearing a pentagram, on which objects are placed to be consecrated or charged. The pentagram represents the four elements ruled by spirit. A tile gives the altar a fixed centre for blessing, charging and grounding work.

In the Middle English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the hero’s shield bears a gold pentangle, the ‘endless knot’ of his five virtues.

The Gawain poet explains that the pentangle on Gawain’s shield stands for his five senses, five fingers, five wounds of Christ, five joys of Mary and five knightly virtues. The pentacles of the Key of Solomon are a different thing: talismanic seals drawn on parchment or metal, from which the Wiccan altar pentacle takes its name.