Hidden Meanings

Psychological and mystical meanings of symbols in dreams.

Originally published: New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2006.

Rabbi Ginsburgh reveals, in an in-depth analysis and spiritual meditation, how the dreidel's name, shape, spin, and symbols contain deep secrets and can be used as a meditative tool in expanding the horizons of our consciousness.

You don't have to be a mathematician to appreciate these intriguing problems and puzzles, which focus on insight and imagination rather than technique. Includes hints and solutions.

Subtexts are all around us. In conversation, business transactions, politics, literature, philosophy, and even love, the art of expressing more than what is explicitly said allows us to live and move in the world. But rarely do we reflect on this subterranean dimension of communication. In this book, renowned classicist and scholar of rhetoric Laurent Pernot explores the fascinating world of subtext. Of the two meanings present in any instance of double meaning, Pernot focuses on the meaning that is unstated—the meaning that counts. He analyzes subtext in all its multifarious forms, including allusion, allegory, insinuation, figured speech, irony, innuendo, esoteric teaching, reading between the lines, ambiguity, and beyond. Drawing on examples from figures as varied as Homer, Shakespeare, Molière, Proust, Foucault, and others, as well as from popular culture, Pernot shows how subtext can be identified and deciphered as well as how prevalent and essential it is in human life. With erudition and wit, Pernot explains and clarifies a device of language that we use and understand every day without even realizing it. The Subtle Subtext is a book for anyone who is interested in language, literature, hidden meanings, and the finer points of social relations.

Masonry is permeated with powerful verbal and pictorial symbolism that arouses the mental, spiritual and intellectual life. One of the treasures of the SJ USA Supreme Council's Archives at the House of the Temple in Washington, D.C., is Albert Pike's manuscript of The Book of the Words. The book was originally printed, in an edition limited to 150 copies, in 1874. This remarkable study is an exploration of the symbolic words in Freemasonry. It gives the correct spelling of, and analyzes all the "significant words" in the Scottish Rite from the 1st through the 30th degrees inclusive. Pike explores and explains their origin (Hebrew, Samaritan, Phoenician and English), meaning, symbolism and relevance to the degrees and gives his insights. In addition to being an etymological dictionary Pike explains why any given word was chosen for a given degree, thereby revealing the hidden symbolism of each word.

From the international bestselling author of Red Herrings and White Elephants—a curious guide to the hidden histories of classic nursery rhymes. Who was Mary Quite Contrary, or Georgie Porgie? How could Hey Diddle Diddle offer an essential astronomy lesson? Do Jack and Jill actually represent the execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette? And if Ring Around the Rosie isn’t about the plague, then what is it really about? This book is a quirky, curious, and sometimes sordid look at the truth behind popular nursery rhymes that uncovers the strange tales that inspired them—from Viking raids to political insurrection to smuggling slaves to freedom. Read Albert Jack's posts on the Penguin Blog.

The great Latin American writer: an inspiration to Vargas Llosa and Carlos Fuentes