Symbolism

To the human mind, symbols are cultural representations of reality. Every culture has its own set of symbols associated with different experiences and perceptions. Thus, as a representation, a symbol's meaning is neither instinctive nor automatic. The culture's members must interpret and over time reinterpret the symbol.

Symbols occur in different forms: verbal or nonverbal, written or unwritten. They can be anything that conveys a meaning, such as words on the page, drawings, pictures, and gestures. Clothing, homes, cars, and other consumer items are symbols that imply a certain level of social status.

Perhaps the most powerful of all human symbols is language—a system of verbal and sometimes written representations that are culturally specific and convey meaning about the world. One of the defining aspects of being a human being is the fact that we can use language and symbols. We imagine other worlds and create other worlds through our imagination. The key instruments of our imagination are symbols. We are capable of imagining without symbols; but with symbols, we can put many objects of consciousness together to create an entirely imaginary world. This is a faculty that seems unique to human beings.

Language, symbols and the capacity of imagination are indeed distinctive human characteristics. During the biological evolution of the human species, from the earliest hominids to the modern homo sapiens, humans acquired new capacities and elements of culture — bipedalism, tool-making, language, and symbolic thinking and communication. Evidence of burying the dead, as well as cave art, are signs of the most unique aspect of human culture — using symbols to imagine an afterlife and other realms of reality.

Only humans are known to use symbols. Symbols enable the imagination, by using the object of consciousness of what is visible or perceptible in the material world (such as “fire”) to imagine invisible realities (such as divine power expressed through symbols of fire).

Ritual and mythology combine these elements at a high level of intensity, using dense symbols and narratives, within cosmologies that extend the immediate experience of the world to invisible realms and connections. Ritual and mythology are also central to the formation of social units, the construction of individual and group identities, and the working out of tensions and dilemmas. If symbols are what distinguishes humans from animals, then religion, which is the most highly symbolic form of culture, is one of the most unique and distinguishing features of humans.