Symbols have always surrounded us in our daily lives and allow us to process immense amounts of information in a short time. We make quick decisions based on a glance at street signs. We connect business logos and brand names with an array of meanings. Every time we read a book we transform the letters on the page into meaning. We even think in images and dream in symbols. Jean Houston, in her Mystery School (2003) lecture, explains, “One of the great major access ways to the extraordinary universe is through images… It is the secret tool of the human mind-brain system as it relates to and downloads the universe and this is a fact known by all peoples and all places and times: images have psychophysical and psychospiritual potency… This means that in both the ancient creation stories and modern ones as well, there are images that evoke in us and decode in us the very place of the ever present origin.”

Just as our dreams are filled with symbols that are rich in meaning, the same great archetypal personalities and stories appear all over the world with the same meaning. Houston further asserts, “Beneath the surface crust of consciousness we are filled with the great stories, the great themes. It’s just part of the givens of the psyche: archetypes, numinous borderline persons, great energetic transformative tales, the hero/heroine’s journey… we are coded with the story. They are part of the transpersonal and give us the power, and the domain, and the impetus, and the courage of the larger journey.” These images became imbedded in the psyche of humankind and are awakened through the use of symbols. “We are filled with symbolic structures. Symbols are there, redolent in the psyche of ourselves… Symbols contain, like a DNA, coding of immense information, and a symbol, when it wakes up in you, will suddenly flood your mind with tremendous amounts of knowing. Those symbols seem to be coded in the human psyche.”

This symbolic understanding is paramount to religion and spirituality, as well as culture. According to editor, Mircea Eliade, in The Encyclopedia of Religion (1987), “Symbolism is the very life’s breath of religion. Every sentiment, every ideal, every institution associated with the phenomenon of religion, be it noble or ignoble, subsists in an atmosphere of symbols. It is through symbols that religions survive in our midst and through symbols that we gain access to the religious life of past or alien cultures.” Man, Myth, and Magic: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Mythology, Religion and the Unknown (1995), edited by Richard Cavendish, affirms this: “The urge to make pictures and sculptures of the gods is a human need which has found expression in most religions, although some, notably Judaism, have prohibited it. As Christianity developed, images of Christ, the Virgin and the spirits became objects of reverence, sometimes credited with the power to perform miracles… The human mind is so constructed that for most people, comprehension of anything implies the ability to picture or visualize it.”

This course endeavors to reveal the meanings behind symbols. It is a beginning, a place to start the student’s understanding. Let me be clear: I do not pretend to have uncovered the complete meaning of every religious and spiritual symbol. As you read, you will begin to understand the inexhaustible meanings behind symbols. However, you will also find threads of meaning that connect a single symbol to an array of meanings, which is essentially the key of symbols: one can look at a symbol and have a flood of understanding that connects culture, religion, spirituality, and the psyche. For this reason, even as it appears overwhelming, there is much repetition, for, as Houston and Eliade point out, the same stories with the same symbolism are told over and over again regardless of time or place. In this lies the true value of this course. As you read your other courses, such as World Religions or Gods, Goddesses, and Mythology, use this one as a reference guide, a point of connection between ideas and cultures, to piece together the larger archetypal stories and glean the wisdom they hold for us. Remember, this is only the beginning of understanding the personal wisdom these symbols hold privately for you.

Course Continued…