There is another way [than the diachronic perspective] of looking at the symbol which may shed light on another aspect of the process of [social] transformation, namely, the view of symbol based on the model of synchronicity. [Another] reason for finding the symbol at the center of socio-political processes of transformation is one which addresses the symbol qua symbol in terms of an anthropology of the imagination. (Rasmussen, 1974, p. 92, original italics, brackets mine)