 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 it 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. Whether it's the ancient symbolism of hieroglyphics or tarot, 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. If you were to ask an anthropologist, you'd learn 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 Tarot, 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 Arcana 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 are 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, 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 principal 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 variation of line and dot. Of all symbols in history, the dot, the line, and the circle are the foundations. They are the parents from which all others evolved. The dot 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. The line is drawn with a stroke, and is by its nature the active principal, the sacred masculine, and signifies change through will. Wavy and zigzag lines are different. Wavy lines are fluid and passive, whereas zigzags 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 overlaid on top of each other, we get the eight-rayed star, which has long since been 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 well-being 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 affecting 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 Nazism and Antisemitism. Today, though, it's still used as a symbol of good luck and health in certain parts of Asia and India. The differing 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 has 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 Wolf's Angel symbol, a known symbol of white supremacy and Aryan ideology used by Hitler's SS. Whoopsie! But it's interesting nonetheless 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 now? 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 Triskellian 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, relationship 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, but the depth that we learn 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!