Forlong - Rivers of Life

Tree Worship.
which the world has known, not excepting the Hebrew and Christian; the two together
are typical of the reproductive powers
of vegetable and animal life. It is
uncertain whether the Jewish “tree of
life” was borrowed from an Egyptian
or Kaldean source, but the meaning was
in both cases the same, and we know
that the Asyrian tree was a life-giving
divinity, and Moses, or the writer of
Genesis has represented very much
the same in his coiled serpent and love-apple or citrons of the “tree of life.”
Let us now try and probe this phallo-tree worship to its root; for very many
years it was to me inexplicable, and I made it a constant source of inquiry among all
races in India. At the time of the earliest tree worship, I look upon it that man was
but a little removed from the state of the animals amongst which he roamed, and, like
them, was wild and homeless. Though the soul was here with its germ which was
yet to teach the heart to aspire to the spiritual and beautiful; nevertheless above all,
were within man, at this infantine period of his growth, chiefly those potent sensual
passions which caused him to feel the law of his continuance, and the preservation of
his species, as the one great and controlling object of his life. He was thus in entire
unison and sympathy with every animal, nay, every animate object of creation,
which seemed to partake of or to symbolise that which his own sensual nature most
dwelt upon; and the more dwelt on, the more impetuous and imaginative would
his nature become, especially when not hindered here by those higher cerebral
developments which refine, and in a manner curtail the brutal. As we study rude
peoples we can see that in a thousand forms they observe generating nature where our
higher cultivation sees only natural phenomenon. It is quite evident that in the
shrouded circular covering of the tree, with its abundant fruits and flowers, and its
earth piercing stem, ancient wild races saw distinctly pourtrayed what we can scarcely
imagine, and hesitate to announce even when the facts force themselves upon us,
exclaimimg, “this is too far-fetched;” yet long and
intimate acquaintance with men of every Indian sect,
has assured me of the truth of such matter as I have
already, and desire further here to treat of.
I have in figure 19 given “the Skandinavian idea”
of the tree, and I now give that whicht after much
study, I have come to the conclusion,. is the Asiatic
idea—viz., that it is the Toth or Pillar, in the Earth. or
Isis. We must not expect to find a clear and logical
Fig. 25—THE ASYRIAN TREE OF LIFE AND ARK
Fig. 26—THE TREE IDEA--ASIA
sequence in things mythical, any more than in our ecclesiastical or theological “mys-
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