The cognitive dissonance is strong with this one!
This probably does nothing to put westerners at ease about swastikas and their association with nazis! But this mindfrack has also been a somewhat popular symbol. It is supposedly used now by “Raelians” - a religion about extraterrestrials - but it was popular around the turn of the last century, and used by Theosophists and masons. These are the groups who the nazis appropriated it from, when trying to synthesize mostly harmless theosophy with their own weird racist Germanic/Nordic mythos. Somehow the “Aryans” of India are really Magical Vikings… ? No, it never made a lick of sense.
I’ll get off of my swastika soapbox by finishing with some swastika soap. I bought some of this stuff from an online dealer of Indian groceries, where it was generically listed as “Neem soap”, and was surprised that it was “swastik”. My spouse was not impressed! But it happens to be a really good formula of soap, mildly antiseptic, cleans well, smells great.
I’ll see if I have more weird rainbows here, but US dog-whistlers tend to avoid using them.
