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From: mayne@sun16.scri.fsu.edu (Bill Mayne)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Re: Awakening From the Dream of Experience
Message-ID: <1991Jun6.221727.27679@nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 6 Jun 91 22:17:27 GMT
References: <1991Jun4.013633.19919@nas.nasa.gov> <1991Jun4.204544.16206@nas.nasa.gov> <1991Jun6.173310.20859@nas.nasa.gov>
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In article <1991Jun6.173310.20859@nas.nasa.gov> cak0l@larch.cs.Virginia.EDU (cak0l) writes:
>In article <1991Jun4.204544.16206@nas.nasa.gov> cognos!cognos!uunet.uu.net!garym@uunet.UU.NET (Gary Murphy) writes:
>
>>be 'what do I gain').  It's like Jesus saying the First Commandment
>>is the most important because all others follow from it, but I KNOW
>>from my travels that the meaning supposedly implied is open to VERY
>>wide interpretation: Nazism _is_ based on a Tibetan doctrine!
>
>well, not to quibble, but when i hit this, a very loud hmmm... struck my
>brain.  i know that the swastika is a reversed version of a buddhist
>holy symbol, but aside from this geometric tie-in to buddhism, i have
>heard nothing of how hitler grabbed ideas from tibetan buddhism.
>could you possibly back up this claim?

I think that even the geometric tie-in is a coincidence. Simple
geometric figures are universal. For example, it is ludcrous to infer
cultural connections between widely separated ancient peoples soley
because both built pyramids. If you want to claim that the Mayans and
Egyptions had some contact you have to do better than that. Similarly
the geometric form of a cross was used in pagan religions before the
Romans used crosses as methods of execution and the form got associated
with Xianity. And if I am not mistaken the Nazi swastika was based on
a corruption of the Xian cross icon which has been part of European
culture for many centuries. No direct connection to Tibetan Buddhism
is indicated.

To add one more coincidence, I've seen accounts which claim the swastika
was also used by some American Indians, with no likely connection to
either the Tibetan, pagan, or Xian usage. The Boy Scouts of America have an
honorary fraternity now known as the Order of the Arrow which uses a lot
of white men's ideas about American Indian symbols. Supposedly before
Hitler came along and gave the swastika a bad name this scout group
was the Order of the White Swastika. The name was changed for obvious
political reasons. Many years ago Reader's Digest published an article
in which a former scout described his experiences of initiation into
this order, tangentially mentioning the name change. By the way, some
men with the perfectly good given name Adolph, including one of the Marx
brothers, changed their names at about the same time.

Bill Mayne