The Swastika
In another of the essays of 'Introduzione alla magia' which was not
published in its American edition, namely 'Sulla tradizione
iperborea', 'Arvo' refers to an intellectual phenomenon to which we
have alluded last week when we stressed that, a priori, there isn't
necessarily any organic connection between two different traditional
teachings in which the same element can be found, contrary to what is
often assumed by historians of religions and supporters of the theory
of the transcendent unity of religions ; that is, that of
the 'migration of symbols', which "constitutes another cause of
confusion in the exploration of the origins, since the same symbol
may be resumed by traditional forms of given periods in a sense which
is very different from the original one. The fact remains nonetheless
that it is possible to indicate some essential symbols which were
originally specifically hyperborean and which, when we find them,
should make us sense the presence of an echo or of a lost fragment of
the primordial tradition".
Now, as everyone recalled, in message 357, we quoted an excerpt
of 'La croce uncinata', an article gathered in a small anthology
published in 1989 by 'Circolo di cultura politica', in which 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
upheld 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". "Furthermore, Evola adds, any symbol, by its nature, is
universal". We lodged a challenge against this standpoint, pointing
out that it is not because a given symbol is found in all cultures
that it means that its value and its meaning is the same in all of
them.
Well, it sounds like 'Arvo' - let's remind it, one of the various
pseudonyms used by Evola in the 'Ur and Krur' group - was on the same
wavelength as us in this respect, since, still in 'Sulla tradizione
iperborea', among those "essential symbols which were originally
specifically hyperborean and which, when we find them, should make us
sense the presence of an echo or of a lost fragment of the primordial
tradition", he indicated, precisely, the swastika : "It is a polar
sign, since the important and essential point in it is not the idea
of a rotating movement, but rather that of a fixed, 'polar' point,
around which this movement is realised".
The date of publication of 'La croce uncinata' is not given, but it
was written in all likelihood after 'Sulla tradizione iperborea'. In
the meantime, the influence of parts of Guénon's work on Evola was
becoming more and more pronounced.
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