The Other Tree

but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. --Genesis 2:17

Yesterday, March 22, I found out (via Eunus Noe) that Jeff Fairhall, my Fly Agaric eating Light Bringer, is dead. He died on Sept. 5, 2007, of brain cancer, but I didn't even know until now because I had deliberately banished him from my life. Jeff was the man who pried open my third eye - a seer, a shaman, and one of the bravest men I'll probably ever meet. A man who put everything - his wealth, family and prestige (which was considerable) on the line for what he thought was a Message from God.

He was a gifted conspiracy theorist, and some of his ideas I have yet to see printed in any blog. He was fascinated by Curt Cobain, heroin addiction and trafficking, George "Poppy" Bush Sr., Skull and Bones, the Jesuits, all the usual suspects. But like many of us, the conspiracy was simply a stepping stone to greater revelation - an examination into the nature of our dualistic experience.

Jeff ate (like a starving man) from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, and he found a kinsman in Terrance McKenna, the entheogenic shaman and psychonaut. Much of Jeff's 2012 focus was due to McKenna's Timewave Zero theory, which postulated an alien encounter as the logical manifestation of the global consciousness - the Ultimate Novelty. McKenna died of glioblastoma multiforme, a highly aggressive form of brain cancer. Jeff often called Terrance a "John the Baptist" figure, because he was a herald of the coming Christ, and because he died by "losing his head".

How strange that Jeff followed perfectly in the footsteps of both John and Terrance - taking out full page ads in The Stranger proclaiming the End of the Age - "a voice crying in the wilderness", and finally succumbing to brain cancer. Is Solome the Mushrooms other name?

Jeff and I shared an affinity for the mystical environs of Hood Canal - gateway to the Olympics. He called it the Dead Sea. I performed my own baptism ritual in those waters just last summer, dipping my head under three times. I think maybe Jeff was there in spirit - the Baptist.

Being with Jeff, as "intoxicating" as it was, was also a road to ruin. Even I could see that. Jeff's kind of yellow brick road always seems to lead to self-imolation and Jonestown. John's Town. So I, reluctantly, left his sphere of influence. Jeff was a light bringer, but he wasn't the light. I think he might have confused the two.

It's fairly amazing that I would become conscious of his death on 3/22 - the Day of the Dead - by Skull and Bones reckoning:

Genesis 3:22 Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil has a price. And Jeff, Terrance, John and Adam all appear to be a testament to the truth of that statement. The mushroom has a price.

A California man died of mushroom poisoning just last week - an 82 year old who had picked and eaten wild mushhrooms all his life. Until he made a fatal mistake and chose Amanita Ocreata. His last meal. "for in the day that you eat of it..."

I had a very powerful mushroom experience a few years ago - because I nearly killed myself. I was in the middle of a "temple building" ritual, when I found a bumper crop of what I thought were Amanita Muscaria that had magically mushroomed in a neighbor's yard. I was about to consume them when my beloved intervened, and showed me that these magical mushrooms were actually "Panther Caps" - a cousin of the Muscaria - but far more deadly.

Perhaps the "relation" of the Panther Caps and Amanita is "familial", one simply works more quickly than the other?

It makes me wonder... The Tree of Knowledge seems to cut down the Tree of Life - George Washington the Freemason cut down the Cherry Tree. Or more accurately, eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge somehow makes the Tree of Life necessary - the Divine Antidote?

I think I will take these messages very seriously. Mushrooms and other entheogens aren't my path.

There is another tree in the garden.