"Does it not shine on the head of the great Serpent of Vishnu, on the thousand headed Sesha-Ananta, in the depths of Patala, the Hindu Naraka or Hell"?
It does: but what is Ananta?
As Sesha, it is the almost endless Manvantaric cycle of time, and becomes infinite Time itself, when called Ananta, the great seven-headed Serpent, on which rests Vishnu, the eternal Deity, during Pralayic inactivity.
What has Satan to do with this highly metaphysical symbol?
The Svastica is the most philosophically scientific of all symbols, as also the most comprehensible.
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- [[Vol.
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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.
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"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.
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"* Verily many are its meanings!
In the Macrocosmic work, the " H AMMER OF C REATION," 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 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 [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * See " Asgard and the Gods ": "The renewal of the World.
" [[Vol.
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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: -- ".
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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.
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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 .
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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 (p.
305).
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The entire passage is structured around the Svastica's simultaneous operation at macrocosmic, microcosmic, and anthropological levels, explicitly mapping 'as above, so below' through the same symbol at every scale.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The passage narrates 'the world is formed out of the relics of the murdered Ymir' and references 'Cosmo-theogony' as the origin narrative, alongside the new Earth rising from the Waters of Space.
Salvation through direct experiential knowledge of the divine nature, not through faith, ritual, or moral works alone.
The passage states that 'he who comprehends its full meaning is for ever liberated from the toils of Mahamaya,' presenting direct understanding of the symbol's inner meaning as the path to liberation.
Esoteric teachings reserved for those ready to receive them; outer meaning conceals an inner liberating truth.
The Svastica is described as having 'seven keys to its inner meaning' and 'many meanings,' with its full significance concealed beneath its outward form, accessible only to those who comprehend it.
The doctrine that the cosmos unfolds as a structured descent of spirit into matter — a directional process traced stage by stage from an unconditioned principle down through successive planes to full materialization — complemented by its own eventual return ('evolution'). Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (the static structure of the resulting levels of the cascade) and cosmogony (a single originating event rather than an ongoing staged process) in naming the directional cosmic PROCESS of descent itself, paired with its own complementary ascent.
The Svastica is explicitly described as 'the Alpha and the Omega of universal creative Force, evolving from pure Spirit and ending in gross Matter,' naming the directional cosmic process of spirit descending stage by stage into full materialization.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The passage explicitly states 'Applied to the Microcosm, Man, it shows him to be a link between heaven and Earth,' with the right hand raised and left pointing to Earth, making the human the privileged mirror of cosmic structure.
A staged journey of the soul upward through heavenly realms or levels of being toward the divine source.
The instruction to 'climb up higher, to rise in knowledge and wisdom, step by step, from one heaven to another' describes a staged upward journey through heavenly realms toward the divine source.