Peace sign: Apostles to no nukes

Interpretations of symbol vary; Pagosa Springs dispute not first

December 3, 2006
By Thomas Munro | Herald Staff Writer

The just-concluded battle over a peace-sign wreath hung south of Pagosa Springs was hardly the first attempt to ban the peace symbol.

It has been banned at schools in several states over the years, and the dress code of the city of Odessa, Texas, banned both the peace symbol and the Star of David as Satanic symbols.

All these incidents are reminders of the unsettling and sometimes uncontrollable power of symbols.

While the group responsible for the creation of the peace symbol offers a specific, historically documented description of its origin and intended meaning, there have been a number of other, likely unintended, interpretations.

The first version of the peace symbol was designed in 1958 by Gerald Holtom, a professional designer and artist, according to the Web site of the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. It was first used in the first major anti-nuclear march, which the campaign took from London to Aldermaston, England, in that year.

Holtom said the symbol incorporated the semaphore letters "N" and "D" to represent nuclear disarmament.

He also gave a more personal account of the meaning of the symbol in a letter to the editor of Peace News, reprinted on the British Campaign's Web site. "I was in despair. Deep despair," Holtom wrote. "I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad. I formalized the drawing into a line and put a circle round it."

While the design may or may not have been intended to contain Christian symbolism, the colors of the original buttons bearing the design at Aldermaston had a specifically Christian significance. Marchers were to wear black and white buttons on Good Friday and Saturday and switch to green and white on Easter Sunday.

One version of the anti-Christian interpretation begins with the alleged martyrdom of the apostle Peter, an early leader of the Catholic Church. According to traditions recorded in the apocryphal "Acts of Peter," the apostle was crucified upside-down at his own request during the reign of the Roman Emperor Nero.

According to the tradition, Peter wanted the unusual crucifixion because he felt himself unworthy to die in the same manner as Jesus. The upside-down cross therefore was occasionally venerated as a symbol of Peter's martyrdom over the succeeding centuries, although rarely with "broken arms."

Gerry O'Sullivan, then at the University of Pennsylvania, traced the re-interpretation of the upside-down cross in his 1991 essay, "The Satanism Scare." According to O'Sullivan, the 1960 book The Morning of the Magicians, a mystical, occult text considered to be the first New Age book, introduced the ideas that the upside-down cross is Satanic, and that it was used mockingly by both the Romans and the Nazis.

Some religious groups disagree with O'Sullivan, saying these ideas reflect actual historical practices. The ultra-conservative John Birch Society popularized the idea of the peace symbol as a "broken cross" - the same term often used to describe the swastika.

Guides for law enforcement and schools during the satanic ritual murder scare of the 1980s warned that the peace sign could be an indicator of Satanist activity. Self-proclaimed Satanists and pagans deny the use of the upside-down cross in their rituals.

Pagosa Springs homeowners Lisa Jensen and Bill Trimarco hung the peace wreath Nov. 19. The homeowners association demanded they take it down, saying it was offensive to families with soldiers in Iraq and that it was anti-Christian. When publicized, the incident drew nationwide reaction, along with near-unanimous criticism of the homeowners association.