The Story behind Tree of Knowledge
I had also recently read an article theorizing a possible link between the mind expanding qualities of various mushrooms and other natural
psychedelics with the increase in intelligence that occurred in mankind.
Historically, white and black have always symbolized the two concepts of Good and Evil.
And lastly, being familiar with Genesis and its earlier progenitors, especially Sumerian mythology, I was acquainted with the various Eden myths
and legends.
So, putting all the pieces of this jigsaw together, I theorized that a red-capped mushroom, growing in concert with a birch tree, might have
been called the Fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (due to its black and white bark) and that this mushroom might be
the "apple" of that tree, and worked its way into legend. Thus, Tree of Knowledge was born and the Amanita Muscaria became its symbol.
and the origin of our logo
The name and logo for Tree of Knowledge came about through a number of synchronicities that occurred about the time I formed this
consulting firm. Firstly, I had been reading a number of books, most notably R. Gordon Wasson's "Soma: Divine Mushroom of Immortality", in
which he mentioned that his wife, a Russian of Siberian heritage, stated that mushrooms were often referred to as a fruit. Wasson's
own statements about the potency of the Amanita Muscaria mushroom recalled stories from the Indian Veda scripts about ancient rites
using the divine drug Soma. Wasson also stated that the Amanita had a symbiotic relationship with the birch tree, and his wife
called the mushroom the fruit of that tree.
There is a wealth of material about mushrooms on the Internet. Here's a good place to start:
