My mom took my grandma (her mother) to hospital today, the doc confirmed she has Alzheimer's. We all knew that for a couple of years now. Pretty bad, she won't remember what happened 5 minutes ago. Anyway, this isn't the point of the thread. I just found something interesting on the doctor's sheet. It's a bigtime hospital, used by former communist leaders and such back in darker days. On the page header in the top right corner there's a weird wiccan (?) sign, a pentacle with four A's and a J. Really weird I thought... I mean... it's a hospital, what are they going to treat you with that has anything to do with paganism? Any info on this sign would be appreciated if anyone here has any idea. Drac

btw, that's a copy I made in paintbrush (it's identical in terms of the A's and the non-centric white and black circle). drac

maybe he doodles? and those A's don't look entirely like A's. But yeah strange. Our doctors have a symbol that has a staff with some serpent or whatnot wrapped around it (I think). Sorry to hear about your Grandmother, thats a difficult illness.

You know I've just been put in charge of the metaphysics section in the bookshop and we have a dictionary of signs. I'll see if it's in there. Sorry about your granny. I always forget you actually have one and didn't just spring into existence. It's been my experience that it's not always the sufferer that suffers so much, but the ones around them. You really have started rendering in paintbrush. I thought you were joking. Be pencil and paper before too long.

no... notepad :D but yeah, thank you to both. ang, it's a full-blown logo. and the doc's a she. as for the serpent, that's from antiquity (Greek i think, from one of the Greek gods that was the patron of medicine I think.. or was it Medusa? forgot). I just find it weird... I'll check a few wiccan forums as well. drac

Attached Link: http://www.andihoroscopes.com/histoccult/talisman.htm

This is the closest thing I could find using my googling abilities. It's probably from an old talisman or some other symbology that has to do with health and/or well being. (If not that something else?) You might be right about paganism, but it isn't necessarily wiccan. These things show up in ancient beliefs all througout Europe and the Mediterranean region.

In greek, A means air and J means jupiter, but I'll have to look up what 4 A's mean. Hippocrates was the greek doctor I think.

Upright pentacle is the symbol with many meanings and origins. http://www.religioustolerance.org/wic_pent.htm http://www.witchvox.com/basics/pentacle.html http://www.akashanpathways.com/pentagram_pentacle.htm Wiccans apprently call it the symbol of life. BTW, the five arms represent the four elements plus spirit, and as Phil says, a (or alpha) stands for air. Could that J actually be gamma? It would be Earth, and the sign would make kinda sense. And, yes, Hippocrates from Kos and the caduceus.

so I was right, the snake-and-sword thing is called a Cadecus. The American version has 2 snakes, others just have one (something that happened during the 1st World War, another of many useless facts filling my brain, instead of useful knowledge..;)
Dang, there's a web site dictionary of symbols out there. I have it in a database at home, but I'm not there right now. I got the site from Dialyn in the Writer's forum, ifn' I remember correctly. You might be able to Google it.

you guys have been tons of help, many thanks :)

Sorry to hear about your granny,.........there are drugs(Aricept, here in the States) that will slow the progression and maybe show some improvement. My Mom has Alzheimer's and was given Aricept and has gotten a bit better but the progression has slowed considerably. My wife's a closet wiccian (don't ask, I don't),.....I'll check with her.

The Cult of Dyonesius thought the pentagon had mystical properties because it formed the last regular solid. The pentagram actually dates back to their inner mysteries. Cult members actually sought the death of Asclepius because they thought he was revealing Dyonesian mysteries by practicing medicine in public. The staff of Asclepius has only one snake. The Caduceus with two snakes and the wings is actually the staff of Hermes (Mercury).

More: that thickening of the circle represents the Moon: "The moon brings insight & vision, while the pentagram bestows willpower & strength." So it's definitely Wiccan. OTST, those "letters" don't look like either alphas or a's. The alpha would be the other way around. I thought they might be astrological symbols, but they are not. BTW, electroglyph, the first mystical use of a pentacle dates back to the Hebrews when it denoted Truth. The Greek came later.

about this pentacle a friend of me ones pointed me to the fact that during the ww2 both the us and the rusians used pentagrams on theire vehicles as recognition sign any one know why?

But then there's always the Star of David ??????

Star of David is six-pointed.

Sorry to hear about your Grandma, my grandma's sister had the same thing. Those thingies look like 4's to me. Nothing much else to offer I'm afraid... maybe it's something to do with astrology? Interesting whatever it turns out to be. Fran

The things that look like 4's could be lower case alphas but the arm doesn't usually go through but stops when it meets the bar. There's nothing like J in the greek alphabet. Gamma looks most like a lowercase r.

That's the capital gamma. Up there's the lowercase gamma and the lowercase alpha. Are you thinking of the lowercase delta?

Well just some more pointless info, Wiccans/pagans were the ones that kept medicine practice alive which is one reason they were persecuted as witches and dealing in the black arts. Looking in the Necronomicon I can find similar symbols but doubt they come from that since they are the symbols on the Great Gate of the Elders

Here's the symbols I found

draculaz if the doctor is a Wiccan then he will not be doing anything in anyway to harm your grandma or anyother person in that hospital. The Wiccans have a rule they follow called The Wiccan Rede. This rule permits Wiccans to engage in any carefully considered action, as long as it harms nobody, including themselves. The Rede is reinforced by the Threefold Law. This is the belief that any harm or good that a Wiccan does to someone else comes back to hurt or benefit them -- magnified three times over. Both are mentioned in the Wiccan Credo, a poem about Wicca whose origin is unclear. Hope this clears up some of the misbeliefs you or anyone else may have about the Wiccans.

Attached Link: http://www.religioustolerance.org/witchcra.htm

As LordOfAcid said, Wiccans are not devil worshippers, etc (in fact the devil is not even in the mythos). Wiccans are more nature worshippers and beleiving in simple terms "what comes around, goes around". If need be you can think of them as white witches but even that is a poor comparison.

Message edited on: 02/11/2005 21:23

Basically those who were called witches were people who knew the ancient arts involving the study of nature. (It had nothing to do with satanism, although the christians made it look that way.) So in turn, medicine and alchemy came natural to them. These would be the folks who would try to remedy diseases to the best of their knowledge with various medicines which they learned to concoct. Unfortunately, if their cures didn't work - they'd be blamed for causing the illness in the first place (Which usually couldn't be further from the truth. Still, there were probably some unsavory types who used their knowledge to actually make poisons. $$$ talked even back then.)

Sorry to hear about your grandmother...it's always terrible when Alzheimer's takes a mind. I believe the letters are hebrew, as is the talsiman, and it's extremely old version. It should have a center symbol, so either it's unfinished, or won't work for what it was intended. There are natural energies that are bound within the pentagram by the lines crossing themselves and being unbroken, the energy is represented by the hebrew letter cooresponding to it, but to leave the center open is to let something out, or release an energy. At the moment I don't have my books with me, so I don't know what was being bound or released...

Those "A" lookin characters look similar to an "A" in neo-Etruscan (3-4th century BC). Initially it looked to me like an incomplete star (maybe that means something).

hmm... well I'm not a wiccan specialist, but one of my ex's is wiccan, I'll ask her if she knows anything.