“The Svastica is found heading the religious symbols of every old nation.” (H.P. Blavatsky)

THE 卐 IN THE CIRCLE

BY STUDYING THEOSOPHY AND HISTORY, THE REAL MEANING BEHIND THE SWASTIKA can be elaborated upon in the sense it is meant to be, as opposed to outlooks you might acquire from perspectives on the origins and history of religion by any person likely to distort the place of Indian and Persian Traditions, and “Pagans.” The Secret Doctrine (1888) makes very few, but interesting statements about the thunder-deity, Thor in Norse mythology, in reference to the archaic MYSTERIES and FOHAT.

We may begin to explain the significance of the geometric symbols and their transformations. In the context of the esoteric teaching, it is explained, that Buddhism rejects the idea of a singular Creative-entity, and the term God is used only as the symbolic conception of that, which is LIFE and Motion. The CIRCLE or dis is the “first archaic symbol,” and “the first geometrical figure and symbol in the subjective world. It becomes a triangle in the objective” (Collected Writings, Vol. X., pg. 385), or the primal Trinity.

Helena P. Blavatsky, after having elucidated that anthropomorphism is the backbone of theology, to its detriment, we are taught about the symbolism. Each is a book unto itself. A circle or disk is used to represent the origins of mind, the birth of the universe, and the evolution of humanity.

It is with the sixth symbol, or TAU within the circle, The Secret Doctrine explains is the swastika, relating both symbols to the meaning of an uninscribed cross within a circle. The cross in the circle stands for “pure Pantheism.” The sixth symbol on page 5 of The Secret Doctrine, is a circle with a horizontal diameter, and a vertical diameter at the half, forming from below. The diameter, when found isolated within the circle, symbolizes the self-generated female nature, or first Ideal World. The swastika is the Miolnir (Thor’s storm-hammer) and the Jain cross within a circle. The swastika encircled, as on the belt of Thor (or Donar) is also known as the “Hammer of Creation.” It symbolizes pure Pantheism, and is the emblem of the activity of FOHAT, or cosmic electricity.

ROTATIONS OF THE CYCLES, MOTION AND REVOLUTION OF THE INVISIBLE KOSMOS

The four arms refer to the continual motion and revolution of the invisible Kosmos of Forces. When applied to the manifested Kosmos and our Earth, it refers to the rotation in the cycles of time, of the world’s axis, and their equilateral belts. The two lines of the swastika stands for — Spirit and Matter, with the four hooks suggesting the motion in the revolving cycles. When applied to Man, the microcosm, it stands for the link between Heaven (right-hand raised at the end of the horizontal) and Earth (the left, or opposite arm).

Man is of both divine and terrestrial ELEMENT. When the swastika encircled is rotated clock-wise, it suggests involution; and when anti-clock, it suggests evolution.

The swastika is a great symbol if not one of the most sacred and mystic symbols, now classified as a “hate symbol,” because of the National Socialists and Defamation League. However, the symbol has been excavated in many parts of the world, such as in Europe, besides Germany, long before the National Socialists. How could the abuse of the National Socialists and Neo-Nazis, or Skin-Heads of just one century blot over 10,000 years of history of a symbol used long ago in Northern Europe, in the Neolithic culture of Southern Europe, in Ukraine, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In many myths, we see the creative powers failing to endow man with an informing soul, “a conscious immortal spirit, reflected in the mind.” It is in those myths, as in both the story of Prometheus, and specifically Bere’shith, that the elōhim collude, saying: “man must not be allowed to eat of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge.” 

Those whom offered man the knowledge in these myths are punished, as in the Avestan and Vedic texts. With the Christians, it is the serpent in the garden, or they teach, this was Lucifer.

The “Serpent of Wisdom” became for the Christians the Devil, just like the fate of Prometheus. Yet, the swastika on the head of Ananta, or Adishesha, the Seven-Headed Serpent on which rests Vishnu, reveals the primitive and true meaning. The seven-headed Serpent is the symbol of Space (mahakasha).

GODS OF THUNDER, fohat and the swastika

In the esoteric teaching, FOHAT is symbolized by Thor’s Hammer of Creation, the sólarhvél. The swastika encircled representing the fohatic principle, or primordial electricity runs through all the principles, elements and forces.

This is all connected to the teaching of a protean compound-element of spirit-substance or spirit-matter, the aggregate of all electro-dynamic and creative forces in the Universe sometimes called Svābhāvat. Spirit and matter are but differentiations of its states. This teaching of the existence of one single protean element, unborn, eternal and immutable appears different from the postulation that ultimate reality is emptiness (Śūnyatā).

The crux dissimulata, or the Tau concealed is the swastika, having survived in the form of the mallet. It is the gavel of the modern judge, in which the omnipresence of ODIN is remembered dispensing justice and LAW.

It was a significant symbol for the Germanic peoples, since the Bronze and Iron Ages, and the Indo-European World, and also in Asia. In Proto-Germanic, Thor, or Þunraz, means “Thunder.” Thor was the ideal every human warrior aspired to, and the Thor of Norse mythology and the Viking Age is far more interesting than the comic depiction of Thor.

Fohat is described as: the one Force, unified Force, cosmic Force, cosmic electricity, and the radiant energy that moves and moves everything.

“Col. Olott, was taken to task for asserting in one of his lectures that Electricity is matter. Such, nevertheless, is the teaching of the Occult Doctrine. (…) We will go further than that, and assert that Electricity is not only Substance, but that it is an emanation from an Entity, which is neither God nor Devil, but one of the numberless Entities that rule and guide our world according to the eternal Law of Karma (id. 137). All these, “Light,” “Flame,” Cold,” “Fire,” “Heat,” “Water” and “Water of Life” [as used in occultism] are, on our plane, the progeny . . . . . the “correlations” of Electricity. A Mighty word, and a still mightier symbol! Sacred generator of a no less sacred progeny: of Fire, the creator, preserver and the destroyer; of Light, the essence of our divine ancestors; of Flame, the soul of things! Electricity, the ONE LIFE at the upper rung of Being, and Astral Fluid (the Athonar of the Alchemists) at its lower, God and Devil, Good and Evil.” (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1, p. 111, fn)

It is the most vital character in mythology and cosmogony. It is also described as the light of the Logos (Sk. Sabda-Brahman), or devī prakṛti (daivī prakṛti or primordial light) in Sanskrit, and represents the active potency of śakti (“energy” or “power”) in Nature; or the “dynamic power” that produces the differentiation of primordial cosmic matter to form the different planes.

The Sanskrit daivī prakṛti gives us a better understanding of fohat, as daivī prakṛti tends to describe three main elements: the inner self, the root substance (cosmic energy), and that which links the two poles of spirit and matter, negation. This energy that produces the differentiations and transformations (or correlations of forces) is cosmic electricity, fiery-electrical energy, cosmic propelling Vital Force.

Fohat is the guiding power of all manifestation, the mysterious link bridging energy and matter, and the electric dynamic energy in the phenomenal world, bringing together “elemental atoms.”

It runs along the substance of the world, setting in motion the law of Cosmic Evolution on its planes. It is the electric Power of affinity and sympathy, destructive and constructive energy, the Primordial Greek God (Érōs) in that sense, and thus the Soul of Nature. It not only binds all things, but is the constructive power in the formation of all things, hence  carrying out the impulse of Evolution.

The Solarwheel, or swastika is thus a symbol in general of the wider cosmic evolution. Describing its sound, “Fohat hisses as he glides hither and thither (zigzags).” The powers of this principle are seven numbered, and the seven are the personifications of seven forms of Cosmic magnetism. Their co-operative and active radicals are referred to, along with other energies, as Electricity (Đunor), Magnetism, Sound, Light, Heat, Cohesion, and so forth.

Fohat is linked with the Aurora Borealis and Aurora Australis phenomena, the Equator, the Ecliptic, and the climates of the two Tropics (of Cancer and Capricorn), and the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The North and South Pole are considered the store-houses of Cosmic and terrestrial Vitality (Electricity and Magnetism) on our planet.

The most philosophical and transcendental Pantheists have taught, Blavatsky explains, that this principle abided in all things, pervading every atom, giving them impulse and animation. French writer, Eliphas Levi stated, that the secret of the Great ARCANUM (the MYSTERIES) was to master the knowledge of this force. “It is of interest to note that modern science has come to the conclusion, that all cerebration and brain-activity are attended by electrical phenomena” H.P.B. states, connecting it to conditions of consciousness and enlightenment.

“Every rational being—called Man on Earth—is of the same essence and possesses potentially all the attributes of the higher Aeôns, the primordial seven. It is for him to develop, “with the image before him of the highest,” by imitation in actu, the Potency with which the highest of his Parents, or Fathers, is endowed.”—Helena Blavatsky, Collected Writings, Vol. XII, pp. 555-556.

“Absolute wisdom mirrors itself in its Ideation; which, by a transcendental process, superior to and incomprehensible by human Consciousness, results in Cosmic Energy (Fohat).” (Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 1., pg. 328).

THOR’S HAMMER AND THE ESOTERIC MEANING OF THE SWASTIKA IN “THE SECRET DOCTRINE” (VOL. 2. 1888, PP. 99-100) 

“It is the summary in a few lines of the whole work of creation, or evolution, as one should rather say, from Cosmo-theogony down to Anthro-pogony, from the indivisible unknown Parabrahm to the humble moneron of materialistic science, whose genesis is as unknown to that science as is that of the All-Deity itself. The Svastica is found heading the religious symbols of every old nation. It is the “Worker’s Hammer” in the Chaldean Book of Numbers, the “Hammer” just referred to in the “Book of Concealed Mystery” (Ch. I., §§ 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.), “which striketh sparks from the flint” (Space), those sparks becoming worlds. It is “Thor’s Hammer,” the magic weapon forged by the dwarfs against the Giants, or the pre-cosmic Titanic forces of Nature, which rebel and, while alive in the region of matter, will not be subdued by the Gods, the Agents of Universal Harmony, but have first to be destroyed. This is why the world is formed out of the relics of the murdered Ymir. The Svastica is the Miolnir, the “storm-hammer”; and therefore it is said that when the Ases, the holy gods, after having been purified by fire (the fire of passions and suffering in their life-incarnations), become fit to dwell in Ida in eternal peace, then Miolnir will become useless. This will be when the bonds of Hel (the goddess-queen of the region of the Dead) will bind them no longer, for the kingdom of evil will have passed away. “Surtur’s flames had not destroyed them, nor yet had the raging waters” of the several deluges. . . . . “Then came the sons of Thor. They brought Miolnir with them, no longer as a weapon of war, but as the hammer with which to consecrate the new heaven and the new Earth. . . . . ”*

Verily many are its meanings! In the Macrocosmic work, the “Hammer of Creation,” with its four arms bent at right angles, refers to the continual motion and revolution of the invisible Kosmos of Forces. In that of the manifested Kosmos and our Earth, it points to the rotation in the cycles of Time of the world’s axes and their equatorial belts; the two lines forming the Svastica 卐 meaning Spirit and Matter, the four hooks suggesting the motion in the revolving cycles. Applied to the Microcosm, Man, it shows him to be a link between heaven and Earth: the right hand being raised at the end of a horizontal arm, the left pointing to the Earth. In the Smaragdine Tablet of Hermes, the uplifted right hand is inscribed with the word “Solve,” the left with the word “Coagula.” It is at one and the same time an Alchemical, Cosmogonical, Anthropological, and Magical sign, with seven keys to its inner meaning. It is not too much to say that the compound symbolism of this universal and most suggestive of signs contains the key to the seven great mysteries of Kosmos. Born in the mystical conceptions of the early Aryans, and by them placed at the very threshold of eternity, on the head of the serpent Ananta, it found its spiritual death in the scholastic interpretations of mediaeval Anthropomorphists. It is the Alpha and the Omega of universal creative Force, evolving from pure Spirit and ending in gross Matter. It is also the key to the cycle of Science, divine and human; and he who comprehends its full meaning is for ever liberated from the toils of Mahamaya, the great Illusion and Deceiver. The light that shines from under the divine hammer, now degraded into the mallet or gavel of the Grand Masters of Masonic Lodges, is sufficient to dissipate the darkness of any human schemes or fictions.

How prophetic are the songs of the three Norse Goddesses, to whom the ravens of Odin whisper of the past and the future, as they flutter around in their abode of crystal beneath the flowing river. The songs are all written down in the “Scrolls of Wisdom,” of which many are lost but some still remain: and they repeat in poetical allegory the teachings of the archaic ages. To summarise from Dr. Wagner’s “Asgard and the Gods,” the “renewal of the world,” which is a prophecy about the seventh Race of our Round told in the past tense.

The Miolnir had done its duty in this Round, and: —

“. . . . on the field of Ida, the field of resurrection (for the Fifth Round), the sons of the highest gods assembled, and in them their fathers rose again (the Egos of all their past incarnations). They talked of the Past and the Present, and remembered the wisdom and prophecies of their ancestor which had all been fulfilled. Near them, but unseen of them, was the strong, the mighty One, who rules all things. . . . and ordains the eternal laws that govern the world. They all knew he was there, they felt his presence and his power, but were ignorant of his name. At his command the new Earth rose out of the Waters of Space. To the South above the Field of Ida, he made another heaven called Audlang, and further off, a third, Widblain. Over Gimil’s cave, a wondrous palace was erected, covered with gold and shining bright in the sun.” These are the three gradually ascending planets of our “Chain.” There the Gods were enthroned, as they used to be. . . . From Gimil’s heights (the seventh planet or globe, the highest and the purest), they looked down upon the happy descendants of lif and lifthrasir (the coming Adam and Eve of purified humanity), and signed to them to climb up higher, to rise in knowledge and wisdom, step by step, from one “heaven to another,” until they were at last fit to be united to the Gods in the house of All-Father (see Asgard and the Gods, p. 305).”