Five Trees

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"Five Trees" in Paradise is a mysterious allegory or concept from famous Coptic Gospel of Thomas NHC 2: (gnostic library from Nag Hammadi in Egypt) 19th saying/logia of Jesus and other sources of religious mythology.

Blatz Translation: (19) Jesus said: Blessed is he who was before he came into being. If you become disciples to me (and) listen to my words, these stones will minister to you. For you have five trees in Paradise which do not change, either in summer or in winter, and their leaves do not fall. He who knows them shall not taste of death.

"Blessed is he who was before he came into being," is similar to other enigmatic statements commonly found in mysticism across cultures, referring to the benefits of self-awareness (knowledge of one's true nature) before development of ego identity beliefs. "If you...listen..., these stones will minister to you," may refer to both "listening" to the true self within - which would allow one to accurately trace internal/cause from observing external/effects (physical reality/stones), or that only through this "self-awareness" are we able to understand Jesus' symbolic language and master external reality. The word, tree, is a creative (manifesting) symbol in Jewish and Christian sacred texts, descriptive of both ingesting (taking in) fruits and/or producing fruits (Genesis and Four Gospels).

In the Acts of Thomas, Chapter 27, during an anointing ceremony, the apostle implores, "Come, elder of the five members of mind, communicate with these young men;" the five words for 'mind' according to Theodore bar Khoni (www.gnosis.org/library/actthom.htm) are the equivalents of hauna (sanity), mad'a (reason), re'yana (mindfulness), mahshebhatha (imagination), tar'itha (intention) - considered the Five Manifestations of the Father of Greatness which may provide the clue to the meaning of the five trees. These five would therefore be the causal factors in the experience of the Real.

Marvin Meyer writes: "The "five trees in paradise are mentioned frequently in gnostic texts, ordinarily without explanation or elaboration. In Manichaean Psalm Book 161,17-29, it is said that various features of life and faith are put together in groups of five. This section opens with the statement, 'For [five] are the trees that are in paradise [. . .] in summer and winter.' On the trees in paradise according to Genesis, see Genesis 2:9." (The Gospel of Thomas: The Hidden Sayings of Jesus, pp. 77-78)

It has been suggested that the "five trees" may parallel the five human senses which produce one's internal world view and belief system - knowledge of which is a requirement for purification and thus enlightenment or return to paradise/unity. However, the body's five senses - more synonymous with lower level egoism and learned misperception, would more likely be referenced as an impediment to reunion with the divine.

Some also suggest that Jesus is actually talking about psychotropic plants, specifically the ingredients of Soma-a brew of relatively unknown ingredients mentioned in Ancient Vedic and Eastern religious texts. These "trees" would then probably be opium, cannabis, and a few different kinds of mushrooms, including Amanita Muscaria, that produce hallucinations and trance like affects associated with out of body experiences and encounters with the divine or wholly other.

The "five trees" also could be interpreted as referring to the Five Worlds of the mystical Jewish Kabbalah: Asiyah, Yetzirah, Beriah, Atzilut & Adam Kadmon - descriptive of dimensional levels related to the soul's progress toward unity with or return to the Creator. Generally understood as developmental levels of intentionality related to man's natural "desire to receive." The methodology for accomplishing this is considered the secret Science of Kabbalah - how to receive by correcting intention until a state of unity with pure altruism is achieved. One then becomes pure Creator (experience of the divine). Related to this, the concept of "reality as a mirror of desire" (pure desire = perfect results/impure desire = negative results), would correlate to the tree symbol as "productive" of paradise.

A further analogy worth considering is the "five brain" evolution described by Joseph Chilton Pearce in his "The Biology of Transcendence." Perhaps, intuitively, there was awareness of this perceptual system; i.e. if accumulated beliefs not only control one's perceptions of reality, having developed during the evolution of our five brain levels - reptilian(survival)/early mammalian(feelings)/neo cortex(thought system)/prefrontal lobes(creative) and heart/mind(unity), but are in fact manifesting Reality, experiencing paradise would require that all five parts be perfectly realigned.