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Sparked by a mention in Underworld Initiation of how replacing letters on the Tree of Life with symbols "clears away difficult connections within words in common use":
Looking at a symbol, silent perception/comprehension, is "purer" than the spoken word for it. The word has its own vibration which may confuse a direct apprehension/experience of meaning. But even in silent visual form (though this goes for words too), no thing is itself, alone. Everything sparks off networks of association in the consciousness of the perceiver, almost as though things don't exist except as the focal point for the convergence of related concepts. The symbol is a distillation of the web of relation, and it is this web which is the point; the reason for having a symbol (or something similarly dense like a magical ballad) is precisely so the compact form can touch off all the associations when contemplated. In a way, it "contains" them. Like a Tardis, a symbol is bigger on the inside than it appears to be on the outside.
Looking at a symbol, silent perception/comprehension, is "purer" than the spoken word for it. The word has its own vibration which may confuse a direct apprehension/experience of meaning. But even in silent visual form (though this goes for words too), no thing is itself, alone. Everything sparks off networks of association in the consciousness of the perceiver, almost as though things don't exist except as the focal point for the convergence of related concepts. The symbol is a distillation of the web of relation, and it is this web which is the point; the reason for having a symbol (or something similarly dense like a magical ballad) is precisely so the compact form can touch off all the associations when contemplated. In a way, it "contains" them. Like a Tardis, a symbol is bigger on the inside than it appears to be on the outside.
