Exploring the Spiritual Through the
Study of Animals

Correspondences of the Bible: The Animals

John Worcester
(Swedenborg Found.: 212 pp., $14.95)

Reviewed by Helene Vachet

This was a very difficult book to review because my feeling that the author’s very traditional approach to snakes representing the sensual; apes representing mimicry; and lambs innocence; and so forth, at first, overshadowed the positive contributions of this very unique work.  On reflection, there was much to admire.

Worcester’s description of the elephants having a quickness of perception, an underlying love, and sense of justice is backed with several wonderful stories illustrating this point.  One I particularly liked told of an elephant that was very thin on its master’s return from a trip of several weeks.  The servant in charge of the elephant, in the master’s absence, had not given the elephant his correct amount of food and had pocketed the difference in money.  Upon its owner’s return, the sagacious animal divided the now correct amount of food with its trunk into two portions, ate one half and pointed his trunk to the servant and to the other half of the food until the master understood what had happened.  The book is filled with wonderful stories illustrating differing animal traits in a similar vein.

According to John Worcester, we learn about the spiritual by studying its correspondence in the physical world.  In other words, the natural objects of the world, such as animals, are images or manifestations of spiritual things in human minds.  To him, there is hardly a word used to describe natural objects or phenomena, which does not figuratively apply to spiritual things.  If things in our world bore no relationship to the spiritual, then this life would not be a preparation for the spiritual life — a core belief of all spiritual traditions.

The idea of correspondences actually goes back to ancient Israel and the interwoven triangle which is the sign of the Star of David that means, “as above, so below.”  Also, the Masonic tradition, which goes back to ancient Egypt, uses the interlaced triangle of correspondence, which is seen on our dollar bills.  Perhaps next time we spend a dollar, we should contemplate its spiritual side?