THE MOON
Changes it's face roughly every 28-29 days, at about the same rate that female humans menstruate, it has long been associated with the feminine and hence the Goddess - Artemis and Hecate.
THE SUN
The God symbol - Apollo and Jesus
THE CHALICE
Cup used in ritual
It is a container and is associated with the womb and vagina, and hence a symbol of the Goddess. Two examples of Chalices in myth are the Cup that Jesus had drunk from at the last supper, and the Holy Grail, which the knights of the round table had to search for in order for Arthur (and the land) to become whole again.
THE ATHEME
It is a dagger used in rituals, primarily to focus and concentrate power. It is a phallic symbol and as a cutting tool a divider, and thus represents The God. Magic swords are another version of the Atheme and are popular in fantasy novels and myth. One example is Excaliber, which King Arthur uses via "divine right". Another is Stormbringer, as used by Elric in the stories written by Micheal Moorcock. Note the dual imagery. Excalibre was used as a force for order, Stormbringer drank souls and was a force for Chaos. Tools are only as good as their user.
THE FIVE POINTED STAR
Pentangle or a Pentagram - Goddess
For neo-pagans this is symbolic of the four elements: air, water, earth, fire + spirit. Pythagoras held the number 5 to be the sum of the feminine element (2) and the masculine element (3), so it is also symbolic of a union of masculine and feminine. The symbol also has meaning in Taoism, Hinduism and Islam.
The overlapping arms (which does not appear in all versions) shows how each part is interconnected with the others. The circle around the star represents unity, the self, and wholeness.
One mode of understanding is that the pentagram shown as above (with one point at the top) represents the Goddess, and inverted (with two points at top) the God. Of course the inverted pentagram in Christian belief represents the Devil -- not suprising since the versions of Pan and The God were used to represent such.
THE ANKH
This is an ancient Egyptian symbol representing eternal life. It is said to be taken from a simple sandal strap. Regardless of that, it is also a symbol representing the Goddess and the God and this a Neo-Pagan symbol.
This is an ancient Egyptian symbol. It has three elements. The circle represents the Goddess; the vertical line represents the God, and the horizontal bar is the "scroll of knowledge". Join them together and you get an ankh.
"Neo-Pagan" means "new pagan" (derived from the Latin paganus , "country-dweller") and hearkens back to times before the spread of today's major monotheistic (one god) religions. A good general rule is that most Wiccans are Neo-Pagans but not all Pagans are Wiccans.
Neopagans hold a reverence for the Earth and all its creatures, generally see all life as interconnected, and tend to strive to attune one's self to the manifestation of this belief as seen in the cycles of nature.
Pagans are usually polytheistic (believing in more than one god), and they usually believe in immanance, or the concept of divinity residing in all things. Many pagans, though polytheistic, see all things as being part of one Great Mystery. The apparent contradiction of being both polytheistic and monotheistic can be resolved by seeing the God/desses as masks worn by the Great Mystery. Other pagans are simply monotheistic or polytheistic, and still others are atheistic.
Some people believe paganism to be a religion within itself; others see it as a belief system (such as monotheism) that can be incorporated into religions like Wicca or Druidism; others see it as a broad category including many religions. The fact that we are re-creating religion for ourselves after centuries of suppression makes us very eclectic and very concerned with the "rightness" of a particular thing for the individual. So when you see some people calling it a religion and others not, when you see it capitalized in some instances and not in others, don't be confused - we're all still basically talking about the same thing.
Neo-Paganism is any of several spiritual movements that attempt to revive the ancient polytheistic religions of Europe and the Middle East. These movements have a close relationship to ritual magic and modern witchcraft. Neo-Paganism differs from them, however, in striving to revive authentic pantheons and rituals of ancient cultures, though often in deliberately eclectic and reconstructionist ways, and by a particularly contemplative and celebrative attitude.
Typically people with romantic feelings toward nature and deep ecological concerns, Neo-Pagans centre their dramatic and colourful rituals around the changes of the seasons and the personification of nature as full of divine life, as well as the holy days and motifs of the religions by which their own groups are inspired.
Modern Neo-Paganism has roots in 19th-century Romanticism and activities inspired by it, such as the British Order of Druids (which, however, claims an older lineage). Sometimes associated with extreme nationalism, Neo-Pagan groups and sentiments were known in Europe before World War II, but contemporary Neo-Paganism is for the most part a product of the 1960s. Influenced by the works of the psychiatrist Carl Jung and the writer Robert Graves, Neo-Paganists are more interested in nature and archetypal psychology than in nationalism.
Neo-Paganism in the postwar decades has flourished particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom and in Scandinavia. Some of the major Neo-Pagan groups are the Church of All Worlds, the largest of all the pagan movements, which centres on worship of the earth-mother goddess; Feraferia, based on ancient Greek religion and also centred on goddess worship; Pagan Way, a nature religion centred on goddess worship and the seasons; the Reformed Druids of North America; the Church of the Eternal Source, which has revived ancient Egyptian religion; and the Viking Brotherhood, which celebrates Norse rites. Beginning in the late 1970s, some feminists, open to feminine personifications of the deity, became interested in witchcraft and Neo-Paganism.
