ions, and may draw therefrom several not misleading
analogies.[178]

Myth is an account of the movements of those who cast the shadows; and
the language in which the account is given is what is called the
language of symbols. Just as here we have words which stand for
things--as the word "table" is a symbol for a recognised article of a
certain kind--so do symbols stand for objects on higher planes. They are
a pictorial alphabet, used by all myth-writers, and each has its
recognised meaning. A symbol is used to signify a certain object just as
words are used down here to distinguish one thing from another, and so a
knowledge of symbols is necessary for the reading of a myth. For the
original tellers of great myths are ever Initiates, who are accustomed
to use the symbolic language, and who, of course, use symbols in their
fixed and accepted meanings.

A symbol has a chief meaning, and then various subsidiary meanings
related to that chief meaning. For instance, the Sun is the symbol of
the Logos; that is its chief or primary significance. But it stands also
for an incarnation of the Logos, or for any of the great Messengers who
represent Him for the time, as an ambassador represents his King. High
Initiates who are sent on special missions to incarnate among men and
live with them for a time as Rulers or Teachers, would be designated by
the symbol of the Sun; for though it is not their symbol in an
individual sense, it is theirs in virtue of their office.

All those who are signified by this symbol have certain characteristics,
pass through certain situations, perform certain activities, during
their lives on earth. The Sun is the physical shadow, or body, as it is
called, of the Logos; hence its yearly course in nature reflects His
activity, in the partial way in which a shadow represents the activity
of the object that casts it. The Logos, "the Son of God," descending
into matter, has as shadow the annual course of the Sun, and the
Sun-Myth tells it. Hence, again, an incarnation of the Logos, or one of
His high ambassadors, will also represent that activity, shadow-like, in
His body as a man. Thus will necessarily arise identities in the
life-histories of these ambassadors. In fact, the absence of such
identities would at once point out that the person concerned was not a
full ambassador, and that his mission was of a lower order.

The Solar Myth, then, is a story which primarily representing the
activity of the L