Re: Is the Swastika evidence of a common origin?
Dan Clore (clore@columbia-center.org)
Thu, 16 Jan 1997 05:28:05 -0800
Gerry Palo wrote:
>
> In article <1997Jan9.201830.8899@atl.com>,
> Pastor Bob <pbob@jacobs.ladder.com> wrote:
> >In article <5b0g3b$26i@bcarh8ab.bnr.ca>, swatson@bnr.ca (Stephen Watson) says:
> >
> >>In article <01bbfcfb$40aef7e0$1d3ae9cd@wintermute>,
> >>Gord Bowman <gbowman@atlsci.com> wrote:
> >
> >>>The Swastika (the original, not the flipped Nazi version) is an ancient
> >>>symbol of unknown origin that has been employed for thousands of years as a
> >>>religious sign and a decorative emblem.
>
> There is a popular notion that the Nazis reversed the direction of the
> arms of the swastika, perhaps as somee kind of dark perversion of an
> otherwise innocent symbol. But this is not true. The swastika appears in
> many places in both orientations. It was a common esoteric symbol in a
> variety of European esoteric movements, including the Theosophical Society
> before and just after the turn of the century. Many publications from that
> time bear the "Nazi" type symbol. It goes back further, certainly to
> India. I believe the word swastika is Sanscrit.
The Nazis got the symbol from an earlier group, the Thule Gesellschaft,
which was a sort of Theosophical offshoot that believed in the lost
continent Thule as homeland of the Aryan race. (Point: Theosophy was
illegal in Nazi Germany and known members were sent to concentration
camps; don't bother trying to blame them for the Nazis because of a
connection like this.)
> I think the legend of the Nazi flipping came about in America when the
> opposite-oriented swastika was found to be a sacred symbol among Native
> Americans. Naturally one would want to distance oneself from the Nazi
> sign, so the notion came about, based on incomplete information, that the
> "true" swastika spins clockwise where the false, bad Nazi one goes the
> other way.
> --
In some traditions the one way is good and the other bad. The pattern
shows up all over the place: in Native American traditions, Hindu,
Buddhist (a sign of a Buddha is being born with the chest hair arranged
as a swastika) and even in common English sewing patterns -- called a
fylfot.
--
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Dan Clore, Doctor of Necronomy and Necronomics.
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