Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today
Speaker 1: we're venturing into the vault for an episode that originally
Speaker 1: published November. This is an episode you did with Christian. Right,
Speaker 1: this was the last episode I did with Christian, last
Speaker 1: episode Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Yeah, this was his
Speaker 1: his final episode. He got to pick the topic he
Speaker 1: had been wanting to do one on on the Tree
Speaker 1: of Life and the motif of the of the tree
Speaker 1: in in human uh cultures around the world and uh
Speaker 1: and yeah, so it was like his last episode he
Speaker 1: got to choose, and and in doing so he kind
Speaker 1: of accidentally um made us to a Christmas episode because
Speaker 1: we end up talking a little bit about holiday trees
Speaker 1: Christmas trees in this episode as well. Uh, thus are
Speaker 1: rerunning of of this episode during the holiday season. You're
Speaker 1: gonna make people cry all over again for Christians. Farewell,
Speaker 1: welcome cry if you must. But yeah, we were sad
Speaker 1: to see him go. It's your party, all right. Uh,
Speaker 1: so I guess we should get right into the episode.
Speaker 1: We hope you enjoy The Tree of Life. Men call
Speaker 1: the Swatha the Banyan tree. Which hath its bows beneath,
Speaker 1: its roots above the ever holy tree Yea, for its
Speaker 1: leaves are green and waving hymns which whisper truth, who
Speaker 1: knows the Aswatha knows vEDS, and all its branches shoot
Speaker 1: to heaven and sink to earth, even as the deeds
Speaker 1: of men, which take their birth from qualities. Its silver
Speaker 1: sprays and blooms, and all the eager verdure of its
Speaker 1: girth leap to quick life at kiss of sun and air,
Speaker 1: as men's lives quickened to the temptings fair of wooing sense.
Speaker 1: It's hanging Rootlets seek the soil beneath, helping to hold
Speaker 1: it there as actions rought amid this world of men
Speaker 1: buying them by ever tightening bond again. Welcome to stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind from How Stuff Works dot com.
Speaker 1: Hey you, welcome to stuff to blow your mind. My
Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and my name is Christian Saga.
Speaker 1: And that was a reading from a book I can't
Speaker 1: pronounce the right way, but it's the arnold translation. Chapter fifteen.
Speaker 1: You say it yes, the bag geta, or you know
Speaker 1: you can just call it the geta. I always say
Speaker 1: it wrong, baga geta. Yeah, or just the geta. You know,
Speaker 1: you can be impersonal with it if you like. Okay,
Speaker 1: but yeah, that's the Arnold translation Chapter fifteen, referring to
Speaker 1: one of the many world trees, the sacred trees, the
Speaker 1: trees of life that seemed to crop up from cultures
Speaker 1: and traditions around the world, and the roots of these
Speaker 1: trees seemed to dive down deep into human prehistory. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have been thinking about this topic for a few
Speaker 1: years now. I've I've had this the back of my
Speaker 1: head when I joined the show. Uh, here's a little
Speaker 1: behind the scenes for you all. We have this huge
Speaker 1: spreadsheet document that has all of our potential topics in it,
Speaker 1: and when I first joined the show, I probably put
Speaker 1: I don't know, like two ideas into it, and this
Speaker 1: was like one of the first ones I put in
Speaker 1: there because I was like, I know what Robert's into,
Speaker 1: I know what the show has covered before. I need
Speaker 1: the answer to this question. And the way I had
Speaker 1: framed it was, why are the Kundalini, ig, DRIs Sill,
Speaker 1: and seff Rof also similar? And these are all basically
Speaker 1: and we're going to get into this. These are all
Speaker 1: representations of tree of life symbology across the world, right.
Speaker 1: And it first struck me when I was reading these
Speaker 1: esoteric books about things like yoga and Norse myths and
Speaker 1: cobbalistic mysticism. And then it occurred to me that these
Speaker 1: cosmological symbols, they're so similar, despite the fact that the
Speaker 1: cultures that they come from are vastly different and very
Speaker 1: far away from one another. But I didn't originally think
Speaker 1: of them as trees per se. And now that we've
Speaker 1: sat down and we've done our homework for this episode,
Speaker 1: it's it's pretty obvious that they're they're all trees. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And if you if you don't know what those those
Speaker 1: three names were, you don't know these particular world trees
Speaker 1: by name. I feel like most people, you're probably connected
Speaker 1: with some culture or another that has a tree symbol
Speaker 1: within it. And even if you're completely like somehow completely
Speaker 1: removed from uh, you know, ancient traditions and spiritual practices
Speaker 1: and religious history, you are still going to encounter the
Speaker 1: symbol of the tree somewhere in your world. And as
Speaker 1: as with all the symbols, symbols come into contact with
Speaker 1: each other, UH and you you really can't interact with
Speaker 1: the symbol of the tree, I feel without um engaging
Speaker 1: with the legacy of that symbol, which we're going to
Speaker 1: discuss here today. Yeah, exactly, and so we're gonna provide
Speaker 1: you with examples too. Well, we'll get into all of those,
Speaker 1: but really our core question here today is why are
Speaker 1: trees so intimately connected with spiritual training and development everywhere
Speaker 1: in the world. And we'll find that this actually goes
Speaker 1: along with scientific development as well, that the tree symbology
Speaker 1: has been applied there too. Now I have to note
Speaker 1: here we could do the whole episodes just on all
Speaker 1: the various world trees and sacred trees in human tradition.
Speaker 1: We could do a whole episode just on tree spirits
Speaker 1: and the idea that the tree is a home for
Speaker 1: the soul of the departed, But obviously we don't have time.
Speaker 1: We're going to try and at least dip our toes
Speaker 1: and and all the appropriate waters, but we're not gonna
Speaker 1: really have time to immerse ourselves. Yeah, this is one
Speaker 1: of those where you could do just like an entire
Speaker 1: podcast called Tree of Life, and it would be just
Speaker 1: every episode would be about a different one. Because the
Speaker 1: further we dug into this, the more obvious. It was.
Speaker 1: It was in every culture everybody has and each one's fascinating.
Speaker 1: Each one has its own particular you know, flourishes. Uh so, yeah,
Speaker 1: you could. You could just have a Tree of the Week,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately I won't be able to join you for
Speaker 1: that Tree of the Week on Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind at least because this is my last episode of
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind. I'm actually moving to Portland, Oregon,
Speaker 1: So if any of our listeners are out that way
Speaker 1: and you want to help me get situated as I move,
Speaker 1: I would love your advice. So what we're gonna do
Speaker 1: is at the end of this episode, I will provide
Speaker 1: information on how to get in contact with me where
Speaker 1: you can find me online. But I want to thank
Speaker 1: everybody out there, all of you for accepting me into
Speaker 1: your ears for the last few years. I've learned so
Speaker 1: much working on this show and interacting with its wonderful community,
Speaker 1: and I've made so many friends from being on this show.
Speaker 1: So thank you everybody. And I wanted to choose a
Speaker 1: topic that was something I've really wanted to cover on
Speaker 1: this show, but that's also it's universal, man. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, for for starters, I want to thank you
Speaker 1: for everything you've done for the show and UH and
Speaker 1: you have helped to shape its voice over the past
Speaker 1: a few years here, and I wish you the absolute
Speaker 1: best in Portland's and UH and as we'll get into
Speaker 1: at the end of the show, also your your your
Speaker 1: future podcast endeavors. Yeah, You're gonna remain a friend of
Speaker 1: Stuff to Boil your Mind going forward, and I want
Speaker 1: everyone to to to be clear on that, like, like
Speaker 1: five years from now, I'm going to show up and
Speaker 1: we're gonna do UH an episode on some kind of
Speaker 1: paraphilia and then we'll mix in like the science of
Speaker 1: some kind of psychedelic drug into it. Right on that note,
Speaker 1: I am glad that your final episode doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be the zoophilia episode. That was one of the ones.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of your Stuff to Boil your Mind bucket
Speaker 1: was my hit list. Yeah, yeah, after the necrophilia episode,
Speaker 1: I was like, we gotta do another paraphilia and so
Speaker 1: I'm glad we got that out of the way as
Speaker 1: a as ikey as it made us both feel when
Speaker 1: we did it. You know, one of the other things
Speaker 1: I like here is that your last episode is kind
Speaker 1: of accidentally a Christmas episode, or at least a Christmas
Speaker 1: Tree episode, because I found at least one source referring
Speaker 1: to the Christmas tree as as yet another symbol, as
Speaker 1: yet another echo of this global tradition, which which honestly
Speaker 1: I didn't even really think. I guess it's just because
Speaker 1: the Christmas tree is just so it's kind of so
Speaker 1: overdone in Western tradition, especially because we cut them down right.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I hadn't thought of it either, And it's
Speaker 1: so obvious now that you pointed out. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: comes out like somewhat at the beginning of December, So
Speaker 1: maybe this will be an appropriate, uh, going into the
Speaker 1: Holidays episode for everybody to listen to and think about trees.
Speaker 1: So some of you out there are probably wondering, what
Speaker 1: are you guys talking about? What is a tree of life? Well,
Speaker 1: a tree of life it's a widespread archetype or motive
Speaker 1: that shows up in many human myths across the world.
Speaker 1: There seemed to be two main forms that show up,
Speaker 1: the world tree and the tree of life. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: called the cosmic tree or the tree of knowledge in symbology.
Speaker 1: But the first one is a tree that has a
Speaker 1: vertical center that binds together heaven and Earth. And the
Speaker 1: second one is a tree that is the source of
Speaker 1: life at the horizontal so uner of the earth, and
Speaker 1: the concepts that are associated with it include life giving force,
Speaker 1: eternal life, desire for heaven, and fertility. So if we
Speaker 1: look at the world tree one first, this is the
Speaker 1: vertical tradition. The tree extends between earth and heaven and
Speaker 1: is the connection between humans and the gods, and the
Speaker 1: base of the tree is where oracles and profits perform
Speaker 1: their activities. But because the top of this tree reaches
Speaker 1: up into the heavens, it was seen as an entity
Speaker 1: that actually connected the three spheres of what most people
Speaker 1: thought of as existence Heaven, Earth, and then underground, which
Speaker 1: would be the land of the dead in some cultures. Now,
Speaker 1: what I think is interesting about this is that you
Speaker 1: can easily compare it to the Holy Mountain in global traditions.
Speaker 1: But though the mountain is a like a thing, this
Speaker 1: is not geologically speaking, but speaking from like human perspective.
Speaker 1: The mountain is a thing that exists and is solid
Speaker 1: and is unchanging, but the tree is a thing that
Speaker 1: is obviously grown um, which puts it more in keeping
Speaker 1: with for instance, the idea of of a tower of Babbel,
Speaker 1: the idea of power to reach the heavens of false mountain,
Speaker 1: except that the tree is is authentic. And it also
Speaker 1: reminds me, of course, of of space elevators, man made
Speaker 1: thing that has grown or built and used to reach
Speaker 1: the heavenly realm or at least you know, lower orbit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those are all metaphors that have shown up in other cultures,
Speaker 1: not space elevators yet, but we still have time. We
Speaker 1: can do like the space Elevator of Life movie at
Speaker 1: some point. But you're right, mountains actually are interchangeable with
Speaker 1: trees and some of these symbolic legends. But I think
Speaker 1: that trees are usually the fallback because they grow and
Speaker 1: because of their cycle of fertility. Uh. But let's look
Speaker 1: at the horizontal tradition and see how that I think
Speaker 1: that plays into that further. That's this is again the
Speaker 1: tree of life versus the world tree. So this version
Speaker 1: has the tree plan did at the center of the
Speaker 1: world and usually it's protected by supernatural guardians. The tree
Speaker 1: is the source of fertility and life, and we humans
Speaker 1: are actually descended from the tree. If it's cut down,
Speaker 1: the ability to reproduce in the world would cease to exist,
Speaker 1: and the tree is common in quest myths, so that
Speaker 1: you see a lot of myths where like somebody has
Speaker 1: to go and get something, the trees usually involved. So
Speaker 1: for example Gilgamesh he obtains the elixir of immortality after
Speaker 1: fighting the guards of the Tree of Life, and its
Speaker 1: fruit and sap are thought to bestow both knowledge and enlightenment. Now,
Speaker 1: in some variations this is interesting. I only found this
Speaker 1: in a few. There are goats at the base of
Speaker 1: the tree, and they are also worshiped and seen as
Speaker 1: symbolic of birth and fertility. That's interesting. I was looking
Speaker 1: through um the writings of James Frasier and he made
Speaker 1: some connections there as well, between antlered or horned animals
Speaker 1: and the branches of trees. Well, it seems like the
Speaker 1: goat represents the ibex, which was once worshiped as an
Speaker 1: incarnation of human and herd fertility, so that would make sense,
Speaker 1: and the horn formations connecting together. That also makes sense.
Speaker 1: In other variations, though instead of a goat, it's a
Speaker 1: dragon or a serpent. I guess dragons sometimes have horns,
Speaker 1: but serpents don't. Usually, Yeah, I mean you do see
Speaker 1: dragons with horns or antlers, a lot of traditions. I mean,
Speaker 1: just kind of a reminder that the dragon is essentially
Speaker 1: a chimera. It's a it's a you know, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a creature created out of pieces of all these
Speaker 1: other animals, including, uh, say, a deer or a goat, right,
Speaker 1: and so these seem to symbolize the spirit of the earth.
Speaker 1: But the serpent is also an image for the quicksilvery
Speaker 1: sap that's within the tree as well, because of the
Speaker 1: way it moves, So that's interesting as well. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: had not realized that. Yeah, and obviously we'll get to this,
Speaker 1: but when we go to the Judeo Christian version of this,
Speaker 1: obviously the serpent in the tree in the Garden of Eden,
Speaker 1: that all fits together. Right now, I want to remind
Speaker 1: everybody about archetypes before we get into this, because we're
Speaker 1: gonna definitely throw that term around a lot. Uh. Robert
Speaker 1: and I have covered that in previous episodes. We did
Speaker 1: an episode on just myth in general and taking a
Speaker 1: look at myths across history. We also did an episode
Speaker 1: on the hero myth and we talked about archetypes, and
Speaker 1: we specifically talked about Karl Gustav Young in those episodes,
Speaker 1: but just to give you a primer refresher what have you.
Speaker 1: He was a psychoanalyst whose main theory was that archetypes
Speaker 1: reappear in the collective unconscious that all human societies share.
Speaker 1: And he saw this as a ancient universal mind that
Speaker 1: was common to all humans. It's like an ancestral memory. Uh.
Speaker 1: And explains why we had the same archetypes across different cultures.
Speaker 1: This is his answer to my question, why why is
Speaker 1: this this symbology exactly the same in these cultures all
Speaker 1: around the world. Uh. And for instance, the hero, as
Speaker 1: we talked about in in in that previous episode, was
Speaker 1: one of the most prominent of these archetypes. Young posits
Speaker 1: that there's this deeper unconscious level that's going on that
Speaker 1: manifests itself as dreams or sometimes in more complex forms
Speaker 1: as myths or fairy tales. So this is in his
Speaker 1: you know, worldview. And we'll cover some some more frameworks
Speaker 1: like this later on in the episode why these all
Speaker 1: connect together? So the tree itself has been used since
Speaker 1: prehistoric humanity as a representation for the cosmos, for God,
Speaker 1: for fertility, knowledge, and eternal life. In fact, there are
Speaker 1: representations of it in prehistoric artistic productions. That's pretty interesting.
Speaker 1: I didn't I didn't realize that. Uh. We also find
Speaker 1: the tree in our conceptions of physical matter. So whether
Speaker 1: you're looking at vegetation or rivers or the circulation systems
Speaker 1: of animals, they're all we use terms from trees, like
Speaker 1: branches for instance, right. Uh. And the human brain in
Speaker 1: these network actually resembles the trees crown in the spinal
Speaker 1: cords its trunk, so you can see why human beings
Speaker 1: would automatically gravitate towards this symbol. Yeah, the tree is
Speaker 1: just a like a natural symbol, a natural metaphor for
Speaker 1: all of these other things were encountering, and it's it's complete.
Speaker 1: You can see it as a silhouette on a hill
Speaker 1: and then use it as a model as kind of
Speaker 1: an externalization of cognition to help you understand the rest
Speaker 1: of your world exactly. And they're obviously a symbol for
Speaker 1: the cycle of seasons, right like early humanity to now,
Speaker 1: we all know that trees cycle through seasons, blossom, fruit, decay,
Speaker 1: and then are reborn. This is seen as a reflection
Speaker 1: of the regenerative cycle of the cosmos. Itself and trees. Then,
Speaker 1: because they have a longer lifespan than ours, they seem
Speaker 1: inexhaustible to us. Right, it seems like they have this
Speaker 1: natural vigor that lasts forever. But that's just because they
Speaker 1: live longer than us. It's like uh, ents in a
Speaker 1: Lord of the rinks. There you go, So yet another
Speaker 1: world tree that we we didn't add to the notes
Speaker 1: here today. Yeah yeah, I also don't think we mentioned
Speaker 1: Game of Thrones at all. But of course they have those,
Speaker 1: uh the spirit trees that the at least the people
Speaker 1: of the north use the where would is that what
Speaker 1: it's calla with the faces of the children of the forest.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Now remember too that in this symbology, the
Speaker 1: fruit of these trees bestows both knowledge and eternal life. Right,
Speaker 1: So here's an example. The golden apples of Igdrasill are
Speaker 1: said to be stored in Valhalla to restore the youthfulness
Speaker 1: of the gods. But and this is this pun is intended?
Speaker 1: What if it all stemmed from a psychotropic agent that
Speaker 1: was in trees in the original representation. So actually, ethnobotanists
Speaker 1: have been throwing theories around trying to figure this out
Speaker 1: for a while now and some of the examples that
Speaker 1: they looked at as possibilities where the fly a garrick
Speaker 1: or the Syrian ru trees, But so far they haven't
Speaker 1: been able to find a specific hallucinogenic plant that satisfactorily
Speaker 1: fits with the description of world trees. See, I actually
Speaker 1: found out a way to work in UH psychedelics into
Speaker 1: my last episode. Well, you know, this does make me
Speaker 1: wonder though, it's would it be necessary to be able
Speaker 1: to find like the one the one to one example
Speaker 1: of like here's a tree that produced a psychedelic fruit,
Speaker 1: when it would be seems like it would be just
Speaker 1: as likely that you have the symbol of the tree.
Speaker 1: But then there's this vast knowledge of these other plants
Speaker 1: in your environment that produce various medicinal or psychotropic effects.
Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, I agree. I think that some of
Speaker 1: these researchers, what they're trying to do is pinpoint the
Speaker 1: origin place where the myth first started. And a lot
Speaker 1: of it we'll get into this later, but a lot
Speaker 1: of it seems to point to the Middle East. So
Speaker 1: I think that's why they're looking at those particular trees.
Speaker 1: But you're right, I think that as this UH myth
Speaker 1: spread throughout cultures around the world. Obviously, various trees could
Speaker 1: influence it depending on what locations are in. So let's
Speaker 1: get Christmas e again for a second. M I ran
Speaker 1: across the um. This article in Nature from two thousand
Speaker 1: by ecologist gear hess Mark titled Temptations of the Tree
Speaker 1: a perennial image of life, history and enlightenment and uh
Speaker 1: and he did a wonderful job tying it all into Christmas.
Speaker 1: He says, at this time of year, many people the
Speaker 1: world over bring a Christmas tree into their living room
Speaker 1: to celebrate life. The tree is one of the most
Speaker 1: powerful images in human thought and worship, a feature of
Speaker 1: human environments from tiger to rainforest, and a symbol of persistence, fertility, life, descent, destiny, purification,
Speaker 1: and strength, a vertical link between the earth and the heavens,
Speaker 1: a place to seek knowledge. Yeah, you know what this
Speaker 1: is interesting? Actually, do you do you and your family
Speaker 1: get a Christmas tree every year? We do? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: used to. In fact, my family, like my extended family,
Speaker 1: owned a Christmas tree farm in New England, so it
Speaker 1: was like part of the family like business, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: and it's always sort of been in the back of
Speaker 1: my head that that's why we use Christmas trees. But
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Like, as you're saying beginning,
Speaker 1: we in American culture at least don't really specifically think
Speaker 1: about the fertility stuff that's connected with it. It's more
Speaker 1: about the I guess, like the holiday itself from the
Speaker 1: commercial Well, you know, I was more inclined to recognize
Speaker 1: the fertility aspects of it because it's like you're bringing
Speaker 1: an average tree, an evergreen tree into your home during
Speaker 1: the winter, and and they're all these various pagan connotations there.
Speaker 1: But for some reason, I never really thought about the
Speaker 1: whole bridge from earth to heaven, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: most in most traditions, you're putting a star or an angel,
Speaker 1: you know, a heavenly being on the very top of
Speaker 1: the tree. Like you couldn't have it. It couldn't be
Speaker 1: anymore clear when you think about it, is tree is
Speaker 1: in your house, reaching up and connecting your house to heaven.
Speaker 1: We actually have a ceramic tree now, we just have
Speaker 1: like a little like one ft tall ceramic tree. So
Speaker 1: maybe that's why I stopped thinking that it doesn't reach
Speaker 1: to the heaven. What does it mean that we put
Speaker 1: gifts under the tree you have really like the root
Speaker 1: system of the tree would be the underworld. Yeah, all
Speaker 1: of our gifts are from Hell. I'll leave that one
Speaker 1: for the listeners to figure out. All right, we should
Speaker 1: probably take a quick break, and when we get back,
Speaker 1: we will jump into some various global examples of the
Speaker 1: sacred Tree, the Tree of life, the Holy Tree, so
Speaker 1: that we can further ground this discussion. Alright, we're back,
Speaker 1: So why don't we start with the example that is
Speaker 1: probably most obvious for many of our listeners, the jude
Speaker 1: and Christian tree. We were already kind of getting into
Speaker 1: it with a Christmas tree, that's right. Yeah. Western audiences
Speaker 1: are likely familiar with the trees of Eden Uh and
Speaker 1: the Fall of Man and the Bible. Humans were denied
Speaker 1: the fruit of the Tree of eternal life, but the
Speaker 1: ate of the Tree of knowledge. Later in Christianity, the
Speaker 1: god incarnate Jesus Christ dies upon an artificial tree of sorts,
Speaker 1: the Cross and Uh. In that essay that I was
Speaker 1: referencing earlier um ecologist gear hess Mark, he quotes a St.
Speaker 1: Justin mar who said that the Lord quote reigned from
Speaker 1: the tree, meaning both the Cross and the Tree of life.
Speaker 1: So two were kind of combined into one symbol. I
Speaker 1: never thought about that before that the cross is a
Speaker 1: tree a dead tree, weird. And the way the crown
Speaker 1: of thorns too, well, yeah, you can definitely make that
Speaker 1: case as well. Huh. Now, outside of just the Christian tradition,
Speaker 1: in Jewish tradition, we have plenty of examples of this
Speaker 1: as well. The minora, for example, symbolizes the expansion and
Speaker 1: illumination of consciousness in the image of the tree. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and obviously, as I mentioned earlier, the tree is represented
Speaker 1: in Christianity by the tree that's in the Garden of Eden. Interestingly,
Speaker 1: the Christian Church interpretation seems to be one of the
Speaker 1: only ones that associates the tree with guilt and sin.
Speaker 1: It became a loathsome quote tree of temptation only in
Speaker 1: Christian Europe, So that's kind of interesting. As we go
Speaker 1: through our other examples here, you don't really see that. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you could make a case that,
Speaker 1: like the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of of
Speaker 1: life in Christian traditions, like they're they're not really vilified
Speaker 1: so much as like humans were unsuitable consumers of either fruit. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. That's true. So this leads us to our
Speaker 1: second example, which is connected to Judaism, which is the
Speaker 1: Jewish mystical doctrine known as Kabbalah. This is one of
Speaker 1: the ones I mentioned at the top. The Seffirof is
Speaker 1: another tree of life within the Kabbala that represents a
Speaker 1: theory of ten creative forces that intervened between the divine
Speaker 1: in our world. Most people probably are familiar with the
Speaker 1: terms Seferrath from Final Fantasy seven. I believe that's the
Speaker 1: end boss. But if if you, if you have so
Speaker 1: much as looked up Kabbala on Wikipedia and even just
Speaker 1: glanced at it, you've probably seen this symbol like this
Speaker 1: is the Probably you could say this is the chief
Speaker 1: symbol of the cab Yeah. The right side of the
Speaker 1: Seffroth represents principles of unity, harmony, and benevolence, and this
Speaker 1: I as associated with masculinity. The left side is a
Speaker 1: side of power and strict justice that is seen as
Speaker 1: the female side, and it represents the fearsome awe of God.
Speaker 1: Now this is not me, this is from the literature.
Speaker 1: When unrestrained, the side, the feminine side, gives rise to evil.
Speaker 1: So it's pretty obvious that there's some sexist and gendered
Speaker 1: systems going on within Cabala, even from the get go.
Speaker 1: But I have to be honest that I don't know
Speaker 1: enough about Cabala other than that basic reading of it
Speaker 1: that I can't comment any further on it. So if
Speaker 1: there's people out there that know it much better, maybe
Speaker 1: maybe it's not sexist. Maybe it makes sense. The way
Speaker 1: that it probably makes sense is because the middle column
Speaker 1: represents an ideal balance between mercy and justice. So it's
Speaker 1: a balancing between gender identities. Yeah, and it recognizes that
Speaker 1: the universe itself could not survive without both of these.
Speaker 1: I looked at this paper by m. Dan See that
Speaker 1: came out in twenty eleven called Archetypes and the Spheres
Speaker 1: of the Tree of Life. It was published in the
Speaker 1: Scientific Journal of Humanistic Studies, and Dancy says cobbalists consider
Speaker 1: that by becoming more and more conscious of these archetypical forces,
Speaker 1: life may become a meaningful adventure based on increased consciousness
Speaker 1: and on the knowledge of the divine uh and Dancy
Speaker 1: primarily in this paper is citing a book by Gareth
Speaker 1: Knight that's called A Practical Guide to cobbalistic symbolism, and
Speaker 1: it recommends the idea really of the suffer rath here
Speaker 1: is training the mind through special techniques like meditation, so
Speaker 1: that you can further understand the archetypes that are within
Speaker 1: this tree of life. So these realizations that come from
Speaker 1: meditating on this are important and cobbalistic practice because it
Speaker 1: allows the significance of the ramification of those symbols to
Speaker 1: be better understood. The basic idea here is that by
Speaker 1: understanding the archetypes of the tree of life, we can
Speaker 1: better under stand our own nature and then subsequently become
Speaker 1: better versions of ourselves. That sounds nice. I don't know
Speaker 1: a ton about cobbalism other than you know, the connections
Speaker 1: it has obviously some of the occult things that you
Speaker 1: and I have covered in the past. Uh, there's some
Speaker 1: interesting like overlap there. But also obviously it had like
Speaker 1: kind of a pop culture surge, what would you say,
Speaker 1: in like the mid two thousand's, Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: I think that was around the time that I picked
Speaker 1: up a really really well um pageinated Cabbala book. Like
Speaker 1: I I didn't have enough time to really get into it,
Speaker 1: but I was leafing through it and I realized, wow,
Speaker 1: this the layout in this book is just amazing. They
Speaker 1: do such a great job with the symbols and these
Speaker 1: little explanations of everything. But then a friend's birthday came
Speaker 1: up and we're like, oh crap, we need to get
Speaker 1: him something. Let's give them this book, and I haven't really,
Speaker 1: I haven't picked that book back up again from another Well,
Speaker 1: it seems like the celebrity that most people associate with
Speaker 1: this is Madonna. I believe that she was pretty heavily
Speaker 1: involved with with Cobbalism, but that's about the extent of
Speaker 1: my knowledge of it. It seems like, though, when whenever
Speaker 1: I've read over these kind of very basic explanations of
Speaker 1: the symbology, it's very similar to lots of other cultures.
Speaker 1: So it's it's not all that much mystic or occult
Speaker 1: in the sense of that it's different from other things.
Speaker 1: All Right, So we've hit Christian and Jewish tradition. We
Speaker 1: should probably touch in on the Middle East and Islam. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so this example isn't necessarily Islamic in nature, but some
Speaker 1: people believe that the tree of life symbolism actually originated
Speaker 1: in the Middle East, maybe also Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Greece,
Speaker 1: so somewhere in that general area. Now gear offt is
Speaker 1: an almost fourteen thousand square kilometer area that's in southeastern
Speaker 1: Iran and it had great influence on cultural developments of
Speaker 1: the third millennium BC in the Bronze Age, so this
Speaker 1: is seen as a potential area for where this actually
Speaker 1: all star it out today. Giraffe is also the name
Speaker 1: for a city that is in the Kerman Province of Iran,
Speaker 1: and in ancient Iranian religions, there is some evidence that
Speaker 1: cypress trees were considered divine because they were brought from
Speaker 1: heaven by Zarathustra, but the date tree is more commonly
Speaker 1: a symbol of fertility, that is throughout both Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Speaker 1: So some of the first depictions of the Tree of
Speaker 1: Life seemed to be either date trees or palm trees,
Speaker 1: but cypress trees are also associated with it. Uh. These
Speaker 1: are the things that are these trees growing around in Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: so they're associated and this is where that goat Ibec
Speaker 1: symbology seems to come from as well. It's directly related
Speaker 1: to this area of the world. Uh. There's this paper
Speaker 1: by res Garad that came out this year has this
Speaker 1: great overview of symbology and the Journal of History, Culture
Speaker 1: and Art Research, and they use this visual structure, credibility,
Speaker 1: and aesthetics to conduct an analytical and semantic survey of
Speaker 1: how trees and goat symbology is used in artwork from
Speaker 1: this particular region. It's it's pretty interesting. Yeah. This all
Speaker 1: this also reminds me of our Zoophilia episode where we
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about about humanity's closeness to nature
Speaker 1: and closeness to animals through most of its history. So
Speaker 1: it seems natural that you would look to animals and
Speaker 1: as you're thinking about yourself and your world, you use
Speaker 1: them as mirrors, you use them as symbols, and and
Speaker 1: of course you would look to trees as well, in
Speaker 1: much the same way that you know, we would look
Speaker 1: to our the digits of our hands and feet and
Speaker 1: end up basing our number systems on those. So, um,
Speaker 1: I mean, I would imagine this is just I'm just
Speaker 1: going off the cuff here. This is not the notes,
Speaker 1: but they if you're an early civilization, you're going to
Speaker 1: base your community around areas that have a ready water
Speaker 1: source and plenty of trees. You know, for lots of reasons. Um,
Speaker 1: so yeah, it seems a lot are all that the
Speaker 1: tree would be the center of the community. All right,
Speaker 1: let's look at a few other areas of human tradition.
Speaker 1: So the ancient Egyptians, how the acacia tree is sacred,
Speaker 1: the first couple Isis and Osiris are said to have
Speaker 1: emerged from it, and there are there are various traditions
Speaker 1: of holy trees and spirit trees, at least in African traditions.
Speaker 1: This gets into this whole legacy of of of trees
Speaker 1: being a place where the spirits of the dead reside
Speaker 1: the people, people transform into trees and sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: trees transform into people. There's been there being this, this
Speaker 1: this strict link between the two. Now if you get
Speaker 1: into Hinduism that there are some wonderful examples here as well.
Speaker 1: So Hinduism has no singular creation story. It has many
Speaker 1: uh there there's there's no singular creation, but rather periodic
Speaker 1: cycles of creation. And this is just one of innumerable
Speaker 1: universes in this view of the cosmos. So in in
Speaker 1: our reality, the ideas that it all begins in a
Speaker 1: vast ocean, a serpent sleeps on its surface. Vishnus sleeps
Speaker 1: in its coils, and a lotus sprouts from his navel,
Speaker 1: and within it is Brahma, and he's urged to meditate
Speaker 1: on the nature of of his coming creation and finally
Speaker 1: splits the lotus into three forms heaven, sky, and Earth.
Speaker 1: Everything else stems from this. So while it's not a
Speaker 1: tree per se, we still see the growth of a
Speaker 1: plant as the means of explaining cosmic emergence. And then
Speaker 1: also Hinduism holds them the ashvata or the sacred fig
Speaker 1: as holy, which we referenced in the opening reading from
Speaker 1: the Bagavadgita. Speaking of which the that reading referenced the
Speaker 1: Banyan tree. I think that's how you say banyon Banyan.
Speaker 1: That tree is the perfect representation of a sacred tree
Speaker 1: with cosmic principles because it has aerial roots that come
Speaker 1: down from its branches. I've never seen one of these.
Speaker 1: It sounds super cool. It comes the roots, come down
Speaker 1: from the branches and then take root in the ground.
Speaker 1: So the appearance suggests the tree is actually rooted in
Speaker 1: the heavens. That seems really interesting. And then I think
Speaker 1: that this is connected to Buddhism, right, yeah, Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: said that Siddharta Gattama experience enlightenment under the Banyan or
Speaker 1: sometimes it's referred to as the Bodhi tree, and thus
Speaker 1: became the Shakyamuni Buddha, the often just referred to as Buddha.
Speaker 1: And you see this depicted in a lot of Buddhist
Speaker 1: iconography and uh and and sometimes just happenstance to. For instance,
Speaker 1: if you've anyone who's ever been to Thailand, if you
Speaker 1: go to the Ruins of Youth, ya, there's this iconic
Speaker 1: Buddha head, a statue head that has been overtaken by
Speaker 1: the roots of a tree. Yeah, and that's interesting. So
Speaker 1: tons of photos have been taken. I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: lots of symbolic connections there. Yeah. Now, we've talked a
Speaker 1: bit in the past about sacred plants in Chinese mythology,
Speaker 1: Chinese traditional medicine, folk traditions. We've also touched on Chinese
Speaker 1: cosma oology and how there are a few different cosmic
Speaker 1: origin stories. But the Chinese definitely have a world tree
Speaker 1: or two. They have actually have quite a few sacred trees.
Speaker 1: So I was reading about this in A Burial's Chinese Mythology,
Speaker 1: which again i've referenced this this text on the show before.
Speaker 1: It's just a wonderful book on Chinese mythology, and she
Speaker 1: she references uh the Chien MoU sky ladder uh, and
Speaker 1: she says that China MoU literally means building tree. At
Speaker 1: any rate, it's situated at the center of the world,
Speaker 1: so centered that it produces neither shadow nor echo. It
Speaker 1: was created by the Yellow Emperor, and it grew into
Speaker 1: the sky, and having reached the impenetrable barrier of the heavens,
Speaker 1: it spreads across its expanse and quote likewise above the
Speaker 1: barrier of the ends of the earth, creating gigantic coils
Speaker 1: and the sky and huge root tangles in the earth.
Speaker 1: Then the gods used this sky ladder to ascend and descend.
Speaker 1: And it's pnk is purple, it's blossoms black, and its
Speaker 1: fruit is yellow. Okay, So this is definitely a world tree.
Speaker 1: It's that vertical tradition of going up to the heavens exactly.
Speaker 1: Now you have other cosmic trees and Chinese tradition, including
Speaker 1: the Trinity mulberry, the search tree, the accord tree. There's
Speaker 1: the leaning mulberry tree. And this is where the ten
Speaker 1: sons roosted in ancient times before the hero you the
Speaker 1: Archer shot the nine surplus sons down. That's one of them. Sorry,
Speaker 1: remind me of this because we talked about it in
Speaker 1: a previous episode. Isn't you the Archer one of those
Speaker 1: uh like mythological iterations of the hero symbol? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that The idea here with this story is that
Speaker 1: there was a time when there were ten sons and
Speaker 1: it was just burning the earth up. You know, we
Speaker 1: couldn't have the crops wouldn't grow. And then the heroic
Speaker 1: Archer comes forth and he's able to shoot the nine
Speaker 1: surplus sons out of the sky, leaving just one son
Speaker 1: to to light and warm the world. Oh wow, he
Speaker 1: would be perfect for the end of our Uninhabitable Earth
Speaker 1: episode that we just recorded. Once the earth the sun
Speaker 1: starts turning into a red giant, he can just shoot
Speaker 1: it down. That's right. As long as he has one
Speaker 1: arrow left in the quiver, we're good, right. Uh. In
Speaker 1: Chinese tradition, there's also the giant peach tree, which also
Speaker 1: tangles against the barrier of heaven. Uh. The peaches here,
Speaker 1: they provide immortality to those who consume it, and it
Speaker 1: also serves as a bridge between realms. I have a
Speaker 1: quote here that Beryl provides in her book Uh and
Speaker 1: this is This is from an older Chinese text in
Speaker 1: Sane See there is two show mountain. On its summit
Speaker 1: is a huge peach tree. It twists and turns over
Speaker 1: three thousand leagues among its branches. On the northeast side
Speaker 1: or what is called goblin gates, through which a myriad
Speaker 1: goblin's pass. On top. There two gods. One is called
Speaker 1: Holy Shoe, the other is called Yulu. These lords supervise
Speaker 1: and control the myriad goblins. Whenever a goblin does evil,
Speaker 1: they bind him with a reed rope and feed him
Speaker 1: to tigers. Then the Yellow Emperor devised a ritual ceremony
Speaker 1: so that they could expel the evildo or in due season,
Speaker 1: they set up a large peachwood figurines and painted images
Speaker 1: of Holy Shoe and Yulu and a tiger on gates
Speaker 1: and doors, and hung reed ropes from them so as
Speaker 1: to harness the evil. So some of you probably sat
Speaker 1: up while you're listening to this and went, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: goblin's Yeah, but it actually makes sense across cultures. So
Speaker 1: this is here's one of the amazing connections we're gonna make,
Speaker 1: all right, So let's go from Chinese mythology to that
Speaker 1: section that Robert just read to us, right, sounds a
Speaker 1: little Lord of the Rings e right, Yeah, yeah, Goblin gates,
Speaker 1: Goblin spelling out of the into out of other realms
Speaker 1: onto our ours, crawling down the world tree. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then you take that, imagine the little Indiana Jones dotted line,
Speaker 1: and you're traveling across the world to Norris culture. And
Speaker 1: then we get the egg DRIs Cill tree that I
Speaker 1: mentioned at the top. And this is very Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings. In fact, I would imagine that it probably
Speaker 1: in aspired a lot of Tolkien's mythos, right. But the
Speaker 1: idea here is in the twelfth century Icelandic scholar, poet, historian,
Speaker 1: and politician Snorri Sturlinson wrote about Igdrasill in his epic
Speaker 1: poem The Ada and Igdrasill. A lot of you are
Speaker 1: probably familiar with this, like myself, mainly from Thor and
Speaker 1: Marvel comics. So the Thor movies are pretty big right now.
Speaker 1: And then in the comic books, really Stanley and Jack
Speaker 1: Kirby were just kind of like, hey, let's take this
Speaker 1: entire entire cultures mythology, and we'll just bastardize it and
Speaker 1: turn these into superheroes, uh and make them talk like
Speaker 1: they're in a Shakespearean play. Well, that's that's that's kind
Speaker 1: of that's sal mythology works. Yeah, take what came before
Speaker 1: and then you you repackage it for the current audience.
Speaker 1: Exactly in the original Norris mythology, Igdrasill is also a
Speaker 1: bridge between all of the great realms of existence. In
Speaker 1: its middle is Asgard, but also reaches the realms of frost,
Speaker 1: giants and Niflheim. I think is how you say it,
Speaker 1: which is the underworld or the realm of the dead?
Speaker 1: Going off of my Marvel knowledge, not of the research
Speaker 1: into Norris mythology, I think there's also places where their
Speaker 1: dwarves there's like a dark elf place, like there are
Speaker 1: different the nine realms that they reference that are connected
Speaker 1: to Igdrasill have like different sort of D and d
Speaker 1: Lord of the Ring species that exist in each one. Now,
Speaker 1: there are three sacred springs that are supposed to be
Speaker 1: beneath Igdrasil. The first is the Spring of Wisdom and Knowledge.
Speaker 1: The second is the Well of Destiny, that's guarded by
Speaker 1: the norns, who are the sisters of fate. Uh And
Speaker 1: the last is the river of life that carries the
Speaker 1: souls of the dead back to be reborn into their
Speaker 1: next incarnations. So you can see Idrisilla is both a
Speaker 1: world tree and a tree of life. It's pretty interesting. Now,
Speaker 1: Idrisill is one of those trees that has a serpent.
Speaker 1: Remember we were talking about how sometimes there's goats, sometimes
Speaker 1: there's dragons, sometimes there's serpents. If you just sill serpent
Speaker 1: is nid hog and this is a serpent that gnaws
Speaker 1: away at its roots. But this serpent is kept at
Speaker 1: bay by an eagle that lives in its upper branches,
Speaker 1: and the eagle will come down occasionally and fight off
Speaker 1: the fight off the serpent. The eagle itself is a
Speaker 1: symbol of the sun. Again, coming right back to this
Speaker 1: Chinese mythology. So it's kind of fascinating to see. This
Speaker 1: is a perfect example of how far away these cultures
Speaker 1: are from one another, and yet how similar their archetypes are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it would be uh it would be it
Speaker 1: would be unsettling if we didn't have all these additional
Speaker 1: reads and uh um and and analyses to go off on. Yeah, so, uh,
Speaker 1: similar to this, and this is what I wish we
Speaker 1: had more time to get into, but unfortunately, you know,
Speaker 1: we're just we've got too many trees. Uh. There's the
Speaker 1: Yacht's tree in the meso American World tree culture. It's
Speaker 1: very similar to others we've mentioned, especially these lad Us
Speaker 1: two and it's represented in these cultures as the seabaw
Speaker 1: tree and its access connects the earth in the sky
Speaker 1: and its roots go into the underworld. Zebulba. Now the
Speaker 1: Zebulba thing. This is going to be our segue. We'll
Speaker 1: just talk real briefly about some pop culture examples. The
Speaker 1: one that immediately came to mind for me after Thor
Speaker 1: is Darren Aronofsky is The Fountain, which is about trees
Speaker 1: of life and and they use the terminology for the
Speaker 1: meso American tree a lot in that. And don't forget Avatar,
Speaker 1: that's right central world tree at the heart of that
Speaker 1: movie as well. You also see it in things like
Speaker 1: American Gods, obviously because that's based on myths. But I've
Speaker 1: mentioned World of Warcraft on the show before. I remember
Speaker 1: there's a tree called nord Dressill in World of Warcraft
Speaker 1: that's like literally like a tree that you you go
Speaker 1: to and it has its own you know, video game
Speaker 1: mythology surrounding it. Also, remember you were talking about space
Speaker 1: elevators at the beginning. I hadn't thought of this before.
Speaker 1: The Dark Tower by Stephen King. The Dark Tower is
Speaker 1: a world tree. It's just a variation on it. He
Speaker 1: kind of takes the the idea of a false tree
Speaker 1: and makes it true again in a weird way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then of course we see the iterations of the
Speaker 1: Trio life and a lot of pop culture. Obviously, Uh,
Speaker 1: we can trace this back to Joseph Campbell, who we've
Speaker 1: talked about in our myth episodes before, because it is
Speaker 1: a common archetype that he mentions in his book The
Speaker 1: Hero with a Thousand Faces, which is this book that
Speaker 1: just like every screenwriter under the sun since probably like
Speaker 1: the late sixties has been referencing. Alright, well, on that note,
Speaker 1: let's take one more break, and when we get back,
Speaker 1: we'll we'll start teasing a part the psychology and even
Speaker 1: the science of this fascination, this obsession with tree symbolism.
Speaker 1: Thank thank Alright, we're back, So we've done a pretty
Speaker 1: good job. I think of showing just a lot of examples,
Speaker 1: like putting the evidence on the table. Look, there are
Speaker 1: all these world trees, they're very similar, they're all over
Speaker 1: the world. But what we haven't answered yet is why,
Speaker 1: why how is it that this happened? Well, one uh,
Speaker 1: explanation that comes to mind, and I've kind of been
Speaker 1: alluding to this a lot already. It has to do
Speaker 1: with the biophilia hypothesis, which listeners to the show you
Speaker 1: may remember that Joe and I did an episode on
Speaker 1: biophilia hypothesis recently. It's a fascinating take on humanity's attachment
Speaker 1: to nature. It's the work of of acclaimed American biologist
Speaker 1: Edward O. Wilson, a highly accomplished scientist and author of
Speaker 1: numerous books wonderful author, including N four's Biophilia The Human
Speaker 1: Bond with Other Species, in which he defined biophilia as
Speaker 1: humanity's innate tendency to focus on living things as opposed
Speaker 1: to inanimate things any in an in effect, he argued
Speaker 1: for an innate love of nature. He said, quote, the
Speaker 1: object of my reflection can be summarized by a single
Speaker 1: world biophilia, which I will be so bold as to
Speaker 1: define as the innate tendency to folk us on life
Speaker 1: and lifelike processes. Okay, so you can definitely see a
Speaker 1: connection here where again, like all of these cultures are
Speaker 1: focusing on the lifelike processes that are around them and
Speaker 1: using this terminology to define both the immaterial and in
Speaker 1: the material things that are around them right right now.
Speaker 1: When it comes to evidence for this hypothesis and and
Speaker 1: it remains a hypothesis there, there's various evidence that's presented,
Speaker 1: including the universal appreciation for nature among human cultures, the
Speaker 1: symbolic use of nature in language. So you know, think
Speaker 1: of all the times just during the course of your
Speaker 1: day that you compare your own behaviors and motivations or
Speaker 1: those around you to the actions of animals or plants. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot. Yeah, Like if you actually stopped yourself throughout
Speaker 1: the day, or at least in my case, if I
Speaker 1: stop myself throughout the day and realized how many times
Speaker 1: I use UH similes or metaphors just in my my
Speaker 1: general conversation that are alluding to animal activities or or
Speaker 1: natural activities. And then also another bit of of of
Speaker 1: supporting evidence is the spiritual reverence for nature across culture.
Speaker 1: So animust, God's sacred environmental places and sacred trees. So
Speaker 1: the idea here is that our attraction to the natural
Speaker 1: world is just hardwired into us, and so of course
Speaker 1: we build it into our metaphoric and symbolic understanding of
Speaker 1: the world. Is pointed out by Robert Sommer in Trees
Speaker 1: and Human identity, and this is collected in identity and
Speaker 1: the natural environment the psychological significance of nature. Belief in
Speaker 1: sacred trees and tree spirits is of very ancient things
Speaker 1: and entailing both the creation of people from trees, the
Speaker 1: transformation of people into trees and UH. James G. Frasier
Speaker 1: he discusses numerous examples of this in his work as well,
Speaker 1: including uh uh the I believe it is the Diary
Speaker 1: tribe of South Australia who regarded certain trees as their
Speaker 1: fathers transformed. Some Philippine Islanders also believe the souls of
Speaker 1: their forefathers reside in trees. These just to name a few,
Speaker 1: we see. We see this legacy continue today even in
Speaker 1: the form of memory trees, you know, planting planting a
Speaker 1: tree in in remembrance of somebody who has died and
Speaker 1: uh and some of the psychological uh, factors that are
Speaker 1: involved there. So I had one example, and I didn't
Speaker 1: know where to place this. This is the best spot
Speaker 1: I could find. Maybe it's a biophilia related example. Uh.
Speaker 1: It is actually thought that the world tree tree of
Speaker 1: life symbology is why you find in graveyards and cemeteries
Speaker 1: ancient trees that are often used, and they're often planted
Speaker 1: next to springs of water. So I wonder if that's
Speaker 1: related to this the idea of the spirits belonging to
Speaker 1: the trees. Well, you know, if you think of a
Speaker 1: large tree growing in a cemetery graveyard, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it makes perfect sense. Right, the underworld the place where
Speaker 1: the dead go, that is where the bodies are are
Speaker 1: literally laid to rest. It's providing sustenance to the tree. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then and then you have the tree growing up
Speaker 1: into into the sky, and then it makes it makes
Speaker 1: perfect sense. Now, there are various additional ways to tackle
Speaker 1: the symbol of the tree, and UH. I found a
Speaker 1: number of different examples here. We're going to roll through
Speaker 1: these and discuss these. Uh. And at least some of
Speaker 1: these are pointed out by by Richard Summer and again
Speaker 1: in that work trees and human identity, which I highly recommend. So,
Speaker 1: first of all, there's the Darwinian take on everything. The
Speaker 1: roll of trees in a natural selection influence latent and
Speaker 1: manifest preferences people as trees past and present. Uh, preferences
Speaker 1: merged with self image. I am what I like, I
Speaker 1: like what I am. And also Darwin was a fan
Speaker 1: of trees as symbols of evolutionary process he said in
Speaker 1: fifty nine The Orde and of Species. I believe this
Speaker 1: similarly largely speaks the truth. So when when if you've
Speaker 1: ever looked into a natural selection, you've probably or even
Speaker 1: just to you know, flipped around and say a book
Speaker 1: on dinosaurs, you've probably encountered these these trees, these essentially
Speaker 1: family trees of of how we think different species emerged
Speaker 1: from each other. And these are known as phylogenetic trees.
Speaker 1: And we're so we're still using the tree as a
Speaker 1: way to understand who we are in the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was the science angle that I was mentioning at
Speaker 1: the top of the episode. The phylogenetic tree. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: used in the sciences as a representation of evolutionary relationships
Speaker 1: between all species on Earth, and one paper I downloaded.
Speaker 1: Actually was all about this software that's being built, these
Speaker 1: various tools to explore that representation that connects eight hundred
Speaker 1: thousand to two point two million species together. The idea
Speaker 1: being that you're reproducing the phylogenetic classification scheme that describes
Speaker 1: evolutionary relationships, but you're using a tree as a map. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now that that piece that I referenced earlier by gear
Speaker 1: hest Mark Temptations of the tree. Uh. Now he he
Speaker 1: made an interesting argument here. He said that phylogenetic trees
Speaker 1: have a rhetorical power that's hard to shake. Yeah. He
Speaker 1: reminds readers that ultimately these are only sketches of historical
Speaker 1: hypothesis constructed from imperfect historical evidence. So they're not they're
Speaker 1: not set in stone or set in would rather uh
Speaker 1: like the living physical trees. There's almost kind of a
Speaker 1: trap in referencing, uh, something that has a sort of
Speaker 1: symbolic potency to it like that. That's interesting, Yeah, especially
Speaker 1: like from my rhetorical background, Like I could totally see
Speaker 1: somebody writing like two dissertation trying to pull that all
Speaker 1: apart and how it's used. That's very interesting, And I
Speaker 1: wonder if you could trace how tree symbology is used
Speaker 1: in political rhetoric as well, bringing it into a sort
Speaker 1: of a more contemporary cultural point of view, because it's
Speaker 1: interesting to think of what the tree is doing, you know,
Speaker 1: because from a human perspective, at any given moment, a
Speaker 1: tree is is a solid thing reaching from earth into
Speaker 1: the sky. And yet at the same time it is
Speaker 1: it is, it is growing, it is reaching in a
Speaker 1: way that that a mountain is not. And when we're
Speaker 1: aware of it, like we know that a tree starts
Speaker 1: how small, and grows larger, but it takes takes place
Speaker 1: over the course of a lifetime or multiple lifetimes. Well,
Speaker 1: and then on top of that, it's vulnerable to a
Speaker 1: tree maybe chopped down, a tree maybe blown down by
Speaker 1: the wind, whereas a mountain would not. Hopefully, no, I
Speaker 1: mean the mountain over time. But I don't even know
Speaker 1: to what extent that was. Uh, that that's what That's
Speaker 1: not something I've looked at in the research. But I'm
Speaker 1: not sure to what extent ancient people's were aware of
Speaker 1: erosions the mountains. Yeah, well, all of this could would
Speaker 1: potentially be explained by another aspect that we've already mentioned
Speaker 1: here today. This is young Ian depth psychology. So the
Speaker 1: idea here of the archetypes and human collective subconscious that
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier. There are some people that argue the
Speaker 1: world tree itself actually has evolutionary origins, not phylogenetically, but
Speaker 1: as part of our collective unconscious, that it's like all
Speaker 1: of us have this kind of programmed into our minds.
Speaker 1: Were thinking about numbers with their fingers and thinking about
Speaker 1: other aspects of the world with treats. Yeah, outside of
Speaker 1: Young's perspective, almost all world tree traditions seem to have
Speaker 1: levels to them, and I didn't really mention this too much,
Speaker 1: but some of the examples that I provided, so for instance,
Speaker 1: like the suffer Rath and Idris Sill, they have variations
Speaker 1: of levels. These range between eight and twenty two throughout cultures,
Speaker 1: and they seem to represent specific states of consciousness. So
Speaker 1: Idrisill is the example I'll use here. It's composed of
Speaker 1: the nine worlds I meant and some of these earliers.
Speaker 1: When it's mapped out, mid Guard, which is Earth's representation,
Speaker 1: is at the center of the trunk the world that's
Speaker 1: where we live. The arrangement of all the other worlds
Speaker 1: around it are North south east and west on the tree,
Speaker 1: and those represent awareness and perception. But then there's worlds
Speaker 1: that are above midguard and those represent higher levels of consciousness,
Speaker 1: and worlds below midguard that represent the unconscious mind. Now,
Speaker 1: just going off script here for a second, that immediately
Speaker 1: calls to mind Freudian psychology. Right, so did ego super
Speaker 1: ego That seems like Igors was representing all of that,
Speaker 1: like thousands of years before Freud even put that to paper. Now,
Speaker 1: another take on all of this is the phenomenological approach.
Speaker 1: This is the idea, and we've been talking about this already,
Speaker 1: is that you have metaphors between the natural and the
Speaker 1: human world. Here we have, you know, the roots, trunk,
Speaker 1: and the canopy of a tree, and these are mirroring
Speaker 1: the infernal or such anian world, the earthly world, and
Speaker 1: the heavenly world. And uh. On top of that, people
Speaker 1: in society are covered by fruits or flowers that are
Speaker 1: growing within the tree. A tree provides a first hand
Speaker 1: encounter with the world and our our place in it.
Speaker 1: This made me think back to my last visit to
Speaker 1: Zoo Atlanta. Yeah, all the time, they know you, they
Speaker 1: know you probably at the gates, right, Yeah, well they
Speaker 1: have they have this one aviary section and they have
Speaker 1: a ton of birds in there from different parts of
Speaker 1: the world, and there's a large tree in there, and
Speaker 1: the birds make their homes in different parts of the tree.
Speaker 1: Like there's I think it's a scarlet um ibis that
Speaker 1: it only stays at the very top. It's like some
Speaker 1: it's like like like a heavenly bird. If we're thinking
Speaker 1: of this as a world tree, and others make their
Speaker 1: home and other portions of the tree. I believe those
Speaker 1: ibises are natural to Trinidad and Tobago because when I
Speaker 1: visited there, she's almost fifteen years ago, they were all
Speaker 1: around naturally and they did the same thing. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a beautiful bird. So you can imagine what how how
Speaker 1: seeing things like that in nature would then also affect
Speaker 1: your interpretation of the tree and your use of the
Speaker 1: tree as a metaphor. Then, according to Summer, there's also
Speaker 1: the realm of ecopsychology, which I I think sounds an
Speaker 1: awful lot like biophilia, And maybe there's a there's more
Speaker 1: connection there that I'm not aware of. He says, quote,
Speaker 1: beyond the individual self, there is an ecological self that
Speaker 1: is nurtured through contact with and concern for the natural environment.
Speaker 1: A person should feel at one with nature, and if
Speaker 1: these feelings are absent or distorted, a healing process is needed.
Speaker 1: So the tree kind of becomes a way to engage
Speaker 1: in that reconnection. Like even even if you're in the
Speaker 1: middle of a city and uh and and and maybe
Speaker 1: there's not a nearby park, just the symbol of the
Speaker 1: tree can sort of get in touch with that ecological
Speaker 1: biophilic legacy. All of this, the last two, especially phenomenal
Speaker 1: logical approaches and ecopsychological approaches, make me think of Cormac
Speaker 1: McCarthy's The Road, because the idea I believe behind that
Speaker 1: book is that it's thematically about our ecosystem and the
Speaker 1: basically like our mistreatment of the ecosystem. Right, And it's
Speaker 1: been a while since I've read that book. It's super depressing,
Speaker 1: but basically I remember a lot of descriptions of dead trees. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that is a great book, a pretty bleak book.
Speaker 1: I've yet to read it as a father, um, and
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm quite ready to do that. I
Speaker 1: can imagine that would be real tough, um, but certainly
Speaker 1: I yeah, now that now that you mentioned Court McCarthy
Speaker 1: and the world tree, I wonder he trees come up.
Speaker 1: I mean, trees come up in every work of fiction. Really.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's in the same It's kind of
Speaker 1: the core argument here is that trees are such a
Speaker 1: part of our world that they have become an inseparable
Speaker 1: part of our our symbolic understanding of our elves in
Speaker 1: the universe and cosmology, that it becomes this thing upon
Speaker 1: which we build our our boldest fantasies and our our
Speaker 1: darkest hors. So it's it's one of those things where
Speaker 1: I feel like you could probably tease apart any work
Speaker 1: of literature and say, okay, here's my you know, three
Speaker 1: ball volume study of trees and Cornan McCarthy or trees
Speaker 1: in the work of Shakespeare. I'm sure I'm sure someone
Speaker 1: has done. Yes. Yeah, Well, I think that's part of
Speaker 1: the reason why I wanted to end with this topic,
Speaker 1: because it seems like it's so universal. We're heading into
Speaker 1: Christmas season and it seems like we've found uh no,
Speaker 1: no pun intended a route for the origin of the
Speaker 1: Christmas tree, right, but that it's just this thing that
Speaker 1: connects us all together no matter what our religion or
Speaker 1: ethnicity or creeds, whatever trees are important to us. Indeed, alright, Christian,
Speaker 1: well well this was it, then, this was this was
Speaker 1: your your final episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: So again I want to thank you for all that
Speaker 1: you've done on this show, with this show, helping to
Speaker 1: grow this show over the past few years. Oh I,
Speaker 1: we look forward to keeping in touch with you in
Speaker 1: the future. Can you tell our listeners where they can
Speaker 1: continue to uh, to listen to you, to read your
Speaker 1: work over the years ahead. Yeah, thank you, and thanks
Speaker 1: again for having me on the show the last couple
Speaker 1: of years. Everyone out there, and and this is Robert
Speaker 1: and Joe included. You can all reach me on Twitter
Speaker 1: at Christian Sager, or if you want to email me,
Speaker 1: for instance about this episode, uh, you can email me
Speaker 1: at Christian dot Seger at gmail dot com. I will
Speaker 1: also continue to be hanging out in our Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind discussion module on Facebook, so you're not
Speaker 1: getting rid of me that easily. I'll be interacting with
Speaker 1: the awesome community that we have over there. I may
Speaker 1: not be here on the show anymore, but I'm still
Speaker 1: going to be actively writing and podcasting online, and as
Speaker 1: Robert alluded to, I'm continuing to do my creator own podcast,
Speaker 1: Super cont Text. Some of you are familiar with this,
Speaker 1: but if you've never heard it before, it's a podcast
Speaker 1: autopsy of media, how we consume it and how it
Speaker 1: informs our everyday culture. In each episode, we try to
Speaker 1: understand the entertainment world we all live in, whether it's film, television, prose, music,
Speaker 1: or comic books. You can find it wherever you get podcasts,
Speaker 1: or you can get it at super Context dot Libson
Speaker 1: dot com. I'll also be publishing a goodbye post to
Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com that will also
Speaker 1: cover all of this stuff. Is where you can find
Speaker 1: me and uh, I imagine that we'll have like cross
Speaker 1: links between the podcast page and that blog page referencing
Speaker 1: back to both one another. That's right, And yeah, I
Speaker 1: recommend everyone check out super Context, even if you if
Speaker 1: you don't have time to listen to it when it
Speaker 1: comes out. Check out the artwork. The artwork is always
Speaker 1: amusing because you you do custom artwork for each episode.
Speaker 1: I do, yeah, I hand draw, well, it's there digitally,
Speaker 1: but I draw the artwork for every episode, and they're
Speaker 1: like weird little car tunes that are related to whatever
Speaker 1: the topic is. Yeah, awesome, all right, well thanks again,
Speaker 1: so that this is thanks, this is goodbye, and hey,
Speaker 1: the rest of you, you want to keep up with
Speaker 1: the Stuff to Blow your Mind, make sure you follow us.
Speaker 1: It's stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That's where
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Speaker 1: in touch with us the old fashioned way, you of
Speaker 1: course can email us at blow the Mind at how
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. And yes, if if you have
Speaker 1: something that is Christian specific that you send to us,
Speaker 1: we will try and forward that to him as well.
Speaker 1: Awesome and I will do my best to reply. For
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