Travellers to distant shores know that once you get beyond the big cities, a pitiful smattering of the local language becomes a barrier of communication. Without a translator you cannot enjoy an in-depth conversation, debate a point, or deeply appreciate the little nuances and dilatations of this exciting foreign place.
     So imagine how challenging it is to grasp a universal system of communication that equally applies to every single person in the world, no matter what language they speak or the ethnic or cultural background they were raised in. This universal language can, of course, only be the language of higher consciousness or the spirit world.
     It seems to be the human condition to assume that spirit, or God, or higher consciousness, comes packaged speaking our language and expressing our cultural standards. Yet it is this error that makes true communication between the lower self and the higher self so fraught with difficulty. It is also why dreams seem incomprehensible when we filter them through our daily language and our cultural and ethnic background.
     Any serious student of spirituality soon learns that messages coming from a higher realm are communicated in the pure and eternal symbolic language of higher consciousness, and that means the use of universal symbolism, which is of itself primal in nature.
     Author Rene Alleau in his book The Primal Force in Symbol skillfully unfolds this seeming incomprehensible symbolic language and makes it understandable to our troubled minds.
     Rene Alleau is a philosopher and historian and has written extensively on alchemy, the occult sciences and secret societies.
     If a person does not learn the grammar of a language, he points out, the best dictionary in the world cannot help him or her understand that language, much less speak it. This book explores the grammar as well as the principles and structures of symbology, and perhaps most importantly, it actually delves into the use of symbols, the science of symbols and the primal force that created symbols in the first place.
     The study of symbols reveals a fascinating language of its own that blends and weaves through and around our own cultural conditioning.
     Rene Alleau investigates diverse aspects of symbols in Eastern and Western philosophies as well as in African, Native American and Australian Aboriginal cultures, both in ancient and modern times.
     Myth, he reveals, has been mistakenly identified by modern culture as fiction or just pretty little stories to keep the natives happy. Of course, it is so much more than that.
     Myth, when explored, contains amazing analogies that brings us precious gifts of wisdom. Perhaps most importantly, myths supply us with personal insights into the psyche, the motives and the urges of humanity. What could be richer?
     The author believes that nothing is closer to the language of symbols than music. Who of us hasn’t been swept away by a beautiful, haunting melody? Who of us hasn’t been transported back in time to the point that all senses are alert and filled with memory and feeling, just by hearing a song on the radio, or even an advertising jingle?
     To enter the world of symbols is an attempt to grasp harmonic vibrations and learn the music of the universe. Just as there is a musical ear, there is also one sensitive to the primal force transmitted by symbol.
     Without getting bogged down in semantics, an exploration of the origin of the word symbol becomes very revealing. Most encyclopedias simply point to the Greek word sumbolon which means sign, and then the Christian Latin, symbolum, which means to bring together and assemble, but that is hardly revealing.
     Going deeper we discover the first Greek meaning was topological, which is telling because this clearly points to geography or land itself. Even more significant, it specifically designates an “assembly of the waters,” or a place where they are thrown together and then “flow together.”
     This essentially dynamic verbal meaning of the Greek word sumballein has been used with the same meaning since Homer’s time, hence the name Sumbola, a place located at the border between Laconia and the territory of Tegea. It was also a word used in navigation.
     In all cases, the dynamic meaning of the word clearly describes movement that brings together and assembles elements that were previously separate from each other. Consequently the bringing together is an act of assembly of new wisdom, or more concretely, a new place of earth and water.
     Perhaps one of the best known symbol systems are the renown parables used by Jesus in the New Testament. Every parable is automatically a comparison, or a unification of earth and water. The word, of course, comes from the Greek, para-ballein, which literally means to “throw or cast aside” or to look around oneself for new bearings, or new references.
     When we connect two things via an analogy founded upon their mutual relationship, we do not unite them but place them in parallel for comparison. A parable then becomes a property that reflects luminous truth or a distinct metaphysical principle situated at its centre.
     Jesus did not speak symbolically, writes Alleau, but in parallel just as light reflected in a “parabolic” mirror is perceived in the form of parallel rays only after first being concentrated at a luminous centre. Therefore, the parables in the gospels have meaning only because they are like radiations from the centre of revelation.
     The richness of symbolism is seen as a gentle voice speaking to us in dreams and visions. Its gift is that it blesses our lives and our inner world with meaning. These are the deep and primordial symbols that speak to us all equally.
     Rene Alleau’s insightful and well researched book is rich in the history and meaning of symbol. What could have been an incredibly dry dissertation becomes an embroidered tapestry of wisdom as the author explores one culture after another and discovers that same golden thread of symbolism shining for all to see and experience.
     Any would-be author or student of ancient wisdom will find this book an invaluable addition to their library. Metaphysicians will equally find this book filled with relevant information and copious end notes and references.