The Life of Symbols

Now, the Hermeticist is essentially an iconophile. 
For him symbols are not obstacles that must be
eliminated in order to arrive at knowledge of the
truth, but rather means for receiving revelation. 
The "clothes" -- the symbols -- of truth are for him
not what hides it, but rather what reveals it.  The
entire world, in so far as it is a series of symbols,
does not hide, but reveals the Word.  The divine
commandment: Thou shalt not kill, is also applicable
to the domain of knowledge.  He who denies the life of
symbols, kills them in his thought.  For to deny that
which reveals means to kill that which lives in the
domain of thought.  The iconoclast is an intellectual
murderer.  The Hermeticist is, in constrast, an iconophile
and tradtionalist.  This means to say that he does not
side with the successive waves of iconoclasm -- the waves
named "reformation", "enlightenment", "scientific faith"
-- which set fire to forests of symbols protecting the
intellectual sun of humanity against barrenness and erosion.
  This means to say, also, that he has as a basic principle
not only the commandment "Thou shalt not kill", but also the
commandment which is the foundation of all tradition -- i.e.
all continuity in progress, growth, development and evolution
-- the commandment:  Honor thy father and thy mother.

Meditations on the Tarot, pg. 292, The Arcana "Force"