This is the hardest question in the Black Sun series β and the most important. The symbol has a genuine, rich, pre-Nazi history across multiple traditions. It has also been thoroughly weaponised by hate movements and continues to be used by them today. Both of these facts are true simultaneously. What follows from that?
Symbols do not have fixed meanings. They accumulate associations across time, and those associations can be added to, contested and sometimes stripped away. The history of symbolism is full of meanings shifting β religious symbols adopted by secular movements, sacred imagery adapted to profane use, images of peace becoming images of war and back again. The question is not whether symbols can change meaning in principle. They can. The question is what it actually takes.
Reclaiming a symbol that has been associated with mass atrocity is not a matter of individual intention β "I know what I mean by it." It requires something more substantial: a genuine shift in the symbol's predominant cultural associations, driven by consistent, visible, culturally significant use of the symbol in ways that are clearly incompatible with the association being repudiated. This is difficult, slow and requires critical mass.
The Black Sun is not the only symbol to have been appropriated by hate movements. Examining how other appropriated symbols have fared β whether any reclaiming has occurred or is occurring β provides useful context for assessing the Black Sun's situation.
| Symbol | Original tradition | Appropriated by | Ongoing hate use | Reclaiming underway |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Swastika | Hindu, Buddhist, Jain, Native American, prehistoric global | Nazi Germany 1920β1945 | Active β neo-Nazi groups worldwide | Partial β Hindu, Buddhist and Jain communities actively use it; Western context remains severely contaminated |
| Elder Futhark Runes | Germanic and Scandinavian writing system ~150β800 CE | SS, Nazi racial mythology; ongoing neo-Nazi use | Active β several individual runes (particularly SowilΕ/SS, Tiwaz, Othalan) used by hate groups | Partial β Heathen/ΓsatrΓΊ communities actively reclaim; specific runes more contaminated than others |
| Celtic Cross | Irish and British Christian tradition ~8th century CE; prehistoric solar symbolism | White nationalist groups since 1970s | Active β widely used by white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups, particularly in the US | Partial β Irish Christian communities continue authentic use; contamination varies by region |
| Totenkopf (Death's Head) | Memento mori tradition; Prussian military units 18th century | SS-Totenkopf units overseeing concentration camps | Active β skull imagery used by neo-Nazi groups; the specific SS design very clearly hate-associated | Minimal β the specific SS design is not meaningfully reclaimed; generic skull imagery unaffected |
| Black Sun (Wewelsburg) | Ancient solar wheel symbolism; alchemical Sol Niger; various traditions documented in this series | SS (mosaic c.1933β43); "Black Sun" name from Landig 1971; neo-Nazi use from 1990s | Active β widely used by neo-Nazi, white supremacist and occult-fascist groups; linked to terrorist attacks | Unclear β some esoteric communities use it with documented pre-Nazi meaning; public association remains overwhelmingly negative in Western context |
| Othalan Rune (Odal) | Elder Futhark rune meaning "homeland/heritage" ~150β800 CE | SS Division Nordland, Nazi racial homeland ideology | Active β used by white nationalist groups; appeared at 2017 Charlottesville rally | Partial β Heathen communities continue use with historical meaning; contamination significant |
The swastika is the closest parallel to the Black Sun in the spectrum of Nazi-appropriated symbols β and its case is instructive because it is both more ancient, more globally distributed and more thoroughly associated with its Nazi use in Western consciousness than the Black Sun.
The swastika appears in archaeological contexts across Eurasia from at least 10,000 BCE β in the Indus Valley civilisation, in Bronze Age Europe, in ancient Greece (where it was called a gammadion), in pre-Columbian Americas, in Native American traditions, in early Christianity as a form of the cross. It is one of humanity's most ancient and most widespread symbols. In Hindu, Buddhist and Jain traditions it continues to be a sacred symbol of good fortune, auspiciousness and the eternal cycle β and these communities use it regularly and visibly in religious contexts.
Yet in the Western world, outside those living religious communities, the swastika remains essentially irredeemable in the near term. The Nazi association is so deep, so violent and so recent that any display of the symbol in Western public contexts is predominantly read as Nazi reference β regardless of intention. The living communities of the original tradition use it within their own cultural contexts, but the broader Western cultural environment has not shifted.
The swastika teaches us that even the most ancient, most widely distributed, most genuinely sacred symbol can be made functionally unusable in a specific cultural context by a sufficiently intense and sufficiently recent association with mass murder. The question is not whether the original meaning was real. It was. The question is whether that matters in practice, in this place, at this time.
β On the swastika as the paradigm case of appropriated symbolApplying the conditions for reclaiming and the comparative cases to the Black Sun, the honest assessment is this:
The pre-Nazi history is genuine and significant. This series has documented it across seven traditions β Egyptian, Mesopotamian, alchemical, Kabbalistic, Vedic, Norse and Germanic. The symbol's original meanings are rich, legitimate and worth knowing. Understanding them does not require using the symbol.
The Nazi appropriation was severe and the ongoing harmful use is active. Unlike the swastika β whose Nazi association is now predominantly historical β the Black Sun continues to be actively used by neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups in the present, including in contexts associated with terrorism. This is not a healed wound. It is an active one.
There is no living community of origin to lead the reclaiming. The pre-Nazi traditions that used solar wheel symbolism β Bronze Age Germanic cultures β are not living communities with continuing practices. This is fundamentally different from the swastika, where Hindu, Buddhist and Jain communities actively practise traditions in which the symbol is sacred.
The esoteric communities that use it operate in the shadow of ongoing hate use. Some occultists and esoteric practitioners use the Black Sun with full knowledge of and reference to its pre-Nazi meanings. This is intellectually honest β but it does not change the practical reality that displaying the symbol in public contexts will be read, by most observers, as an association with hate movements. The burden of disambiguation falls entirely on the user, and it is heavy.