Symbols
- Myths
Description
For non-materialist, archaic man, physical objects and acts are only real and only have value by their participation in a transcendent reality. The act of eating renews communion, consecration makes sacred by uniting an object with God. Every action is seen as re-enacting what has been done many times before by others, and originally by something higher than mankind, a [celestial archetype]
. Building a temple to a divine pattern means physically representing something which exists already at a higher plane. It may be said, for example, that temples and palaces are representations of the holy mountain at the [centre of the world]
where heaven and earth meet. This is particularly interesting when compared with the concept of Christianity that the body is the temple of the spirit or of freemasonry where the body and mind comprise the temple of the soul. Although problems may arise when different religious or cultures use different symbols to represent the same thing, and dissent occurs when unfamiliar rituals or expressions are encountered, it is interesting that many basic symbols are common to all traditions.
Symbolism is inherent in the relating of things because of their apparently superficial similarity, as is typical in [archaic thought]
. It also seems to be a basic necessity of life, an organic rather than a spiritual phenomenon (if the two can really be separated). Even animals have elaborate rituals for courtship, for rivalry and power struggle (many species have mock rather than real fights for supremacy) and for orders of rank and submission. The movement which lacks symbolism also lacks appeal and the individual is far more likely to respond when confronted with a symbol which triggers a response rather than something which appeals only to the intellect.
The world speaks through symbols, reveals itself through them. Symbols are not replicas of objective reality. They reveal something deeper and more fundamental. Symbols are capable of revealing a modality of the real or a dynamic of the world which not available on the plane of immediate human experience. They can operate, not in the first instance, on the level of rational cognition but rather on the level of apprehension by the active consciousness prior to reflection. Symbols which touch on patterns reveal a deeper life, more mysterious than what is grasped by everyday experience. Symbols are always religious, in that they always point to something real or to a world pattern; and the real is the powerful, the significant, the living and therefore the sacred. They imply an ontology which is a judgement of the world and human existence and which can not always be translated into concepts.
Another characteristic of symbols is that they are multivalent; they express simultaneously several meanings the unity of which is not obvious on the plane of immediate human experience nor by critical reflection. This unity is the result of a mode of viewing the world. As a result of its multivalent capacity it also reveals a perspective in which diverse realities can be fitted together or integrated into a system of thought. Also, they have the capacity to reveal paradoxical aspect of a single reality. For example, the verbal symbol fire points to comfort and pain, a tool and a source of destruction and to a warm and cozy evening before the fireplace and a towering conflagration and the smell of burning flesh resulting from fire bombing. Finally, symbols have an existential value. They can reveal that the modalities of the spirit are manifestations of life. They bring meaning to mundane human living. A person who understands a symbol not only opens himself up to the objective world but is connected to the universal.