Fingers crossed

To cross one's fingers is a hand gesture commonly used to wish for good luck.  The gesture is referred to by the common expression "keeping one's fingers crossed" or just "fingers crossed".  The gesture is very old.

As with all older symbolic gestures, the institution of the Christian Church has attempted to add their own slant to the description, or as Wikipedia says “it has also been historically used in order to allow early Christian believers to recognize one another during times of persecution”.

But this is totally incorrect.

The symbolism derives from the means by which one obtains a spiritual experience and can be traced back to the Mysteries.

In order to obtain a spiritual experience of any significance one has to conserve energy.  In purely physical terms this means that instead of dissipating energy in orgasms or by ‘opening yourself’, you need to form a sort of closed circuit.  Crossing your arms, touching fingers and crossing your legs both prevent spiritual experience as the energy circulating in the body simply circulates round in a loop.

When the time comes to have that experience, however, the opposite has to take place, the legs must not be crossed – ideally a sort of St Andrew’s cross position is best  - hence the Orans position, the arms must be uncrossed and the fingers must not touch.  Most people who have successfully managed to have more than one out of body experience, for example, emphasise the need to open out like a starfish or star! 

Thus to cross ones fingers, was more of a sign to remember to conserve energy ready for the big push, a means of telling initiates to be careful and conserve, and in a sense a wish for good luck in doing this.  If we imagine the hierophant or high priestess wandering round checking the progress of the Initiates, perhaps the crossed fingers were the sign she used on leaving – conserve energy and good luck in doing it.

Observations

For iPad/iPhone users: tap letter twice to get list of items.

• 101 Zen stones - Fingers