VMS -- Botany (f05v) Hidden Images

["Dana F. Scott" <dfscott@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Have you ever tried to find hidden images in a picture or find images
among the clouds. Perhaps some of you have managed to get you eyes to
see the hidden images in Stereograms. (Hint: put you nose up to the
picture, let your eyes go out of focus, and then move your head back
slowly away from the picture and at the same time try to focus deep into
the picture until a 3D image appears.) I am somewhat jealous of the kids
who can immediately see the 3D images.

http://www.vision3d.com/sghidden.html

So, why this interest in hidden images and what does it have to do with
the VMS? Well, the kid in me is constantly trying to find hidden
revelations, especially in documents such as the VMS. At times it helps
to cut down on the frustration of not having new ideas/discoveries.
While looking through a book I came across a picture refered to as an
Alchemist's Sephiratic Tree of Life. What caught my immediate attention
was the eye of the needle loop drawn at the top of the tree. I was right
away reminded of the herbal drawing with the ankh loop in f05v. The
correlation of plant, loop, and alchemy was very interesting to me but
there is more. I noticed that there were 3 crowns at the top of the
drawing in the book. Looking at the top of the loop in f05v we see
flowers. Could these flowers be a representation of the 3 crowns?
Possibly. Then I noticed something else, something that I wasn't looking
for but it almost instantly came into focus. The leaves suddenly
revealed another picture, a hidden picture, perhaps revealed only to
children or the adept and addled alike. I tested my hypothesis out on my
teenage daughter asking her to use her imagination and tell me what she
sees in the plant. When I heard her say leaves, butterfly, bat, bird,
and eagle I felt satisfied that I was on the right track for this is
also what I see, birds aflight aimed in different directions just like
we find in the symbolic drawings of Alchemy. Now I realize that my
imagination might have gotten carried away a bit, but I wouldn't be
surprised in the least if the scribe of the VMS was having fun and had
these same ideas in mind when drawing this plant. There may be more,
additional flowers (crowns?), three stems leading into the roots (3
legs?), and what might the stylized drawing of the roots represent?

Tree of Life:
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/emblems/embl237.htm
http://www.ritmanlibrary.nl/silent-04.html

Regards,
Dana Scott