This book interprets axial cultural symbols, specific cultural symbolic organizations, and symbolic constellations in the context of Critical Theory and its negative dialectic.  It engages the origins, structures, weaknesses, and possibilities of symbolic thinking, and incorporates ideas from a range of thinkers, including Hegel, Nietzsche, Marx, Adorno, Horkheimer, and Benjamin, among others. The book charts a new way of looking at the role of philosophy in culture, and provides tools for a new insight in the history of the formation of the consciousness of symbolic thought within philosophy itself. Furthermore, it shows how practically useful symbolic thinking can become in the practices of philosophical diplomacy, the processes of communication, mutual understanding and the formation of contemporary political and cultural discourse.