Swaztika

[omarthefish]

Remember that time Hitler went after the Ark of the Covenenant? Man, that was fiasco.

Not that I don't get the joke but the plot was inspired by historical events. I am also not so sure about the assertion that he adopted some sort of European version of the swastica. He spent a hell of a lot of resources digging around in Tibet and researching the stuff up there. There was some thought that the Tibetans, based on their bone structure, might have been closely related to the hypothetical Aryan race proposed by Madame Blavatsky.

That **** just blows my mind when I get into it and is the main reason I have pretty much sworn off all western occult practices. No matter what strand I follow it always seems to lead back to proto-natzism. Either it's Von List or it's Blavatski or Crowley or one of their close peers.

Anyone here know off hand where John Dee popped up out of?

[Pork Chop]

Just for the record, I'm white of German/Austrian, Irish, and English descent.
Not only that, but I'm a heathen, so those runes mean something to me.

I was speaking for myself and other kids i grew up with in saying that there was a reluctance on our part to celebrate any of our cultural heritage growing up.

I hate people who blame the media, but growing up it was "white men can't jump", "white men can't dance", "who wants to see a team of all white players?", "look at that dorky white kid".

Anytime it came to cultural pride, we'd try to duck the question.

Even the phrase "white pride" is a pseudonym for racist skinheads.

In reference to the subject at hand, people like the Nazis in Germany of the 20s and 30s, took Wagner, with his plays that made Teutonic people proud of their heritage, and turned it into an excuse to hate everyone else.

I know better now that I'm older.
In high school I tried to reconnect with my Irish roots (having 2 Irish grandmothers), but kept getting excluded coz of my last name.
Lately I've been researching the heathen thing and finding out about my Austrian/German roots (I have ancestors that were in the Prussian military btw).

I think maybe you misunderstood where I was going with my comment.
I didn't mean white folks are the only ones who turn racist any time they try to celebrate their cultural heritage.

I meant that for a lot of movements that celebrate cultural heritage, for the various caucasion cultures, you've constantly gotta be on guard against some racist using it for his own means.

Whether it's skinheads showing up at the St Paddy's Day parade, Aryan Brotherhood prisoners in jail practicing Asatru (heathenism) and getting it put on the hategroup watchlist, or NeoNazis crashing a Wagnerian revival of Ring of Troth; a couple boneheads can make you regret even trying to learn about your culture.

[David Jamieson]

John Dee is pre pre pre any of those victorian occultists.

he was an Elizabethan era science advisor and astrologist to the Queen of England (QE1)

he was also the reputed founder of organized Rosicrucianism.
read more on this quirky fella here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dee

Interesting character in the scheme of western occult practices.

For info on what hitler was into occult wise, look up the Thule society and info on the Vril. keep an open mind. And yes, Hitler and his cronies sent out expeditions across the world to antartica to search for agartha, to tibet to find secrets, to india to learn secrets, everywhere. He was obsessed with these things.

[shadowlin]

I think you quoted the wrong person Sifu Darkfist (should be Pork Chop, not yenhoi).

Anyway, I'm not interested in other cultures because I'm ashamed of being white... I feel as good about having a mostly German/Austrain background as most Chinese do about being Chinese. It's not as if the only evil people of the 20th century were white folk. The Japanese government was a pretty big part of WW2 also... The Chinese government murdered millions of people... all kinds of nasty s#it going down in Africa... and of course there's the suicide bombing tactics in the middle east. White people shouldn't feel any better or worse than about their ancestry than anybody else.

Not to mention there's no difference between the Japanese people who were as patriotic and zealous in the 1940s as Americans are today... or any other people at any other time in any other place.

Evil, murder, and shame are the crops reaped when the seeds of hatred and jealousy are sown in the heart of Man.

[@PLUGO]

For info on what hitler was into occult wise, read HELLBOY!!!

[omarthefish]

John Dee is pre pre pre any of those victorian occultists.

he was an Elizabethan era science advisor and astrologist to the Queen of England (QE1)

he was also the reputed founder of organized Rosicrucianism.
read more on this quirky fella here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dee

Interesting character in the scheme of western occult practices.

Thanks. I threw that name out there because it was the only guy I could think of who didn't seem to match with the others.

For info on what hitler was into occult wise, look up the Thule society and info on the Vril. keep an open mind.

BTDT. I also like the saying, "Don't keep your mind so open your brain falls out."

I've known lots of nice fun loving occultist. Mostly they were just completely ignorant of the history of what they were doing or you just had to get into a slightly deeper conversation about the inner meaning behind their practices. My mind is not likely to change while I am here in China because that whole tradition doesn't seem to exist around here so there's not much chance of meeting enough counterexamples to convince me of anything.

I only came to these conclusions because I was headed that way myself untill I got deep enough in to decide that it was just the most beautful angel all over again. It never goes anywhere good.

[GeneChing]

For info on swastikas and Shaolin, read our shaolin forum thread.

D.S: Do NOT start the great comic wars again, especially not now.

[@PLUGO]

I think we can both agree on HELLBOY's Coolitude . . .

[SimonM]

That **** just blows my mind when I get into it and is the main reason I have pretty much sworn off all western occult practices. No matter what strand I follow it always seems to lead back to proto-natzism. Either it's Von List or it's Blavatski or Crowley or one of their close peers.

Just remember it wasn't just the Crowleys. There were also people like Yeats and I've never heard him being involved with nazi type stuff though he probably would have been quite fond of the IRA.

[Sekabin]

Yeah Crowley's organisation was actually quite small compared to the one that he belonged to temporarily - the Golden Dawn, which included Yeats along with a host of other creative people.

[Pork Chop]

dammmit i still want an apology for someone calling me a racist biggot.

i know old adolf was into the occult, but he considered Wagner his greatest mentor. Wagner's plays were heavily steeped in Teutonic mythos - what most would probably recognize as the viking/norse mythology. So, while I agree that he was into the occult, that he knew of the swastika as a symbol used in almost every culture world wide, and that he was passionate about finding (creating) his aryan "roots"; i really wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the obvious Germanic influence in using the symbol.

[danmyete]

First, greetings All,

Thanks to the site for the forum.

Second, what is being classed as the "Swatika" is known to other cultures. Personally, I believe its origins lie in Africa and its African variant centers around the concept of the so-called male/female, complimentary "opposites" concept so prevalent in African metaphysical thought.

My two cents.

[Eddie]

Africa is pretty big. which African culture are you refering to?

[omarthefish]

Yeah Crowley's organisation was actually quite small compared to the one that he belonged to temporarily - the Golden Dawn, which included Yeats along with a host of other creative people.

Just remember it wasn't just the Crowleys. There were also people like Yeats and I've never heard him being involved with nazi type stuff though he probably would have been quite fond of the IRA.

Most of the people I named can not be considered "The Crowleys" or even "Crowley's organization". You guys just picked up on the best known name. Golden Dawn goes back to the same place I was talking about. Natzi party was fimly rooted in the Golden Dawn. The only name mentioned so far that I really can't comment on is Joyce. Haven't looked into him so I confess ignorance up front.

It's all evil evil stuff and ultimately Satanic in the most authentic way. Not in the hollywood horror movie way but in the way that real Satanism works. The phrase everyone knows best, Crowley's summary, "Do what thy wilt...." is a real succint summary of Satan's sin. Without this rearangement of the higerarchy, placing "man" at the top and proclaiming that Man is the ultimate determinant of his destiny, then there is no room for the birth of Natzi Germany. I can't even say "the religious structure that they created" because the religious structure predated the Natzis. If it wasn't for Von List taking in a young Hitler as his protoge it's not possible IMO for him to have gone on the the "heights" that he did.

It amazes me that "Astara" has managed to so thouroughly erase the memory of the name as basically the anti-semitic cult that it was in the 30's.

No Blavatski, no "Aryan Race".

The evidence of Hitler's obsession with the Wagner's adaptation of the grail myth comes much later.

The peace symbol comes from turning Natzi grave markers upside down. The natzi's made it a policy to erase all traces of the Christian god from the german culture so they needed to get rid of all those pesky crosses marking graves. The chose as a replacement the "man" symbol. The rune representing "Man" because they were replacing god with man. That's the one connecting thread between most all of those turn of the century occultists. The age of reason was in full swing and people were obsessed with mechanism and theology was reflecting that. There seemed to be this wild idea that we had figured everything out or would soon and that included religious beliefs.

The idea of sumoning angles or working magic at all is explicitly forbidden by all 3 Judeo-Christian religions. The reasoning is because it is implicitly evil. You try to place yourself "higher" up when the essence of the Judeo-Christian tradition is the opposite. It's humility, not hubris.

[David Jamieson]

First, greetings All,

Thanks to the site for the forum.

Second, what is being classed as the "Swatika" is known to other cultures. Personally, I believe its origins lie in Africa and its African variant centers around the concept of the so-called male/female, complimentary "opposites" concept so prevalent in African metaphysical thought.

My two cents.

I don't believe it originated with any one culture. There is enough evidence around teh world to tell us their is a common stream of thought in virtually all cultures that is independent of each other. For example, the swastika and all its forms can be representitive of any concept you wish to attach to it. It shows a wheel that is continuous, could be the milky wa galaxy, could be a lot of things.

Other things that show that cultures indepently seem to be along the same line of thinking is pyramids. The human condition and how we percieve things is not much different from culture to culture. How we express our perception comes out in our culture, but the fact we are all human is underlying everything.

I am also not one of the people who is comfortable with the whole origin theory. I think life is like a mold and will simultaneously pop up in physical form wherevere the conditions are met in order for that to happen.

so, the out of africa theory such as put forth by the Leakys and others isn't exactly what I would think of as 'actual'. It's possible, but then, I tend to think about the freshwater theory that has at its base the idea that humans came into being wherever fresh water was that could support them.

Ultimately, it is irrelevant to the here and now and holds no tangible context and will remain a trivial thing. I don't believe science and anthropology will ever move beyond the terminological thinking that they have this tendency to ahere to. there msu be an origin, there must be a first etc etc. Just a bunch of cartesian dualism really isn't it?

The actual truth is that we have not one iota of a clue as to our origins, why we are alive, what is the universe and so on. All the big questions remain unanswered and will be so as long as we stick to our human condition and examine it with our dull and unknowing minds such as they are.