Like the vision of Zarathustra, the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, and the report of Bardesanes (A.D. 154-222) on the god of the Indians, the old Rabbinic idea that the tree of paradise was a man exemplifies man's relationship to the philosophical tree:
MEN CAME FROM TREES OR PLANTS
According to ancient tradition men came from trees or plants. The tree is as it were an intermediate form of man, since on the one hand it springs from the Primordial Man and on the other hand it grows into a man. Naturally the patristic conception of Christ as a tree or vine exerted a very great influence. In Pandora, as we have said, the tree is represented in the form of a woman, in agreement with the pictures reproduced in the first part of this essay, which, unlike the alchemical pictures, were done mostly by women
CW13 ¶ 458THE FEMININE TREE-NUMEN
This raises the question of how the feminine tree-numen should be interpreted. The results of our investigation of the historical material have shown that the tree can be interpreted as the Anthropos or Self. This interpretation is particularly obvious in the symbolism of the “Scriptum Alberti” and is confirmed by the fantasy material expressed in our pictures. The interpretation of the feminine tree-numen as the Self therefore holds good for women, but for the alchemists and humanists the feminine representation of the tree is an obvious projection of the anima figure. The anima personifies the femininity of a man but not the Self. Correspondingly, the patients who drew Figures 29 and 30 depict the tree-numen as the animus. In all these cases the contrasexual symbol has covered up the Self. This is what regularly happens when the man's femininity, the anima, or the woman's masculinity, the animus, is not differentiated enough to be integrated with consciousness, so that the Self is only potentially present as an intuition but is not yet actualized
CW13 ¶ 458THE TREE SYMBOLIZES THE OPUS
AND THE TRANSFORMATION PROCESS
In so far as the tree symbolizes the opus and the transformation process “tam ethice quam physice” (both morally and physically), it also signifies the life process in general. Its identity with Mercurius, the spiritus vegetativus, confirms this view. Since the opus is a life, death, and rebirth mystery, the tree as well acquires this significance and in addition the quality of wisdom, as we have seen from the view of the Barbeliots reported in Irenaeus: “From man [= Anthropos] and gnosis is born the tree, which they also call gnosis.” In the Gnosis of Justin, the angel Baruch, named the “wood of life,” is the angel of revelation, just as the sun-and-moon tree in the Romance of Alexander foretells the future
CW13 ¶ 459THE INDIVIDUATION PROCESS IS NO LONGER
PROJECTED INTO THE COSMOS
However the cosmic associations of the tree as world-tree and world-axis take second place among the alchemists as well as in modern fantasies, because both are more concerned with the individuation process, which is no longer projected into the cosmos. An exception to this rule may be found in the rare case, reported by Nelken, of a schizophrenic patient in whose cosmic system the Father-God had a tree of life growing out of his breast. It bore red and white fruits, or spheres, which were worlds. Red and white are alchemical colours, red signifying the sun and white the moon. On the top of the tree sat a dove and an eagle, recalling the stork on the sun-and-moon tree in the “Scriptum Alberti.” Any knowledge of the alchemical parallels was quite out of the question in this case
CW13 ¶ 459PRIMITIVE SHAMANISTIC
CONCEPTIONS OF THE TREE
Our material is, however, fully in accord with the widespread, primitive shamanistic conceptions of the tree and the heavenly bride, who is a typical anima projection. She is the ayami (familiar, protective spirit) of the shaman ancestors. Her face is half black, half red. Sometimes she appears in the form of a winged tiger. Spitteler also likens the “Lady Soul” to a tiger. The tree represents the life of the shaman's heavenly bride, and has a maternal significance. Among the Yakuts a tree with eight branches is the birthplace of the first man. He is suckled by a woman the top part of whose body grows out of the trunk
CW13 ¶ 460THE TREE IS CONNECTED WITH THE
SNAKE, THE DRAGON, AND OTHER ANIMALS
As well as with a feminine being, the tree is also connected with the snake, the dragon, and other animals, as in the case of Yggdrasil, the Persian tree Gaokerena in the lake of Vourukasha, or the tree of the Hesperides, not to mention the holy trees of India, in whose shadow may often be seen dozens of naga (= snake) stones
CW13 ¶ 461THE INVERTED TREE
The inverted tree plays a great role among the East Siberian shamans. Kagarow has published a photograph of one such tree, named Nakassä, from a specimen in the Leningrad Museum. The roots signify hairs, and on the trunk, near the roots, a face has been carved, showing that the tree represents a man. Presumably this is the shaman himself, or his greater personality. The shaman climbs the magic tree in order to find his true self in the upper world
CW13 ¶ 462THE ESKIMO SHAMAN FEELS THE
NEED FOR ECSTATIC JOURNEYS
Eliade says in his excellent study of shamanism: “The Eskimo shaman feels the need for these ecstatic journeys because it is above all during trance that he becomes truly himself: the mystical experience is necessary to him as a constituent of his true personality.” The ecstasy is often accompanied by a state in which the shaman is “possessed” by his familiars or guardian spirits. By means of this possession he acquires his “`mystical organs,' which in some sort constitute his true and complete spiritual personality”
CW13 ¶ 462SHAMANISTIC SYMBOLISM IS A PROJECTION
OF THE INDIVIDUATION PROCESS
This confirms the psychological inference that may be drawn from shamanistic symbolism, namely that it is a projection of the individuation process. This inference, as we have seen, is true also of alchemy, and in modern fantasies of the tree it is evident that the authors of such pictures were trying to portray an inner process of development independent of their consciousness and will. The process usually consists in the union of two pairs of opposites, a lower (water, blackness, animal, snake, etc.) with an upper (bird, light, head, etc.), and a left (feminine) with a right (masculine). The union of opposites, which plays such a great and indeed decisive role in alchemy, is of equal significance in the psychic process initiated by the confrontation with the unconscious, so the occurrence of similar or even identical symbols is not surprising
CW13 ¶ 462