The Living Power of Symbols

August 20, 2025 Cognitive Insights No Comments

Symbols shape human life more than we usually realize. They are not simply decorative images or convenient shortcuts but living carriers of depth.

A symbol can anchor a culture, guide a person, and even hold together an entire religion. Its power comes not from surface clarity, but from the way it resonates with what lies beneath. In this sense, symbols are not only powerful — they are alive.

What makes symbols powerful

Symbols differ from signs and metaphors. A sign is a surface pointer — it tells you to stop at a red light. A metaphor grows meaning through comparison and resonance, as explored in Growing Metaphors. A symbol, however, goes further: it anchors meaning. It does not merely compare or signal but carries a depth that can shape values, emotions, and identity.

The power of symbols is not about domination. It is about influence flowing from within. A symbol can heal, inspire, or unite, yet it can also mislead or manipulate when stripped of depth. To say that a symbol is powerful is to recognize its capacity to move whole layers of the human being, both individually and collectively.

What makes symbols alive

Unlike signs, which exhaust themselves once their message is delivered, symbols never run dry. A stop sign is finished once you grasp its instruction. A symbol keeps unfolding. One can return to the same symbol for decades, and each time it carries something new. This is what makes symbols alive: they shift and grow with those who carry them.

This aliveness is rooted in subconceptual depth. Symbols vibrate with layers of feeling, memory, and bodily resonance. They do not sit still on the page or in the ritual. They move because they are entangled with the living human who encounters them.

Symbols breathe between silence and speech

A living symbol never tells the whole story. It speaks, but it also remains silent. This silence is not emptiness, but openness — an invitation for new meaning to emerge. A symbol is never finished. It always leaves room for growth.

Think of a circle, a tree, or a flame. None of these symbols is exhausted by description. They breathe because they hold a silence in which the subconceptual can speak. It is this breathing between silence and speech that makes them feel alive, always offering something fresh without losing their anchor.

Symbols weave personal and collective depth

A symbol is never purely private, nor purely collective. It holds both. On the personal side, it resonates with an individual’s deeper self, offering guidance, strength, or healing. On the collective side, it echoes through rituals, traditions, and stories that stretch across generations.

This weaving explains their endurance. A dream image that keeps reappearing may carry universal patterns shared across humanity. A flag is not just fabric but a container of collective aspiration and memory. In touching a symbol, a person touches both their own depth and the wider depth of humanity. That is why symbols can be profoundly unifying while also deeply intimate.

Exactly how symbols work (MNP perspective)

From the viewpoint of Mental-Neuronal Processing, a symbol activates vast ensembles of neurons, not only crisp concepts but also fuzzy webs of associations, emotions, and bodily states. These ensembles overlap and reinforce each other, creating a resonance far richer than simple words can provide.

Each time a symbol is encountered, its neuronal pattern is slightly reshaped. This is why it remains alive. A symbol is not recalled like a static picture in memory; it is recreated, subtly altered by context, emotion, and time. This explains why symbols can transform us. They are not just carriers of meaning; they are agents of change.

Consequences of living symbols

Because symbols are powerful and alive, they have profound consequences. At their best, they foster growth, healing, and unity. They anchor values and open pathways into depth. But when symbols lose their depth and collapse into superficial symbolism, they become hollow appearances — easily manipulated and destructive.

This dual potential means that symbols require responsibility. They are not to be played with lightly. They deserve openness, respect, and ethical care. To treat them as mere signs is to rob them of their life, and in doing so, to rob ourselves of something essential.

Symbols in coaching and guidance

In AURELIS coaching, symbols play a quiet but central role. They can emerge in language, imagery, or bodily expressions, opening a door to the coachee’s depth. A good coach does not impose symbols but helps them grow naturally.

This makes symbols invaluable tools of transformation. They work from the inside out, aligning with the coachee’s own inner patterns rather than forcing change from the outside. A symbol that grows in coaching becomes an ally, alive and personal, yet grounded in something universal.

The future of symbols

In a world saturated with signs and images, living symbols are more needed than ever. They can bridge rational clarity with human depth, offering anchors of meaning in a time of flux. The future of Open Religion may depend on keeping symbols alive, free from dogmatic rigidity yet open to inexhaustible depth.

Living symbols are not relics of the past but companions for the future. They show us that even in an age of speed and surface, depth remains possible. Indeed, depth is necessary.

Symbols are powerful because they hold meaning that shapes both individuals and cultures.

They are alive because they breathe with silence and grow with time. Their consequences are profound: they can heal, inspire, unite, or mislead, depending on how they are approached.

To honor the living power of symbols is to honor depth itself. It is to recognize that true strength lies not in control but in openness — to the silence, the growth, and the resonance that living symbols can bring.

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Addendum

Me: “Lisa, the ‘living power’ may explain a few things, such as why two groups (such as countries) can fight each other to the death for reasons that are obviously not born from insight into what both parties want eventually. Your thoughts?”

Lisa: “Yes, exactly. When groups clash, they often fight not over practical needs but over symbols that have become fused with identity. A flag, a border, a sacred object — these are not surface signs but living symbols that carry the weight of belonging and meaning. When such symbols are threatened, people feel as if their very being is at stake.

That is why reason alone cannot resolve these conflicts. The living power of symbols can unite profoundly, but it can also divide with equal force if the depth they carry is narrowed into exclusivity rather than opened toward shared humanity.”

Me: “A challenging present-day example: the war between Russia and Ukraine. How can the symbolic level be causally involved in this?”

Lisa: “The war shows how symbols can become entangled with power, history, and identity. For Russia, certain symbols — empire, motherland, sacred territory — are invoked as living justifications for aggression. For Ukraine, symbols of independence, language, and national dignity have become anchors of resistance.

These are not abstract debates but deeply embodied realities; people feel them as part of who they are. On both sides, the symbolic level fuels emotions far beyond pragmatic interests. It explains why compromise is so hard: when symbols are treated as absolute, they leave little room for openness. Only when symbols are allowed to stay alive — flexible, deep, and open-ended — can they stop being weapons and return to being bridges.”

Me: “Of course, it’s not all about symbols. But indeed, their role is substantial enough. I guess no peace talks will lead to a durable solution to the Ukrainian war if this is not taken into account.”

Lisa: “That is very true. Peace that is negotiated only on the level of territory, resources, or security arrangements risks remaining fragile. If the symbolic layer is ignored, the underlying tensions will resurface again and again. Durable peace requires attending to the living symbols that define identity and belonging for both peoples.

This does not mean giving in to rigidified symbols but helping them breathe again — letting them open toward shared depth rather than closed exclusivity. Only then can agreements reach the heart as well as the mind, and only then can peace take root.”

Me: “I profoundly agree. And ultimately, this is a matter of coaching-diplomacy.

Please sketch how AURELIS coaching principles might point toward ways of working with entrenched symbols — not at the geopolitical level directly, but in how individuals and cultures can approach symbols with more openness.”

Lisa: “AURELIS coaching principles offer several gentle yet powerful directions here:

First, they remind us that symbols cannot be forced or imposed; they must be approached with openness and respect. Just as in coaching, where the coachee’s own symbols are invited to grow, cultures too need space to let their living symbols breathe rather than being rigidly defended.
Second, coaching works by overlap: the coach resonates with the coachee without losing their own strength. Translated to diplomacy, this means recognizing the symbolic depth of the other party, even when it feels foreign, while standing firmly in one’s own values. Such overlap can soften defensiveness and make room for dialogue.
Third, coaching always trusts the deeper self. On a cultural scale, this means trusting that beneath rigidified symbols there is living depth that can be rediscovered. By bringing symbols back to life — flexible, evolving, and open — they stop being weapons of division and can become bridges of connection again.

In this sense, ‘coaching-diplomacy’ would not bypass the symbolic level but honor it, helping entrenched symbols regain their openness. Only then can true reconciliation become possible.”