This stunning visual guide discusses the way signs and symbols are used by human societies as an integral and fundamental part of the way we communicate. Throughout history hundreds and hundreds of icons and symbols have been developed, interpreted and reproduced through art, mythology and religion; from cave paintings and aboriginal dreamtime to computer iconography and advertising.

No group, society, culture or historical period is without its own graphology, from the Sumerians to the Freemasons, and from the alchemists' philosopher's stone, to the symbolically expressed visionary insights of Jung and Freud.

This book brings together these variant themes and shows the iconographical and symbolic strands that connect them all, whether it is the universal circle, the hammer and sickle that is globally recognized as a symbol of communism, or the cross that goes far beyond being a symbol of Christianity and is in fact one of the most ancient universal graphemes.

With a broad perspective, covering all continents, and spanning human history, the book brings together psychological, mythological, religious, literary, commercial, political and artistic insights to explore how these concepts can summarize or explain our common and diverse human experience.

The book includes a directory of over 1000 individual signs and symbols, from Alchemical transmutation symbols to the Adinkra signs of Ghana. Each sign is illustrated and defined, and this A-Z directory demonstrates the extraordinary breadth of subject matter and universal concepts that can be expressed with such simplicity.
As well as the 1000 specially commissioned artworks the book is lavishly illustrated with over 150 contemporary photographs, colour illustrations and fine art paintings which, combined with the authoritative and accessible text, make this a crucial visual sourcebook and one-stop reference encyclopedia for scholars, dream-readers, linguists, magicians, scientists, psychologists, historians and astrologers of every kind.