The word "symbol" is of Greek origin. The essence of this word means - a sign or omen. Accordingly, all symbols are firmly associated with one or another object, which they actually designate. In essence, a symbol is a material, graphic or conventional sound sign or action that denotes a certain phenomenon or concept.
Symbols appeared in ancient times, when civilization was just beginning to emerge and developed along with it as an element of human culture. Most likely, the symbols were taken by man from the clues of nature itself, which offered a choice of a huge number of the most significant elements of the environment.
Such elements of nature could be, for example, animals that served man as food and clothing. It is not without reason that the first symbolic images on the walls of the caves were precisely the figures of animals. The relationship between ancient man and animals created one of the most important and basic systems of signs.
In other words, a person freed himself from the power of the natural phenomena around him, designating and naming these phenomena with the help of words and symbols. Almost absolutely everything around a person began to take on a symbolic meaning. Any objects of nature became symbols: stones, animals, fire, water, mountains, sun, plants, man, etc.
Man turned all these objects and forms into symbols, endowing them with incredible psychological significance. At the same time, not only any objects perceived by a person with the help of feelings, but also any representations that he associated with these objects received symbolic meaning.
For example, a tambourine for a shaman or magical attributes of a sorcerer could serve as such an object for feeling and its symbol.
Thus, a person did not create images that would arise spontaneously, but based them, knowing the world around him.
Symbolism was for a person a tool of cognition and a way of expressing aspects of reality that could not be revealed by any other methods. The symbol excites thought and activates the imagination, opening up freedom of association. When a thought is born in the form of a meaning or idea, it is necessarily clothed in a verbal equivalent, a symbol.
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Symbols appeared as a natural result of human mental activity, and if we begin to deeply study them, then we will certainly be able to penetrate into any secrets of the human psyche. And since the human psyche is nothing more than an integral part of nature, then the secrets of nature and the universe itself can be revealed with the help of symbols.
Magic symbols
Symbols are never unambiguous. If any natural phenomena begin to have a slightly different meaning and role from the original essence, then they turn into symbols. These symbols transfer onto themselves the properties of the symbolized object and become not only an object of worship, but also “absorb” the power of this object. This is how magical symbols arise, to which special magical powers are attributed.
The dual nature of such symbols denotes both physical (objective) reality and some abstract concept associated with any object. The preference of one side or the other causes either the absolutization of objective reality, or separation from it.
The first leads a person to fetishism (worship of inanimate objects); the second, to the fact that the components associated with the objective reality become inexplicable and mysterious. In other words, an irrational-mystical meaning of the object arises.
Human body symbolism
The most universal symbol is the human body. Even in ancient times, people formulated a certain doctrine that includes the following concepts of the Universe and Man. The universe is a macrocosm and represents a person, and a person (microcosm) is a miniature universe. One comes from the other and is included in each other.
A person in a symbolic meaning is denoted by the number 5, because his physical body has five most important limbs: two arms, two legs and a head. Moreover, the head controls the other four limbs.
The pyramid also symbolizes its four corners - arms and legs, and its top - the head, which indicates that the rational force has control over the four irrational sides.
Human hands and feet represent four natural elements: two hands represent air and fire, and legs represent water and earth. The brain is the sacred fifth element (ether) that dominates the other four.
In the case when the legs are put together, and the arms are spread out to the sides, then the person is a symbol of the cross, where the head - the fifth element - again expresses the controlling rational intelligence.
A person's fingers and toes also have a number of special meanings. The toes represent the ten commandments of the physical law, and the fingers represent the ten commandments of the spiritual law. The four fingers of each hand represent the four elements, and the three phalanges of each finger are the division of the elements. As a result, we have in each hand twelve parts - according to the number of signs of the zodiac.
The two phalanges and the base of the thumb are the triune Deity. The first phalanx corresponds to the creative aspect, the second to the protective one, and the base to the productive and destructive one. When we join our hands together, we symbolize the six days of Creation.
The symbols of the human body are most widespread in various magical rites and mysteries.