Symbol Over Belief — How I Read Sacred Texts Now

Symbol Over Belief — How I Read Sacred Texts Now

I no longer read sacred texts to find what to believe.
I read them to observe how consciousness describes itself.

Belief fixes meaning.
Symbol liberates it.

In earlier stages, I approached texts literally, then historically, then doctrinally. Each layer offered insight—but also limitation. Literalism traps the mind. Doctrine freezes interpretation. History confines revelation to the past.

Symbol does none of these.

Symbol speaks directly to structure, not story.
Pattern, not personality.
Process, not commandment.

When I read now, I ask different questions:

• What state of consciousness is being described?

• What inner process is being symbolized?

• What psychological or spiritual movement is encoded here?

Angels become functions of awareness.
Gods become principles of order.
Heavens become states of perception.
Judgment becomes integration.

Nothing needs to be believed for it to be useful.

Symbol does not demand faith—it invites participation. It meets the reader where they are, not where a system says they must be.

This is why symbolic reading survives the Abyss.
Belief systems often do not.

Symbol adapts.
Symbol matures with the reader.
Symbol remains alive.

I no longer ask whether a text is “true.”
I ask whether it is revealing something real about consciousness.

That shift alone changes everything.