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.

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.

Jewish mysticism is fascinating, and symbolically I think it makes a lot of sense. At least it's internally consistent. But you can accomplish the same effects using other systems - Chinese turtle shell reading comes to mind. I think what matters is that it allows you to get into a less logical mode of thinking, less dependent on the inputs of the world directly in front of you. Also, tarot may take a lot from Judaism, but it really goes back to Egypt. There's a deck that I really like, but don't own yet, that's a gnostic tarot made by Miguel Connor. One of the reasons I like it (besides the awesome art) is that it symbolically excises the Jewish impositions on Christianity. The Christianity that existed before the Catholic/Ortho church was very different, and I would argue that present Christianity is more Judaism, and the original Christianity is more Greek/Egyptian, and tbh it looks like the modern version was hijacked by Jews in some kind of conspiracy. Anyways, I wouldn't have a problem with pentacles, if the context was known to be the older symbolism, but in the case of the Olympics, it seems pretty likely that its the Satanist globalists intending all the bad meanings its currently associated with.

I agree. Mostly. Yes about the Olympics. No about Egyptian tarot. Playing cards from China made their way to Egypt before being adapted. There is no evidence these cards were used to divine. The decks from Egypt made their way to Europe in the late 1300s. The Italians added Major Arcana, adding religious significance to them, like images of the pope, etc.... but these still were not used to divine. The first written use of the cards being used to divine was from Spain in the 1400s. Dividing with cards became a European folk hit for several hundred years before the French first developed a manual on divinatiry messages and created the first tarot deck. This was in the 1700s.

The French added Egyptian symbology as a nod to their mysticism, but they knew so little about it that is was mostly intended to grab the attention of other europeans who loved it.

those gnostic tarot cards look rad

Sounds right. The Egyptians did have divination, though idk what it looked like. The Hebrews did also. I think prohibitions against divination is about people turning it into a kind of idol, in the sense that you believe in it with certainty and fail to put the effort into changing outcomes or situations, which is basically to say that their use as a model for the world may be useful but it still gets you no closer to actually understanding the world. Same with astrology - I see people saying things with certainty based on charts, but that certainty entails a giving up of personal agency. So I agree with both sides, the people using these things and the people saying don't use them. Idk how I got onto prohibitions, I think it was just a run away thought...

Finally, the modern tarot from France was adapted by members of the Golden Dawn to align more closely with Hebrew mysticism. This culminated in the rider-waite decks. The most popular ever created.

Rosicrucian > Golden Dawn anyways

The Chinese divined as well... long before tarot. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that the cards were used for anything other than games and gambling.

Yeah, they would pick up a random turtle from a river and then use the markings on its shell. I think they also threw bones, and that's somehow connected to their "bone script"

It would be logical to assume they used the cards to divine as well. Some of the symbology is there. But with all the evidence of dividing with bones, etc, no e seems to exist pointing to their use of cards this way.

Link that shit. I wanna see.

I assume it's these

They do look great. Unfortunately, they use the system created by the Golden Dawn (78 cards, 22 Major Arcana). The number of cards is significant as it represents Hebrew culture and magic. They just changed the imagery. The underlying system is still Hebrew.