as cold as the sea and as sharp as a sword. Honesty with oneself is
no soft and reassuring thing. It is often harsh and never kind. This is a difficult virtue to master and a tricky vice to avoid. The difference
between rationality and rationalization is difficult to distinguish.
In Hod, we see a symbolic representation of that imaginative representation of the world of sensation. This is an enormously important advance. It is by representing our imaginations as
symbols that we can communicate the contents of our minds to one another, thus linking our individual thoughts and experiences together with others for the very first time. And perhaps equally importantly, we can store information outside our bodies in the form of written words, symbols, and pictures, thus preserving our experience beyond our lifetimes and transmitting it beyond our presence.
It is through the symbolic activity of Hod that we teach ourselves that relationships between ideas can be appreciated and examined as abstract principles, giving rise to reason and logic. In Hod, we teach ourselves to think effectively...read more>>>...