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The term, symbol, originates from the Greek word, Symboline, which means to tie together or to join together. The symbol has a much broader and deeper meaning than its general appearance would indicate. Often a single symbol has several meanings; in fact, it usually does. Some of these meanings are conventional ones in ordinary use, some have been acquired accidentally, or incidentally, while other meanings are universal in nature, being similar in all ages and peoples as indicated in the records available from the researches of archeologists and anthropologists.
Symbolism was antecedent to all human languages. It was the first means devised for interpersonal expression and communication. Its language is the most universal in space and time and much of it has survived as such, and much of it is in a no longer used “fossil” state in the unconscious mind. It was necessary for primitive man to create symbols to cement companionship, to communicate with sexual mates and to develop a combined effort with others for protection from dangerous beasts and other destructive elements in nature.
Symbolic language is not only the most ancient universal means of communication but it is still used, often changed but little by us, the moderns, in our dreams, by children in their fantasy life, by