Esoterism & Symbol
by R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz    

    This is a short book but has good information for those studying spirituality.  Originally written in French in 1960, it was first translated into English and published in America in 1985.  The basis of this book and others by this author is that the hieroglyphics of ancient Egypt should not be look at as word-forming symbols like the letters of an alphabet, but that each one is a spiritual symbol to symbolize some spiritual truth.  The main focus of this book is the difference between the two types of intellegence, the cerebral and the spiritual that he calls "intelligence-of-the-heart" which is a translation of the Egyptian symbols for this type of intellegence. 
The book explores the process of awakening our spiritual consciousness to give us wisdom as well as simple material knowledge.
    A fascinating chapter is the one that states that "everything that lives, moves" in which he explains that life is not what conventional science defines it to be and that many things we consider non-living really are alive.  He conclude the book by telling us that esoterism is not a deliberate hiding of the truth by spiritual writers, but simply a lack on the readers part to understand spiritual things because he is trying to understand with his cerebral intellect rather than with spiritual consciousness.