Ancient Mysteries no. 18, January 1981 (continuation of Journal of Geomancy)
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The enigma of the pattern known as the Ilkley Swastika has puzzled antiquaries since it first came to their attention in the eighteenth century. Said to represent the solution to a schoolchildren’s riddle on how to segregate rich and poor, it has never been adequately studied from a comparative symbolism point of view. Its superficial resemblance to the Aryan swastika has distracted people from its close resemblance to four Asiatic ‘yang and yin’ symbols placed in a square. Now, if we draw four of these signs so that their circles touch, colour in the appropriate ‘dots’ and add a ‘navel’ or ‘omphalos’ dot for the centre, which is also coloured in, and we have the diagram on the right. The coloured-in areas correspond exactly with the pattern of the ‘Ilkley Swastika’. Such a ‘coincidence’ cannot be fortuitous, for although no known ‘yang and yin’ signs exist in the West as early as 1500 BC, the supposed date of the ‘swastika’, the cosmological symbolism of the four directions is admirably borne out if interpreted as four ‘yang and yin’ signs. In effect, it stands for the unity of opposites in the four directions turning away from and coming in towards the central omphalos, the Creator or origin of all things. The ‘segregation’ story of schoolchildren emphasises this unity of opposites theme, for the central dot is there supposed to represent a well, traditional symbol of the fountain at the centre of the world, immortalized alike in Norse, Hindu and Jewish mythologies.