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- They are everywhere, all around us.
They seep into every aspect of our lives,
our culture, both ancient and modern alike.
They're always here hiding in plain sight,
waiting for us to notice them
and to what extent they affect our lives
and our consciousness.
Aliens?
No, no, no.
Today the modern scientific method treats everything
and investigates as a pattern of observables
seeking to find inherent meaning and causality
between the things that it studies.
But long before the scientific revolution,
the human response to patterns and meaning was different.
Related more with an immediate
personal and emotional reaction.
And today in the minds of most people,
this still remains true.
We find meaning and patterns
in one of the most universal mechanisms
for the transference of information, symbols.
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Whether it's the ancient symbolism of hieroglyphics or taro,
or modern logos and graphic designs representing a company,
symbols are a foundational expression of meaning and idea
that are often worth more than a thousand words.
The truth is this episode itself was inspired
by you very people.
We recently came out with a brand new spirit science podcast
called "Spirit Science Live"
with a ton of new videos we publish weekly.
But at first, a lot of people were really upset
with our logo
because many felt that our logo
looked like a commonly known pedophilia logo.
Now the spirit science live logo
is actually the Penrose triangle,
very different from what it's accused of being,
and which is an optical illusion that we chose
because we were bridging the 2D into the 3D
with the podcast.
But seeing the people's reactions,
we thought it was a wonderful opportunity
to discuss symbolism and the meaning and power
that becomes attached to certain ideas.
And so without further ado,
you can use the link below to check out and subscribe
to our podcast,
and otherwise enjoy the episode.
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If you were to ask an anthropologist
you'd learned that a symbol is a mark, sign or word
that indicates, signifies or represents an idea,
object or relationship.
An everyday example is a stop sign.
That red octagon is designed to be common in most countries
and stands as a universal sign to stop.
But the octagon shape
doesn't have an inherent meaning itself,
it's only us who've given it that meaning of stop,
at least one paired with the color red.
It kind of makes you wonder then,
maybe there's aliens on another world
who see a red octagon and think gotta go fast.
But hey, that's another video for later.
A funny example of this was in the movie "Mars Attacks",
where once the Martians landed and proclaimed peace,
one of the nearby civilians let a dove fly loose,
but on Mars a dove seems to mean,
we hate you, let's go to war.
So the Martians got scared and started shooting everyone.
This applies to all symbols to some extent,
their value and meaning is arbitrary
depending on cultural context and changes with time.
One example of this is found in the taro,
where we see a deep and rich history of symbolism
having untold levels of meaning
that reveal itself more and more
with each look into it
along with cultural changes that happen time and time again.
And on that note,
if you haven't seen our brand new major Akon episode yet,
please make sure to give it a watch after this one.
It was really fun to make,
but anyways moving on.
The thing about symbols is that
because they are so ancient,
our minds sometimes don't consciously recognize them.
Take something simple like a sunset,
consciously and rationally
we know that the sun sets because I mean,
hey we see it every day.
Yet whenever we see and contemplate one for real,
there's no denying that at some level of our subconscious,
all sorts of associations of thought, mythological pattern
and symbolic imagery are stirred.
But today, often in modern life,
we don't really think about the sun going down.
We've all got lights and computers
and other things that keep our attention.
In mythological terms,
we don't much concern ourselves with the death of the sun,
the withdrawal of the light and heat,
his nightly journey beneath the great dark waters
of the underworld to be reborn in the east,
as we ourselves reborn from the nightly death of sleep.
It's kind of an ancient Egyptian idea I guess.
But while we've come a long way
from such thoughts logically,
the human mind, especially the subconscious,
seems to work in pre logical and pattern based imagery.
Our unconscious, as it would seem,
is designed to weave together archetypal symbols
with our personal symbols into complex patterns.
And because our mind communicates
through association and symbology,
if an external symbol matches one of your internal ones,
you can sometimes get
a very strong emotional response from it,
even against conscious rational convictions.
People find themselves deeply moved by symbols,
which naturally advertising companies are very aware of,
and is the basis of subliminal messaging.
If you don't believe us, check out our conspiracy series
and see for yourself.
But before we go there, let's return to the beginning.
In early spirit science episodes,
we've discussed the significance of the platonic solids
and sacred geometry.
And the truth is, all symbols are made up
of a combination of basic principles strokes.
By understanding these basics,
we can quickly see that even most modern symbols
are based on an ancient symbolic alphabet of sorts.
Most of these signs can be identified as open or closed,
straight or curved, crossing or non crossing.
To that end, all symbols are formed
from a basic seven geometric shapes,
which when you boil it all down are a of line and dot.
Of all symbols in history,
the dot, the line and the circle are the foundations,
they're the parents from which all others evolved.
The dots signifies unity, the origin,
the point that appears first when drawing, the beginning.
Expanded into infinity, the dot becomes the circle,
embodying the cyclical nature of things
and the wider universe,
giving things a sense of motion
and the divine feminine.
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The line is drawn with a stroke
and is by its nature the active principle,
the sacred masculine and signifies change through will.
Wavy and zigzag lines are different.
Wavy lines are fluid and passive,
whereas zig-zags are sharp and rigid.
Some particularly powerful signs have retained their meaning
across all of history.
The best example is the cross.
The design of two intersecting lines make their appearance
from deep prehistory,
as petroglyphs in European cult caves,
dating back to the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic
and throughout prehistory into the Iron Age.
In the European Bronze Age,
the cross symbol appeared to carry a religious meaning,
perhaps as a symbol of consecration,
especially pertaining to burial.
In other words, the cross is not only pre-Christian,
but has been known to represent balance, structure
and protection coming from exerting your will
upon the world.
When curved and expanded the cross can become the swastika.
When curved and overlayed on top of each other,
we get the eight raid star,
which has long since being a symbol of Venus,
Ishtar and divinity in countless cultures.
This brings us to one of the most interesting
aspects of symbolism, how they change.
The swastika was widely used as a symbol of divinity
and spirituality in Indian religions,
including Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.
And in Europe, it was a symbol of auspiciousness,
good luck and wellbeing until the 1930s
where it was appropriated by the Nazis.
When designing the insignia,
Hitler understood its significance
and place in European history
and attempted to syncretize its use with his own ideology,
believing that it was the symbol of the creating
and effecting life
and a race emblem of Germanism.
But the earliest swastikas
actually come from 10,000 BC in Ukraine,
where it was found in a context of other phallic symbols,
meaning that it may have originally been a fertility symbol.
As a result of World War II and the Holocaust though,
many people in the west still strongly associate it
with Nazi-ism and antisemitism.
Today though it's still used as a symbol of good luck
and health in certain parts of Asia and India.
The different use here goes back to the whole
cultural transmission thing,
where symbols will take on a personal meaning
depending on which response they move in you.
At a core level though,
all communication and data processing,
happens through the use of symbols.
Even your name is just a series of sounds and vibrations
someone makes that a meaning to you,
and just as the human mind changes
so does our communication.
And speaking to this,
we can see a powerful example of it all,
along with a reflection of human consciousness
at the moment,
with an event that happened on TikTok recently,
that led to a number of people
getting accidental Nazi tattoos.
A user named Smooth Avocado,
shared with her followers a proposal
that everyone in Gen Z
should get a matching tattoo
to represent their generation with pride.
A symbol of unity for them
and a bit of a rebellion to the Boomers.
The symbol however,
which was created by the Avocado herself,
just so happened to look identical
to the Wolfsangel symbol,
unknown symbol of white supremacy and arion ideology
used by Hitler's SS.
Woopsy.
But it's interesting none the less
that the meaning never crossed their mind.
To the Avocado, it seemed simply like a good symbol
to represent the young generation
because it contained a Z shape.
It also shows where human consciousness is at,
because from this entirely innocent mistake,
the poor Avocado received a massive volume of hate mail
and even some death threats.
I guess negative symbols beget more negativity.
This whole thing though really begs the question,
can seemingly bad symbols change their meanings
into good ones?
It seems far easier and likely and often
that good symbols become bad,
but it may not be impossible to go the other way
if people are willing to stand up for what they believe in
even if their symbols are similar to less popular
or perhaps more negative ones.
This can be very difficult to do
when you're up against a lot of social backlash.
Of course, this brings us back to our podcast logo
that we mentioned at the beginning.
We didn't even consider that there was a connection
from the Penrose triangle
to this other more spirally triangle
that is often linked to pedophilia groups.
A lot of people were outraged
and demanded that we change our logo,
but we really had to sit with ourselves and ask,
are triangles just off limits?
Is it right for us to bend over backwards
for a few angry people who are making connections
that we know definitively aren't there?
You see if we instantly changed our logo,
it would be like a big public declaration
that we were in the wrong,
but we really weren't sure that we were,
especially because the spiral triangle symbol
hadn't even crossed our consciousness
while we worked on our podcast.
As we went deeper,
what we found out was that
this seeming adoption by pedophile groups
is yet another form of appropriation of an even older image.
Historically, the spiral was often linked to the sun
and symbolized expansion, creativity
and the essence of a journey.
In Newgrange in Ireland,
the triskelion symbol,
which is made of three intersecting spirals,
was often illuminated by the sun on the solstice.
And even the triangle
represents the most stable geometric form,
embodying stability and unity.
The work of Paul Tillich however,
makes an interesting case
for the changing of meanings of symbols.
According to him, symbols, like people,
are born and die.
A living symbol taps into the collective consciousness
of the people who perceive it
and can reveal hidden levels of meaning and transcendent
or religious realities to those who observe it.
In theory, when a symbol loses its meaning
and power for an individual or culture,
it becomes a dead symbol,
but when it is identified with a deeper aspect of reality,
it takes the place of the idea
it originally conveyed
and can work its way into human consciousness again.
The bottom line is, symbols convey a message
and meaning to the observer,
but that meaning massively depends on culture,
background and upbringing.
Depending on the nature of a symbol,
it can carry value in three main ways,
ideological, comparative or isomorphic.
Ideological symbols are generally religious,
like the Christian Cross or the Awen symbol for Druidry,
and these convey complex sets of beliefs and ideas
that are moral or mythical to certain groups.
Comparative symbols are things like fine art
or awards that tell us which is better,
gold, silver, bronze, you know the story.
And isomorphic symbols are harder to identify
because they tend to blend in
with the surrounding environment
and enable people and organizations
to conform to their surroundings.
Kind of like how wearing a suit in a meeting
symbolizes professionalism.
Regarding meaning, generally symbolic thought
can be broken down into six different ways of interpreting.
Territory markers, which set liminal boundaries
between borders or even identifying sacred
and secular worlds.
Symbols of measurement, which help us make sense of weight,
time and movement.
Symbols of planning, which help us define
our intentions more clearly like cities and town maps.
Relationships symbols that help to create families,
lineages and social groupings,
or in modern society money is often given such value.
In more ancient societies,
there were distinct classes of symbols
to describe our relationships with spirit
and the other world.
But above all else,
symbols are used to describe the world
through depiction, representation
and are a way of conceptualizing the world around us
and our experience of it.
In modern times,
we have logos that companies and advertisements use
to make us connect to their product.
And just like sacred geometry,
most of these logos are designed
to specific proportions and measurements
that help them bypass the conscious mind
and wriggle into the subconscious.
And this isn't even an exaggeration,
in college I took a class specifically about graphic
and logo design throughout history,
the most boring class in all of college mind you,
but the depth that we learned about specific proportions
and angles and geometries
that are found within logos are outstanding.
Regarding symbols and their meaning,
let us now share a quote from Heinrich Zimmer,
who says, symbols hold the mind to truth
but are not themselves the truth,
hence it is delusory to borrow them.
Each civilization, every age, must bring forth its own.
But now can there really be any new symbols?
Especially if each one is just a rejig
of the seven basic shapes.
When it comes down to it,
symbols are just a very human way of communicating.
Why else would humans be so prone to Pareidolia?
It's our job to see that symbols change
with every new generation,
and if we leave symbolism behind,
it may die and we may lose
this amazing method of communication.
So until next time,
keep an eye out for those subliminal messages
and we'll see you later.
Toodles.
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