Tree of Life | |
The Tree of Life can be found in its actual form at the top floor of the Elohim Tower, that white edifice predominating the Island of Threads. During our investigations in Charles Randall's Vicarage, we come across a shifting image of this theologically charged plant.
Walking up the stairs of the Elohim Tower, we eventually come into a rotunda that seems oddly familiar to us, the central feature being the Tree of Life, in whose lush crown we spot three shimmering lights. The floor is entirely entrenched with the Tree's roots, and next to the stem we find a Violet Potion. The whole vista makes Adam feel strangely nostalgic, like he's been here before.
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Adam: What the Hell..? Hey, this place looks oddly familiar. I'm getting an awful familiar feeling from this place. But why? It's like I've somehow been here before. A long time ago. Hell if I know what's going on. |
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The Tree of Life is a common theological and philosophical concept and symbol, appearing in many different cultures.
In Catholic Christianity, the Tree of Life symbolizes the immaculate state of humanity free from corruption and Original Sin before the Fall.
In the Book of Genesis, the Tree of Life has been planted by God in midst of the Garden of Eden (Paradise), and its fruit gives everlasting life, id est immortality. The fruit could be represented by the shimmering lights in the crown, if we take Adam's musings into consideration: "Those lights. Seems to be... something growing in the lights."
Together with the Tree of Life, which connects all forms of creation, God planted the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which connects the heaven and the underworld.[1] After eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, the biblical account states that Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden of Eden to prevent them from eating of the Tree of Life.
In Jewish mysticism, commonly known as Kabbalah, the Tree of Life appears in the form of ten interconnected nodes, the ten Sephirot.
According to ancient Egyptian belief, the Tree of Life represented the hierarchical chain of events that brought every thing into existence. The spheres of the Tree of Life demonstrate the order, process, and method of creation.
In his famous treatise The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin uses the Tree of Life as a metaphor for the phylogenetic tree of common descent in the evolutionary sense:
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As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever-branching and beautiful ramifications. |
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Script[]
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Adam: What the Hell..? Hey, this place looks oddly familiar. Those lights. Seems to be... something growing in the lights. I'm getting an awful familiar feeling from this place. But why? It's like I've somehow been here before. A long time ago. Hell if I know what's going on. |
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