Читать книгу The Element Encyclopedia of Secret Signs and Symbols - Adele Nozedar - Страница 211

Every week of the year, on most continents around this planet, millions of people participate in a profoundly magical ritual whereby two very basic everyday foodstuffs, which are available in supermarkets or on stalls pretty much anywhere you care to mention around the world, have a spell cast over them by means of a sacred incantation. The person officiating over this ceremony makes symbolic gestures with his or her hands and arms. This spellbinding usually takes place in a language very few fully comprehend, a language full of secrets, and as a result these mundane objects are transformed into something as mystical, sacred, and awe-inspiring as anything you could ever imagine.

In addition, this ritual generally takes place in a building whose architecture and design has been informed by knowledge of the directions, shapes, and patterns that link the Heavens with the Earth in an arrangement of the sacred symbols which some say were dictated to man by the very angels themselves.

When the Holy Communion of the Roman Catholic Church takes place, the simple ingredients of bread and wine are transformed, many believe, into the actual body and blood of the Christ. This is not just a symbolic representation, some say, but a very real and profound belief that underpins the foundations of the religion. By eating this holy, sacred food, imbued with magical intent, the recipient voluntarily absorbs the spirit of the Messiah.

The ritual and perceived reality of this act are inseparable, but bread and wine are not the only sacred foods we absorb as part of our everyday lives. We need food to live, so it comes as no surprise that we have accorded many ingredients with magical powers. Indeed, some of the things we eat every day carry both constituent elements and meanings which go far beyond mere nutrition. Many other foods—nuts, apples, and other fruits and vegetables—are covered in other sections of this book, and this is by no means an exhaustive inventory, but a look at some of the foods, real and mythical, which have become symbols in themselves.