 |
Business | Industries | Finance | Tax |
| Index: > A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z |
|
|||||
| First Prev [ 1 2 ] Next Last |
Some sources refer to the pentagram as the star of Solomon.
A perfect pentagram is most easily drawn by drawing a perfect pentagon, joining the corners with lines and erasing the original pentagon. (This construction indicates that the pentagram is the {5/2} star polygon.) You may also extend the sides of the pentagon until they meet, obtaining a bigger pentagram.
The word pentagram comes from the Greek word πεντάγραμμον (pentagrammon), a noun form of πεντάγραμμος (pentagrammos), πεντέγραμμος (pentegrammos) a word meaning roughly "five-lined" or "five lines".
Pentacle, denotes a pentagram inscibed within a circle.
The first uses of the pentagram we know of is in Mesopotamian writings dating to about 3000 B.C.
The Sumerian pentagrams served as pictograms for the word UB; meaning "corner, angle, nook; a small room, cavity, hole; pitfall," suggesting something very similar to the pentemychos (see below on the Pythagorean use for what pentemychos means). In the Labat (dictionary of Sumerian hieroglyphs/pictograms) it is the number 306, and it is shown as being two points up.
In the Babylonian context, the edges of the pentagram were probably orientations: forward, backward, left, right, and "above". These directions also had an astrologicalastrological chart (or horoscope) Y2K Chart This particular chart is calculated for January 1st, 2000 at 12:01:00 A. Eastern Standard Time in New York City, New York, USA. Longitude: 074W00'23" Latitude: 40N42'51") Astrology (from Greek: , astron "star" + meaning, representing the five planets Jupiter, MercuryMercury is the closest planet to the Sun, and the second-smallest planet in the solar system. Mercury ranges from 0. 5 in apparent magnitude; Mercury is sufficiently "close" to the Sun that telescopes rarely examine it (the greatest elongation is 28., MarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the solar system, named after the Roman god of war (the counterpart of the Greek Ares), on account of its blood red color as viewed in the night sky. Mars has two small moons, Phobos and Deimos, both small and odd and SaturnSaturn is the sixth planet from the Sun. It is a gas giant, the second-largest planet in the solar system after Jupiter. It was named after the Roman god Saturn. Its symbol is a stylized representation of the god's sickle ( Unicode: ♄). Physical ch, and VenusVenus is the second planet from the Sun, named after the Roman goddess Venus. It is a terrestrial planet, very similar in size and bulk composition to Earth; it is sometimes called Earth's "sister planet" as a result of this similarity. Although all plane as the "Queen of Heaven" ( IshtarIshtar is the Akkadian counterpart to the Sumerian Inanna and to the cognate northwest Semitic goddess `Ashtart. Anunit, Astarte and Atarsamain are alternate names for Ishtar. The goddess represents the planet Venus. The double aspect of the goddess may c) above.
The PythagoreansPythagoras ( 582 BC 496 BC, Greek: Πυθαγρας) was an Ionian mathematician and philosopher, known best for formulating the Pythagorean theorem. Pythagoras, known as "the father of numbers", made influential cont called the pentagram ύγιεια Hygieia ("health" also the Greek goddess of health, Hygieia), and saw in the pentagram a mathematical perfection: among other things, the pentagram hides the golden mean, φ = (1+√5)/2 = 1.618…. When drawn with perfect angles each line is divided into several smaller segments, and if you divide the length of the longer segment with the shorter segment of any pair of segments you will get φ.
The five vertices were also used by the medieval neo-pythagoreans (whom one could argue were not pythagoreans at all) to represent the five Classical elements:
The vertices were labeled in the letters of υ-γ-ι-ει-α though the ordering (clockwise or counter-clockwise) used, and starting vertex, could vary.
The ancient, and one could argue real, Pythagorean pentagram was two points up and represented the doctrine of Pentemychos . Pentemychos was the title of a work written by Pythagoras' teacher and friend Pherecydes of Syros. Pentemychos means five "recesses" or "chambers" also known as the pentagonas - the five-angle. (This is actually a lost book whose contents are preserved in Damascius de principiis (quoted in Kirk and Raven, The Pre-Socratic Philosophers, Cambridge Univ. Press, 1956, page 55). It was also the "place" where the first pre-cosmic offspring had to be put in order for the ordered cosmos to appear. The pentemychos is in Tartaros.
In very early Greek thought, Tartaros was the first existing Darkness from which the cosmos is born. While it was locked away after the emergence and ordering of the cosmos, it still continued to have an influence. In fact, it was known as "the subduer of both gods and men" ( Homer), and it was from this that the world got its "psyche" (soul) and its "daimon". The Boundless Darkness held influence through Mychos or Krater . Apart from being the gateway from "there" to "here" it was also a way in the opposite direction, from "here" to "there", as is evident in the many tales about how Greek heroes, philosophers and mystics descended through Mychos / Krater to Tartaros/ Hades (the distinction between the two was very optional back then) in quest for Wisdom. The Underworld as the source of wisdom was the rule.
Tartaros was also later seen as the "chthonic realm" where all the enemies of the cosmic order were locked away, also called the "prison-house" of Zeus. It was said to lay outside of the aither over which Zeus had lordship; what we today would call space, back then called "Zeus' defense-wall," yet it was also beneath the earth. Plato (in Cratylus) said that the aither had a penetrating power that permeats the whole world, and he found it both inside and outside of our bodys. Plato was a Pythagorean. The pentemychos is outside, or in-side, of the aither.
In the play Medea by Euripides, the sorceress Medea calls upon Hecate with the words, "By that dread queen whom I revere before all others and have chosen to share my task, by Hecate who dwells within my inmost chamber, not one of them shall wound my heart and rue it not." Note that she speaks of the Heart. The inmost chamber is the Mychos. Normally, Hecate and Persephone are portrayed as just being the rulers of the Underworld, however, Hecate is called the Lady of Tartaros, Phulada (Guardian), Propulaia (Before the Gates), Kleidophoros (Key-bearer) and Kleidoukhos (Key-holder, Priestess) - but this Underworld of the Greeks and Pythagoreans is also the "inmost chamber" and the Core of Inner Being.
In the image above of the two points up pentagram from Agrippa's book, the notion of Health that is within and inside a living being, is "bounded between the rings". According to myth, Tartaros was locked away by iron (fashioned by Zeus) and bronze (fashioned by Zeus' brother Poseidon. The iron of Zeus is the aither spoken of earlier ("space") and the bronze is demiurgos, or the waterforce which binds things into matter (Poseidon was often referred to as "he who shakens the earth" and the god Proteus, who carries the seals of Poseidon has ever since Antiquity been seen as a representation of matter.) To sum it up; even if seen as the medieval elements, Living Things are the things traveling the Wheel of Life, and not directly connected to or part of the Pythagorean pentagram itself, which is at their core in the center, a Core of Inner Being (the "soul" of "the stuff"). When one had Health, they were considered Zoös and in their hearts there was Eros (the word did not mean "erotic" in the sense we mean it today at all). To not have Health was to be Thanatos - a word that does not exactly mean dead as in "dead and buried," but means dead inside but alive, like a shell.
This is an esoteric connection, but note that the Core is the Greek Goddess Kore (another name for Persephone, alongside Hecate queen of the underworld), whose symbol was the apple. If you cut an apple transversally through its core, it reveals a pentagram. The apple is also still, despite Christian ideas over the years, a symbol of health. (An apple a day keeps the doctor away.)
| Politics | Business | Finance |
 |
 |
 |
|