Swastikas - Past and Present

Most people associate the swastika with Nazi Party, but the symbol is actually an ancient symbol that has been utilized by various cultures all over the world.  It's been used in Asian, European, and Native American cultures.  The swastika is a sun symbol, and is typically associated with the sun cross symbol.  Prior to being associated with the stigmas of Nazism, the symbol was usually interpreted to mean "well being," "lucky," or "enlightenment."

 Here are a couple of ancient swastikas:

Swastika on a Buddha

Swastika on a Roman mosaic

          

I should also point out that not all swastikas look alike:

The Thule Society used what is known as a 'broken' sun cross.

Symbol on the flag of Hirosaki, Japan

Now some may think the swastika symbol has gone away in the modern Western world.  While it's true that the symbol has been banned in Germany and most of the Western world views the symbol negatively, that hasn't stopped major corporations/organizations from using it...although they use what I call 'veiled' swastikas because they are careful not to make it obvious.

Take a look at this one:

At first glance, this doesn't appear to be a swastika.  It just looks likes a bunch of letter Ss (esses?).  But I actually noticed that it was a swastika when I saw it on the taskbar on a computer where I used to work.  If you crunch the symbol down small enough, it does look more like a swastika than when you view it at normal size.  And...should I also point out that the name of the company is Sun Microsystems?

CU Service Center actually made theirs look like a sun:

JP Morgan Chase hid theirs by leaving the middle of it blank:

Columbia Sportswear uses a design  similar to Sun Microsystem's logo:

Oddly enough, some other companies with "Columbia" in the name use sun symbolism too:

Columbia Broadcasting System uses the All Seeing Eye:                        

                                                                                                                                                                                            
Columbia Records sort of merged what looks like a record into an All Seeing Eye symbol that also looks like it has the Egyptian hieroglyph for the sun (Not to be confused with the Eye or Ra symbol) adapted into it:

                                                                                                                                                                        
Columbia Pictures didn't use a sun symbol, but they did use a depiction of Columbia, which used to be considered the "feminine personification of America" in much the same way the Romans personified Great Britain as the goddess Britannia.  So I don't know...I guess that's kind of pagan?  Maybe?  Ehh...whatever.

Columbia University doesn't appear to have gone along with the theme though...they just use a royal crown as their logo.  The logo does look like the crown depicted in the logo for the British Intelligence agency MI5 though.  You can come up with your own conspiracy theory about that.

You can find a lot of conspiracy theories to go along with these on the internet, and you can find a lot of other examples of occult symbols in corporate logos (some are more of a stretch than others). Even if you're not the conspiracy theory type, I've found that it's fun to look and see what kind of symbolism you can find in the various corporate logos we come across in daily life.

(I adapted this post from a  post on another blog of mine.)