Our English term tradition comes from Traditio, a Latin word meaning the ‘delivery of doctrine’ and ‘surrender’, but more pertinent to us it means ‘something handed down.’ There is depth here as many will know, for this ‘something handed down’ is not just the old pocket watch that our ancestors sported in the 19th century and has been passed from one generation to another. No, tradition is also the continuance of something much more profound, much more in-tune with the Da Vinci Code concept of the bloodline.
In the very first usage of the word we find that it was in fact used for the passing on of doctrine and religious dogma – a sacred act itself and something which became symbolic. The word ‘sacred’ itself comes from Old Latin saceres meaning to bind, restrict, enclose and protect. And this is where much of the truth lies – in symbolism and sacredness, for both are binding and surrendering to something being passed down. The acts of those parliamentarians and the guard at Buckingham Palace are symbolic and sacred acts, representing something other than the physical and literal things we see. The same is true of religious tradition. There is no truth that the taking of the bread and wine at the Eucharist ritual – a tradition seen across the world – actually is the body and blood of Jesus Christ. No, the act is symbolic and solemnly reminds the religious initiate of the fact that he is part of a greater Christian brotherhood; that he is accepting Christ and that His body was broken and blood spilt for us and that he is a continuation of a long line. Whatever ones opinion on that religious act, the fact remains that it is a very powerful tool for reminding the masses of their place in the world via an act that is emotionally strong.
As we can now see, tradition can be a very strong device when allied to emotion and psychologists have discovered that allegorical tales are very often better absorbed than any literal telling.
In this allegorical or symbolic respect there are other words that also relate and of which we should take note. These words now often hold mystery to us, because we have lost the meaning of them, as we have all too often lost the meaning of tradition. Myth, fable, tale, story – all these, and more, are used in the ‘traditional’ way to pass on hidden or esoteric knowledge from one generation to another. And this is a ‘tradition’ going back in time for thousands of years – the custom of the storyteller, whose job it was to keep alive the truths of the tribe. From medicine man and shaman to druid, Brahman and later Catholic priest, we have entrusted our social history and religious emotional beliefs to the wise-man of the tribe or culture. Held within the many myths, fables, tales and stories are a great many truths awaiting the key to unlock them again. And many of these truths are symbolic codes, hiding a secret belief that the contemporary religious authority would have looked down upon.
And I am of the opinion that with a new set of eyes we can ourselves find the keys to unlock these historical conundrums. We have to understand our ancestors were able to do this and we have to start by realising that they were humans just like us. They had fears, hopes and struggled to survive and to comprehend their very place in the universe. In the depth of understanding our ancestors discovered that they needed to find a way of passing on the knowledge they had uncovered and they formed tales. Our historical friends were not simple folk as we are led to believe. They had the same brain size as ourselves and in fact in many ways they were better attuned to the thing we now divisively call nature. You see, in our ‘modern’ materialistic state we forget that we are human beings that have come from and live in the natural universe. We forget, because we create things from within our own imaginations and surround ourselves with them, and hence we today find ourselves in an imaginary world of ‘things.’ This pc in front of me is formed from the imagination of thousands of individuals. In one respect it is not a natural item, but in another because it was formed from the mind of man then it is the result of that natural human factor – imagination. It is this ability of the mind to create a concept that has spawned stories and tales, myths and fables to explain to each new generation the knowledge of the last. And so what is the key we need to understand these concepts? It is imagination in tune with intuition or our connection to nature. 
Tradition is a treasure chest of esoteric secrets awaiting the imagination of some bright spark to find the key and unlock it. If ‘tradition’ is that thing handed down from one generation to another, then it is our duty to find the key. And today that key lies in the quantum world. For within the all-too peculiar world of quantum physics what we shall discover is the connection through time of our own bloodline, our own thoughts and patterns, passing on through time and connected to the great matrix of the mind of the universe. The universe, according to Prof. James Gardner, is an intelligent mind at the sub-atomic level – at the quantum level. It acts like a DNA feedback loop, growing from input. As we share huge percentages of our DNA with our fellow animals and plants, so too we share a universal quantum connection – we are indeed entangled at the sub-atomic particle level to all reality – not just now, but for all time – and this quantum reality may very well be intelligent.
Tradition may very well have hidden this peculiar knowledge in symbolism and sacred texts and called it God. It is time to understand tradition afresh and to understand the sacred nature of humanity and consciousness.
Philip Gardiner is the best selling author of Gnosis: The Secret of Solomon’s Temple Revealed, The Serpent Grail, The Shining Ones, Secrets of the Serpents and Proof – Does God Exist? He is the host of the Forbidden Knowledge Conference UK every year and has appeared on over 400 radio shows and several TV documentaries, as well as releasing his own unique series of DVD’s. For more on him please go to
www.gardinersworld.com or
www.gnosisbookdvd.com