Pentagrams and Hexagrams, invoking and banishing?? Options

I'm not quite sure if I fully grasp this whole pentagram and hexagram thing yet. so I'm going to post what I think is going on and then leave it open for corrections.

There's a banishing and invoking varient of the pentagram and hexagram for each element.
Now in raw assumption a banishing pentagram of fire would remove the presence of any energy of the element of fire? And likewise with other pentagrams? Or is it different than that.

And an invoking pentagram of fire would add the presence of the element's energy?

This is what's really puzzling me, the purposes of these. Aside from LBRP and LBRH which are well explained. But could someone give an example of uses and how one would might go about the use of these other pentagrams and hexagrams?

Thanks

the banishing pentagrams are for banishing a certain element. and with that the effects it has on you, freeing you from the influence of that energy. If you feel sad you could do the banishing ritual of water.
(or the invoking ritual of air)

there are several reasons for doing an invoking ritual.
1. To get the effects of a certain element into your life (see above)
2. To do gray magick, if you need the elements energy in your workings (see below)
3. To attune yourself to the element in the GD elemental grades, Getting to know a certain element and studying it.

It kind of points itself out when doing gray magick:

When creating an elemental, you would do the invoking ritual of the pentagram for a certain element.
Then you would use that elemental energy you just invoked to shape the elemental from.
Then you can give the new being you created a name and purpose, to do certain tasks that corresponds to its element.

Greetings! The hexagrams are usually used in influencing planetary forces.
Other uses of pentagrams and hexagrams involve the principles of Microcosm (pentagrams) and macrocosm (hexagrams). This topic could be expounded upon greatly. Some of the Lodge workers here will be able to quote chapter and verse about this. A good work to read is The Magical Philosophy by Denning and Philips of the Aurum Solis. There are many more alternative sources also...Crowley, Golden Dawn, etc.

thanks for your replies, I wanted to be certain I had it all in order and wasn't misleading myself, just recently made this shift from generic meditation, biofeedback, and NLP to ceremonial practice, it's definitely a lot more involved.

Unfortunately within at least 20 minutes of making that post I stumbled upon the answers I was looking for, well some of them at least.

Thanks for the examples smoking fox.

sorry bout that bym, I read over my post and I noticed that I didn't mention the hexagrams and the planets, moon, and sun.

here's a question about application:
there's a golden dawn exercise that involves basically projecting a banishing pentagram of earth in the direction of any incoming negative "trend/transmission/whatever", theoretically you could do similar with a different pentagram whether banishing or invoking only changing the target it's projected at to be whatever to be affected?
That makes sense and seems logical, but does it work in practice.
Also seems like a "dumb" elemental.

Guess I'll have to find out. Comments?

I need to learn Hebrew... Fast....

And how come the only things you all do with pentagrams is banish and invoke? Isn't there anything else you can do with penta/hexagrams?

And how come the only things you all do with pentagrams is banish and invoke? Isn't there anything else you can do with penta/hexagrams?

LBRP - Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram
LIRP - Lesser Invoking Ritual of the Pentagram

There's also Greater rituals, switch the L (lesser) with the G (greater)

You can also Evoke, but that's not really something you specificly do with a pentagram/hexagram (altho they are usually involved in the ritual as a whole, just not the specific evoking part (correct me if im wrong, i've never evoked.))

Evoking is basically another version of Invoking.
Invoking brings the element/being/whatever inside of you.
Evoking brings it forth outside of you (before you or whatever)

the banishing pentagrams are for banishing a certain element. and with that the effects it has on you, freeing you from the influence of that energy. If you feel sad you could do the banishing ritual of water.
(or the invoking ritual of air)

Ah, this may not fit this topic too well but i'll post it anyways (a short version anyhow, will probably post a more single compelete topic on it later)

The same effect for not wanting to feel sad anymore (for example) as you said would be to either banish water, or invoke air.

This is why i use a modified pentagram (lbrp) compared to the one i see in my GD manual. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

To get a better view of the pentagram i'll draw it here with numbers:

5
4 3
1 2

(1 = lower left corner, 2= lower right corner, 3= upper right corner, 4= upper left corner, 5= the top of the pentagram)

To banish eart for example in GD (i think i remember correctly) would be to go from 1 to 5 and continue drawing the pentagram from there.

I however use this.

1= earth
2= water
3=air
4=fire
5=spirit

so to banish earth i would go from 1 to 3 and continue and to invoke earth, i would go from 3 to 1

(banish earth = from earth)
(invoke earth = to earth)

It makes alot more sense to me than the GD one, however, as i write this, i see (also with regards to the elemental ladder post i made before) that maybe water and air should have the opposite instead of earth and air, hmm, i'll have to think about that. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Oh........ I guess I think to much with a scientific/theological mind...

Poot...