Course XXXV - Teaching 16: History of Symbology

Since the first altar erected in the world to a divinity, image and symbol came into being.
The Great Initiates of the Aryan Race presented a form or an image to those men whom they wished to teach eternal verities; from religion to religion, from philosophy to philosophy, from sect to sect, symbolical images reached the fourth dynasty in Egypt, which immortalized these Divine Symbols with figures of the Tarot.
Man, the living Christ, the Redeemer, in short, Humanity that tries to come back to the Divinity, is represented by the Priest in white raiment, standing on a ship in the middle of the sea. While the Absolute Divinity is represented by a Chaos: a sun sinking into the ocean.
The Divine Mother, the chaste Isis, the Fertile Virgin, is represented by a woman placed between two pillars of the Temple and with closed book in her hands, motionless behind the veil that covers her face, and so on.
In the figure of the High Priest it is easy to recognize the Priest in white raiment of the Tarot; in short, Humanity standing at the gate of Eternity.
And the image of Aeia, the Veiled Mother, who watches over the tomb of EHS, the Sacred Stone, image of Wisdom, straight between the two pillars of Bohas and Jakin, is the same image of Isis, the second arcane of the Tarot.
These same images were moved from Egypt to Greece and from Greece to Rome. With other names, in Greek and Roman figures, the same human symbols and the same Divine meanings are disclosed.
In spite of proclaiming an absolutely monotheistic religion, even Christendom was not an exception in worshipping images as symbols of the Divinity; the hieratic image of Christ, who holds in his hands the world and wears a white robe, has the same meaning as the High Priest and the Egyptian Priest.
In the Immaculate Conception, also it is easy to recognize the woman in white that treads the head of the serpent and rides on the moon, and is crowned with twelve stars; the Divine Venus, who comes into being from the froth of the sea; to the Egyptian woman that defeats four animals and raised her head to the starry sky as symbol of the Spirit over matter; and the image of Beatrix defeating the Dragon. In their obscurantism, people always worshipped subconsciously these images; and thanks to it, they could pass like an innocent game throughout Middle Ages until today.