There is a term, numinous, made known by Jung, even more appropriate for symbols than divine. Numinous roughly means "a state of amazement (and even awe) before the sacred and supernatural" here, the appearance of symbols is a numinous event. The truths they reveal are dazzling.

Yet words are limited, if necessary, tools. Images are more immediate and free; but both of these forms of expression are needed to communicate. I have drawn the symbols freely inspired by them to study and live them, and I try to put into words what I have captured in them to speak also to our rational and analytical side, which we need as much as the other side, intuitive and synthetic. We need both legs to walk well, both wings to fly. In any case, someone will be able if he/she wants to skip all the words I write to draw directly on the images; someone else will also want to read, because the rational-discursive sphere is also important. Both approaches are fine, depending on individual sensitivities.

The symbolic images that emerge in the psyche are as real as those we see with our eyes open. More so: it is not we who perceive or create the mental images: we are images. We live on images and are images just as we live on, and are, earth, food and air, water and fire.