A Roman priest once told a Greek colleague that his gods had no myths, only rituals. The Greek laughed. The Roman was not joking. The Book of Symbols is a reference work that catalogs the meanings of images, objects, colors, and natural forms as they appear across cultures, religions, and esoteric traditions, and it relates to oracle reading because every oracle deck — from Tarot to Lenormand to animal spirit cards — relies on symbolic language to deliver its message. Without a shared vocabulary of symbols, an oracle reading is just pictures on cardboard.
The Book of Symbols is not a single text. It is a category of reference works, the most famous being the 2008 The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images published by the Archive for Research in Archetypal Symbolism (ARAS). But the concept predates that volume by centuries. When a reader pulls the Moon card, or the Bear, or the Anchor, they are drawing on a symbolic grammar that has been codified, debated, and refined in books like these since at least the Renaissance.
What exactly is the Book of Symbols?
The phrase “Book of Symbols” refers to any comprehensive reference that organizes visual symbols and explains their meanings across traditions. The most widely used version in contemporary esoteric practice is the ARAS Book of Symbols, published in 2008 by Taschen. It contains 800 pages of symbols organized by theme — animals, plants, celestial bodies, geometric forms, tools, and human figures, each entry written by a Jungian analyst or art historian.
But the tradition is older. The Iconologia of Cesare Ripa, first published in 1593, was a systematic catalog of allegorical images used by artists and poets. Ripa’s book defined how a personification of Justice should look (blindfolded, holding scales) or how to depict Time (an old man with a scythe). These visual conventions became the raw material for later esoteric symbol systems.
The ARAS volume draws on the work of Carl Jung and his concept of archetypes: universal patterns of meaning that appear in dreams, myths, and art across cultures. The book does not invent meanings. It collects them from primary sources, Egyptian tomb paintings, medieval bestiaries, Navajo sand paintings, alchemical engravings, and shows how the same symbol recurs in different times and places.
For the oracle reader, this matters because no symbol means only one thing. A serpent in a Norse context is different from a serpent in a Hindu context. The Book of Symbols gives the reader the range of meanings, not a single fixed definition.
How does a symbol book differ from an oracle guidebook?
Every oracle deck comes with a guidebook. Those guidebooks tell you what the creator intended each card to mean. The Book of Symbols tells you what the image has meant across centuries and continents.
The difference is depth versus specificity. A guidebook might say “The Bear card means strength and solitude.” The Book of Symbols will tell you that the bear appears in Celtic tradition as a warrior totem, in Siberian shamanism as a spirit helper, in Greek myth as the constellation Ursa Major, and in Jungian analysis as an archetype of the unconscious that hibernates and emerges transformed. The oracle reader who knows this range can read the Bear card with nuance that the guidebook alone cannot provide.
This is not a criticism of guidebooks. They serve their purpose. But the serious reader who works with multiple decks or who reads for others will eventually need a reference that goes beyond one creator’s interpretation.
Where did the practice of cataloging symbols begin?
The systematic study of symbols in the West has three major roots, and they converge in the modern Book of Symbols.
The first root is heraldry. By the 13th century, European noble houses used coats of arms with standardized meanings for colors and charges. A lion meant courage. A fleur-de-lis meant purity. The heraldic tradition produced the first widely used symbol dictionaries in Europe.
The second root is emblem books. In the 16th century, printers in Italy and the Netherlands published books that paired an image with a motto and a short poem. Andrea Alciato’s Emblemata (1531) started a craze that lasted two centuries. These books taught readers to interpret images as moral lessons. An anchor with a dolphin meant “make haste slowly.” A hand holding a compass meant “measure everything.”
The third root is alchemical illustration. Alchemists did not write straightforward instructions. They wrote in symbols: a lion devouring the sun, a green man, a hermaphrodite, a tower being struck by lightning. The Rosarium Philosophorum (1550) and the Mutus Liber (1677) are essentially books of symbols with minimal text. The reader had to know what each image meant to understand the process.
These three traditions, heraldry, emblems, alchemy, fed into the esoteric symbol books of the 19th and 20th centuries. Éliphas Lévi’s Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1854) included a symbol dictionary. A.E. Waite’s The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910) was essentially a symbol book for the deck he co-created. The ARAS Book of Symbols is the direct descendant of these works, but with the rigor of academic art history and Jungian analysis.
What symbols appear most often in oracle reading?
The symbols that recur across oracle decks tend to be those that appear in the natural world and in human craft. The Book of Symbols organizes them into categories that map directly onto oracle imagery.
Animals are the most common symbol set in oracle decks. The wolf, the raven, the owl, the deer, the snake, the butterfly. Each carries a cluster of meanings that shift by culture. The raven in Norse tradition is Odin’s messenger. In Celtic tradition it is associated with the Morrigan, a goddess of war and fate. In Native American traditions of the Pacific Northwest, the raven is a trickster and creator. An oracle reader who knows these layers can read a Raven card for a client of Irish descent differently than for a client with Scandinavian ancestry.
Plants and trees form another major category. The oak, the willow, the rose, the lotus, the apple. The Book of Symbols traces the apple through Greek myth (the golden apple of discord), Norse myth (Idun’s apples of youth), and Christian iconography (the apple of the Fall). The apple cut crosswise reveals a five-pointed star, which is why it appears in witchcraft as a symbol of the pentacle.
Celestial bodies, the sun, the moon, the stars, comets, appear in nearly every oracle deck. The Book of Symbols gives the reader the full range of lunar symbolism: the moon as timekeeper, as goddess, as the unconscious, as the realm of the dead, as the measure of women’s cycles. The moon card in an oracle deck is never just “change.” It is all of these things at once.
Geometric forms, the circle, the triangle, the square, the spiral, the cross, are the most abstract symbols and the most universal. The spiral appears in Paleolithic carvings, Celtic art, Hindu mandalas, and Navajo sand paintings. It means growth, journey, the path inward and outward. The Book of Symbols shows the spiral in all these contexts, so the reader understands that a spiral card is not a modern invention but a shape humans have used for 30,000 years.
How does a reader actually use the Book of Symbols?
The practical method is simple, though it requires discipline. The reader draws a card. They look at the image. They note their immediate impression. Then they consult the guidebook for the deck’s intended meaning. Then they open the Book of Symbols to the entry for the central image of the card.
The reader is not looking for a replacement meaning. They are looking for amplification. The guidebook says the card means “protection.” The Book of Symbols shows that the shield in the image was used in Greek warfare, in medieval heraldry, and in African initiation rituals. The reader now has three cultural lenses through which to interpret the card for the querent.
Some readers keep a journal of symbols they encounter across decks. When the same symbol appears in multiple readings, they note the pattern. The Book of Symbols becomes a tool for recognizing when a symbol is speaking to the reader personally versus when it is speaking to the universal human condition.
This is not a fast process. It slows the reading down. But for the reader who works with clients, the depth gained is worth the time.
What are the common misconceptions about symbol books?
The most common error is treating the Book of Symbols as a dictionary with fixed definitions. A dictionary says “bear: a large mammal.” The Book of Symbols says “bear: strength, hibernation, motherhood, warrior spirit, constellation, shamanic helper, Celtic totem, Ainu deity.” The reader who expects one correct meaning will be frustrated.
The second error is assuming that all symbols are universal. Jung believed in archetypes that cross cultures, but the ARAS editors are careful to note that symbols shift meaning by context. A swastika in a Hindu temple is not the same as a swastika in a Nazi flag. The Book of Symbols shows both, but it does not pretend they are equivalent.
The third error is using the Book of Symbols to override the reader’s intuition. The book is a reference, not a replacement for the reader’s own relationship with the cards. A reader who has worked with a deck for years may find that a symbol means something personal that the book does not list. That personal meaning is valid. The book provides the tradition. The reader provides the living connection.
FAQ
Is the Book of Symbols the same as a dream dictionary? No. Dream dictionaries assign fixed meanings to dream images. The Book of Symbols provides cultural and historical context without claiming that a symbol means the same thing for everyone.
Do I need the Book of Symbols to read oracle cards? No. Many readers work effectively with guidebooks alone. The Book of Symbols is for readers who want to deepen their understanding of the images they work with regularly.
Which edition of the Book of Symbols should I buy? The 2008 ARAS edition published by Taschen is the standard reference. Earlier editions exist but are harder to find. The ARAS website also maintains an online symbol archive.
Can I use the Book of Symbols with Tarot? Yes. Tarot is a subset of oracle reading. The symbols on Tarot cards, the Tower, the Star, the Moon, all have entries in the Book of Symbols that can enrich a reading.
The Book of Symbols is not a shortcut. It is a discipline. It asks the reader to sit with an image and trace its path through human history before assigning it a meaning for the person across the table. That patience is what separates a reading from a recitation. For the reader who wants to go deeper, the next step is to explore how different oracle systems use symbols in distinct ways, or to examine the symbols of the moon as they appear across decks. The guide to reading animal oracle cards offers a practical starting point for applying this knowledge.