Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture Reading 1

While reading the book Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture I noticed that they mention different symbols, more specifically dominant symbols, and how they relate to pilgrimages. After having read so much about symbols, I decided to look at the back of the book where they gave summaries for topics within the book. I found the word dominant symbol and it says “dominant symbols appear in many different ritual contexts, sometimes presiding over the whole procedure, sometimes over particular phases”. I think that it’s interesting how different symbols can mean different things depending on when they are used. However, even though they can be used differently, most of the time their meaning is pretty consistent. I find this really engaging and it makes me want to take a deeper look at some dominant symbols that are found within spiritual journeys. In relation to dominant symbols, there are also instrumental symbols. Instrumental symbols are things like candles and the act of kneeling. The book says that instrumental symbols “must be interpreted in terms of their wider context; that is in terms of the total system of symbols in a given ritual”. I definitely feel like some of the things we’ve talked about in class could be classified as either a dominant symbol or an Instrumental symbol. I really enjoyed reading this book and learning how different things relate to Christian culture. Even though I didn’t grow up practicing the Christian religion, I still enjoyed reading and learning about it.