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The Light and Shadow Worlds of the Swastika
by Leah Sellers
2009-08-19 09:14:03

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The Swastika. A Symbol - an Emblem.

Symbols and Emblems, like everything else, are defined, revered and/or reviled depending upon the Intentions and Energies of the groups of people or individual persons using them - brandishing them as a part of ThemSelves - a part of what they Stand For - a part of their Life Actions, Causes, Effects and Consequences.

Symbols and Emblems are given the Positive and/or Negative Energies and Characteristics of their Users - their Bearers.

The Swastika, when used in the Art, Lore and Religion of the Buddhists and Jainists, is a Symbol (Emblem) of “Well Being”. Mental, Physical and Spiritual “Well Being”. In fact, in many Cultures throughout the World the Swastika represents: Good Luck, Strength, Divine Light, Divine Power, Life and the Sun.

The Swastika has been in existence for up to ‘3,000 years of Civilization‘. But not until Hitler and the Nazis did the Swastika become a Symbol (Emblem) and Harbinger of Hatred - of Murder - of AntiSemitic genocide - of Violence and Death - of the inherent Destructive Evils all Human Beings can be capable of, if they so Choose.

Every War needs its Scapegoat, and Hitler and the Nazis (for a myriad of self serving reasons) made the Jewish race the primary, unreasonably, detestable Scapegoat for all that ailed Germany, Europe and the World.

The Swastika. A ghostly image hovering over Hitler and the Nazis’ tramping (and trampling), shiny, black boots, straight arm salutes and arrogantly destructive Ideological fervor. “Heil Hitler”! “Hail Caesar”! Hail Too Much Power Given To Any One Person! It all means the same. And eventually leads to the same Actions, Causes, Effects and Consequences.

During World War I, ‘and against the Germans, American soldiers actually used the Swastika as one of their Symbols (Emblems)’. The Swastika was ‘used by Americans in the French Escadrille Lafayette and by the 45th Infantry Division‘. A few American pilots even flew airplanes that had Swastikas (of Good Fortune) painted on the sides of their buoyant crafts.

Who Knows? Perhaps, during battle, Hitler, waiting in the trenches and surrounded by poisonous mustard gas, saw one of the flying Swastikas overhead, and became enamored of the Symbol (Emblem) soaring aloft on the plane’s birdlike visage. Who Knows? What other Symbolic and Ideological Interests, Prejudices and Destructive Grudges were born upon those Battlefields within Hitler’s Heart - within all European Hearts - within all Hearts around the World. Stones were cast and Cosmological Ripples were set into Motion.

Interests, Prejudices, seething, old Grudges and Cosmological Ripples which gave Birth to Nazism, and Rise to its more Negative Aspects - the cultural, ordered, malevolent Insanity which engulfed Germany, Europe, and the World. Seducing and entrenching Germany, Europe and the World within Dark Purposes fed by an all consuming hunger for Ultimate Power and Glory drenched in the Life’s Blood, Crushed Bones, Burned Ashes and Annihilated Nations left bereft and staggering within their devouring, tornadic wake.

One of the Consequences - We must all Be the Same. There is no room for Difference. Difference breeds Social Dis-ease and Weakness, and will not be tolerated - will be obliterated!

What's wrong with this premise? The World is filled with Differences constantly negociating with their various Environments, and creating dynamic Compromises with that Environment - or War with it. It's always a Question of Survival or Extinction. It's a Roll of the Cosmological Dice!

Who knows? Cause, Effect, Consequence. The continued Consequences we all Live with after catastrophic Wars and organized Human Cruelties, Injustices and Destruction.

The Swastika, and all Symbols and Emblems, are Revelatory Mirrors of our True Selves - our True Natures - our True Intentions and Life Actions, Causes, Effects and Consequences.

So, in the meantime, while pondering these Symbolic (Emblematic) Questions, if I should happen to cross paths with a Swastika bearing Buddhist monk, I will Respectfully Bow, and smiling politely, will return his Energetic Intention of “Well Being” to himself (my Neighbor) and everyone else (the National and Global Neighborhood) around me.

Ovi+culture Swastika

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Emanuel Paparella	2009-08-19 10:01:42
Food for thought here. As Jung also aptly points out, symbols are powerful phenomena; man makes symbols but paradoxically, the opposite is also true: symbols make man. Some, appealing to the last acceptable bias (anti-Catholicism) have called the swastika the crooked cross of Hitler who was born a Catholic in Aurstria but then they conveniently fail to pursue the crooked argument to its logical conclusion; on a crooked cross no stranscendence can be achieved, no intersection of the immanent with the transcendent at a certain point in time, at a particular place, within a particular people; such a cross is wholly closed upon itself in a sort of Nietzschean eternal return. Yes indeed, the symbols we faschion for ourselves do matter; we ingnore them at our own peril.


Emanuel Paparella	2009-08-19 10:03:29
Errata: fashion.


Alexander Mikhaylov	2009-08-20 02:23:17
Dear Doctor! I have received a strong impression that (based on your previous replies, as well as this one)you are an enemy of an anti - Catholicism.) Well, as a new - born baby, I was baptized in Russian Orthodox church (which we might consider as a branch of a Greater Catholic church now,correct me if I am wrong)therefore I can undestand you only too well. On the other hand,(speaking in somewhat vulgar terms) we are in the same boat or, to put in more poetic terms, we are riding in the same spiritual boat (but in different cabins, as it appears) towards the Great Eternity. But... what about Great Inquisition (and those thousands of people, or so they tell us in popular atheist- marxist - leftist -whatever propaganda literature)who were burned on a stake? What about idolatry and supression of arts and free thinking (Voltairian or Marquise De Sade's thinking, I suppose)? I'd like some explanation, please!


Alexander Mikhaylov	2009-08-20 02:30:28
Errata: ships do have cabins, boats do not.


Emanuel Paparella	2009-08-20 09:51:34
Dear Mr. Mikhaylov, the impression you got is not quite right. May I remind you that I have contributed sympathetic pieces on Far Eastern religions too besides those on Catholicism; and that in fact in the very one on anti-Catholicism as the last acceptable bias I mention Professor Weiler, a Jew, as one who puts us baptized Christians, often Christians by name only, to shame. He actually reads and reflects on the encyclicals of the Catholic Popes and finds it amazing that most Christians simply ignore them; and he does this despite the fact that he is aware that Christians persecuted his ancestors in medieval Europe. I find his stance enlightened. So, it would be more correct to say that I am an enemy of bias and prejudice against religion per se often found in political activists nowadays and which makes a mockery and a caricature of religion, declares it a crutch of sort (Marx) or “poison” (Mao), and then proceeds to eradicate it. I find such attitude reprehensible and in fact downright stupid. (continued below)


Emanuel Paparella	2009-08-20 09:58:41
On the abuses of religion, of course they are lamentable and reprehensible too, but as Thomas Aquinas has well taught us, the abuse does not take away the use. Taking away of the use of wine, let’s say, because there are drunkards around, is not a very intelligent stance either. Dostoyevsky has a wonderful description of the Gran Inquisitor in the Brothers Karamazov. Is Dostoyesvky advocating the abolition of any religion? I doubt it. What D. is lamenting is the turning of religion into a political tool or a cult. When that happens you end up with burning books and people too…The other side of the coin, if we be fair about the criticism, is the medieval monk in the monastery copying manuscripts and saving a bit of Greco-Roman civilization while the barbarians from the North (those who now consider themselves more intelligent than the stupid Southerners) were in the process of destroying everything they did not understand. Without those monks there might not have been a Renaissance and we may still have been running in the woods in Europe and in fact we might all be Moslems because obviously the Moslems did have a superior civilization in the Middle Ages. (continued below)


Emanuel Paparella	2009-08-20 09:59:16
The issue I mention in my comment with which you take issue is that of the making and choosing of symbols about which Jung has much to teach us. There is a difference between the cross and the swastika even though some of those biased anti-Catholic have attempted to make the case that the swastika is nothing but a crooked cross. As mentioned, the crooked cross is closed upon itself and leads to no transcendence of anything. It leads right to the lagers where eleven million innocent people were exterminated. With all due respect for your protestations against the Inquisition, the enormity of that crime against humanity committed by a nation which was one of the most civilized in Europe in a century proud of its “enlightenment”, makes even the Inquisition look like a picnic of sort.


Alexander MIkhaylov	2009-08-20 18:46:58
'With all due respect for your protestations against the Inquisition...' I am sorry Doctor, perhaps it is my lamentable habit of teasing people sometimes that tends to create slightly distorted impression of my true opinions and feelings...My feelings regarding the role of Inquisition (and a true amount of its victims) are quite un-ortodox, to say at least (I believe the abovementioned amount was deliberately exaggerated out of political reasons).


Alexander Mikhaylov	2009-08-20 18:55:49
It is interesting hovewer, that you have mentioned 'Brothers Karamazof.' I hope you would recall certain episode from that book, namely a death bed speech of Holy Old Man Zosima where the man said 'The Roman Church fell to the one of five's Devil's temptations - it desided to become a state, whereas our Orthodox Church wants only to be a part of the state.' (Sorry for not precise traslation/quote). I am aware that this statement reflects certain attituded of orthodox believers common at that time and in that country (Russia). Never the less, I was wondering ever since I read the book for the first time (not seriously perhaps, and it was long time ago but...)if there are some half - truth or at least logic in such statement?


Emanuel Paparella	2009-08-20 20:52:37
As already mentioned, Dante, a Catholic in good standing, does not hesitate, six hundred years ahead of Dostoyevsky to put three Popes in hell exactly for Zosima's reasons, but he does not make the mistake of declaring religion per se obscurantist and evil. We have o wait for the "enlightened" 20th century to see that phenomenon together with that of the atheist state. The fruits of that phenomenon, I am afraid are not very good, in fact they are downright rotten.


Alexander Mikhaylov	2009-08-20 23:01:58
True... Not to mention the fact that an atheist state managed to create its own pseudo-religion with the whole army of 'saints' and 'martyrs' Their demagogy used to make me sick even in middle school, when some 'lecturers' occasionally visited our class with a purpose of throwing at us the next ideological presentation. Huh... I was too argumentative for their taste even back then... Nearly ran myself into troubles a few times...Funny to think of it now...


Leah Sellers	2009-08-20 23:14:29
Gentlemen, Brilliant and 'fired up' discussion ! As they say, "the Proof is in the Pudding". What is more important and fascinating to me, is that We (Humanity in general) are all having these discussions in open global forums now. To me, discussions like these lead to synthesis. It's a sort of Purifying agent - this Sharing of Beliefs and Thoughts. It will be terrifyingly wonderful and awe inspiring to see where it all leads ! However, since I am a 'cock-eyed Optimist', I fully expect that Our Global Ideological Discussions, Debates (and Verbal Sparring Matches) will get us closer to Illumination and Enlightenment ! Thank you for your brilliance and the Coruage and Gifts you have to Share them with others.


Emanuel Paparella	2009-08-20 23:39:31
Thanks for providing the spark, Leah, and let the conversation continue while we follow the argument wherever it leads. Emanuel