Book

The book symbolizes revealed wisdom, knowledge, awareness, and truth.

Religion

Many religions have, as is well-known, an almost fanatical relationship with their “books” due to this symbolic significance. This also applies to historical religions. To make a clean slate of other “truths,” book burnings were carried out both in Central America and in China even before the world religions reached these regions.

At the same time, some holy figures (such as Joan of Arc and Paracelsus) claimed access to an otherworldly book that scholars do not possess—meaning, a truth that is even more true. Ibn Arabi viewed the universe as a great book, and in the Bible, there is mention of the Book of Life at the center of paradise.

Weaving

The book as a symbol can be compared to the weave. Just as the weaver sits patiently, connecting thread by thread according to an imagined pattern, the author by his table places word upon word, where the final result in both cases reveals the entire picture. On top of this, the written pages are bound together with thread. One also speaks of both the weave of life and the book of life.

Alchemy

For alchemists, “the work” was a book. They are not the only ones who used the parallel between the heart, on one hand, and the closed book that conceals its interior versus the open book that reveals it, on the other.

Book in Dreams

In a more everyday sense, the book still retains its fundamental symbolism: knowledge, consciousness, and to some extent (spiritual, sometimes intellectual) truth. According to Jungian typology, the book can represent the thinking function. In dreams, the book almost always has a positive meaning, but as “book” also carries an air of ancientness and mysticism, the symbol can be tinged with the contents of the collective unconscious, thus appearing mysterious and eerie, sometimes associated with hauntings, and so forth.

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