Every language functions as vehicle for and mediator of meanings. So, too, the language of symbols lives from the tension between reference and referent. But while linguistic units, as, for example, the word, are assigned to the object meant in each instance, the symbol binds together designator and designated as tightly as possible. At times -- especially in the mythico-magical view of the world -- this bond is so intense that it often approaches an identity. Consequently, numerous meanings that we experience only as symbols were originally understood immediately as statements about realities. The sun was not the symbol of divine sight but rather was itself a god; the snake was not an image of evil but was evil itself; the color red was not merely a symbol of life but was itself vital energy. The boundary between mythical or magical ideas and symbolic thought is, consequently, seldom to be drawn sharply.A further peculiarity of the symbol as a vehicle of meaning is its strongly marked polyvalence, which can often go so far that explicitly antithetical meanings come together in one image. While we can often resolve or diminish the ambiguity of spoken or written linguistic signs by the addition of further signs and the observation of grammatical rules, sometimes we can translate the polyvalence of a symbol only very incompletely or only vaguely into a coherent description: The richness of the symbolic image remains ultimately untranslatable, reserved for inner contemplation.These two difficulties confront whoever attempts to come to terms with symbols. Above and beyond this, the editors of the present volume found themselves faced in a special way with the problem of selection, since they had undertaken the challenge of presenting in a small space information on symbols from numerous cultures. By preference, symbols were included that are still familiar or close to Western European consciousness. In this, the concept of 'symbol' was taken quite broadly; but, for reasons of space, it was not possible to discuss allegories and signs. Above all, it was the "old"symbolic ideas that were taken into account, those that have lived for peoples for thousands of years or are still alive. (Hence as a rule, the source is not mentioned each time as ancient China or ancient Egypt, but rather China, Egypt, etc.). Moreover, sometimes symbollike, imagistic representations were included which, for example, live on in our consciousness as proverbs or colloquial expressions; also various superstitious speculations that are often indebted to symbolic thought were taken into account. Furthermore, imaginal interpretations of the world (e.g., cosmogonic or alchemical) make up a relatively wide area. On the other hand, mythological figures, such as figures of gods and heroes, were not included; exceptions are the various monsters or animal-human hybrids of antiquity (e.g., centaurs, chimerae, furies), which frequently play the role of symbol-like pictures in contemporary linguistic usage. With a few exceptions (e.g., the seasons) groups of symbols such as those referring to Mary, law, sexuality, and death were not included because of the abundance of material that would have had to have been dealt with and which would have exceeded the space available. Psychoanalytic interpretations of symbols were expressly mentioned only when their reference to depth-psychological thought is especially clear. It is, of course, fundamentally true that every symbolic meaning has psychoanalytic relevance.With the aid of examples the reader will find in the present volume a survey of the abundance of types of human symbolic thinking and will simultaneously be stimulated to further exploration. We hope this book will help those of us who often may too easily dismiss symbols as preconceptually imprecise not only to consume the flood of images from the mass media but also to reactivate the remnants of our imagistic thinking which have atrophied in the course of development. For, indeed, while the symbol may never be as precise as the abstract word, it always directs us to ponder the great complexity of reality.