One may rightly regard the fact that Guénon ascribed the colour blue,
not the colour yellow as is more usual, to the third caste, as a mere
detail. However this may be, it is no wonder that 'Palingénius' was
reluctant to approve the theory that each caste corresponded
originally to a particular race.
This is how 'Palingénius' explained the formation of castes
in 'L'Archéomètre' : "Just as, within a living body, each organ has
its own function, so, in any race or tribe, social classes are formed
which exercise determinate functions, and it is natural that men, at
the beginning of each such organisation, gather according to the
affinities of their individual natures. Gradually, the differences
between these groups become more marked, and stabilise so as to
assume the character of ethnic distinctions, which they did not have
before ; this is the most likely origin, if not of the primordial
races, at least of the secondary races which formed subsequently."
Leaving aside the fact that René Guénon never returned to questions
of race in his later work, and that a study of his idiosyncratic use
of the word 'race' would be most interesting, we have here one of the
main differences between him and Evola. For the latter, the
individual nature of a being determines his function, whereas, for
the former, function is primordial. We don't think that we are going
too far if we say that that extremely important difference is
reflected in all of their respective work, in their respective
manners of considering all questions, whether from the metaphysical
or from any other standpoint.
--- In
evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com, "vandermok" <vandermok@l...>
wrote:
>
> I don't think either Evola or Guénon ever associated
> the 'gunas' with any colour, but the latter, in a
> series of articles called 'L'Archeomètre' and
> published in "La Gnose" from July 1910 and February
> 1912, referred each 'varna' or caste to a colour :
>
> Brahamana: white
> Kshatriya: red
> Vaishya: blue
> Shudra: black.
>
> Leaving that detail aside, the two swastikas show the
> rotation of the cross of the four elements around a
> solar centre or pole and through the three worlds. The
> rotation changes according to the northern or southern
> hemisphere in which it occurs. To me the difference
> between clockwise and counterclockwise is the same as right or
left,
> also keeping in mind the directions of
> the writing, right-hand or left-hand, according to the
> not casual typology of the various races and
> languages.
>
>
> In
evola_as_he_is@yahoogroups.com Savitar Devi <savitar_devi@y...>
wrote:
>
> (...........) Has any one ever mentioned the fact that the colours
(red, white and black) also correspond to the three gunas of
Hinduism? Is this purely coincidental, or part of the design?
>
> original message from: <evola_as_he_is@y...>
>
> Although it has been suggested that Hitler's use of the swastika
and
> the ceremonial of his rallies were inspired by his childhood
> experiences of Catholic liturgy, by a swastika symbol he saw over
the
> door of an old monastery at that time of his life, other sources of
> inspiration are obvious here. They have been pointed out by many of
> those who have studied National-Socialist symbolism.
>
> The seal used by Blavatsky on her writing papers shows her initials
> in an hexagram topped by a short-legged anti-clockwise swastika
> standing on one of its angles and enclosed in a circle formed by a
> snake biting its tail. That swastika symbol was then used in an
> altered form in the seal of the Theosophical society, whose
> publication for English children at that time was called 'Lotus
> Journal'. Precisely, 'Lotusbluthen' (Lotus Blossoms), a periodical
> specialised in the occult which ran from 1891 to 1900, was the
first
> German publication to feature the (Theosophical) swastika on its
> cover. By the end of the nineteenth century, the swastika could be
> found on German völkisch papers and was the official emblem of the
> German Gymnasts' League. In the beginning of the twentieth century,
> the swastika was a common symbol of German nationalism : it was the
> emblem for the 'Wandervogel', a German youth movement ; it was
> featured on the cover of Lanz von Liebenfels' antisemitic
> paper 'Ostara' ; various 'Freikorps' units used it too. According
to
> D.L. Niewyk ('The Jews in Weimar Germany', 1980), the swastika was
> chosen as the emblem for 'The German Völkischer League for Defence
> and Defiance', a Pan-Germanic League created in 1919, and which
> gained 200,000 members before being dissolved by the government in
> 1922. In any case, the swastika was much in evidence in the
symbolism
> and in the ceremonial of the 'Alldeutscher Verband', the Pan-
Germanic
> League organised in Berlin in the 1890's to spread the belief in
the
> superiority of the German race and culture. As is well-known, the
> emblem for the 'Thule Gesellschaft', which 'sponsored' the 'Deutsch
> Arbeiterpartei', was also a swastika ; when Julius Streicher, the
> local leader of the DAP in Franconia, formed his 'Storm Troops'
(the
> SA), their uniforms bore a swastika armband. In doing so,
the 'Thule
> Gesellschaft' followed the precedent of Guido von List who, in the
> late nineteenth century, had made the swastika a symbol for the neo-
> heathen movement in Germany, as recalled by Evola in 'Hitler and
> Secret societies', and had suggested that it be a sign for all anti-
> Semitic organisations.
>
> As to the person who was behind the choice of the swastika as the
> main symbol of the NSDAP and later of National-Socialist Germany,
he
> is not known precisely. The hypothesis goes that it derived from
the
> relations between Gurdjieff and Karl Haushofer, the founder
> of 'geopolitics', who was an important character in the Third
Reich ;
> that's the one which was advanced by Evola in 'Il Signor Gurdjeff'
> (in 'Roma', 16 April 1972). In 'The Occult Roots of Nazism', N.
> Goodrick-Clark put forward another hypothesis : it was Friedrich
> Krone, a dentist who joined the 'Germanenorden' in 1913 and later
> the 'Thule Gesellschaft', who, in May 1919, proposed the swastika
as
> a symbol for the NSDAP. The swastika of Guido von List and that of
> the 'Thule Gesellschaft' were right-handed, whereas that of
> the 'Germanenorden' and that of the German Theosophical Society
were
> left-handed. Krone preferred a left-handed form because of its
> Buddhist interpretation of good fortune, but Hitler managed to
> persuade the party committee to adopt the right-handed version with
> arms crossing at right angles. Krone and Hitler then designed the
> colour scheme of a black swastika in a white circle on a red
> background. It was first displayed at a party meeting on the 20th
of
> May 1920 and became the official emblem of the NSDAP on the 7th
> August 1920, at the Salzburg Congress.
>
> Hitler describes it in 'Mein Kampf' as follows : "(As National
> Socialists) In red we see the social idea of the movement, in white
> the nationalistic idea, in the swastika the mission of the struggle
> for the victory of the Aryan man, and, by the same token, the
victory
> of the idea of creative work, which as such always has been and
> always will be anti-Semitic."
>
> In 1933, Guénon considered the use of the swastika by the National
> Socialists 'arbitrary', and yet, if he had lived long enough to
> read 'Il Fascismo visto dalla Destra. Note sul Terzo Reich', Volpe,
> Rome, 1970), he would have most likely agreed with Evola that "it
is
> ludicrous to uphold, as some have done within the context of
> a 'diabolical' interpretation of Hitlerism, that the reversed
> rotation of the swastika was an unintentional but clear sign of
> its 'diabolical' character'." As a matter of fact, Guénon made it
> clear in 'Le symbolisme de la croix' (1931), that there is no
> difference of value between destroverse swastika and sinistroverse
> swastika. Both versions could be found in early Vedic culture.
Still
> in 'Il Fascismo visto dalla Destra. Note sul Terzo Reich', Evola
adds
> that, contrary to what some people think, those who chose the
> destroverse swastika as an emblem for the NSDAP were not aware of
the
> fact that that version, that is the one with the "reversed
> rotation", "is a symbol of power, while the movement in the normal
> direction (sinistroverse) is a symbol of 'wisdom'."
>
> We must say that it's taken us some time to understand Evola's
point,
> and that, for a long time, we almost came to think that there was a
> misprint in that sentence we've just quoted. For us, the 'normal'
> direction is the clockwise one, that of the Hitlerian swastika, and
> not the anticlockwise one, if it may be spoken of 'normal'
direction
> and 'reversed' direction in the case of a symbol which is found in
> the Aryan civilisation in both versions, and whose respective
> meanings, in that civilisation, far from being opposed, are
> complementary. It should be pointed out, however, that, here, Evola
> seems to look at things from the standpoint which has come to
prevail
> with respect to the orientation of the swastika, that from which
the
> destroverse swastika is looked at as a 'reversed' version of
> the 'sinistroverse' one purely because, in Buddhism in particular
and
> in Far-East Asia in general, sinistroverse swastikas happen to be
> more common than destroverse swastikas. This standpoint seems to
us,
> to say the least, arbitrary, not to say tendentious, and...
reversed.
>
> In 'La croce uncinata' (this article is found in a small anthology
> published in 1989 by 'Circolo di cultura politica'), Evola wonders
> about the origin of the swastika. "Is it true that it is the symbol
> of a special race, of the Aryan or Indo-Germanic race? This is what
> was assumed in certain circles in the past century and what is
still
> assumed by some people today. Ernst Krause and Ludwig Müller uphold
> precisely that that symbol was peculiar to the Indo-Germanic stocks
> in ancient times. This thesis, however, has proved to be untenable.
> Further research have enable to bring to light that it was spread"
in
> most of the areas of the world, in California, Korea, Central
> America, Mesopotamia, Japan, South Africa, and so on, "areas which
> cannot correspond to ancient seats of the Indo-Germanic
> race". "Futhermore, Evola adds, any symbol, by its nature, is
> universal".
>
> Yet, that doesn't mean in any way that the value of a given symbol
> found in all cultures is the same in all of them. This point, which
> never seems to spring to the mind of traditionalists, could never
> been emphasised enough. Not to take it into consideration would be
to
> make a great mistake in the interpretation of symbols and of the
race
> of the spirit of the respective peoples who use them.
>