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Creating Bridges: The Spiritual & Philosophical
Teachings from the Western Mystery Traditions:
The Esoteric "Paths of Return"

The Magical Power of Symbols
by Jacquelyn Small
Symbols are messengers from a higher dimension, carriers of meaning and energy. They are magical, mental, psychic and moral operations which awaken new ideas, sentiments and aspirations. Symbols are keys. And a key gives access to various states of consciousness, which are various compartments of the Self. They cannot be just pictured and known through intellectual analysis; you can't just look up the meaning of a symbol in a dictionary and know it. Working with symbols requires an activity more profound, for they awaken the soul. When their meaning becomes a felt reality, they can give us that which is necessary to Œknow1 in order to be fruitful in a given domain of spiritual life .... that which must be actively present in our consciousness in order to make discoveries, engender new ideas or artistic pursuits.


A symbol works like an Œenzyme1 or a Œferment1 which stimulates our psychic life. We become fertile, no longer complacent or uncreative. They can take hold of our consciousness and invite us to apprehend something beyond its usual plane of experience and thought -- to a profound meditation, to a spiritual exercise. Symbols are never the final "say;" they are always simply representatives of something bigger from a higher dimension that is unknowable to us from where we currently stand in consciousness.


Sometimes we feel inadequate when asked by our clients to help interpret a symbol from a dream or Tarot reading. So perhaps this will help: Symbol work can always done systematically through three processes: We MEET one, MEDITATE on it, then MEDIATE it by stepping into it and becoming it. We objectify, subjectify, and identify. Then, it will tell us what it represents. We treat them as living entities -- for actually, they are just that!


To meet it: We see it as an object standing outside of us at first. We examine it or draw a picture of what it looks like. This materializes it, brings it into this world of form. Then we give it a classification. In other words, we name it. Now we've met it and it has an impact on us.


Next, we react to it; we meditate on it. We think about its meaning. Note everything we can about it, sum it up, and make it into something we can talk about and work with. We are seeing it from its subjective side. This is the intake stage.


Now we mediate it, which means we can apply it by taking on its qualities. We now are reacting now as it, not to it. We direct its use purposefully. Physically, we make it a fact. We move it mentally by feeling into its meaning. We move it spiritually by embodying it. This is the output stage. At this stage, you can ask your party to express how this symbol can become a part of his or her life to use their imagination to create a way they will become it.


To spiritualize a thing we bring the symbolic and material worlds together. We picture the symbol, give it meaning, then enter into it so we can know it from the inside out. This is what being spiritual is. Once these two worlds have converged, we're operating upon a higher inner terrain. By linking symbols to life, we are spiritualizing matter. Our spirituality is a daily living practice of being what we truly desire to be.
Once we learn to work with symbols, we can begin combining them and then they start to "talk back." Thus we commune with a higher intelligence, a higher Order of Reality. "Innerwords" is the language of the Soul.
Jacquelin Small,
 Spiritualist, Clairvoyant Psychologist

JACQUELYN SMALL, LMSW, is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Texas at Austin with degrees in human psychology and clinical social work. She is a licensed non-denominational minister and a licensed psychotherapist who works with both spiritual and psychological concerns.


Jacquelyn is a popular presenter and consultant in academic settings, new-thought churches and new paradigm conferences and mental health settings, known for her easy-going, self-disclosing, humorous style of intimate relating with her audiences.


She has a long history in addiction counselor training, consulting and counseling, and trains all kinds of health professionals in the emerging field of spiritual psychology. She is one of the teachers who has been selected by Unity Church for their national TV ministry. She served as the Director of Training for the Texas Commission on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse for nine years, and served on the adjunct faculty of the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology in Stanford, California for four years.


Jacquelyn has authored eight books about soul-based psychology and the process of personal transformation, some of which have become classics in the counseling and consciousness fields. She is represented by the Tom Grady Agency. She has many audio tapes as well through Eupsychia's publishing company, Eupsychian Press.


Her published books are:

* Becoming Naturally
Therapeutic (Bantam)

* Transformers, the
Artists of Self-Creation
(DeVorss & Co.)

* Awakening in Time
(Eupsychian Press)

* Embodying Spirit (HarperSanFrancisco
/Eupsychian)

* Rising to the Call with
co-author Mary Yovino (DeVorss & Co.)

* Becoming a Practical Mystic (Quest Books)

* Psyche's Seeds-The 12 Sacred Principles of Soul-Based Psychology (Tarcher/Putnam
/Penguin)


Jacquelyn is a regular columnist for Science of Mind Magazine and is featured often in other magazines. Among the many conferences and programs for which Jacquelyn has keynoted or presented programs, include:


* The Association for Humanistic Psychology

* Association for Transpersonal Psychology

* Omega Institute
including their Body &
Soul Conferences

* Tracor and Texaco, Inc.

* Church of Religious Science Annual
Conference

* Great Lakes Addiction Conference

* Whole Life Expo

* The College of William & Mary's Annual Addictions Conference

* Most major universities
in the United States

* U.S. Department of Heath, Education and Welfare

* Omega Institute's
Body & Soul Conferences

* New Age Magazine's Bahama Teaching Cruise
The ConferenceWorks!


She has been featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show, America's Talking, Wisdom Television and Radio, New Dimensions Radio, NPR's People's Pharmacy and a CNN's series on Alternative Healing and continues to make regular guest appearances for radio and television.


Jacquelyn Small serves on the Advisory Board of the International Psychosynthesis Association, the National Council on Codependence, and The Holistic Alliance of Professional Practitioners, Entrepreneurs and Networkers, Inc.


She is the Founding Director of Eupsychia (pronounced u-si'-ki-a) Institute which means "good psyche" or "well being" in Greek, a not-for-profit professional training and healing program in Soul-Based Psychology and Integrative Breathwork. With her staff of dedicated, experienced spiritual therapists, she conducts workshop intensives throughout North America on a regular basis.




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