Dictionary of all Scriptures & Myths

COLUMN, OR PILLAR

A symbol of aspiration towards the higher.

"The king of the land at Byblos seeing the Erica tree, had it cut down, and set up as a pillar of his palace, not suspecting that within it was the chest (in which lay the body of Osiris)." - PLUTARCH, Isis and Osiris, § 15.

Now it is that the Ego becomes alive to some of its faults, and so directs that the evil shall be done away with, not the evil the means beholding in whereby its power is arrived at. The "Erica tree" is a symbol of doubt and difficulty which imply inverted confidence and faith,-or scepticism,-upon which reposes the palace of Truth. The "pillar" stands for both scepticism and aspiration: the one is the result of the other. Scepticism as a state of the mind is only the doubt which is begotten of a distrust of some form of thought, and this doubt answers to an unconscious awakenment within.

See Also

BYBLOS
CHEST
DEATH OF OSIRIS
FIRE OF HELL
OBELISK
PILLAR