Pentagram

No. The upright pentagram ⛤ is far older than Satanism.

The Satanic reading is real but belongs to a different form. Since the nineteenth century many occultists have distinguished the star with one point up, read as spirit ruling over matter, from the star with two points up ⛧, read as the reverse. Modern Satanism took the inverted star, put a goat's head inside it and made that its emblem, the Sigil of Baphomet (a sigil is a magical seal). So when you see ⛤ standing on one point, the odds are it means witchcraft, paganism, protection or simply a dark look, not devil worship.

Wicca is a modern pagan religion that took shape in England in the mid-twentieth century; most Wiccans honour nature, a goddess and a god, and mark the year with seasonal festivals. Its best-known symbol is the pentacle: the pentagram inside a circle. Many Wiccans and other witches read the five points as earth, air, fire, water and spirit, and the circle as unity or the whole. Worn as a pendant or drawn on an altar, it is for many their sign of faith, in the way a cross or a crescent is for others.

Where does the pentagram come from?

It is ancient, and its meaning changed many times. Five-pointed star signs appear in Mesopotamian writing around 3000 BCE. In ancient Greece the Pythagoreans, a philosophical brotherhood, used it as a token of health and a sign of recognition among members; its geometry is remarkable too, since its crossing lines divide one another in the golden ratio. Medieval Christians read the five points as the five wounds of Christ: in the English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight the knight carries a gold pentangle on his shield as a badge of virtue. By the end of the Middle Ages, in parts of Western Europe, it also served as a protective charm against evil, scratched on doorways and cradles.

The darker reading arrived in the 1850s, when the French occultist Éliphas Lévi wrote that the inverted star was the sign of evil. In 1897 a book by Stanislas de Guaïta printed a goat's head inside an inverted pentagram, and in 1969 Anton LaVey's Satanic Bible put that design on its cover; the Church of Satan later named it the Sigil of Baphomet. Horror films and heavy metal album covers made the inverted star familiar to millions more, which helps explain why many people now see any pentagram and think of the devil.

What does it mean when someone sends ⛤?

Often an aesthetic or an identity: witchy, pagan, goth or metal. In a username, bio or caption, ⛤ sits beside 🌙🔮🕯️ to say "I am into witchcraft, tarot or paganism", or beside 🖤⚰️ to set a dark, gothic mood. A friend texting it before a concert or a Halloween party likely means atmosphere, not theology. Someone who practises Wicca may use it exactly as a believer uses ✝️ or ☪️: as a quiet statement of faith.

Read the orientation before you react. ⛤ stands on one point; if the star in front of you has two points up, it is the inverted form, which does carry a Satanic charge. And remember that the person who sent it may not have thought about any of this.