In Babylon, five-, six- and seven-rayed stars were all used.
The pentagram appears in the earliest writing of Mesopotamia
(precuneiform pictographic writing), c. 3000 BCE, as the Sumerian sign UB.
Its meaning in the cuneiform period (by 2600 BCE) seems to be a Heavenly Quarter
and also the four directions (forward, backward, left, right); the fifth direction
was "above."
The four directions corresponded to the planets
Jupiter, Mercury, Mars and Saturn,
with Venus the Queen of Heaven (Schekina) above.
These are the "Smaller Planets" (omitting Sun and Moon).
Ishtar (Venus) was represented by the
Eight-rayed Star (Elam).
The Pythagoreans called the pentagram Hygieia ("health"; also the Greek goddess of health, Hygieia), and saw in the pentagram a mathematical perfection (see Geometry section below).
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:
� Hydor - water
� Gaia - earth
� Idea or Hieron -"a divine thing"
� Heile - heat (fire)
� Aer - air
The golden ratio plays an important role in regular pentagons and pentagrams. Each intersection of edges sections the edges in golden ratio: the ratio of the length of the edge to the longer segment is ?, as is the length of the longer segment to the shorter.
Aleister Crowley also made use of the pentagram and in his Thelemic system of magick: an adverse or inverted pentagram represents the descent of spirit into matter, not the triumph over matter which was considered evil as taught by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
Its religious symbolism is commonly explained by reference to the neo-Pythagorean understanding that the five vertices of the pentagram represent the four elements with the addition of Spirit as the uppermost point. As a representation of the elements, the pentagram is involved in the Wiccan practice of summoning the elemental spirits of the four directions at the beginning of a ritual.
The outer circle of the circumscribed pentagram is sometimes interpreted as binding the elements together or bringing them into harmony. The Neopagan pentagram is generally displayed with one point up, however, within traditional forms of Wicca a pentagram with two points up is associated with the Second Degree Initiation.
