Published on January 12, 2026 at 5:20 PMUpdated on January 12, 2026 at 5:20 PM
When you search for the “meaning” of a religious symbol, you assume you are discovering something hidden. You imagine that beneath the obvious interpretation lies a deeper truth—accessible only to those who study carefully enough. This assumption feels natural. But it is not. It is historically specific, born in 18th-century Europe, and it has fundamentally shaped how we approach sacred symbols across the world. Before asking what symbols mean, we must first ask a more unsettling question: Why do we search for hidden meanings at all? And who benefits when we do?
Part I: the psychological and political origins of “hidden meaning”
The question beneath the question: why do we search for secrets in symbols?
When contemporary seekers approach religious symbols—the cross, the Star of David, the Om, the crescent and star—they typically arrive with a specific orientation: they assume that symbols contain hidden meanings that lie beneath their obvious, exoteric interpretations. This orientation is not natural or inevitable. It is historically specific. It emerged in a particular moment and serves particular functions.
The search for “hidden meanings” in religious symbols is, in fact, a modern Western invention. To understand why people engage in this search, we must first recognize that the very category of “hidden meaning”—the distinction between an exoteric interpretation (the obvious meaning) and an esoteric interpretation (the secret meaning)—did not always exist in the form we now take for granted.
Medieval Christian theologians employed multiple registers of interpretation: literal, allegorical, moral, and anagogical. But these were not framed as “secret” meanings hidden beneath the surface. They were presented as layers of understanding that educated interpreters could access through training in theological language. The hiddenness was not about secrecy but about interpretive sophistication.
The modern category of “esotericism”—the notion that certain knowledge is deliberately concealed and accessible only to initiates—crystallized in the 18th and 19th centuries in Western Europe. This crystallization occurred through a specific historical process.
How modernity created “esotericism” as a category
The Enlightenment project attempted to establish a sharp division between reason and superstition, between scientific knowledge and religious belief. Religious traditions that did not fit cleanly into this binary—traditions that combined cosmological speculation, mystical practice, ritual, and symbolic interpretation—were categorized as “esoteric.” This was not a neutral descriptive term. It was a dismissive categorization. To call something esoteric was to suggest it was obscure, perhaps deliberately hidden, and definitely not rational.
Yet paradoxically, even as Enlightenment rationalism dismissed esotericism, the Romantic movement that followed valorized it. Romanticism recovered the notion that certain kinds of knowledge—particularly intuitive, mystical, symbolic knowledge—might be more profound than rational discourse alone could access. This created a new valuation of esotericism: not as superstition to be abandoned, but as wisdom to be recovered.
The result was a new interpretive practice. Western seekers began approaching non-Western religious symbols—Egyptian hieroglyphics, Hindu mantras, Islamic geometries—with the assumption that they contained hidden wisdom deliberately concealed from the uninitiated. This assumption fundamentally shaped how these symbols would be interpreted.
Consider the historical timeline: In 1785, when Mozart’s The Magic Flute premiered, it presented Masonic symbolism as containing hidden truths about enlightenment and transformation. The opera simultaneously mocked superstition and valorized esoteric knowledge. This paradox was productive: it created a new market for the interpretation of symbols. If symbols contained hidden meanings, then specialists who could decode those meanings became valuable.
The 19th century saw the explosion of what we might call “symbol industries”: Theosophy, occultism, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism. All of these movements shared the assumption that religious symbols, properly decoded by trained interpreters, revealed profound truths. And all of them depended on the notion that there was a hidden level of meaning that lay beneath the obvious interpretation.
This is crucial: the search for hidden meanings in religious symbols is not a timeless human impulse. It is a modern Western practice that emerged in a specific historical moment and has been exported globally through colonialism and cultural influence.
The psychological function: mystery as meaning-making
Why has this practice become so psychologically compelling? Part of the answer lies in how the modern psyche processes meaning.
Industrial modernity created a condition of anomie—a condition in which traditional sources of meaning (community, ritual, inherited purpose) became attenuated. Simultaneously, consumer capitalism demanded that individuals constantly engage in meaning-making: purchasing products, adopting identities, constructing lifestyles. Symbols became units of meaning that could be possessed, studied, and incorporated into a personal spiritual identity.
The notion that symbols contain “hidden” meanings is psychologically powerful because it offers several things simultaneously:
First, it offers distinction. If you can access the hidden meaning of a symbol that others cannot, you possess knowledge that others lack. This addresses the democratic anxiety of modernity: in a world where everyone has equal access to basic information, how do you establish distinction? Through interpretive access to hidden layers.
Second, it offers agency in the face of opacity. Modernity is characterized by overwhelming complexity—economic systems, technological infrastructure, institutional bureaucracies—that remain opaque to individual comprehension. The discovery of “hidden meanings” in symbols offers a scaled-down domain where opacity can be penetrated through effort and study. It is a psychological compensation for actual powerlessness in larger systems.
Third, it recovers a sense of pre-modern wholeness. When symbols are presented as containing layers of meaning accessible through initiation, they offer a fantasy of integrated knowledge—the notion that reality is fundamentally coherent and that understanding is available to those who study deeply enough. This is deeply appealing to minds formed by modernity’s fragmentation.
Fourth, it positions the seeker as an active interpreter rather than a passive consumer. Consumer capitalism positions most people as passive consumers of meaning produced by experts. The interpretation of hidden symbolic meanings positions you as an active creator of meaning. You are not receiving an interpretation; you are discovering one through your own intellectual and spiritual labor.
The political function: how institutions use symbols
While the psychological functions of symbolic interpretation are real, the political functions are equally important and less frequently examined.
Religious symbols, when they carry authority, become tools through which institutional power legitimates itself. Consider the Christian cross. In its early centuries, the cross was ambiguous—it was a symbol of shameful execution. Constantine’s transformation of Christianity into the state religion required transforming the cross from a sign of shame into a sign of imperial power. The cross became inscribed on Roman military standards. Constantine himself claimed to have seen the cross in a vision before his decisive military victory at the Milvian Bridge.
This transformation was not a matter of discovery—as if the “true” meaning of the cross had been hidden and was now revealed. It was a matter of political appropriation. The cross’s meaning was reconstructed to serve imperial interests.
This pattern repeats across religious and political history. The swastika, one of the oldest symbols in Hindu and Buddhist traditions, representing auspiciousness and cosmic order, was appropriated by Nazi ideology in the 20th century and transformed into a symbol of racial supremacy and genocide. The symbol itself had not changed; but its political deployment had.
More subtly, consider the Star of David. The use of this symbol to represent Jewish identity became standardized only in the medieval period and accelerated through the 19th and 20th centuries. But this standardization was not inevitable—it was a process of political construction. The decision to make the Star of David the central symbol of Jewish identity served particular interests: it created visual unity among diverse Jewish communities (Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Mizrahi, etc.), it created a recognizable emblem for nationalist projects, and it allowed for the incorporation of Judaism into Western frameworks of national identity.
The deeper point: the meanings we attribute to symbols are not discovered; they are constructed and enforced through power. Institutions have interest in particular interpretations. These institutions—religious authorities, nation-states, educational institutions—work to canonize particular interpretations and to marginalize alternative ones.
Part II: structural patterns in representing the non-representable
The universal problem: how do you represent what cannot be represented?
All religious traditions face a fundamental problem: the divine, the transcendent, the ultimate reality—however it is conceptualized—is by definition that which exceeds human comprehension and material representation. Yet traditions cannot remain entirely silent about the divine without losing their capacity to shape consciousness and practice. They must find ways to represent the non-representable.
Different traditions have resolved this problem through different strategies, but structural patterns appear across traditions. These patterns reveal something about the constraints of human cognition and the functions that symbolic representation must serve.
Pattern 1: the strategy of complementarity
The first structural pattern involves using complementary pairs to suggest a reality that transcends any single representation.
In Christianity, the cross uses two beams—one vertical (transcendent) and one horizontal (immanent)—to represent the paradox that the divine is both beyond the world and present within it. The cross does not resolve this paradox; it holds it in tension.
In Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah), the Sefirah are organized in pairs of complementary principles: Chokmah (Wisdom) and Binah (Understanding), Gevurah (Severity) and Chesed (Mercy). The divine is not any single principle but the dynamic relationship between complementary opposites.
In Daoism, the yin-yang symbol presents two complementary forces in dynamic equilibrium. Neither force is primary; neither can be understood without reference to the other. Together, they suggest a totality that exceeds both.
In Islam, while direct representation of the divine is theologically prohibited, calligraphic and geometric patterns often use complementary relationships—symmetry and asymmetry, filled and empty space—to suggest the divine order that structures reality.
What is structural here is not the specific content of these pairs, but the function: using complementary representation to hold paradox in consciousness and to suggest that reality transcends any single frame of reference.
Pattern 2: The strategy of infinite recursion
A second pattern involves using symbols that suggest infinite depth—meanings that layer indefinitely without reaching a final ground.
The Hindu symbol Om uses three syllables (A, U, M) to represent the waking state, dream state, and deep sleep. But these three states are not the full meaning of Om. Rather, they suggest that Om contains infinite layers of meaning. Each layer can be investigated further; understanding deepens without reaching a final point.
Buddhist mandalas present geometric patterns that appear to extend infinitely inward. The mandala functions as a meditation device not because it provides a final answer, but because it trains consciousness to recognize infinite depth within apparent simplicity.
The Quranic text operates similarly: traditional Islamic exegesis (tafsir) generates layer upon layer of interpretation, each layer opening onto further interpretive possibilities. The text is understood to contain infinite meaning accessible through infinite study.
Islamic geometric patterns similarly construct visual spaces that appear to extend infinitely. A finite image suggests infinite extension. The viewer’s consciousness is invited into an experience of paradox: finite representation, infinite implication.
What is structural is the function: creating symbols that train consciousness to recognize depth beyond obvious surfaces and to accept that ultimate truth might exceed final comprehension.
Pattern 3: the strategy of negative capability
A third pattern involves symbols that deliberately resist interpretation or that present interpretive contradiction.
Medieval Christian theology developed the via negativa or apophatic theology: the notion that the divine is best approached through negation—saying what God is NOT, rather than what God IS. The cross, in this framework, does not represent God’s nature but rather the paradox of the divine’s engagement with the human world.
Jewish negative theology similarly emphasizes that the divine exceeds naming. The tetragrammaton (YHWH) is unpronounceable; it resists representation. The Star of David’s hexagram cannot be reduced to a single meaning; different interpretations coexist without synthesis.
In Buddhist practice, meditation on emptiness (sunyata) trains the mind to release the impulse to name or represent phenomena. Symbols like the wheel of dharma function not by conveying specific meanings but by training consciousness to let go of the impulse to grasp meaning.
Islamic theology similarly emphasizes tanzih—the transcendence of God, God’s fundamental unlikeness to creation. Visual representation, even geometric representation, is limited and potentially misleading. The prohibition on figural representation serves a theological function: it prevents the reduction of the infinite divine to finite forms.
What is structural is the function: creating symbols that train consciousness to accept that some realities exceed representation and that the impulse to represent everything might itself be a limitation.
The historical construction of interpretations
These structural patterns are genuinely present across traditions. But the specific interpretations within these patterns are not discovered; they are constructed through historical processes of canonization, contestation, and power.
Consider the Om symbol. Contemporary New Age interpretations typically present Om as representing a cosmic vibration or universal consciousness accessible through meditation. This interpretation draws on certain strands of Vedantic philosophy but flattens others.
Medieval Advaita Vedanta philosophers like Adi Shankara offered interpretations of Om within a sophisticated metaphysical framework. Shankara argued that Om represented Brahman—ultimate reality—but that Brahman was fundamentally non-dual and beyond qualities. The sound of Om could point toward Brahman but could never exhaust it.
Later Tantric interpretations offered different readings. In Kashmir Shaivism, the sound of Om was understood as involving the entire creative process: the unfolding of the universe from transcendent singularity. The interpretation was not merely philosophical but involved specific sonic practices.
Contemporary Hindu nationalism has appropriated Om symbolism for political purposes, emphasizing Hindu spiritual superiority and using Om as a marker of Hindu identity in contexts of communal conflict.
These are not different layers of a single unchanging meaning. These are different interpretations constructed in different historical contexts by different communities with different interests.
Similarly, consider the Star of David. The hexagram was used in medieval Jewish mysticism, but its meaning was not stable. In Kabbalah, it represented the interplay of masculine and feminine principles (represented by the two interlocking triangles). But this meaning was not universally accepted.
In the 18th and 19th centuries, as European Jewish communities engaged with Enlightenment thought and Jewish nationalism emerged, the Star of David was elevated to represent Jewish collective identity. This was a political project. The symbol was standardized, printed on flags and official documents, and disseminated through educational systems.
In 1948, when the State of Israel was established, the Star of David was placed at the center of the national flag. The symbol, which had carried mystical meaning within Kabbalah, was now conscripted into a political project of nation-state formation.
None of these meanings were “hidden” and then “discovered.” They were constructed through specific historical processes. Different communities and institutions had interests in particular interpretations, and they worked to establish and maintain those interpretations.
The genealogy of interpretive authority
Who has the authority to interpret religious symbols? This question is itself historical and political.
In traditional societies, interpretive authority was typically lodged in specialized classes: priestly classes, learned elders, mystical adepts. Interpretation was a restricted practice. Not everyone had the right to interpret.
Modernity transformed this. With the democratization of literacy and the expansion of print technology, the capacity to interpret symbols became dispersed. Anyone who could read could potentially engage in interpretation.
But this did not eliminate the problem of authority. It transformed it. Instead of priestly authority, we now have competing claims to authority. Academic specialists claim authority through scholarly methodology. Spiritual teachers claim authority through direct experience or initiation. Popular culture claims authority through accessibility.
In contemporary contexts, what happens is a kind of fragmentation: multiple interpretations coexist. The Om symbol is interpreted by Hindu philosophers, by neuroscientists, by yoga instructors, by New Age practitioners. Each community claims a particular form of authority.
When you search the internet for “meaning of Om,” you encounter dozens of interpretations. None has institutional backing sufficient to eliminate others. Yet this appearance of plurality obscures deeper power dynamics. Some interpretations are more visible, more disseminated, more incorporated into educational curricula. The New Age interpretation of Om as a universal healing vibration has vastly more visibility in contemporary Western contexts than the Advaita Vedanta interpretation of Om as non-dual ultimate reality.
This visibility is not accidental. It results from processes of commodification and globalization. The Om symbol that appears on yoga mats, in meditation apps, and on wellness products has been stripped of its most philosophically sophisticated interpretations and packaged as a accessible spiritual technology. The symbol has been disembedded from the philosophical and institutional contexts that generated its meaning and reembedded in consumer capitalism.
Part III: the genealogy of interpretation – tracing how meanings were constructed
How canonical interpretations become “authoritative”
The term “canonical” carries multiple meanings. In one sense, it refers to texts that have been officially recognized as sacred or authoritative within a tradition. In another sense, it refers to interpretations that have become so widely accepted that they appear natural or inevitable.
The canonization of particular interpretations is a process that requires institutional work. Interpretations do not become authoritative simply because they are true. They become authoritative because institutions with power work to establish and maintain them.
Consider the Christian cross. The interpretation of the cross as representing Christ’s sacrificial redemption—the understanding that Christ’s death on the cross was a cosmic sacrifice that paid the price for human sin—became canonical in Western Christianity through a complex process.
In the New Testament itself, different metaphors for Christ’s death circulate without being synthesized into a unified doctrine. Some texts present Christ as a scapegoat (Hebrews). Some present him as a victor over cosmic powers (Colossians). Some present him as an exemplary teacher (the Gospel of Mark). These metaphors coexist without contradiction because unified systematic theology had not yet been developed.
Over centuries, particularly through the work of theologians like Anselm and Thomas Aquinas, the sacrificial metaphor became increasingly dominant. Anselm, in the 11th century, developed the theory of “satisfaction” and atonement: Christ’s death satisfied God’s justice by paying the debt incurred by human sin. This interpretation was presented as extracting the true meaning that had always been implicit in the cross.
Yet this was not discovery. It was construction. The sacrificial interpretation was one possibility among others. Its dominance resulted from the institutional power of medieval Christian theology and the dissemination of these interpretations through established educational and clerical structures.
By the Reformation, the sacrificial interpretation had become so thoroughly established that alternative interpretations were marginalized. When Protestant reformers recovered biblical texts, they read those texts through the lens of sacrificial theology. The alternative meanings that the texts contained were no longer visible to them.
The historical work of canonization is often invisible. By the time an interpretation becomes canonical, it appears inevitable. Students learn that the cross means Christ’s redemptive sacrifice. They may not realize that this interpretation was constructed through a complex historical process and that alternative interpretations were marginalized.
Contested meanings: when canonical interpretations are challenged
Yet canonical interpretations are never entirely stable. They are constantly subject to contestation and challenge.
In medieval Judaism, the Star of David had particular meanings within Kabbalah. But it was not universally recognized as a symbol of Jewish identity. Different Jewish communities used different symbols. The Magen David (Shield of David) itself had various meanings—some understood it as representing the shield that protected Israel, others as representing mystical principles.
In the 18th century, Enlightenment Jewish thinkers began to interpret the Star of David as a symbol of Jewish unity and rational order—a symbol compatible with Enlightenment values. This reinterpretation involved stripping away the mystical meanings and emphasizing geometric perfection and mathematical harmony.
Later, Zionist movements appropriated the Star of David and transformed it into a symbol of Jewish nationalism and territorial claims. The mystical meanings were further backgrounded. The symbol now represented not cosmic principles or spiritual unity but the political project of nation-state formation.
These reinterpretations were not neutral. They involved contestation. Traditional Jewish scholars sometimes objected to the Enlightenment rationalization of the symbol. Religious Jews sometimes objected to its appropriation by secular nationalist movements. Yet through institutional processes—the establishment of Zionist institutions, the founding of the State of Israel, the incorporation of the symbol into educational curricula—certain interpretations became dominant.
The history of the cross shows similar contestation. While the sacrificial interpretation became dominant in Western Christianity, alternative interpretations persisted. Orthodox Christianity developed different understandings of Christ’s death, emphasizing theosis (divinization) rather than substitutionary atonement. Mennonites and other Anabaptists interpreted the cross through the lens of Christ’s exemplary suffering and refused to defend Christian doctrine through violence—challenging the notion that the cross sanctified Christian military power.
These alternative interpretations were never entirely eliminated, but they were marginalized. Educational institutions, official church documents, and authorized commentaries disseminated the sacrificial interpretation. Alternative interpretations survived in subcultures and dissenting communities but lacked the institutional power to shape dominant culture.
The contemporary situation: the fragmentation of authority
In contemporary contexts, the authority of canonical interpretations has become unstable. Several processes have contributed to this:
The globalization of symbols. Religious symbols have become globally circulating signs that are detached from their original institutional contexts. The Om symbol appears in yoga studios in New York that have no connection to Hindu philosophy. The crescent and star appears on flags and corporate logos divorced from Islamic theological meanings.
The democratization of interpretation. Digital technology allows anyone to produce and disseminate interpretations. YouTube contains millions of videos purporting to explain the “true meaning” of religious symbols. No authoritative institution can control this proliferation.
The pluralization of contexts. A single individual might encounter the cross in a church context (where it carries traditional Christian meanings), in an academic context (where it is analyzed as a historical symbol), and in a commercial context (where it appears as a pendant or tattoo divorced from explicit religious meaning). The symbol acquires different meanings in different contexts.
The commercialization of spirituality. Yoga, meditation, and spiritual practice have been incorporated into consumer capitalism. Symbols like Om and the mandala are marketed as wellness technologies. Their meanings are stripped of philosophical complexity and repackaged as accessible tools for stress reduction and self-improvement.
The result is that contemporary seekers encounter religious symbols in a state of meaning-fragmentation. Multiple interpretations circulate without any clear hierarchy of authority. The search for “hidden meanings” intensifies precisely because there is no stable, authoritative meaning readily available.
This fragmentation can be liberating—it allows for creative reinterpretation and prevents any single institution from monopolizing meaning. But it also creates a kind of vertigo. In the absence of authoritative interpretation, people search for hidden depths—assuming that somewhere, beneath the fragmented surface meanings, a true, coherent meaning exists.
Part IV: toward a critical understanding of symbolic meaning
What we misunderstand when we search for “hidden meanings”
The search for hidden meanings in religious symbols rests on several assumptions that merit examination:
Assumption 1: symbols contain meanings that exist independently of interpretation. This assumption treats symbols as containers with fixed contents. But symbols are not containers. They are sites of ongoing interpretation. Meaning is generated through the act of interpretation, not simply extracted from a pre-existing interior.
When you encounter the Om symbol, you do not discover a hidden meaning that was always there. Rather, you participate in an ongoing process of meaning-making that has been shaped by centuries of philosophical interpretation, by contemporary popular culture, by your own psychological and spiritual condition, and by the institutional contexts in which you encounter the symbol.
Assumption 2: hidden meanings are more authoritative than obvious ones. This assumption treats visible, obvious meanings as superficial and hidden meanings as profound. But this distinction is itself historically constructed. The notion that profound truth hides beneath surfaces is a modern Western idea. Many religious traditions have no concept of “hidden meaning” separate from interpretation available through training.
When you assume that a hidden meaning is more authentic than an obvious one, you are participating in a specifically modern—and specifically Western—orientation toward meaning. You are treating truth as something that must be discovered beneath deceptive surfaces rather than as something that reveals itself through practice and understanding.
Assumption 3: There is a single true interpretation that, once discovered, remains stable. This assumption treats interpretation as a process of discovery rather than construction. But meanings shift across contexts and across time. The cross means something different in Constantine’s hands than in the hands of contemporary Christian peace activists. The Star of David means something different in Kabbalistic mysticism than in Zionist nationalism.
Rather than seeking a single true interpretation, we might ask: What does this symbol enable? What practices does it make possible? What communities does it constitute? How has its meaning shifted across contexts?
A more honest approach to symbols
A more honest engagement with religious symbols would involve several shifts:
First, acknowledge that interpretation is historically constructed. The meanings attributed to symbols are not natural or inevitable. They have been constructed through specific historical processes, often involving power dynamics and institutional interests.
When you interpret the cross through a lens of sacrificial redemption, you are not discovering an eternal truth. You are participating in an interpretation that was canonized through medieval Christian theology and disseminated through educational institutions. This interpretation is not false, but neither is it inevitable or uniquely authoritative.
Second, recognize that symbols serve multiple functions simultaneously. A symbol can be a philosophical representation (the Om as representing non-dual reality), a psychological tool (the Om as facilitating meditative consciousness), a spiritual practice (the Om as a mantra to be chanted), a cultural identity marker (the Om as representing Hinduism), and a consumer commodity (the Om appearing on yoga mats and wellness products) all at once.
Rather than assuming that one of these functions reveals the symbol’s “true” meaning, we might ask how the symbol’s meaning shifts across these different contexts and what becomes obscured when particular functions are emphasized.
Third, resist the impulse to reduce complexity. Symbols in living religious traditions are genuinely complex. The cross holds in tension sacrifice and resurrection, death and life, shame and victory. The Star of David holds in tension complementary principles, and those complementary principles can be understood in multiple ways. The Om contains multiple registers of meaning that are not synthesized into a single doctrine.
The impulse to search for a single hidden meaning often involves reducing this genuine complexity. A more honest approach would be to dwell in the complexity rather than resolving it.
Fourth, examine who benefits from particular interpretations. When specific meanings become canonical, specific institutions benefit. Medieval Church authorities benefited from the sacrificial interpretation of the cross because it elevated the institutional church as the sole distributor of grace. Zionist institutions benefited from the Star of David becoming a symbol of territorial nationalism because it naturalized their claims.
This examination is not meant to invalidate interpretations (institutional power does not make interpretations false), but rather to make visible the stakes of interpretation.
