I didn't know about this. Interesting. But also the pentacle sometimes symbolizes Venus, for the pattern it traces through the sky, and Venus symbolizes love. But its more likely a troll designed to rile up people.
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Actually, the pentagram alone sometimes represents venus. The original pentacle was not. The pentacle used to generally refer to any symbol drawn within a circle (not necessarily a pentagram) used in Renaissance era grimoires as magical talismans.
The Key of Solomon is one example of such a grimoire.
These grimoires come from ancient Jewish and Christian mysticism and took on new lore in the Renaissance.
Éliphas Lévi fianlly defined the significance of the pentacle (as a pentagram within a circle) in 'Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie.' This was in the 1850s.
He came up with the definitions of this symbol describing it when inverted and right side up.
From there, western occultists and Satanists ran with it.
By 1966, it became a prominent symbol of satanism with the sigil of baphomet.
Excellent explanation! You're right, and confusing the two is a frequent mistake of mine.
It was my downfall as well. I l9nked it to venus, as you did. So the torch lighting it seemed justified as Lucifer (a Roman personification of venus) was originally depicted as carrying a torch, ringing light before the dawn.
The Greeks before them (the originators of the games) called it Phosphoros, but didn't personify venus as far as I know.
Lucifer was a benign, unworshipped son of the Goddess Aurora. A minor deity. No larger backstory.
..linking the pentagram to venus (possibly due to the movement of Venus over an 8 year period that traces the pentagram) goes back to Babylon.
Sumer used the pentagram to denote angles and degrees. It was not religiously significant and had no direct connection to venus as far as I can tell.
So the pentacle is decidedly Jewish in origin, and to a lesser degree was used in Christian mysticism that drew from Kabbalistic rituals in their magic.
The western occultists are decidedly anti-christian and rely on old Hebrew magic for justification.
This bleeds into tarot hard, which I now find disappointing.
All this imagery of the Devil and Adam and eve, etc, mixed with Hebrew symbology is nothing but a bastardization of even older magic.
I think a divining system of cards based on something like tantric Hinduism would be much more appropriate, but it would have to take into account and remove the hidden Jewish themes.
For instance, the 22 Major arcana are arranged to represent the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet.