The Sacred Trees Around Goshonai/Japan -A contribution of building ethnology to the subject of tree worship- NOLD EGENTER Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich Introduction Throughout long periods of time and in many cultures the human spirit has been preoccupied with trees. Evidence of this is to be found in the many representations, pictorial and textual, which tell us of sacred trees, trees of life and light, cosmic or world trees, the Tree …showed first 75 words of 292 total…

…showed last 75 words of 292 total…sprung exclusively from the spirit ? As suggested by the German word Einbildung (“ inimagination “), might it not have been sparked off by structures of the world of things ? Does symbolism only seem fantastic because it derives from events of cultural history which are now lost in the depths of time ? In other words, could it be that what we regard as specifically spiritual in man’s relation to the tree is actually traceable to lost culture ?