Topic: Symbolism in relation to religion Hannay, James Ballantyne 1912

[Prometheus]

 S Y M BOLISM

IN RELATION TO

RELIGION

https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.21920

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES OF ITS
TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

BY

Hannay, James Ballantyne


LONDON

\REGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO., LTD.
Broadway House, 68-74 Cartbr Lane, E.C.
 
 TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR FRIEND

S)c. $obn Campbell Oman,

TO WHOSE INITIATIVE AND KIND
APPRECIATION

IS DUE THIS RECORD OF THE NOTES OF A
LIFE'S STUDY.
 “ Men now question everything which their fathers took contentedly and all
too complacently for granted/'—Times 6th May, 1912.
 PREFACE

The translation of the thoughts of an alien nation into a new
language so as to convey the feeling of the original is one of the
most difficult and uncertain of tasks. The English-speaking
peoples are in possession of a literary treasure of this kind, such
as has fallen to the lot of few other nations. The English Bible
renders for us in a marvellous way the matchless cadences of
the old Hebrew Prose-poems, and presents to our minds the lofty
conceptions voiced with sublime simplicity of the Psalmists of old.
The entire race has felt its influence, and in earnest moments the
expression of our thoughts is coloured by the solemn phrases of
men who wrote two thousand years ago. As a literary model the
Bible has had a great effect on English literature, and as an ethical
guide it has done much to mould the higher ideas of the race.

The lofty yet simple literary form which enabled the English
language to reproduce all the nuances of thought of a totally
different race was due to the genius of men like Tyndal'e,
Coverdale, and Cranmer; but their success was rendered possible
by the fact that the English speech already possessed many of
the elements which rendered it a fit instrument to convey the type
of sentiments saturating the Hebrew literature.

But beyond this, the Bible is the history of the evolution of a

spiritual religion from a material or naturalistic paganism, and

it is to an examination of this side of biblical study that my little

volume is devoted. In his Christian Iconography, Didron says:

" There is a wide difference between the spirit of the Jewish

religion which makes us tremble before God like timid children

before a severe father, and that of the Christian, every word of

which breathes on man the caressing spirit of love. Between

Jehovah and Jesus stretched an entire world.” Since Didron’s day

we have made great advances, resulting in the abandonment of

the severe Hebrew conception of a God, and the adoption cf the

Socialistic parts of the teaching of Jesus, so that an English bishop

• •

Vll
 vin

PREFACE

(Carpenter) can write: “ In the future not the kingdom of God,
but the kingdom of men will be the care and theme of the race.”
In my young days little of the spirit of caressing love had reached
“Caledonia stern and wild.” That country had still a religion
similar to its climate and scenery. The Hebrew Old Testament
was still the essential core of its religion, and, on the ‘‘ Sabbathi”
reading was confined to the Bible, with perhaps Fox’s Book of
Martyrs as a relaxation. We lived under the shadow of the curse
of Eden. Happily the old stern faith is gradually being replaced
by the gentle teaching of Jesus, which breathes love and care for
a fellowman.

So deep was the painful impression of the stern religion of
the Old Testament on my mind in my boyhood that as 1 grew
older 1 was impelled to read and re-read the Jewish Scriptures,
to obtain some idea of the conditions of life and thought in these
old times, and the result was so utterly different from my early
impressions that I have ventured to put on record the real facts,
gleaned out of Holy Writ. They are little known to the Christian
world, and 1 have written in the hope that they may be interesting
to all readers of the famous Jewish Scriptures. To serious scholars
the facts cited in my book are already well-known, but I trust that my
method of marshalling the facts, and the deductions I have drawn
from them, may give an interest to this book among all classes
of readers. For forty years I have read every book I could find
which dealt with the critical examination of the Hebrew Scriptures.
I soon formed ideas of the dependence of the Jewish Scriptures on
the religions practised by the nations surrounding them. 1 tried
to gain a clear idea of what the ancient peoples actually did, and
how they worshipped, apart from the injunctions and theories
of their prophets.

The idea 1 formed of the human craving for wonders which
forms the central core of all religions, and which I have named
” Mirophily,” is one which was forced upon me thirty years ago,
but which I long hesitated to state. I now deal with it in my
opening pages.

I show the preponderance of Sun-worship in the naming of
the days of the week, and the worship of sun, moon, and stars in
all important countries, in pp. 104-137 and 260-269.

The reader will find special studies of the view I take of the
Queen of Heaven in relation to the Trinity at pp. 48, 111, 137,
161-170, and 319-326; and of the effect of the Hebrew religious
debasement of women on the development of the Hebrew
religion at pp. 165 and 191-192.
 PREFACE

IX

* The part played by Paul and Jerome in the crushing out of
reason and knowledge is dealt with all through the work, but
specially at pp. 2, 199, 200, 201, 202-203, 328-329, 337, 338, 347.

The cause of the Hebrew despisal of woman and the terrible
mis-statement of Justice in the Second Commandment, coupled
with the adoption of the deadly Cobra di Capella as the Phallic
symbol, will be found treated at pp. 229-236.

To thoroughly comprehend the nature of the conception of
the Deity inherited from the Old Testament, it was found impera-
tive to state the nature and extent of the Phallic cult and its effect
on ritual, dress, and symbols. Without explaining Phallism fully,
none of these points can be understood, and any work on the
symbolism of religion without treating of its Phallic basis, would
be like “Hamlet** played without the Prince of Denmark. I
have, therefore, been reluctantly compelled to deal with this
difficult subject—the cult of half the human race—as fully as the
popular nature of this book will permit. The reader will find it
dealt with on pp. 26-103 and 215-259.

The Phallic nature of the Hebrew God is elucidated at pp.
245-259. Hebrew polytheism is dealt with from p. 153 to p. 160.

Frazer, in his classic Golden Bough, has given us a most com-
plete and elaborately annotated account of religious practices
relating to man's actual needs in life, his hopes and fears as to
the fertility of the soil, production of food, and weather conditions.
He writes of corn spirits, the fertility of fields secured by the death
of gods, or spirits—such as Dionysius dying for the sake of the
crops, tree worship, grain worship, vine worship, thunder, rain,
and weather worship, marriage, burial, and totem rites; in fact,
religion as applied to man's earthly hopes and fears. My work
deals with another and more intimate side of the subject—the
great facts of the succession of life on this earth, which has given
rise to the whole symbolism of eternal life—the basis of spiritual
religion, or man's “ Heavenly’’ hopes and fears.

The descent of the New Testament story from the universal
sun myths of Asia (in fact, of the whole northern world), and the
dependence of its teaching on that of Krishna and Prince
Siddartha, the Buddhas, are sketched in pp. 280-314 and 334-337.

That there was no loss of Eternal Life in Eden, a fact which
seems to be known to few, is shown on pp. 174-183.

As my book is an attempt at a short sketch of the results of the
study of a lifetime, written in simple language for ordinary readers,
and as 1 have essayed to illustrate the methods of the Biblical
criticism, and to glance over a very large field, it will, 1 have no
 X

PREFACE

doubt, be considered by informed readers, to be as remarkable’
for what I have been compelled to pass over as for the arguments
and illustrations 1 have tried to state in so few pages.

. A glance at the index will give the reader an idea of the com-
pression 1 have had to exercise to marshal such a miscellaneous
army of facts into a form which will make my argument coherent.

My greatest task has been the constant strain of making
decisions as to what 1 must sacrifice. There has been such an
enormous army of writers, each adding something to the elucidation
of Biblical problems, that a mere mention of their names would
fill a volume; so 1 have gone back as far as possible to the original
discoverer or elucidator, even when his work has been amended
or amplified by later writers.

I have attempted to express clear views, in plain words, on all
the points I touch upon, a quality not easily attained in writings
dealing with religion, which is itself so nebulous.

Free criticism, elucidating the human origins of beliefs once
held sacred, ought to lead to a better view of the future opening
out to us; so my outlook is indicated in pp. 339-358 at the end of
the book.

In Confucius is sketched an ideal of the finest type of religious
teacher. Such teaching, founded on reason, is good for all time,
and does not need the constant adjustments necessitated by creeds
founded on mirophily.

My statement is illustrated with drawings and photographs of
conventional symbols to aid the reader in appreciating the truth
of the deductions made; and those which are of a Phallic nature
are merely indicated by rough outline sketches, in order to avoid
any approach to the prurient element, which would arise if any
attempt were made to produce the naturalism of India or Egypt.
It is to be hoped that I have not been too reticent for
comprehension.

The important point about the work is the method of mar-
shalling the facts 1 have collected, and arranging the cumulative
proof of the conclusions to which my studies have led me.

I have attempted to base my work on the example of our great
master Darwin, and to give my humble contribution towards
showing the continuity of religious evolution by linking up the old
religions with Christianity, and applying ther same critical examina-
tion to Christianity as Christians do to all other religions.

That this is quite consonant with true religious feeling is shown
by the fact that over two thousand of the most serious and learned
of the Church of England clergy approached their bishops, in
 PREFACE

xi

'a petition in 1905, pleading for the privilege of applying the same
methods of criticism to the New Testament as had thrown such
a flood of light on the character of the older Scriptures.

My rapid and necessarily incomplete sketch will give the
reader some idea of the material with which such critical studies
will have to deal.
 
 CONTENTS

PART I.

ANCIENT CULTS

Chap.

I. ANALYSIS OF RELIGION AND NATURE WORSHIP
IX. THE PHALLIC CULT, THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION

III.   PHALLISM ..............................

INDIA .*•   ...   ...   ...

BRITAIN AND OTHER LANDS COMPARED

ASSYRIA, BABYLONIA AND ACCADIA ......

EGYPT ...   ...   •••   •••   ...

GREECE   ...   ...   ...   ...   ...   ...

ROME   . •.   .. •   ...   «»•   ...

EUROPE   ..a   ...   ...   ..a   a.a   ..a

CHINA   ...   ...   ...   ...   a.a   ..a

JAPAN   ..a   ...   ...   a.a   aaa   aaa

IV.   SUN WORSHIP   .......................

BABYLONION RELIGION, EUROPEAN SUN WORSHIP

PART II.

THE BIBLE

ANCIENT CULTS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

INTRODUCTION   .............

I. HISTORY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

MASORETIC VERSION .........

II. ANALYSIS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

AL, EL Or ELOHIM   .......

YAHWEH OR JEHOVAH..........

RUACH CREATION   .......

SECOND ACCOUNT OF CREATION ...
FIFTH ACCOUNT OF CREATION ...

THE FLOOD   .............

GOD OF THE HEBREW BIBLE

III.   PHALLISM IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

EDUTH .....................

IV.   SUN WORSHIP IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

CRYSTALLIZATION OF JUDAISM

PART III.

ANCIENT CULTS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

I. PHALLIC AND ASTRONOMIC SOURCES OF CHRISTIAN TEACHING

CHRIST AND CHRISTNA COMPARED ...............

ICHTHYS WORSHIP   ................... —

LIST OF SAVIOURS, SONS OF GOD ..............

SUN GOD PARALLELS ‘.........................

CHANGE FROM SOLSTICE TO EQUINOX.............

II. THE OUTLOOK.....................................

THE FUTURE ..................................

xiii

Pag*.

..a I

... 26

...   3*

...   3*

...   56

... 65
... 7*
... 83
... 89
... 91

99

... 104

... 101
... 121

... 138
... 141
... 143

... 152

... 161
... 171
... 190
... 195
... 210

... 215
... 251

... 260
... 267

... 270

... 280
... 287
... 307
... 308

—   313

—   339

—   354
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

3-

4“IO.

11.

12.
13-
14.

*5-

16.

*7-

18.

19.

20.

21.

33*

34.

35.

Frontispiece.

Portrait of the Author.

Fig.   Page

1.   Devaki on Tortoise   ...   18

2.   Phallus on head stone ...   30

Lingam-yoni Altar.......... 30

Altar changed to Crown ...   31

Dayanand and Nudity ...   44

Nude Sadhu   ...   ...   45

Ardha-Nari-Ishwara ...   4 7

Yoni loops-Chatta.......... 49

Banyan Tree with Phalli ...   50

Refreshing the Lingam ...   51

Lingam-Yoni Altar with Bull 52
Common form of Indian

Altar .................... 52

Serpent Shrine ............ 54

Trisul Worship ...   ...   54

Dorsetshire Phallic Column 56
22-29. Phallic Columns ...   57-58

30.   Phallic Mars    *.   59

31.   Winged Conch, Womb ...   60

32.   Tree with Serpent ...   ...   61

Mundane egg with Serpent 61
Vesica pisces inclosing child 61
Virgin with lens inclosing TV

Child .....................61

36. Dagoba   ...   ...   ... 62

37. Systrum   ...   ...   ... 62

38.   Greek Woman with Vase ...   63

39.   Woman with Bowl, Irish

Church ......................63

40.   Worship of the Yoni ...   63

41.   Honour and Virtue   ...   63

Ankh in Babylon ...   ...   66

Priest in Lingham Line

" Grove'*..................66

Worship of the Cock ...   66

Worship of the Cock and Ark 66

46.   Worship of Woman or Venus 67

47.   Eagle headed figures in

" Grove "....................68

48.   Greek sacrifice to " Cone"   68

49.   Eagle-headed god with Cone

and bag ...   ...   ...   68

50.   Altar with all symbols ...   70

51.   Worship of Virgo intacta ...   70

52.   Roman Woman with Cup ...   71

53- Babylonian Woman with Cup 71

54.   Animals dancing round Tree

of Life .....................71

55.   Phalli supporting the sky ...   72

56.   Separation of Seb and Nut...   72

57-6i. Conventional Phallic sym-
bols    73

62-72. Evolution of Tat or Father 73
73. God of Good Luck Bess ...   74

74* Lingam-yoni with Rays ...   75

75. Lingam-yoni with Conven-
tional Rays ...   ...   75

42.

43-

44-

45-

Fig

76.

77-

78-

79.

80.

81.

82.
S3-

84.

85.

86.

87.

88.

89.

90.

91.

92.
93-
94.
95-
96.
97-

98.

99.

100.

101.

102.

103-

104.

I05-

106.

107.

108.

109.

110.

111.

112.
1 *3-

[Prometheus]

114.

115.

116.

117.

118.

119.

120.
121.
122.
123.
124.

125.

126.
127.

Page.

Lingam-yoni with Scroll and
Lotus Bud   ...   ...   75

God with Phallic symbols of

life......................75

Lingam-yoni with Scroll of life 76
God on Scroll of Life ...   76

Three Dads for good   luck   77

Ankh, Dad, and Thet ...   77

Buckle or Thet   ...   ...   78

Min on Wall   ...   ...   79

Egyptian King's Name ...   81

Papyrus-Phalli ............. 83

Libra or Balance ...   ...   79

Ta Urt with Systrum ...   80

Apet with Systrum ...   80

Phallic Sacrifice   ...   ...   86

Chinese and Japanese Venus   101

Venus with Phallus   ...   103

Solo-phallic emblem ... 112
Egyptian Sun Worship ... 117
Mithras slays the Bull ... 127
Festal Curve   ...   ...   128

Female Emblems ...   ...   162

Ruach Creating .............164

Ruach with A16   ...   ...   164

Dove in midst of Waters ... 164
Dove in midst of Waters ... 164
Father, Son and Dove (Moth-
er) ........................166

Father, Son crucified and

Dove .....................166

Father, Son and Dove (Wo-
man)   ...   ...   ...   166

Father, Son and Mother ... 166
Winged God with Bow (Tri-
nity)    167

Figure with Brooding feathers   167

Figure with Brooding feathers 167
SivaorYahweh   ...   ...   213

Gaulish Serpent   Goddess ...   233

Mother and Babe with Skull 234
Mary Magdalene with Book
and Skull ...   ...   ...   234

Boat with Mast   ...   ...   237

Usertesen dancing before Min 238
The Slicehina   ...   ...   245

Phallic Man ...   ...   ...257

Phallically dressed Woman... 257
Cross and Crescent   ...   259

Women Weeping for Osiris 297
Judge with Crosses   ...   303

Worship of the Lamb ... 304
Isis and Horus   ...   ...   305

Crosses with Lock of   Horus   306

Dove in Waters .............322

Dove Medals ................322

Dagon of Babylon............328

Bishop with Mitre   ...   328

Tomb of Confucius   ...   353

XV
 
 33

89

i65

219

222

227

23+

235

244

2 44

255

305

330

336

35°

354

ERRATA.

LINE  3 from bottom   omit of the British Museum.
16 „   . for on read in.
13   . for XIV. read XLIV.
21 »   . for 6-IO read 19.
21   . for Herbraic read Hebraic.
*7   . for IV. read VI.
IO „   . for V. read XVI.
9 from top   . for Robert read Richard,
9   . omit line repeated.
11-12 „   . insert new line between n-12 (entirely imaginary, they show such an intimate combination of)
11 „   . for Lord read Idol.
bottom line   , for verses insert vases.
16 from bottom   . for 206 read I35.
17 „   . for Mesiah read Mess-Iah.
15   . for Esze read Tsze.
12 from top   ? for fear read Fear.
 
 
 To jacc p. /.|

ROKIRAIT OF THE AUTHOR.
 PART I.—Ancient Cults

CHAPTER I

ANALYSIS OF RELIGION AND NATURE WORSHIP

The striking diversity of the objects which have been worshipped
by man renders a rational explanation of this curious phenomenon
a matter of peculiar difficulty. The same objects are worshipped
as emblems of good by some people, and as emblems of evil by
others. Hence, to find a reason for their worship we must look
for some other cause than the nature of the objects themselves.

The legends of the same people often show these curious
contradictions, as Goldziher remarks (Mythology among the
Hebrews, p. 225):—

" How often in the Mythology of one and the same people we
find the same object employed for the apperception of the most
different or even opposite things.”

Goldziher's book is valuable as showing the utterly illogical
welter of myths which may be derived from the same phenomenon,
and how quite subordinate side issues may usurp the position of
the main story.

One fact stands out clearly. All mankind is imbued with a
feeling of worship, or admiration, or fear—a mental bowing down
to imaginary unseen higher beings, or unknown powers supposed
to exist principally in the sky. This sentiment becomes especially
active when the individual or multitude is excited by feelings of
exaltation, or despair.

More particularly it is a conviction that behind fate, or the
inexorable march of events, there is some great presence to which
man can appeal, or whose purpose he can turn aside by prayers,
promises and sacrifices.

Modern man in this respect has a dual mind. Firstly hq
recognises that the working of the universe is dependent on
physical properties and that the sequence of events arising out of
those properties follows rigidly from them, and is unchangeable out-
aide their action. Vet he believes that by his personal prayer he can
have these properties set aside and the order of nature interrupted.

The great wish to know the origin and destiny of the world and
man is engrained in every thinking being, but, whereas the rational
man seeks a solution in patient research, the religious person
believes he can obtain all such information by priestly revelation.

1   B
 2

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

We are too impatient of the slow progress and meagre results
obtained by the scientific method, and must leap to an explanation
by the aid of some mysterious power outside nature.

Man cannot affirm that he knows of the existence of these
supernatural powers of his own knowledge, so the priest invented
a miraculous revelation in order to assert something of which he
had no proof.

The use of the miraculous to solve the great mystery is the basis
of all religious systems. Amen, the “hidden*’ God of Egypt is
still apostrophized in our prayers. Paul appealed to the belief in
the “ Unknown God.** The Church of England—after vainly
trying to define that contradictory and indefinable mirage the
‘’Trinity*’—accepts it as an incomprehensible mystery.

The heart of all religions is the love of the miraculous and
mystery; and those who most firmly believe the most incredible
miracles are the most meritorious worshippers.

Belief without proof is the great merit, expressed by Paul’s
phrase “ Faith is the evidence of things not seen.’’ Therefore to
the religious person, belief in a flat world (the “Faith” of the
Ancients and some Moderns) makes the world flat; and “ faith ”
in ghosts is all the evidence necessary to prove their existence.
This curious doctrine has been upheld in modern times under the
name of “pragmatic sanction,” which teaches that if a belief is
widely held and used as a working hypothesis by common con-
sent, it is true. Pragmatism applied to religious dogma is more
immoral than the jesuitical position, “ The end justifies the
means,” as there is no limit to the fantastic theories that may be
upheld by pragmatic sanction. Let anyone try to convince a
judge that faith is the “evidence” of anything, and he will find
that the fundamental core and basis of all law and “justice” is
the direct negation of Paul’s claim. Pragmatism and Paul’s
sophistry might render divine every “ Mumbo-Jumbo " of African
devil worship.

The feelings which give rise to a belief in the supernatural, and
finally lead to the establishment of religions, are inherent in the
youngest children and in the most primitive savages. The aspects
of nature foster these feelings as darkness and night are linked with
the ideas of evil, danger, and enemies, while the breaking forth of
the sun is hailed as the return of a deliverer—“ in the morning joy
cometh.”

The feeling of immensity and awe in looking up to the stars is
also one of the elemental emotions in man, tending toward
religion.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

3

The human race has, however, very few individuals endowed
with this reverence for nature. In “ The Ruins of Desert Cathay,”
vol. I, p. 433 (Macmillan, 1912), M. Aurel Stein, after an eloquent
description of the glorious sight of a total eclipse of the sun,
says:—“My men and the Lopliks had, with the prosaic non-
chalance of their race, remained seated round the camp fires, and
not one of them troubled to ask me any questions.”

Even in civilized Europe reverence for natural phenomena is
comparatively rare amongst the ignorant, and most villagers have
more interest in the latest local scandal than in sun, moon, or stars.

The striking fact of the continuous succession of life on earth,
leading to the ideas of eternal life, is also a great fountain of
religious thought, and the symbols of eternal life were always
closely associated with the facts of reproduction.

In attempting to analyse the complicated growths called
religions and to trace their source to the peculiar sentiment or
instinct to which they owe their rise, we must first denude them
of all those features which are common to systems other than
“religious,” such as Philosophical, Governmental, Communistic,
or Socialistic arrangements of the relations between the members
of a community.

By eliminating all elementary rules or “commandments” which
are found necessay to the existence of communities we may arrive
by a process of rejection at the simple central core or active force
which is common to all religions. Before settling what religion is
we may well ask what it is not.

Religion can lay no exclusive claim to Altruism as that fine
quality is displayed by animals in defence of their young, and
probably has its springs deep down in the mother’s love and self
sacrifice for her children. It exists outside any religious belief.

Nor does it arise from that “ greater love can no man have than
this, that he lay down his life for his friend,” as that is often done,
as in war or in disasters, without being part of any religious belief.
Nor does it consist in moral laws. These exist everywhere without
religion, and are really communistic rules without which no com-
munity could hold together.

I do not say that religions do not inculcate these rules—most
of them do,—but religions whose dogmatic tenets are absolutely
opposed to each other may, and do, teach exactly the same social
or moral rules; these rules are simply those without which no
community could hold together, and are common to all social
systems; therefore they do not form the distinctive or peculiar
character which makes a system a “ religion.**
 4

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

On the other hand religion as practised has a selfish basis, and
it is impelled by fear. It is practically engaged in saving one*s
” own soul *’ and in beseeching favours on earth or evading sup-
posed punishment in a hypothetical hereafter.

This fear is one of the great driving forces of religion. Many
of the foremost students of religions say that ” Fear has always
been man's first god, and whoso feared not had no gods, and was
therefore without religion.” (Forlong, Short Studies, pp. 129—
346.)

The Jews god of fear was ”Yahweh Irae” or ”Yire&” (Jehovah
the Wrathful), that of the Greeks, ” Phobos ” (Fear), and of the
Latins, ” Pavor and Pallor ” (Fear and Trembling). Cicero says
that ” philosophers pretend they are freed from those most cruel
tyrants eternal terror and fear by day and by night.” (Pavor and
Pallor.) Still fear is only a driving force, it is not the core of
religion itself.

The distinguishing feature of religions, whatever principles they
inculcate, is the craving to believe in the miraculous and to assert
that the statements and principles taught by any religion were
miraculously communicated to man. The principles themselves
do not matter, the religious element is the miraculous authority for
their enforcement. Whether the principles lead to the racking
and burning alive of people, or to the most tender and gentle service
of their fellow men, they are equally asserted to be founded on
supernatural revelation, otherwise such principles do not constitute
a ” religion ” but merely a social contract or a system of government.

We find then that the distinguishing difference between religions
and governmental or philosophical systems is the assertions of and
a belief in the miraculous, especially the assertion of a direct
personal communication to men by the god they hold supreme, of
moral laws, religious observances, and cosmogony, or creation
stories.

All religions claim this special miraculous revelation to be
peculiar to their cult alone, condemning all other alleged revela-
tions as ” superstitions,”

One can only trace the history of any sentiment by an examina-
tion of its practical results and symbolism, it is only when a vague
love of sweet sounds is reduced to concrete expression in music
that we can follow and examine the musical sentiment, or when
the love of beautiful colours or forms translates itself into painting
or sculpture, that we can have clear ideas on the subject of the art
faculty. So it is only when the love of the miraculous crystallises
itself into acts of adoration, and belief in unproved things, creeds.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

5

symbols, prayers, and miracles that we can follow its history, or
give an account of its development or decay.

The only term we find in “ dictionary English ” to define the
feeling or sentiment essential to religion is the somewhat futile one
of “Religiosity,” but such a term explains nothing, postulates
nothing, and does not assist us in getting clear views of the nature
of the religious instinct. Religiosity is too comprehensive. It is
useful to express the whole spirit taught by religious bodies, in-
eluding common law, morality, brotherly love, faith, hope and
charity, all enforced by the belief that ” our ” religion is the only
true one, having been miraculously communicated by a divine
being. It gives us no clue to the peculiar mental trait which has
led or driven all peoples to a systematised belief in the super-
natural, nor does it aid us in any definition of that trait.

A religious person is not merely one who is a good living person
or one observing the social and moral laws of his day, as such
obedience has nothing to do with the essential tenets of his peculiar
belief or religion,—this obedience being common to all religions,
however diverse, and to all non-religious systems.

A religious person believes in the miraculous communication of
the tenets of his religion to some priest or prophet by a powerful
supernatural being to whom he addresses his prayers; and gener-
ally believes that this supernatural being will receive some entity
of his being, called ” soul,” into everlasting life when the believer
dies, judging whether he deserves reward or punishment in that
eternal life.

[Prometheus]

These are all unproved and unprovable statements, which the
religious person is assured are true, because they were miraculously
communicated.

It is this element of the miraculous which divides religions from
philosophical, ethical, or political systems.

It is this love of the miraculous, and also a love of mystery—
that is, a dislike of clear logical statement or proof, and a love of
dreamy belief—which are the mainstay and attraction of religion.

In order to define the position, I shall call the primitive instinct,
the love of the miraculous, M1ROPH1LY, and the practice of it,—
which is the basis of religions—MIROLATRY. The statement of
a religion is a MIROLOGUE, and its tenets MIRODOXES. The
essence of religions is MIRODOXY, and official religions may
therefore be said to be founded on MIROLOGY, or Miraculous
Statements.

All students agree with Jacob Grimm, who, in his ” Deutsch
Mythologie,” says: “Simple folk have a craving for myths.” It
 6

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

is this craving which I call Mirophily, and when Mirophily states
that a code of laws has been miraculously communicated, we have
a religion.

In modern times it is almost impossible for the ideas of advanced
scientific men to have any great force with common people, as
such men cannot state their views in the form of a mirodox, while
the most trashy religion will find millions of adherents, because it
panders to the Mirophilic craving, and is enforced by the Mirodox
of a revelation from a god, and thus becomes backed by fear,—
Mormonism, for instance.

As the powers of reasoning and reflection are developed in
man, individuals have arisen among advanced races who, attempt-
ing to project their ideas into the past and future, sought an answer
to the great questions of the origin and destiny of man and the
universe. These men have produced some of the loftiest philoso-
phical poems which have come down to us. Other races of lower
intelligence, having their immediate attention drawn to the influ-
ence of natural events on man, such as the effect of sun, rain, and
wind, on the production of food, and the occurrence of war,
famine, and disease, sought some explanation of human joys and
sorrows in the action of invisible spirits which were to be propitiated
by various means. The lowest races are ruled by a religion of
fear,—dread of the dark and of evil spirits, whom they may
propitiate by prayers, and offerings, or sacrifices.

Between those extremes,—represented on the one hand by
Chinese, Indian, Assyrian, Egyptian, and modern civilizations, and
on the other by such savage races as the natives of Australia, Terra
del Fuego, or the Pigmies of central Africa,—there have existed
many races less philosophical than the former, and more poetical
than the latter; forming a great series of gradations between the
two extremes and leading to a perfect chaos of religions. This
chaos of worship and symbols may be glimpsed by referring to
such well-known works as “The Sacred Books of the East,”
For long’s “Rivers of Life” and “Dictionary of Religions,”
Frazer’s “Golden Bough” and “Totemism and Exogamy,“
Tylor’s “ Primitive Culture “ and “ Early History of Mankind,”
Hislop’s “Two Babylons,” Goldziher’s “Mythology amongst the
Hebrews,” and “La Religion” of Andre Lefevre. (It is difficult
to write down a few names of good books without a host of others,
equally good, rushing into the memory clamouring for mention.)
A study of such books shows that every possible symbol has been
worshipped, now as the emblem of good, and again as the emblem
of evil.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

7

The lower beliefs in witches, evil spirits, and necromancy, have
had little effect on the history of dogma, and have never given rise
to any real church; yet so innate is the belief in evil spirits, witches,
ghosts, the evil eye, and kindred superstitions, that such beliefs
persist through all the ages, while many well founded philosophical
systems and religions have passed into oblivion.

The greater religious systems have always been founded on high
poetic and philosophic compositions dealing with tribal history and
theoretical cosmogony or “world building,” based on rough
astronomical observations. To make these acceptable to the mass
of the people however it has been necessary to take into the systems
a crowd of popular beliefs long established, and of a lower type
than the philosophical core of Cosmogony which the priests
promulgated.

No doubt when gregarious mankind began to allow itself to be
governed, the governors found the path of least resistance to be
obtained by the assertion of a system of rewards and punishments
threatened by an unseen but terribly powerful being, who ruled
over all nature and who watched every action of man, and who
had personally communicated his laws to the priests and their fore-
fathers.

In most countries the supreme rulers became identified with this
terrible power, and were stated in fact to be the sons of the great
god and to have been divinely conceived.

But such assertions would never have been so universally
accepted were there not a predisposition in man to believe such
dogmatic statements.

This readiness to accept, or eagerness to hear and delight in
these statements of miracles and the unknown is the sentiment I
have named Mirophily—a sentiment as real as the love of sweet
sounds or colours.

In Sayce’s opinion “ the Office of Priest “ (mirophilic leader)
“ preceded that of King. There were high Priests of Assur before
there was a King of Assyria (or Assuria), the Assyrian Kings in fact
developed out of the High Priests just as the kingdom of Assyria
developed out of the deified city of Assur.”   (Higher Criticism,

p. 272.)

As all religious systems have roughly similar codes of morality,
—namely, the rules necessary to hold together friendly com-
munities,—laws cm to protection of life, respect for property,
honesty, truthfulness, honour to parents and respect for authority
—that side of the rise of Christianity does not especially concern
us; as systems like those were taught by Confucius and others.
 8

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

whose teachings were absolutely free from any supernatural claim.
They taught equally just, and often, much more humane laws, but
laws founded on communistic polity and not on mirophily.—In
ordinary language their systems were human not divine.

All philosophic systems of government, or even the common
police of every land, apart from all supernatural theory, equally
inculcate these ** commandments,” so that they are not essential
elements of any supernatural religion, in fact many of the ancient
gods, not excepting the Hebrew Jehovah, Jahveh, or Yahweh,
were the worst offenders against the “commandments” (p. 210
et seq.).

It is not therefore the systems of morality which demand
examination as religions, but the assertion that these systems were
personally communicated by supernatural means to man, and the
proof offered of this revelation.

The Hebrew Bible was the book on which Christianity rested
for its foundation; but it will be necessary before examining the
history of its sources to have a clear idea of what is meant by
Christianity, and who represents it.

There have always been scientific men, mostly astronomers,
who held aloof from, and denied the assertions made by priests
and religious bodies, but it is only now, in the twentieth century,
that their assertions are beginning to be listened to by the educated
people, and allowed to over-rule the assertions made by the
churches as to the order of the universe.

There were always rationalists and critics who demanded on
what authority or proof the church professed to teach its assertions
about the creation of the world, life, and death, and the existence
of a soul in man, and who questioned the truth of such assertions,
as we see even in Holy Writ in the book of ” Ecclesiastes,” III.,
20-22, and our own Bishops (see pp. 206 and 338). These critics
easily pointed out contradictions and discrepancies in the ” revela-
tions ” of all religions.

In dealing with Christian dogma we are confronted with the
fact that there are two Christian Churches—the Roman Catholic
and the Protestant. At the outset we must ask ourselves which is
the Christian Church.

The Protestant Church, having stood out for private judgment
of the Scriptures on a rational interpretation by each individual to
satisfy his own intelligence, is really not a Church at all, but a
body of "rationalists” of a mild type, allowing individual inter-
pretation of Holy Writ, but holding up a warning finger against
“ going too far.”
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

9

By their private interpretation they are split into innumerable
sects—each, however, in the end negating ” private judgments ”
and drawing up a dogmatic catechism, “ Thus far shalt thou go,”
which, however, has to be constantly modified under the discoveries
of scholars, but all these sects still cling to the essential dogmas
based on mirophily (see pp. 341-342).

By founding their religion on the Bible, which is full of direct
contradictions and irreconcilable accounts of the same incidents
(there are over 100,000 errors in the Bible), the Protestant Churches
are forced along a line of development which is gradually eliminat-
ing the supernatural from their religion.

Colenso’s battle ended in a victory which set the Protestant
Churches free from shackles that can never again be rivetted on
them, and when the jocular remark was made, that, by the decision
of the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords, ” Hell has been
dismissed with costs,” the wit really enunciated a great historical
fact. *

The Roman Catholic Church having always had scholars in its
ranks whose dangerous discoveries were, by careful discipline,
kept for the most part for the church’s private information, took
a much wiser course from the purely ecclesiastical (by no means
moral) point of view. It declared that the true religion was that
enunciated by the church alone (Protestants driven to this also,'
pp. 341-342), and claimed that it had been handed down
by direct personal transmission from Jesus through his personal
Apostles. It kept its prayers and church practices in the hand of
the priests, and expressed them in a foreign tongue and allowed
no private judgment or criticism.

In this we have a real ” church ” enunciating its doctrines ” Ex
Cathedra,”—infallible and rigid,—perhaps the only real church
in the world.

Other religions, even the Mahommedan, have very broad bases,
—Mahommed actually denied that he ever performed a miracle,—
and as we go East the liberty and breadth of view are ever greater
till, in China for instance, we have the religion of the educated
classes composed of general directions for human conduct founded
by Confucius on a code of ethics and honour, combined with
respectful homage paid to the memories of ancestors and to the
Universe (pp. 352-354).

In " Migration of Symbols ” (p. 249), we are told that the Indian
conceptions were so broad that “ Under Akbar (Mogul) they were
willing to combine in a single religion the beliefs of Mahommedans,
Hindus, Parsees, Jews and Christians.”
 10

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

Both Confucius and Mahommet categorically denied having
supernatural powers, but so strong is the sentiment of Mirophily in
man, that, no sooner were they dead than miracles began to be
asserted as due to them. Thus have all ” Sons of God *’ been
created out of prophets, preachers, or leaders long dead.

It may be held that as the Roman Catholic Church does not
proclaim the Bible as the foundation of its authority, and as
Protestant Churches allow private judgment, i.e. criticism, the Bible
has no real place as a standard in either religion, but is only used
and interpreted and applied as the church directs. But the
authority for the enforcement of their tenets is said to be derived
from some supernatural or inspired source by direct revelation, and
as the Bible is the only “ inspired ” book to which they refer, it is
plainly the real source of their supposed authority.

We may take therefore the Catholic Church of Rome to be the
great central Christian Church, and we have the Churches of
England, Ireland, Scotland, and of Dissenters all on the way to
simple deism or rationalism, as private interpretation means follow-
ing one’s reasoning powers.

To quote Carpenter’s work, “ The Bible in the Nineteenth
Century,” p. 473: "But criticism, if once admitted into the Scrip-
tures, cannot be restrained from investigating tradition. The
inspiration claimed for the church may really belong to it, but it
cannot be proved out of the Bible so long as the only witness to
the inspiration is that very church.”

“ The Bible is Divine,” it is urged, ” because the church attests
it.”

’’But how is the church empowered to give this attestation?
Because its chief teachers are guided by the spirit. But where is
the proof of such guidance? It is found in the very record itself.
Scripture and tradition thus in turn support each other. It is not
usual for the foundations and the roof alternately to exchange
places and serve in each capacity in the same building.”

In short—the Bible is true because the Church says so. The
Church dogma is true because it is founded on the Bible.

” Thus a vicious circle of false proof is set up.”

The Bible is certified by the Church, and the Church by the
Bible, like two unknown men giving each other certificates of
character (see p. 272). There is no ” proof ” in such assertions.

When scientific men, in the early years of the Nineteenth
Century began to explore a little and to state their deductions, such
as those of Lyell, the progress of knowledge was embarrassed by
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

II

the resistance of theologians over the account of creation in
Genesis.

This resistance was greatly weakened by the discoveries of
George Smith, that the so-called inspired account of creation
personally communicated to Moses by the Jewish god, was, after
all, only an uninspired pagan fable, copied into the Jewish books
from Babylon.

[Prometheus]

“ When, therefore, the history of the globe began to be made
plain, and the theory of evolution offered an explanation of the rise
of intelligent life and the growth of man's social institutions, his
arts, morals, and faiths, a new view of the history of the earth was
forced on thoughtful people.

“ From British-India and China came collections of sacred
books rivalling the Bible in antiquity and rising to quite as high
conceptions as those attributed to Moses and Jesus, and often in
the same words and form ” (Carpenter).

Discoveries in Egypt and Mesopotamia threw light on the .origin
of many of the Christian beliefs, showing that the Christian Scrip-
tures were not communicated by their god to their prophets, but
were derived from earlier religions.

Thus was created the science of comparative study of religions.

Just as before the advent of Lamarck, Darwin, and Haeckel,
and the " continuous change ’* or development school, men were
always looking backwards for the perfect man, whether in paradise,
or in giants,—men of perfect health and great strength and stature,
so the mirophilic students of religion of the present day are spend-
ing their energies in a search for some far off form of religion when
its tenets were unmixed, when its beliefs were not contradictory,
and when in short, a sweet religion, pure and undefiled, taught
man the noblest morality, in an arcadia.

Vain search. They might as well look for the beautiful science
of astronomy in ancient astrology and necromancy, or for the
accurate and logical science of chemistry, in the alchemy of the past,
with its philosophers' stones and incantations.

Researches are being daily conducted to throw light on the
alterations, changes, editorial “tamperings,*’ and “improvements ’
introduced into the ancient text with the hope of leading up to a
pure “ inspired ” word. But the further we go back the less “ in-
spired ” is the word. These alterations of long past ages were
attempts to bring the crude mythology of still earlier times up to
the level of the intelligence of the day; and the editors of the old
text were ashamed of it, covering up by meaningless words, or
 12

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

entirely leaving out, all the crass phallic conceptions, and convert-
ing untranslatable grossness into ethical or harmless phrases (p. 41).

As we travel along the way through which Christianity has
. developed, and review the practices of the churches and the
“ Bibles” on which they are partly founded, we shall require to
read attentively the actual pronouncements of Scripture. Christ-
ians are told to search the Scriptures, and yet that is what they are,
by their training, incapacitated from doing. Accustomed from
their childhood to hear the Bible read in solemn tones (ventrflo-
quially or, as the Greeks called their Priests, Eggastri Muthoi),
and only such parts of it as the priest can utilise to point a moral,
they come to read it entirely mechanically.

The ” Speaker's Commentary ” represents the Witch of Endor
as a female ventriloquist, as in ancient times such persons were
supposed to have a spirit rumbling inside their bellies. Ventriloquist
means belly-speaker, as does Eggastri Muthoi.

Besides it is such a peculiar composition, consisting of fragments
as diverse as those of a bed of shingle on the seashore, that it is
almost a hopeless task for the ordinary reader to get am idea of its
real contents, or to compare one part with another. How it came
to be in this condition we will inquire later, but it is in such a state
of chaos that even in the middle of a so-called verse the subject-
matter may chamge and the text may continue in the language and
ideas of quite another age.

Unless a mam is schooled in Hebrew, Sanscrit, and the early
languages of the East, he cannot aurrive at the true meaning of the
words used in the Bible. The English Bible we read is not the
Hebrew Bible at all. Were it tramslated literally and etymologic-
ally it would be unfit for reading in public, and Mrs. Grundy
would abolish it. The English tramslation is a euphemistic para-
phrase, so toned down, and the phallic words so mis-translated,
that its phrases have no meaning, and it has no relation to the
Hebrew Bible in its most importamt tenets.

Few people know that there are two quite different and contra-
dictory accounts of creation in Genesis i. amd ii., with mutilated
parts of a third amd fourth also in Genesis amd traces of two others
in the Psalms, Job, Isaiah, etc., amd that there aure three or four
quite distinct kinds of gods differently named in the originad, but
all presented to us as “ God ” and ” Lord ” in our English tramsla-
tion.

Similarly there aure two contradictory accounts of the flood amd
other incidents, amd a host of discrepancies all through both the
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

13

Old and New Testaments of our Bible, the causes of which we
will study later.

These have been discovered by men who really read the Bible,
a power possessed by few.

No ordinary man reads the Hebrew Scriptures. The task is
beyond him. He needs a guide. He has had heaps of guides in
the past,—guides like sheep dogs to keep him in the fold.

Another difficulty in reading the Sacred Books of nearly all
religions (outside of the facts that they are things of shreds and
patches, expressed in a language whose exact meaning has long
been lost), is that the greater part is made up of repetitions of
so-called prophesies, exhortations, and condemnations of a rude
people by “ prophets,” and child-like allegorical stories such as
the Hebrews called Haggada stories so mutilated and changed by
their long descent, that their original meaning and application to
their religion has become almost obliterated, coupled with miracles
and “testimonies,” said to have been performed and spoken
directly by the Divine being.

Prophecies, especially prophecies of evil, threatening dire
calamity (and as “man is born unto trouble ” quite likely to be
fulfilled), are especially common, most of them made after the
event and therefore true. Not only in written religions, but this
function of baleful prophecy is common to all inculcators of religion,
whether Hebrew prophet or Negro medicine man, and this scold-
ing, or rather the fear it causes is the active force of most religions
and " revivals.”

Fear is the most potent engine the priest possesses.

Fear has still a kingdom in the civilised world. There are
educated men and women who would not sit down thirteen to
dinner, nor have their hair cut on a Friday, nor walk under a
ladder, and who feel quite sure of bad luck if they see the new
moon through glass (p. 87). They believe in lucky and unlucky
numbers, and if they happen to boast of good luck they at once
” touch wood ” to ward off the evil influences or punishment by a
higher power for boasting.

This feeling is beautifully expressed in the legend of Niobe.

Modern superstitions are identical with those of savages. A
recent writer on Rhodesia says that the differences between the
superstitions of Bond-street and North Rhodesia are in degree
only, and so far as concerns thse spiritual qualities of mankind,
” the world is much the same all over: things are only called by
different names.” (“ Via Rhodesia: A Journey through Southern
Africa.” By Charlotte Mansfield, 1911.)
 14

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

That fear is still a potent god is shown by the records of many
travellers. One tells of the Chaco-Indians living 200 miles to the
West of the river Paraguay. The author says their only religion
is the fear of evil spirits encouraged and intensified by the witch
doctors,—modern Huldahs. (“ Times ” American Supplement,
25th October, 1910.)

People are better than their creeds. The inestimable boon of
private interpretation given by the Protestant religion is apt to
make us forget that fear is the driving force of Christianity also.
The fear of future punishment, to avoid which the savage sacrifices
to his god, is in no way different from our fear of eternal hell fire,
except that ours is the more savage conception, and ought to be
abandoned as Colenso taught.

Even now this lever is openly employed, witness the words
BLOOD and FIRE moulded prominently in capital letters on the
outer walls of the buildings of that otherwise beneficent institution
the Salvation Army, as I was reminded recently by stumbling on
the lurid announcement on a hall behind the Mall, Hammersmith.
Could a more cruel and diabolical threat have been found to
becloud and sadden the early years of children, 'or to beget the
horror and dismay of being helplessly in the power of a god imbued
with such malignant cruelty.

Can we blame common people for superstition when we find
Bishop Wilberforce exorcising a ghost from a Kensington drawing-
room with bell, book, and candle, or a prominent townsman of
Dartford rejoicing that the church bells would ring on Coronation
Day 1911, as their silence owing to repairs had, he believed, attracted
evil spirits (see p. 249).

Superstition seems to be inherent in humanity and is perhaps
at present increasing, owing to the decline in the belief in dogmatic
religions.

The “ Fear ” part of the Bible is not essential to modem dogma,
but is interesting in tracing the workings of the priestly mind in
constructing its religious shackles for mankind.

On the other hand the essentially religious part or mirologue,
the nature of the god, the creation and ruling of the world, the
statements of its and man’s destiny, the assertion of the existence
of a soul, heaven and hell, and the supernatural origin and absolute
truth of the sacred writings, are the true essence of the book as the
word of God, and it is to this side that our attention will be directed.

Those theories may be quite good as philosophical speculations,
it is only the dogmatic assertion as to their being miraculously
communicated truths which strictly pertains to religion.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

15

We Have no writings of the earliest beginnings of religions,
hence we must found our information on rudely carved symbols on
rocks and grave stones, and we shall see that by far the earliest
symbols are those which are called Phallic. Those who evolved
them held that the continual succession of life on the earth was
typical of immortality, and they employed rude carvings of the
organs of reproduction as the symbols of their adoration.

That was the earliest cult, and it is still widely practised. A
later and equally universal cult was founded on the misery and
destitution of man in Winter, caused by the low altitude “ decrepi-
tude and death ” of the sun, and the joy, salvation, and deliverance
due to its re-birth ” in crossing over the equator, gaining a high
altitude, and producing the Summer, paradisiacal, or garden,
portion of the year, and so saving man from destruction. The sun
was thus the Saviour. At that season in northern countries, the sun
was supposed to die in December, but again to rise from the dead
and cross over (“passover”—see pp. Ill, 283), or was crossified
or crucified into the heavenly half of the year to the salvation of
mankind. The death in Winter was held to be a warning to man-
kind that the great hidden god (Amen) might, for their sins, with-
draw his favours of sunlight and warmth, and later the death of
the sun became symbolical of a sacrifice for man’s sins, its crossing
over at the equinox being symbolical of resurrection and forgive-
ness, and the entrance of man into the paradise (garden) of Summer.

I am not here referring to the Christian cult only, this idea of
sacrifice and salvation was (next to that of reproductive eternal
life) the most wide spread of all cults, and was held by nearly all
nations where the alternations of Summer and Winter are marked.

The astronomical was a very much higher cult than the Phallic,
and required study, observation, and memory, and was applied to
a subject far removed from the actual contact of man. It was just
as abstract and impersonal, as the Phallic idea was direct and
personal. The solar idea had to be thought out as a scientific
problem, while the continuity of life by re-production was the
central and intimate basis of man's life, round which all his passions
and sentiments centred.

The organised religions adopted symbols and practices from
both Phallic and Solar cults, and temples or '* tabernacles ” gener-
ally contained an ark, or altar, or box, on which, or in which was
placed a rod, pillar, or other upright^emblem, the altar or box repre-
senting the female organ of reproduction and the upright symbol
the male organ. But this altar was generally placed so that the sun
at some important point in its annual career, generally the solstice
 16

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

or equinox, would shine through a door, window, or rude archway,
and with its morning beams light up the emblems of reproduction, so
the Phallic and Solar cults were often combined (pp. 112-116), as seen
at the Sikhs golden temple at the present time at Amritsar. Temples
were also “ oriented " to the moon and to special stars, as all the
“ Heavenly Host ” was latterly worshipped.

As the Phallic cult was much the older, it retained its position
after the rise of the Solar cult.

It required a much higher intelligence to grasp the facts of Solar
worship, so it never entered into the ‘'hearts’* of the common
people as did the Phallic worship, but it had a much more intelligent
priesthood, and was the arbiter in all questions of dates, and
regulated all feasts; and, what was more important to the people,
fixed the time for payments of debts or interest, and regulated the
times of sowing and harvesting, so it became a much more “official”
religion than Phallism.

Other natural phenomena also interested mankind, and finally
all natural forces, especially striking ones like the wind, rain,
lightning, water falls, rivers, etc., became deified, or were under
the special care of, or were the manifestation of gods; and the
common people, as in Greece, joined heartily in the pantheistic
worship which had the sun for its central deity.

We have then the ideas called forth by the sentiment of miro-
phily cystallised or symbolised under two systems, first, the con-
tinuity of life, or life or\ earth; and second the recognition of the
Sun as the supporting power or cause of life and pleasure on earth.

Those are the two great cults, and the sources of the Bibles,
churches, and church practises of the present day.

[Prometheus]

The tree played a most important part in the early religions of
mankind, but I do not find (outside its Phallic signification, p. 61)
that it was worshipped in itself any more than our religious build-
ings are worshipped. A church is a holy place, perhaps even the
dwelling of the god, but is not, in itself, worshipped. It is the
casket which contains the gods, shrines, or objects of worship, or
their symbols. The tree meant more to early man than our church
means to us to-day; it was at once his church, his village meeting
place, his protection from the fierce sun or cold wind or rain, and
under it his worship was carried out. It was sometimes also the
dwelling-place of the god, as is the tabernacle or church, or the
means of the gods' descent from heaven to earth, and the oracles
of Gods often dwelt there, and spoke their messages to man, as in
the oaks of Dodona, or the burning bushes of Moses, Joshua, and
Ezra.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

17

Pliny, about the time of Jesus, wrote that ” Trees are the temples
of the gods; we delight to worship the same god in the silent groves
as we do in the stately temples. The fairest trees are consecrated
to certain gods/' just as churches are to-day. Pliny also says that
country people hung coloured rags and other offerings on holy trees.

Glover, in his “Conflict of Religions in the early Roman Empire,**
tells us that country people hang coloured rags and other offerings
on trees just as do the Indians in South America on their “ Gualichu
trees'* (see Cunningham Graham, “Success/* p. 10.)

The Hebrew prophets, or “ Nabis,” in condemning the Phallic
worship of the “shameful thing,’* said that it was worshipped
“ under every green tree.”

That it was not the tree they worshipped, but the Phallic symbols
under it, is shown in Deut. xii., 3, and a dozen other texts, see
p. 242, et seq.

Moreover, the strong corded stem of the tree, especially the oak,
or palm or cedar, was held by all nations as a sexual symbol of male
fertility (the “Tree of Life,” p. 61). Job xl. 17, compares the Phallus
(mistranslated tail) of the Behemoth to a cedar, see pp. 153-154.

Hence tree worship is simply church worship, or symbolical
worship, and in this capacity belongs to no cult exclusively. But
it was also the symbol of male fertility, and was generally associated
with a well,—the symbol of female fertility. Serpent worship is
also a mere branch of Phallic worship. The serpent is a purely
sexual symbol, and all Phallic stories, such as the Fall of Man in
Genesis, are connected with a feeling of the shame of nakedness,
and a serpent which “ goes erect,” and child-birth.

Sir G. W. Cox, in his great work on the Aryan nations, says of
tree and serpent worship, (p. 362), “ The whole question is indeed
one of fact, and it is useless to build on hypothesis. If there is any
one point more certain than another it is that, wherever tree and
serpent worship has been found the cults of the Phallos and the
worship of the Linga and the Yoni in connection with the worship
of the sun have been found also.

“ It is impossible to dispute the fact and no explanation can be
accepted for one part of the cult which fails to explain the other.
Worship of venomous serpents is a religion of terror, but serpent is
love and life.” The explanation of this apparent contradiction is
given at pp. 230-234.

In all ages and all countries the Phallus or Lingam, urged on to
re-production by passion or fire, is represented by a post or pillar
or tree stump caressed by a serpent (p. 61).

The only sacred serpent was the Hooded serpent, which , is a

C
 18

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

fair imitation of the Phallus. The serpent in all lands is the symbol
of sexual desire or “ fire.”

Tortoise worship is the same. “ The world is borne on a
tortoise ” say the Hindus. The head of the tortoise, when pro-
truded, is a sexual symbol; and the Indian phrase means that man’s
world, depending on the continuity of life, is carried on, or borne
by the organ of reproduction symbolised in Indian religions by the
tortoise. Fig. 1 is a common Hindu symbol of eternal life.

Here, Devaki, the wife or mother of God, is seated on a lotus
flower (fruitful woman) and holds in her hand a lotus bud (male
fertility), so male and female symbols are twice repeated.

Fig. 1

Woman and Lotus flower are feminine, while tortoise and Lotus
bud are male.

Fire or flame worship is also very widely spread in highly civil-
ised communities, as we still see by the candles on Roman Catholic
altars a relic of fire, flame, light, or sun worship existing to this
day. In Northern Persia it arose as a separate cult because of the
fire rising naturally from gas wells in the ground.

It was symbolical of the Sun, as the Persians were devout Sun
worshippers, so are their modern descendants the Parsees.

Flame embodies the two principles of which the sun is the great
fount. The heat of the sun drives away the cold and misery of
winter, while its light disperses the dangers of night and darkness.
It is always symbolical of Goodness and Knowledge and the dis-
perser of darkness and ignornce.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

19

That fire worship is sun worship is proved by the legends of
nearly all peoples, viz.:—That Fire was stolen by some demi-god
or hero from the Sun, or from Heaven. But the complicated cult
of sun worship, as practised by the priests, was never comprehended
by the common people, as it involved a knowledge of astronomy
and the people could never acquire a knowledge of the complex
movements of sun, moon, and stars, or become familiar with the
“ Houses of the Sun ” which were the symbols of worship. The
sun was too holy and mighty to be mentioned by name. The
changes produced by precession, giving slow change by millenniums
to the ” Houses of the Sun,” the Equinoxes, Solstices, the Ecliptic,
and Zodiac or Zone of Life arising from the angle of the earth’s
axis to the pole of the Ecliptic, and a host of other complicated
astronomical matters were quite beyond the work-a-day people of
ancient civilizations. Indeed the facts are not at all known or really
understood by the educated population of the modern civilized
world, beyond a few scholars or specially studious people.

Hence, the priests embodied the truths of solar knowledge and
religion in legends of gods, demi-gods, and Gee-urges or earth
builders,—St. George means Earth worker or Creator,—and those
allegories were easily understood; and, impelled by mirophily and
fear, were eagerly accepted by the people. Thus arose the myths
of Babylon, Greece, and Rome.

But if we wish to know what the people actually believed, or
what cults they practised, we must read the protests or scolding of
the prophets or higher thinkers of their times. They call on the
people to abandon their practices, consequently we know the prac-
tices to which they were addicted.

By such means, aided by sculpture and stone monuments, we
will trace the symbols and teaching of religious systems arising out
of the primal sentiments of fear and mirophily.

One must not confound a religious system encumbered with all
its contradictions, assertions, creeds, and sacrifices with the feeling
which gives it birth.

The human intelligence, which differentiates man from the
brutes, eagerly wishes to penetrate the darkness of ignorance which
surrounds us, and this desire gives rise to an exalted sentiment,—
generally pure and noble, or meek and gentle, whereas the sacer-
dotal system which priests have built on the finer feelings of the
people cannot always be so characterized.

The intense impatience of all men, women, and children to know
the why and the wherefore of everything, gave a great power to the
priestly pretentions. The attainment by scientific study of a real
 20

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

knowledge of life and the universe is a painfully slow process, and
it sometimes seems to be unattainable; can we wonder that the
great mass of the people have always chosen rather to accept the
supernatural explanation offered to them by “ revealed ” religions.

The love of knowledge is not the basis of religion as it is of
science; it is the impatience of mankind at the want of knowledge,
which gives the Church much of its power. The Church provided
an attractive short-cut.

The latest oracle’s voice out of the gloom is that of Prof. Bergson,
who, in a glittering coruscation of filmy verbiage, finds a new, easy,
short-cut to knowledge in Intuition. Intuition is the true revelation
of the spirit, and the only safe guide. Of course, it is Bergson’s
own private intuition which is the sole infallible guide ; your 44 in-
tuition,” or mine, or that of any of the metaphysiciahs of the past is
unworthy of credence.

Bergson’s short-cut is as false and illusive as all the others, and
we shall know the truth only by the tantalizingly long and arduous
path of experiment and observation.

Science experimenting with matter has only one system, the
corelation of facts, which may be understood, tested, extended,
and corrected by anyone.

Metaphysics has as many systems as there are metaphysicians—
systems understandable only by the brain which evolved them, and
each system considered perfect only by its inventor.

Even Mallock, who runs with the hare and hunts with the hounds
in his 44 Religion as a Credible Doctrine,” praises science, yet
argues or rather pleads that religion may be accepted. But he does
not give us a single concrete point as to what parts of 44 religion ”
we may accept, and avoids all questions of dogma, authority, revela-
tion, or creed. Nay, in this very book, he disproves all the positive
statements of creeds.

Those educated men who plead for religion never will define the
parts of any organised religion we may accept, well knowing that
any definite statement about the 44 unknown,” can be shown to be
unproved, and hence only private opinion.

It is the great merit of the 44 practical ” British nation that rational
materialism, which bases all knowledge on the sure rock of actual
observation and experiment, was founded by the solid labours of
Newton, Hobbs, Locke, and Bacon, whose work stirred up Diderot
and the French Encyclopedists to the raising of their brilliant monu-
ment to reason.

There have always been individuals of high religiosity in every
nation, who lifted the religious system of their times to a higher
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

21

plane; but the common people knew little of these higher ideas, and
merely took their teaching (as they do now), from popular systems
centuries behind the knowledge of their times.

In religion people are conservative, in fact, such ideas as revela-
tion and miracles demanded antiquity for their acceptance and
a hero only becomes divine centuries after his death. It is difficult
to accept the divinity of a man whom you familiarly know.

All reformers must go along lines taught, and employ symbols
used by their ancestors, and the respect for what ” Our Fathers’*
taught, has always condemned the iconoclast.

The great branches under which all the religious systems of the
past have developed may be classed as based, on the one hand
on the consideration of our world and the continuity of life upon it,
expressed in Phallic symbolism, and on the other hand, on the
Sun as the great life giver and sustainer of man, expressed in Solar
symbolism.

Mirophily is a feeling similar to the love of rhythmic sounds or
beautiful colours,—longings which found their expression in music
and painting, and it is only when mirophily finds formal expression
in worship and creeds that ” religion ” arises.

This craving is the ” God within us ” of the pietists and priests
alike, but it is, after all, identical in kind with artistic, musical, or
poetical cravings. If the phrase ” the good within us ” were sub-
stituted the true idea would emerge from its false clothing (for latest
ideas on this see p. 344). Confucius first enunciated the charm
of virtue (p. 350).

Creeds are inadequate to express the emotional side of religions,
and, in consequence, creeds never do fulfil the desire for full expres-
sion of the sentiment of wonder worship.

They are constantly being modified to meet the growth of ideas,
and so we find that the religious life of many great thinkers is a
history of the abandonment of one religious belief after another, in
the vain search for a cult which will give full expression to their
poetic cravings.

As long as they yield to their mirophilic longings and postulate
the mirologues of Divine beings, heavens, hells, souls, and eternal
life, as having been, or as being miraculously revealed to us by a
higher being, so long will their religious fabric be built on sand.
The great array of new facts constantly being discovered will find
the weak points in the structure,, necessitating constant reconstruc-
tion or total abandonment, and the erection of a new ’’Creed.”
(See pp. 341-342.)

Many modern preachers have thrown aside all concrete belief

•3-710
 22

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

in the supernatural, and preach the sentiment and practise of
altruism alone; but such teachings have little force for MirophiHc
man, as they lack the power of enforcement obtained by a declare-*
tion of “ Divine ’’ revelation.

The Churches and their services are still full of symbolic forms
and phrases, and it will be interesting to trace the sources of
symbolic worship, its changes, and final decay when confronted
with the knowledge of the real facts of the universe.

As man’s experience knows of nothing more powerful than
himself, except the forces of nature which he is even now turning
into servants, and as he can imagine no attribute higher than thought,
he creates in his imagination a “ thinking being ’’ formed like man,
and only more powerful than man in his complete control of natural
forces, and creative powers.

In fact, instead of accepting the Biblical priestly statement/* we
may state with Budge that “ man always has fashioned his gods in
his own image, and he has always given to his gods wives and off-
spring.” (" Gods of the EgyptiansVol. /., p. 287.)

We find this in all religions, and our own Bible,—after a per-
functory statement about creation, like all folk-lore, made with a
most childish disregard of facts, putting night and day, for instance,
before there was any sun to produce such a phenomenon,—in
Genesis goes straight to the anthropomorphic idea that man and
God are identical in body and character, even to God being both
male and female, ” in his own image, male and female, created he
them.”

The word used for the ” spirit of God,” and for the Holy Ghost,
is feminine, and the word used for God is plural, and the second
verse of the first chapter of Genesis is a statement derived from a
very ancient source that ” The mother of the Gods brooded ** [as a
hen does on her eggs], ” on the fertile abyss ** [and brought forth
life]. (Fig. 97, p. 164.)

This is followed by a priestly catalogue of Creation. Then the
narrative plunges into the question of reproduction of life in man,
and tells a simple folk-lore story of ” temptation ” connected with
a “serpent” which went “erect/’ a man and woman's “secret
sin/* their subsequent sense of shame that they were “ naked,**
their covering up of their reproductive organs, and the “ sinful ** act
leading to the “ curse ** of child-birth for the woman, and that of
labour for the man.

Nearly all cosmogonies relate this same tale of two people meet-
ing in a garden of delight, seduction always represented by a serpent
leading them to perform the generative act, which ends in trouble.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

23

This was taught long before a Spiritual God, or even Solar deities
were thought of.

That the serpent was the Phallus is proved by the Bible itself.

The Hebrew word used for serpent is Nachash, which is every-
where else translated in the Bible in a Phallic sense, as in Ezekiel
xvi. 31, where it is rendered “ filthiness " in the sense of exposure,
like the “having thy Boseth naked" of Micah (see p. 221).

We find, as the reader will subsequently see, that all religions
are impregnated with, and often built upon, the reproductive idea,
and what is more striking, all their emblems and even vestments are
derived from images or symbols of the reproductive organs of man
and woman.

[Prometheus]

This has been named " Phallic " worship, from the Aryan-
“ Pala,“ or in Greek, “ Pallas “ or “ Phallos," the male organ, but
it must be remembered that the female organ has also been widely
worshipped, and is well represented in our church symbols. The
Greek name of the female organ is Kteis, but is seldom used—the
Indian word Yoni being preferred.

The Romans named this cult the worship of Priapus, using the
word for all forms of the worship. In India, where Phallic worship
still widely exists, the male organ is called the Linga, Lingah, or
Lingam, and the female the Yoni or Dove.

The feminine is also widely known over a great part of Asia
and Europe by the letter O, and the words Om, Omph, or Uma
as used in India, or Alma in Europe, and we see the Greek com-
bination of male and female in Omphale (derived from Om. and
Phallos), an Amazon queen, visited by Hercules (the sun god) when
the Queen assumed the Lion’s skin and Club of Hercules (both
Phallic symbols), so becoming double sexed.

She induced Hercules to wear her stole and to occupy himself
with feminine labour. They thus both expressed the bi-sexual idea,
or became “ Omphallic,” or “ Woman-man," and so able to create
life like a God.

Our word womb is derived from Om or Omph. The Saxons
put a “ W " before words in “ O," as Odin, Wodin (Wednesday),
so Om became Worn, and the “ man " who had the Worn was the
Wom-man. The plural follows the plural of man,—women, womb-
men. Om was also personified as Uma, pronounced OOMA, the
universal Mother or Womb.

The Greeks also expressed the idea, with the words reversed, as
“ Man-woman," in Hermaphrodite—a combination of the Male
Hermis or Mercury with the Female Aphrodite or Venus; of which
combination they cut many statues as emblems of fertility, eternal
 24

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

life, or, it may be, of self-creating powers. Several may be seen
in the Louvre, Paris.

“Hermes" was so completely the emblem of the Phallus, that
that organ was spoken of as a “Hermes/* and we know Venus
represented the Kteis or Yoni.

All early creative gods were bi-sexual, as the Ancients considered
the two sexes requisite for the creation or reproduction of life, and
all early gods were Androgynous,—“ man—wifish,” or double
sexed,—like the ale-im, and “ Yahweh,” “ in his own image, male
and female, created he them/*

Our priests are to-day clothed in women’s garments, the “Stole**
was the Roman matron’s garment, and so the priest wearing it repre-
sents the two sexes, or full creative power, in imitation of the God
he serves.

Great surprise is very naturally expressed by Christians at the
existence of such ideas. This ignorance is caused by the reluctance
of writers in this country to state such facts openly. It is only from
such very rare and privately printed books as Payne Knight’s
“ Worship of Priapus,’’—a title for Phallism or Phallicism,—that
any knowledge of this subject can be obtained ; and such know-
ledge is consequently beyond the reach of ordinary readers.

Other volumes which occur to me are Forlong’s “ Rivers of
Life,” Westropp’s “Phallicism,” and, in some degree, the works
of Cox and Inman.

While the Pillar was the Common symbol of the Phallus, the
whole male creative organ required a triple form to be exhibited,
and for that the Trident, Fleur-de-lys the symbol of King-Godship
in France, Ivy leaf of Bacchus, or Trisul of India, and all triple com-
binations were used as the male organ, and on this was founded the
idea of the male Trinity.

The idea of Unity in God has a reference to the female—the
creator of all life. The perfect idea of a creative God, as taught
in the Prayer Book, is therefore the “ Trinity in Unity ” or “ Three
in One,”—an intensely Phallic idea.

Forlong has well said that Christianity is the most Phallic of all
religions; though the truth has been lost in the obscurity of its
symbolism.

We now see why the Ancients held that without a woman in the
God-head there is no perfect creative god. (See new edition
Encyc. Brit. 1911, Vol. I., p. 247, and Vol. XIII., p. 367, and many
other articles.)

This two-sex idea is, as we shall see, represented in all altars
and insignia of the Church, and in all conceptions of a creative god,
and is symbolised in the dress of the priests of the god. The queen
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

25

of Heaven is, as I shall prove, the “ Spirit*’ of God, and without
his ** Spirit,** or wife, he cannot create (p. /62, et seq.).

The Indian phrase is that the female is the *' Cause *’ of the gods
action.

Without a clear account of the Phallic ideas on which all the
Jewish beliefs, symbols, and temple practises were founded, any
statement of the Christian creed or Church practises is begging the
entire question of the history and development of Christianity.

Leaving out the poetical and philosophic passages, the
ceremonial rules of the Temple, and inaccurate history,
there is little in the Old Testament except Phallism and
Sabeanism and the Nabis protests against these practices. There
has hitherto been a complete silence amongst all religious teachers
as to the true contents of their “ Holy ** Scriptures; and as to the
true history of their “ word of God.*’ This little work is intended
to render an account in plain English of what all scholars and
educated church-men know.

There are a few brave men in every church who protest against
the present hypocrisy and false suggestion of the ** infallible truth ’*
of what all scholars know to be a very fallible and inaccurate history
of a savage people, mixed up with Phallic worship and gross super-
stitions.

Sun worship, which forms the other pillar of the arch of all
churches, is a very obvious and natural worship, and one which
shall be dealt with as this history develops.

But Phallic worship sounds so strange to modern ears, and is
so little known, that a clear statement of the proofs of its universal
existance in all countries, and of the persistance of its practice and
of its symbols down to the present day, is absolutely necessary
before we can commence the examination of the sources of the
teaching and symbolism of the Christian Church.

That 1 am not writing rashly will be seen from the authority
of all writers on this subject, such as Forlong, Sir Geo. Birdwood, or
Mr. Stanisland Wake, who wrote :—Anthrop. Journ., July, 1870, p.
226.   ** The fundamental basis of Christianity is more purely Phallic

than that of any other religion now existing ” (pp. 221-222.)

Besides, its symbols are the very earliest emblems we can find
of the idea of eternal life and resurrection; and such ideas are the
basis of all real religions.

I shall, therefore, divide the treatment of the subject into three
parts; first,—the earliest religious cult, Phallism; second,—the most
powerful priestly cult, Sun-worship; and third,—the embodiment
of these cults in the Jewish Bible, and their application to the teach-
ings and symbolism of Christianity.
 CHAPTER II

THE PHALLIC CULT—THE UNIVERSAL RELIGION

As I shall have to deal with many words and symbols all relating
to the same thing, and also with the variation of words and trans-
literation, it may be as well at the outset to touch on those matters.

I can only deal in an open publication with Phallism as expressed
in Symbolism, a form which was necessitated by the growing sense
of shame in mankind. That all the symbolism here described was
originally illustrated in the absolutely nude representation of the
reproductive act is well known to scholars and to all who have
visited the National secret museums.

The old bronze doors of St. Peter’s at Rome had sculptures
with such direct representations (pp. 87, 97), and we shall find
the same obscene sculptures executed by order of the Magistrates
and Church Dignitaries at places so far apart as India, Lesbos.
Nismes, and the West of Ireland (pp. 32, 87, 94 and 96).

The male organ of reproduction is, by general consent, called
by its Greek or Latin name, the Phallos or Phallus, and its worship
Phallism; but the worship by the Latins was also called that of
Priapus, the name used by Payne Knight in his book ” The worship
of Priapus.”

The earliest form we can tiace is Pala, from which our words
pole, pale,—as in impaled,—are derived, and from which we have
Palla-dium (Phallus god); but in creating symbols for this idea,
the ancient religions employed pillars, gate posts, upright stones,
tree-stems, peaked mountains (Ararat and Adam’s Peak in Ceylon,
p. 239), rods, sceptres, serpents, tortoises, fingers, hands, feet, toes
(St. Peter’s toe was originally the Phallus), goats, rams, bulls, and
other male animals, sword, dagger, spear, or other piercer, the
cross, the stauros, the pyx, the spire, the tongue of the bell, the bell
tower, the lotus bud, the ballance (Zodiac), and many subordinate
symbols, derived from the above as representing male fertility.

For the Female creative organ the Indian word Yoni is generally
used, or Latin words, Muliebre-pudendum, or Membrum-feminum.
Symbolically it is represented by all lenticular shaped openings,
vesica pisces or fish’s bladder, wells, boats, arks, or Arghas, chests,
altars, nave, the dolphin (delphys womb), whale, derketos, all
round mammelated mountains called Omphs, clefts, caves, cups,
vases, bowls, basins or crescents, ring,«cradle, shoe, window, door,
arch, ass’s shoe, etc., in fact, every thing hollow or open is female
 CHRISTIANITY

27

and used as a symbol of feminine power, and all represent the
“ door of life.”

The study of Indian religions has brought in the Indian name
lingam, which is now very frequently used, as also its feminine
equivalent, yoni (dove), while the adjectives Phallic and Priapic,
are applied to the worship of the organs of both sexes, the masculine
terms being frequently understood to include the feminine.
Applied to gods who, having the two sexes in one individual, were
self-creative, like many flowers, the word now much used is
androgynous ” or man-womanish, or as we English would say,
man-wifeish.

The word yoni, or iona, or jona, (adopted in the West as Iona
the dove), is the universal symbol of Venus or female love. Juno
was d’lune, daughter of lone, the goddess of the dove,” and no
doubt the dove was adopted as the symbol of love being a gentle
bird, pairs of which were constantly seen to be caressing and
kissing.

In dealing with words, it must be remembered that the pro-
nunciation of the vowels in English is most unscientific, and that
the pronunciation of all its letters has drifted the furthest of any
language from the original. The letters E.H.I.J.K.U.V.W.Y. are
all equivalent and derived from the similar sources, and one may
always replace another, also R and L, as in ram and Iamb, clamp
and cramp, are the same letters. A, E, I, and even O constantly
replace one another as in al, el, il, and ol, all the names of the
same god in the Bible, as in our words sap, seep, sip, sop, soap,
soup, and sup, all identical words.

The difficulties of English pronunciation do not lie in the famous
“plough,” “tough,” “through,” group, but the treatment of the
letters A, E, and I. We have “all,” “are,” “rare” where A
sounds as O, Ah, and as Ay. E may be sounded as A, in “ there,”
or more openly as in “when”; and as E in “here,” by simply
removing the T or W from “there” or “where.” One never
knows whether I should be sounded as “ eye ” or as I in “ pin ”;
for instance, “ bicycle ” and “ binocular,” “ wind,” air and wind,
to roll up, or Y in “ cry ” and “ only,” or in “ lyre ” and “ lyric.”

Then there is Ei in “their,” and Ei in “receive,” and Ea in
“ lead “ (metal) and “ lead ” (to conduct), " bread ” and “ beard,”
or A in “ water “ and “ wafer,” and so on, in a thousand irregulari-
ties ; so that, to foreigners, the pronunciation is an enigma. Hence
the English pronunciation of foreigh words is generally wrong.

In pronouncing foreign words, A is always “ ah,” E is always as
? ay in day, and 1 is as ee in week.
 26

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

It is intended to give only the leading examples of Phallism in
each of the countries which have influenced Christianity, to prove
its general practice, as an exhaustive account would require too
much space, and the subject has been dealt with very fully by
others, as by Forlong in his “ Rivers of Life,** a book however not
available to the public.

These examples are given, so that, when we come to examine
the Jewish writings and practices and to trace their effect in the
development of Christianity, we may bear in mind that the Jewish
position was no exceptional or degraded one, but that they simply
followed the common cult of surrounding nations, and retained the
practices to a later date.

So little is known, by the general public, as to the position of this
faith and its importance, as having still the greatest number of
adherents of any faith, that I may here state that our King rules
over about two hundred and fifty millions of Phallic worshippers,
and, if we take all such worshippers, or combined Solar and Phallic
worshippers, we shall find that more than half the population of the
world are active Phallic worshippers. Forlong gives six hundred
and fifty millions in Asia, and one hundred and twenty millions in
Africa, thus arriving at seven hundred and seventy millions of
Phallic worshippers out of twelve hundred millions, as the estimate
of the population of the globe, when his book was written.

No other belief or cult has anything near that number of
adherents.

During a life’s study of the effect of religions on the daily life of
the people I have been driven to the conclusion that in the mass
the effect of dogmatic religion is practically nil. Nations interpret
religions in consonance with their own characters. Gloomy people
make a religion gloomy, and cheerful people make the same religion
cheerful. People are very much the same all the world over, but
as we go East the tendency towards brotherly love and tolerance is
greater than in the West.

’* Immodesty is almost unknown ” amongst those millions of
Phallic worshippers, and they are ” less vicious and rude ** and
** more kind and considerate ” than the Christians of Europe and
America, as witness the following official report (“Daily Chronicle ”
April 2, 1912) :

a* The summary report on foreign mission fields of the special
committee appointed by the International Bible Students* Asso-
ciation has just been issued.

** The success attained by the missionaries in the past (it says)
is very small.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

29

[Prometheus]

** Present missionary efforts are almost exclusively along the
lines of secular education.

** The tendency of the times, in the Orient as in the Occident,
is towards unbelief in any religion. The Orientals are remarkably
tolerant of all religions, and are often perplexed at the missionary
competition and opposition of Christian denominations. The
higher castes consider the medley of Christian doctrines presented
to them less philosophical than their own.

“The common conception that all the people of China, Japan
and India are heathen savages is very erroneous. Their upper
classes include some splendid characters of truly noble manhood,
the moral and intellectual peers of Americans and Europeans.
Indeed, the masses of these people are less vicious and rude; more
kind and considerate than those of Europe and America. Drunken-
ness and immodesty are almost unknown amongst the Orientals.**

The earliest symbol of the Phallic cult, and, in fact, the earliest
religious symbol of any kind yet discovered was found in a bone-cave
near Venice, and is described in the “ Moniteur ’* of January 7, 1865.
It is the form of a clay slab on which was engraved the rude drawing
of a Phallus.

There had been formed over this relic a floor of stalagmite built
up by the slow deposition of lime salts by the action of water on
the surrounding lime-stone, and the engraved tablet was accom-
panied by a bone needle, flint implements, and the remains post-
tertiary animals; and the thickness of the deposited layers proved
that those Phallic emblems must date back hundreds of thousands
of years.

Phalli of Lapis Lazuli, agate, diorite, magnesite and baked clay
have been found in the lower strata of excavations at Lachish in
Palestine, Nippur and Tell Loh in Babylonia, at Gnosos, and, in
fact, in the most ancient city sites all over the world.

Schliemann discovered Phalli in abundance in the debris of
archaic cities, 40 feet below the site of ancient Troy, and all primi-
tive temple-sites yield those emblems of worship.

Such rude cuttings of Phalli are common in every part of the
world, and even down to historic times were cut on grave-stones,
to indicate the re-creation of life, or resurrection.

I have met with samples in Scotland, in the valley of the Fruin,
Dumbartonshire, and elsewhere, and they have been found in
Yorkshire and other parts of England.

On asking a shepherd the meaning of the rude chisselling which
is represented here (Fig. 2), he said that probably the man buried
there had been a tailor, and the engraving represented a pair of
 30   CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

scissors. In that case so numerous were the symbols, a large part
of the population must have been engaged in sartorial operations.
The same ignorance is displayed in India, where the altar here
shown (Fig. 3) is the only religious symbol to be found in many
private houses and temples, and is, in fact, the Hindoo altar. It is
called the Lingam-yoni in Hindostani; yet if you were to tell a

n

Cj

Fig. 2

peasant that it represented the male and female organ, a Lingam
and a Yoni, in the creative act, he would be astonished and deny
it. It is to him merely a sacred symbol, the Great God the Maha
Deva.   g-j 0

The educated natives of India know, and freely acknowledge,
the true signification of their altar.

This Indian symbol is one that has come down to us unchanged
from very early times, and it was adopted by the Egyptians as one
of the earliest conventional symbols of eternal life, and, in fact,
adopted as the crown of their kings. The transformation may be
seen in the following figures: Numbers 4, 5 and 6 show the varia-
tions of the Indian Lingam Yoni altar. No. 7, the Pschent or.
double crown of Egypt, is simply No. 6 of the altar without the
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

31

pedestal, and adapted to fit the head. It was modified as in 8,
9. and 10.

No. 10 is always declared by historians to be a Phallic emblem,
and so it is, but not so clearly as Phallic, No. 7, which is bi-sexual
or omphallic, male and female; while No. 10 is simply phallic—
representing the male only, though it still retains a line A-B, indicat-
ing the Yonic edge of the original bi-sexual altar, as at A-B, Nos.
5 and 10.

Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig 8 Fig. 9 Fig 10

The sun was also held as a symbol of life-giving, and of the
eternal god, but man’s body was always nearer and dearer to him
than the sun, and the sexual facts were more interesting to him
than the motions of the heavenly bodies, so man, in the dawn of
his philosophic speculations, found a symbol to represent creation,
reproduction, and the continuation of life in eternity, in terms of
his own bodyj.
 CHAPTER III—PHALLISM

PHALLISM IN INDIA

As the earliest Phallic symbol has been found in Europev so the
purest form of the cult has been found in India.

India is especially interesting to the student of religion* as in
that country there may be found, at the present day, devotees of
every phase of religion, from the earliest Phallic cult to the highest
and most etherialised form of religious belief.

The purest form of Phallism which existed in India is found
in the sculptures in the temples of Elephanta, an island near Born*
bay, lately visited by our King on his tour in India.

These show that the cult then practised was one of pure sex
worship in no way etherealised.

The sculptures, which will not bear publication for general
readers, represent the actual worship and enjoyment of the male
and female organs of the celebrants by each other, and nothing
is reduced to symbolical or conventional representation.

In these early times the sexual act was looked upon as the
“Great sacrifice,” or “sacred act,” as sacrifice means making
sacred, or doing a sacred act. Holy women, represented in modern
times by nuns, were retained, and their lives dedicated to this
religious exercise.

When devotees practised the “Great Sacrifice” in these religious
houses, payments were made to the priest for the maintainance
of the Temples. “ Holy Woman ” is a title given to those who
devote their bodies to be used for hire, the money goes to the
temple,” says Mrs. Gamble in “ Sex in Religion.”

To this day in India, the harlot has a privileged and semi-
religious position, and temple girls are still called Palaki, from the
feminine of Pala, the male organ, as the female god is called
Devaki, from the male Deva.

In later times, the fertility side of religion is represented by
sculptures which are much less direct in their indication of Phallism.
One may see in the sculptured Stupas (miniature representation of
temples) on the Grand stair-case of the British Museum, the conven-
tional forms in which the cult is depicted,—a favourite method there
illustrated being the emphasising of the mammary and other
feminine attributes of the nude women portrayed in the act of
adoring the trisul or conventional Phallus.
 CHRISTIANITY

33

The Phallic cult in India became personified in the Brahmin
gods Siva, as representing the male reproductive energy, the Lingah
or Phallus; and Vishnu, as representing the female, the Yoni or
Womb.

These gods are worshipped wherever Buddhism has travelled,
and in India, Burmah, Indo-China, Tibet, China, and Japan there
must still exist three or four hundred millions who actively practice
these Phallic religions. It must not be supposed that the Phallic
symbolism is merely viewed as an echo of the past, it is actively
practised by the people, and is fully explained and inculcated by
living Brahmins.

There is little of this cult in the Vedas, the sacred Brahminical
books, which, although very mystical, teach a more Mirophillic
cult, and it is most probable that the Aryans derived this cult from
the aboriginal Dravidians, whom they conquered on entering India.

This shows the hold such a cult has on humanity when a higher
race adopts it from a lower. But this will be seen to be always the
case, the mere poetic and philosophical religions had to adopt the
superstitions held by the lower people in order to get a hearing for
their higher ideas.

As I have said, the practice of the Phallic rites as a religion has
always been the basis of the religion of the people of India, and
examples are given us by the late Dr. J. Campbell Oman, who has,
from actual experience drawn for us such valuable and accurate
pictures of the state of religion in India in his various books to which
1 shall refer. His works will be of inestimable value to students of
religions, when education has rendered impossible the practice of
the popular cults of the people.

Religion, in all countries, exists on two planes, the upper is that
of the priests and philosophic thinkers, the lower is that of the
people. The upper one may change with the advent of every new
philosopher or saint, while the lower one is the real religion, and
persists through the ages.

In his books on India Dr. Oman has given us very full accounts
of both religious worlds, and in retailing all the discussions and
creations of new sects, the one point most clearly brought out is,
that arr^dst all the attempts to introduce a philosophical religion,
the masses cling to the old, old practices and superstitions, and the
new sect is soon found worshipping the old mysteries much on the
old lines.

L. W. King, of the British Museum, in his " Gnostics/* says:
99 In religion there is no new thing, the same ideas are worked up
over and over again/9

D
 34

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

The most revered teachers, feeling the great tragedy of life on
earth, ending in suffering, decay, and dissolution, sought some
plausible explanation of the riddle of existence which confronted
them, in its appalling and majestic silence. They based their views
of the universe on the idea always existing in India, but clearly
proclaimed on the banks of the Ganges thirty centuries ago.
“ They who see but one in all the changing manifoldness of this
universe, unto them belongs Eternal Truth, unto none else, unto
none else.”

They therefore held that all the infinite variety and complication
was due to the misleading impressions which man obtained through
his senses, and, to arrive at absolute truth, the '* Mya ” or illusion
of the senses must be disregarded, and the mind turned inwards so
as to get at the reality behind the scenes.

As no man reached this perfection in one life, there were
postulated two principles or tenets—” Samsara ” or metem-
psychosis, and “ Karma ” or the development up or down of a
soul passing through its successive incarnations. By severe
aceticism and introspective communion the soul may be raised to
such purity as to rejoin the Infinite Spirit from which it springs; but,
failing that, it suffers reincarnation till finally purified.

Such is the theoretical belief. What is the practice of the
Hindoo people? There are a great variety of sects, but they all
come more or less under the following groups:—

(1)   Saivas, worshippers of Siva, Lingam worshippers.

(2)   The female side of Saivas, Saktas, Yoni worshippers, who

adore the wives or mistresses of Siva-Devi, Donga, and
Kali.

(3)   Vishnavas or Vishnuvas, worshippers of the god Vishnu.

Worshippers of the female or Yoni.

These groups contain sub-divisions. For instance, Dr. Oman
writes that the Hindoo ascetic sects of sivaites contain the following
typical examples amongst the bewildering confusion of sects:—

(A)   Sivas or Saivas   divided   into 7   principal sects.

(B)   Vaishnavas   ,,   ,,   6   ,, ,,

(Q   Sikhs   ,.   „   3   „

but the Sanyasis, one of the seven Sivas sects, who are also known
as Gosains or Benares, are themselves divided into ten groups, all
named, so we see there may be hundreds of sects even in one section
of Hindooism. (" Mystics, Ascetics, and Saints of India," p. 109.)

” Siva,” Dr. Oman says. ” is usually worshipped under the im-
personal symbol of the Phallus or Lingam, an undoubtedly very
ancient Oriental cult, though not confined exclusively to the East.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

35

The spiritualisation, exaltation, and even deification of natural
desire, of the sexual instinct, in fact, has been, in the East, from
the earliest times, an object of certain sect^founders, impressed,
no doubt, and fascinated by the mystery of generation “ (Oman,

p. no.)

Siva is always accompanied by his “Phallic Bull” (Fig. 17).
Vishnu is generally represented by Krishna and his wives and
mistresses. -“The legends revel in the sensuous details of his
various amours with the * gopis * or milkmaids, amongst whom the
most favoured was Radha, a married woman, passionately devoted
body and soul to her divine lover. Their loves, not unmixed with
jealousies and tears, as sung by the poets of India, have met with
ecstatic appreciation, while an attempt has been made by the more
sober-minded to cover their unblushing carnality under a
diaphanous veil of devotional mysticism. Whither all this dallying
would inevitably lead the frailer devotees does not need to be
explained. (Oman, “ The Mystics, Ascetics, and Saints of India,”
P- 119.)

The followers of Vishnu are especially worshippers of the female
reproductive energy, and they have as gods or sacred objects the
Conch shell (Fig. 31), and the Chatta (Fig. 14), both emblematical
of the Yoni.

The Saktas are purely worshippers of the female organs, and
this cult is one of the extreme Omphallism, leading to the practise
of sexual acts, such as, we shall see, were practised by the early
Christians.

At first sight it is curious to note that the gods of all Phallic
religions, in which character the god represents creation and life,
are also as universally worshipped as the Destroyer.

“ In India this is accounted for by the endless round of births
and deaths, to which, according to the doctrine of metempsychosis,
all sentient beings are subject and it is easy for the mystic to see
in the destruction only the precursor of renewed existence. (“ The
Mystics, Ascetics, and Saints of India,” p. III.)

The Hindoos have several sacred books, which are the
authorities for Lingam worship, viz.:—The Skanda, Siva Brah-
manha, and Linga pur anas. The legand of Kali with her tongue
out, standing on the prostrate body of her husband, and attributed
to her excitement after killing a dangerous giant, is explained in
its true esoteric meaning in the Scriptures known as the Tantras,
but the explanation is far too obscene for general publication.

Dayanand. the founder of the Arya Samaj (see p. 44), a re-
formed, monotheistic, non-idolatrous sect,” had no sooner opened
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

a copy of one of the sacred Tantras, than he was .astonished at the
nature of its contents. They were so obscene, so utterly sub-
versive of the moral and social relations which have existed between
one member and another of a family, and between one member
and another of society at large, that no one, not absolutely and
hopelessly depraved and debased, could help recofling at the bare
contemplation of what they taught."

The Sakta is divided into three sub-sects.

(1)   Dakshinachari, or " right-handed" Saktas. (" Right-
handed is a euphemism for the worship of the male symbol, or
the Lingam. See p. 48, this oolume.)

(2)   Bamachari, " left-handed" Saktas. (" Left-handed"
indicates worshippers of the female emblem or Yoni. See p. 47,
Fig. 13).

(3)   Knowls, or extreme Saktas. ('* Cults, Customs and Super-
stitions of India,” pp. 5 and 133.)

Dr. Oman says, " Of these secret rites, unseemly and unsavoury
though they be, it is necessary that I should now state something
more definite, if my reader is to be in a position to understand the
real inwardness of the Hindu religion, as it exists in Bengal, and
therefore I reluctantly venture to record the following particulars.

" For the purpose of Tantric worship, eight, nine, or eleven
couples of men and women meet by appointment at midnight.
All distinctions of casts, rank, and kindred being temporarily
suspended, they go through prescribed religious ceremonies, set up
a nude woman, adorned only with jewels, as representative of
Sakti (the female energy), worship her with strange rites, feast
themselves and give themselves over to every imaginable excess.
During these orgiastic religious rites, every man present is, accord-
ing to their pantheistic notions, Siva himself, and every woman
there none other than Siva’s consort." (“ The Brahmans Theists
and Muslims of India,” p. 27.)

Fuller information of these rites and the setting at naught of
all bonds and of promiscuous intercourse like the early Christians,
may be had from various books.

(1)   The Rev. W. Ward, “ A View of the History, Literature,
and Religions of the Hindus," (pp. 152, 153, and 232, 234.)

(2)   Professor H. H. Wilson, " Essays on the Religion of the
Hindus " (Vol. /., pp. 254-263).

(3)   Professor Sir Monier Williams, “ Religious Thought and
Life in India " (pp. 191, 192).

(4)   Rev. W. G. Wilkins, “ Modem Hinduism ” (pp. 94, 95).
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

37

(5)   Doctor J. N. Battercharjee, “ Hindoo Castes and Sects ”
(pp. 407-413.)

(6)   Asiatic Researches: Wilson on Hindoo Sects, and Ward
on Vaishnaves {p. 309).

(7)   S. C. Dutt, *' India, Past and Present.’*

(   Atkinson’s “Himalayan Tribes.” (Bengal Royal Asiatic
Soc. Journ. /,, p. 84.)

(9)   Sellous’s Annotation of Abbe Dubois* “ India.”

Besides these, numerous accounts, all nearly identical, are
scattered through the proceeding of societies and many French
authors.

Such practices were by no means confined to private meetings.
At the Holi festival, described after actual witnessing it, by Dr.
Oman, one can see the Phallic cult as a living religion at the present
day.

Dr. Oman says very truly : “ In all parts of the world are known,
or have been known joyous festivals—saturnalia, carnivals, and
what not—coincident annually with seed-time and harvest, or per-
haps, more correctly, with the equinoxes and solstices; and what-
ever myth these festivals may be associated with, they are none
the less the natural outcome of the effect of the seasons on the
emotions and passions of men. Everywhere men have experienced
annually the quickening effects of the spring renew within them-
selves the mysterious wonder of creation and the joy of reproduc-
tion, and under this spell the more emotional races have given way
to unrestrained mirth and debauchery, casting aside for the moment
all the ordinary conventions, often even the decencies and moralities
of life. The Holi is such a festival, being a true expression of the
emotions of the Hindu East at spring-time, when the warm sun
which bronzes the cheek of beauty, also subtly penetrates each
living fibre of the yielding frame, awakening with his mellowing
touch sensuous dreams, soft desires, and wayward passions, which
brook no restraint, which dread no danger, and over which this
metaphysical people readily throw the mantle of their most com-
prehensive and accommodating creed. It is difficult for a non-
Hindu to enter into the feelings and ideas of a people who call all
things by their real names without euphemistic disguises, who use
naked words to describe natural processes and functions, who,
while dreaming warm dreams of sexual gratification, love to
speculate about the soul and the All-soul, till steeped in the
mysticism and occultism of pantheistic philosophy, they revel in
the orgies of the * Holi Festival.’ ”

The Holi Festival is described as follows:—'* It was the season
 3d

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

of the vernal equinox. Since early morning all the streets of Lahore
had been astir, presenting a peculiarly bacchanalian appearance.
Hundreds and hundreds of men and women were moving about in
garments besmirched with wet daubts of pink or yellow colour;
their faces often disfigured with patches of red and purple powder.
Rude fun, a sort of dishevelled gaiety, prevailed on all sides, accom-
panied with laughter and foul words not seriously meant to hurt,
nor apparently giving much offence, though couched in terms of
quite primitive indecency. And this had been the prevailing
condition of the streets and lanes of the city for several days.

** All along the principal thoroughfares the crowd kept gradually
increasing, and through the idle throngs of men, women, and
children, of lean oxen, sacred bulls, and mangy street dogs, I
threaded my devious way as well as I could, being bound for a
house in the street known as the/Machhwa Bazaar, or Fish Market.
As 1 went along, every flat house-top, every window, every balcony
was crowded with both sexes, all ranks, all classes, and all ages.

“ Presently having reached my destination, I was provided with
a seat in the elevated balcony of a Hindu merchant’s house, and
there, at leisure, surveyed with interest the striking scene before
me, which was certainly not without quaint picturesqueness, a
characteristic rarely absent from the streets of Lahore with their
tall houses and highly artistic carved balconies. .   . One glance,

and it was evident that some at least of the usually sedate and
orderly Hindu people were indulging in unrestrained licence, while
the rest were looking on appreciatively under the influence of a
strange, almost incomprehensible blending of religious mysticism
and exuberant voluptuousness, born of the warm breath of spring
in this Eastern land.

“ Three loud instruments, discoursing from their brazen throats
an excruciating travesty of European music, led the way. Imme-
diately behind the musicians was a young fellow on horseback,
dressed up as a bridegroom (see pp. 44-45), attended by rowdy com-
panions, who sang, or rather shouted lustily, rhymes of flagrant
indecency. As they sang and gesticulated in corybantic style, they
addressed themselves pointedly to the occupants of the windows
and balconies, aiming at them their ribald shafts of buffoonery and
coarse indecencies, too gross for reproduction or description.

" In the wake of the bridegroom followed a small litter, behind
whose flapping screens the bride was supposed to be concealed.**

(This is the old, old drama played ever since men noticed the
blooming of die earth on the return of the sun, and signifying die
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

39

marriage of earth and tun—bride and bridegroom, pp. 44 and 114.
Jesus is described as the bridegroom.]

Then followed a cart with a tub of blood-red water, and men
and boys squirting this dye on the people, in the street or at the
windows, those of the better classes being dad in old clothes in
anticipation of these rude attentions.

" Presently there came another huge cart freighted with that
incarnation of amorous passion Krishna (God is love). Krishna
himself and four or five of the gopis (milkmaids or rather herds-
women), who shared his wandering affections. The god and his
favourites were personated by a handsome young man and some
frail if fair women of the town.”

[! have pointed out that such women have a semi-religious
position in the East. Krishna is the Hermes of India.]

” For a moment, the steady if very slow movement of the pro-
cession was interrupted by what looked like a scuffle in the mud of
the street, but on closer inspection it turned out to be a gross
exhibition of indecency perpetrated by mimes under the approving
eyes, and, I believe, at the suggestion of two native policemen.

‘‘ The crowd surged on in a sort of intoxicated fanaticism of
licentiousness. As hundreds passed along, other hundreds followed,
equally bent on diffusing the immoral contagion.

” From the streets and street-doors, from the windows, the
balconies, and the fiat house-tops, eager onlookers watched the
mean and tawdry procession, and listened with open ears to the
libidinous songs or catches which, from time to time, filled the
air, as one party after another passed along the road, halting here
and there, under native police direction, to give the preceding
parties time to move on.

“ Nearly all the women spectators had their faces unveiled, and
with the girls and boys listened eagerly to the licentious rhymes
shouted by the bands of revellers who passed along. Here and
there a woman, a trifle more modest or more affected than the
others, would draw her chaddar partially over her face to conceal
it from view. One of them I particularly remember on her
picturesque carved balcony close by, as she displayed the whole
of a lovely bare arm in the act of slightly adjusting her veil to half
hide a pretty face from the too ardent eyes of some rude fellow in
the crowd below.

“ But other bridegrooms appeared, other gods took part in the
procession. Even the chief of the gods, Mahadeva, was personated
by a whitened man in a yellow flowing flax wig, a necklace of
 40

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

immense beads, and a trident in his hand. Beside him sat his
mountain bride Parvati.

[Note the Trident, a universal Phallic symbol as we shall see
in reviewing other religions. P. 24.]

"A group of youths, carried away by the excitement of the
occasion, insulted, or more correctly amused, the spectators by
perpetrating the grossest indecencies, aided by coarsely fashioned
mechanical toys of naked simplicity (Ruber Porrectus, p. 6/), and
their proceedings were not resented except by banter and abusive
words.”

This is followed by more crimson water and erotic songs or
rhymes (Song of Solomon) to stir up the passions of the multitude.
” The elephant-headed Ganesa,—God of Wisdom, another Maha-
deva and his consort, and another Amorous Krishna, added sanc-
tity to the scene.”

” Near the gods of Mount Meru (the Olympia or Zion of India)
was an open carriage occupied by a couple of courtezans and their
attendant musicians. Not far behind, on a sort of litter borne on
the shoulders of four men, appeared a singing-girl who delighted
the bystanders in a soft soprano voice with a song, apparently quite
to their taste, which she emphasised with not ungraceful movements
of her small hands. As she sang she showed her pretty French
shoes and fine stockings beyond the edges of her silken skirt, and
looked, 1 must own it, really attractive in her jewels and fine raiment
and her neatly arranged coiffure, plainly visible under her gauzy
chaddar.

” As spectators, all the Hindu world, and only the Hindu world
in its various grades was here, wife and family included.

” At last the tail of the interminable procession disappeared
down the street, taking with it the noisy discords, the crimson
water, the erotic songs, the complaisant gods and goddesses, and
the frail sopranos (Holy women), who had claimed our attention
and admiration.

” Did you observe,” I said to my companion, ” how that girl at
the window opposite was listening to the obscene songs, and
beating time with her fingers?”

He nodded assent.

” I think she is an educated woman, for I saw a book in her
hand.” (“Brahmans, Theists, and Muslims of India/9 p. 247.)

I have quoted the work of my friend the late Dr. Oman, as his
sketch is a true pen picture of what went on in every land which
had a religion, as we will presently see, and I quote it fully as it
will save repetition in the description of such festivals in all lands,
even in Italy of the present day, under the august Roman Church.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

41

Forlong says in his “ Faith of Man,” under ” Lingam," “The
* Ruber Porrectus ’ of Horace was imitated by the Phalli of red
leather worn by clowns and actors (according to Suidas, who calls
them ‘ Ithyphallic ’) much as they are worn by Hindus at the Holi
fete to-day.” Ithyphallic is the adjective applied to all gods ex-
hibiting pronounced creative power by an erect Phallus.

It is curious that our own word “ Comedy ” was derived from
the same practices in Ancient Greece.

Professor Ward says, ” In rural Bacchic vintage festivals bands
of jolly companions (Komos properly a revel continued after
supper) went about in carts and on foot carrying the Phallic emblem,
and indulging in the ribald licence of wanton mirth. From the
songs sung in these processions or at the Bacchic feasts which com-
bined the praise of the god with gross personal ridicule, and was
called Comos in a secondary sense, the Bacchic reveller in taking
part in it was called a Comos, singer, or Comoedus (comedy).

" These Phallic processions which were afterwards held at
Athens as in all Greek cities, imparted their character to old Attic
Comedy, whose essence was personal vilification." (” Encyc.
Brit. VII.. 404, C and D, 10th Ed.)

This is identical with the practices in India and at Palermo
to-day (p. 95.)

That is what happened in all lands and in all religions, and
even in our own “ Holy Writ," which we shall see was so Phallic
that the Rabbis gave what Milton calls this ” insulse rule ” out of
their Talmud:—” That all words which in the law me written
obscenely, must be changed to more civil words.” ” Fools,” says
Milton, ” who would teach men to read more decently than God
thought good to write ” (Apology for Smectymnus’ Work*, P- 84.)

This exchange of words hew gone on in Holy Writ till grave
statements are turned into nonsense, and the obscene text rendered
unintelligible. Euphemisms may be traced in the case of “head,”
” foot,” " thigh,” “ heel,” " hand,” ” toe,” in place of Phallus, and
” Groves ” in place of the Lingam Yoni. Scholars’ researches into
Holy Writ show that Isaiah vii. 7, should read—” And behind
the door and the post thou hast placed thy sexual altar, and apart
from me thou hast uncovered and erected, thou hast enlarged thy
bed, and obtained a connection with them; thou hast loved their
bed, thou hast beheld the Phallus.”

That is all that can be made' of the text so much has it been
disguised.

An act was passed by Lord Dalhouaie to repress obscenity in
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[Prometheus]

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

In<iia, but owing to this obscenity being a part of the people’s
religion, there was inserted a clause excepting all temples and
religious emblems from its special operation. Otherwise the
Hindu practices and altars would have been suppressed.

Dr. Oman tells us that in spite of these Phallic rites, the
morality of the Indian wife, and the respect in which she is held are
higher than those of most countries.

In the “ Keys of the Creeds ” (pp. 347, 348) the author upholds
the Phallic Creeds, as well suited to early humanity.

Forlong, in his “ Faiths of Man ” or “ Dictionary of Religions,”
gives the following account of the Sakta worship, which, as I have
explained, is the feminine side of Sivaism, the mistress of Siva-
Devi,—Durga and Kali,—being also worshipped, even including
Krishna’s dairymaids or shepherdesses.

” The Sakti is the female energy of God, in Hindu systems
answering to the Phoenician Peni (face, or manifestation, or Phallus)
as in Peni-Baal a name of Ashtoreth (Babylon Venus) or Peni-el the

*   appearance ’ of God (Peni-Phallus).

” Hence the Saktis are the patronesses of material production,

and their rites are grossly naturalistic............Sakti means

conjuction. The Sakti sects are numerous and undefined, and their
secret rites celebrate the worship of the goddess personified by a
naked girl, who is supposed to be in a state of hypnotic trance, and
unconscious of what occurs, who is called a Yogini or female Yoga
(naked wandering ascetic), or otherwise a Kund (from Kunti the
Yoni) or Panth personifying the Yoni.”

” The rites .   .   . are found in the licentious portions of the

Tantras which treat of the worship of Kama-Devi, the goddess of
love, and are older than any of the Pur anas, the sacred books of
the Brahmans, the extant copies dating to about 700 A.D.

” They teach that all natural passions are good, and that
pleasure should be made as exquisite as possible for the Vira or

*   strong man,’ who is not a Paca or mere tame beast. The Yogini
of these Sakti rites may be a sudri (4th. great Caste) or Brahmani
or a dancing girl, or milkmaid, for caste is set aside.

”A Brahman may preside, but, the lowest pariah is admitted,
the rites are celebrated at night and all are bound by vows of
secrecy. The leader may sometimes select his own wife as the
goddess. .   .   . The girl though naked is covered with jewellery

and is afterwards richly rewarded. She is incensed and decked
with flowers.

”On the second night another Yogini is adored by an equal
number of men and women all being naked. The Saktis are Siva
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

43

worshippers and call themselves either Dakshin-Acharis or Bam-
Archaris, right or left hand Acharis (right hand being Lingam, and
left hand being Yoni worshippers), but these distinctions are
gradually growing faint.”

The Sakti worship of the naked girl is simply Yoni worship of
the Kunti, or wife of God, and its rites are ostensibly rites to secure
power against evil spirits, or to bring luck. This word, Kunthos, is
in Greek Cynthus (K. and C. being the same, and U. and Y. also),
and Cynthus is a goddess of Fecundity. It signifies ” wife ” or wife
of god in India, as Kunti is the wife of the sun and is derived from
the ” Kunda ” sacred well. All those words mean Yoni.

This worship of the Yoni is still most widely, though un>
consciously, practised in Great Britain.

Everyone who ” nails up ” or hangs up a horse’s shoe for luck
or adoration, (as everything placed high is adored), is a true Yoni
worshipper, although those who practise it are quite unconscious
of the sources of their actions or the true meaning of the symbol
they employ. The horse’s or ass’s shoe is the emblem of the
female organ all over the world.

We find that the worship of the Yoni, exactly as carried out
to-day in India, was prominently sculptured at the doors of Irish
churches up till the end of the 18th century (pp. 88 and 96).

Colonel Forbes Leslie, in his ” Early Races,” says that
?” superstition clung to the symbol so hallowed by antiquity and
even impressed it on the Christianity by which it (Paganism) was
superseded, and this to such an extent that the horse shoe was
inserted in the pavement, or its figure sculptured on the entrance
to churches in Britain that were built a thousand years after the
introduction of Christianity ” just as the actual organ, displayed
by a naked man or woman, was sculptured on the pillars of the
doors of Irish churches to give luck or to keep off the ” evil eye,”
up till the eighteenth century (p. 96).

The yokel grinning through the horse collar, so prevalent in
Shakespear’s day, was the same sign. Thus the faiths of our
ancestors linger with us, and, though only followed in a degraded
way, are extremely persistent; and the horse-shoe is a universal
emblem of die Yoni, or good luck, in all countries and may be
seen in England over or on all doors even to those of the ganger’s hut
on the railway, or on some obscure door or outhouse, and in nearly
every English home, and finally, decorated with ribbons, in the
young gurl’s boudoir or bedroom/

We shall see this when we come to study Phallism in Britain.

This desire for the worship of the nude, or to assume a condition
 44

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES,

of nudity when engaged in worship, is a sentiment very deeply
rooted in humanity, and can only show itself in Europe openly
by the worship of nudity in art or in dancing exhibitions,
which were originally religious, when as much of the body
as the law will allow is exposed to the public gaze. Even
the conventionalities of our ball-rooms demand some sacrifice
of the modesty of the ladies to the worship of Aphrodite. The
concessions to Mrs. Grundy introduced by the English Government
in India have always been resisted by the natives, and Dr. Oman
tells us, on the authority of the Times of India,” 12th August,
18%, that ” a few years ago an application was made to the high

Fig. II

court at Bombay to cancel an order of the District Magistrate pro-
hibiting the Gosavis, a religious sect of mendicants, from walking
in procession naked, and then bathing at Nasik as a religious duty
during the Sinhasta festival. In support of this appeal it was urged
by the petitioners that bathing naked had always been allowed at
Hardwar and Allahabad.” Religious frenzy and eroticism are in-
extricably linked in all countries.

Dr. Oman also describes the rites of the worship of Zahir-pir, a
decorated pole, a custom as we shall see common all over the world
and familiar to us as the May-pole, which is really a worship of the
Phallus. When this was earned out with a real model of the male
organ it was always decorated with gay ribbons as is die May-pole,
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

45

Asher, Grove, or Phallus. Now the symbol is only a modern
pole or mast, but they, the Hindus, have added a head dress such
as is only worn by the bridegrooms on the wedding day to indicate
the true nature of the pole.

Hie sanctity of nudity (p. 87) is well illustrated in the photo-
graph of a most earnest and moral reformer, Dayanand, who was
indignant at the Phallic worship (pp. 35-36), and is the founder of the
Arya Somaj. Yet this moral and religious reformer,—honestly
trying to inculcate a spiritual conception of the Maha Deva or Great
God,—would probably find few followers if he. did not practice
nudity. (Fig. 11.)

Fig. 12

Both his hands are engaged in making the sign of the Yoni or
Om, so his religion is Phallic. The word Om, the Great Mother
of the Gods, repeated continually is also a great means of attaining
sanctity. Om means the universal Womb or Yoni (p. 23).

Here again is another (Fig. 12), showing that nudity is only a
partial expression of the Phallic cult in India. Dr. Oman says, *' I
expressed a wish to take a photograph of him and his followers (a
group of Sadus or Yogis led by a Sanyasi and his consort a Sanyasin)
and although he did not wish to be impertinent he offered to have
himself taken in a most objectionable and unseemly attitude which
 46

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

would demonstrate his virility to the greatest advantage.*' After
some trouble a photograph was obtained, but as will be seen the
Sadhu managed to express his cult in his own way after all. He is
also making the Yonic sign of Om, and by exposing the male organ
he is expressing the double-sexed or Omphallic sign twice. ('* The
Mystics, Ascetics and Saints of India,” p. 226.)

In a land where the Phallic cult has still such a hold on the affec-
tions of the people, weddings are of course taken advantage of as
a good occasion for the expression of the ideas to which the cult
gives rise. In our own country, amongst villages, we may often
see the same spirit called forth by a marriage.

Dr. Oman gives us a glimpse of the Indian procedure during
a marriage of one of his servants.

A canopy had been put up, and beneath stood erect a plough
(" Cults, Customs, and Superstitions, p. 269). The plough is a
Phallic sign. It fertilises the earth,—(marriage),—and makes it
bring forth abundantly; and is called the ” opener,” as were all
fruitful gods. Many Phallic Kings had a plough for a signature,
and it was a symbol for the Phallus. The signature of some of our
Indian Princes is a plough, and by this they indicate their position
as representing the creator on earth.

To return to the wedding. ” Songs were sung by women of the
party with the greatest gusto and enjoyment, and these songs are
simply outrageous in their grossness. They me not extemporized,
but are so framed that any names may be introduced into them.
The singers bring in any names they please, with the result that the
persons whose names are inserted find themselves accused before
the world, in the most undisguised language, of having committed
grossly immoral or even incestuous actions, and possibly the charges
may have some truth in them. Men, women, and even children
listen and laugh, but no one takes offence.” (“ Cults, Customs,
and Superstitions of India,” p. 273.)

And yet illegitimacy amongst a population bred in such
lascivious surroundings is very much more rare than in Bible-
fearing Scotland.

The reason is a curious one. We find it to be the universal
dogma that the Phallic creative or re-productive gods, overflowing
with energy, are also the destroyers, and Sivaites practise self-
torture and austerities (pp. 35 and 36). So, energetic nations prac-
tise austerities, but their very energy makes them constantly break'
the austere rules with which they torment themselves, hence Scot-
land had the most austere, terrible god, and religion, and the high-
est index of illegitimacy.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

47

I have dwelt somewhat fully on these observations of Dr.
Oman's, as they represent India at the present day, whereas other
eminent writers give illustrations of the past, and I wished especially
to bring home to my readers that the acts of Phallic worship, con-
demned by moral historians as perpetrated in Babylon, Nineveh,
Athens, and Rome, are still loved and actively practised at the
present day by hundreds of millions of our fellow subjects.

Both sexes have special patron gods and modes of worship.
Siva is the god of the Phallic, male, or “right-hand” sects, and
Vishnu is the God of the Yonic, female, or “left-hand” sects.
This nomenclature arose from the bisexual ideas as expressed in

India in the figure called Ardha-nari-lswara, illustrated by Forlong
and by the learned Baboo, Rajendralala Mitra in his “ Antiquities
of Orissa.” Major-General Forlong gives Rajendralala’s drawing
of this androgynous being which is copied here, but instead of the
two sexual organs, the ankh, or handled cross, their combined
symbol is shown [Fig. 13].

The Mitra Rajendralala says that Ama or Uma (#>. 23), the Great
Virgin Mother of the Universe, Alma Mater, is the same as all the
queens of the gods. “ The Mother of God of the Mariolators
(Roman Catholic) is no other than she.” “She, Uma, is equal to
the Godhead, because Creation cannot be accomplished without
her.” ( “Antiquities of Orissa,” 1., p. 147.)
 46

CHRISTIANITY : THE SOURCES

“ The eight divine mothers of the Tantras are invariably repre-
sented each with a child in her lap, and are the exact counterparts
of the Virgin and Child of European art. Thus, Uma is the same
with Maya, Sakti, and Prakriti of the Hindus, and with 10, Astarte,
Ishtar, Semiramis, Sara, Mylitta, Maia, Mary, Miriam, Morwen,
Juno, Venus, Diana, Artemis, Aphrodte, Hera, Rhea, Cybele,
Cynthia, Ceres, Eve, Terra, Frigga, etc., of other nations every-
where, representing the female principle in creation. She is equal
to the godhead, because creation cannot be accomplished without
her, and she is greater than God because she sets him into action.
Maya is the power which disturbs the eternal calm repose of the
Godhead, and excites him into action, and is, therefore his energy
or power or spirit (Sakti).

"This is the ‘Holy Ghost* of Christianity, which puts the
Godhead into action, and is called in the Hebrew Scriptures
* Ruach,’ and is a female, and represented by a dove, the universal
symbol of the Queen of Heaven.

" By herself Uma is a maiden or mother, united with the God-
head she produces the Androgynous figure of Ardha-Narisvara, the
left half of a female joined along the Median line to the right half
of a male figure. Hence the * right * and ‘ left handed * cults. The
symbol of the male element of the God-head is the lingam, sym-
bolised by posts, trees, pillars, spears, upright or piercing things
in general (see pp. 26-27), and that of the female element of the
God-head is the Yoni, which appears in art as the crescent, the
star, the circle, the oval, the triangle, the dove, the ark, the ship,
the fish, the chasm, the cave, various fruits, trees, and a host of
other hollow forms or vessels alike among the Hindus, the Egyp-
tians, and the mystics of Europe.**

That Matriarchy and a mother of the Gods were the earlier
concept is upheld in the new 1911 edition of the " Encyc. Brit.,"
by Hogarth, Vol. I., p. 247, " The dead who returned to the Great
Mother,** and Frazer writes of " the time when under the matri-
archate, the priestess was the agent for the performance of all
religious ceremonies.'* (“Adonis, Attis Osiris1907, p. 41.) v

"The union of these symbols with those of the male principle
produces the innumerable cabalistic symbols, talismans, amulets,
and mystical diagrams which have deluded mankind for ages, and
still occupy so prominent a place in the history of religion. The
Lingam and Yoni united, is the form in which Siva appears most
frequently in India, and js best known (as the altar) in our temples.
It should be noticed, however, that in the more ancient temples
the ‘upright,* or the emblem of the male principle, is alone met
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

49

[Prometheus]

with, as at Benares.” The feminine was of no account in some
early or backward races like the Hebrews (pp. 165 and 225-228).

As will be seen this figure stands on a lotus which was every-
where adopted as a symbol of fertility, or an “ Omphallic ” symbol,
the seed vessel as the womb and the bud as the Phallus. The
Lotus is a very fertile plant, and the seeds germinate in the seed
vessel and are ” born ” alive, and hence it became the dual symbol
of fertility.

Thus, while the right hand sect worshipped posts, pillars, ser-
pents, and tortoises, in fact, all upright things which erected and
extended themselves, the left hand sects worshipped all hollow
things, openings, loops, rings, ovals, horse’s or ass’s shoes, etc.

In Fergusson’s “Tree and Serpent Worship” (p. 479) will be
seen a pure example of the left hand sect’s worship of the Yoni
[Fig. 14]. Hung on the branches of trees is a curious loop exactly

like a horse collar, a symbol which evidently puzzled Fergusson, but
its real nature as a symbol of the Yoni is shown by its being pierced
by a lotus bud [as at A, Fig. 14], which, in all Eastern countries, is
the symbol of the Phallus, the two forming the bisexed symbol.
Fergussofr gives it no name, but others call it Chatta. One can see
from this why the horse collar was used as the symbol, and its
mention amongst ” horsey ” men or farmers often provokes a
, laugh. The Systrum is the same symbol. Its character is shown
without doubt by its being suspended in front of the females like
the fig-leaf (p. 80).

Besides the Lingam-Yoni altars in temples, there are throughout
India to-day enormous numbers of public shrines where the Phallus
is worshipped, and where it can be anointed or refreshed, as shown
by Forlong [Figs. 15-16]. The Banyan tree is peculiarly sacred,
owing to its enormous spread, fitting it for a shady meeting-place
or temple. ” The tree is called the retreat beloved of gods and

E
 50

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

men, and when edtfaping from the furious rage of another but a
later god (the sun) the weary pilgrim, labourer, or traveller, throws
himself down for rest to body, eye, and soul, amidst the cool
green darkness of the grove ” (“ Rivers of Life,” /., p. 31).

Here, then, was mam's first church, and Forlong shows, in a
sketch from nature, what were the gods worshipped there. [See
the rudely-formed Phalli under the tree in Fig. 15.] Here we have
Phallic worship in its earliest form, still preserved for us to this day
in public practice in India, the ” Mother of Religions.”

That to this day the Lingam, and Lingam-in-Yoni are worshipped
in the open air as the Great God (Maha-deva) is shown by the altar
here depicted [Fig. 16]. This represents the anointing of a Lingam-
in-Yoni combination ; and Forlong says, ” they may be counted by
scores in a day’s march all over Northern India, and especially at

Ghats or river ferries or crossings of every stream or road ; for,” asks
Forlong, “ are they not Hermae ?” [The statues of Hermes erected
all over Greece, and especially ” Magna Grecia,” (Southern Italy),
were symbols of Phalli.] ” The vessel of water is pierced at the
foot, and into the little holes straws are thrust so as to direct a
constant trickle of water on to the sacred symbol. It is a pious act
constantly to renew the water from the most holy .springs, or better,
from the Ganges.” This is the anointing of the “pillar or stone
set up” so often practised by the “Old Testament fathers” (see
pp. 221 and 252). Even now in India ” it is not necessary to have
a carved Argha (or Yoni), nor a polished Maha-deva, (great God—
Lingam); the poor can equally please the Creator by clearing a little
spot, and merely setting up a stone of almost any unhewn shape.”
This anointing of the reproductive organ is shown by Payne
Knight in its original form on page 26 of his “ Worship of Priapus,”
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

51

which, however, cannot be produced here, (Plate 5, of my edition),
and Knight says, “ it is a figure of Pan represented pouring water
upon the organ of generation, that is invigorating the active creative
power by the prolific element upon which it acted; for water was
considered as the essence of the passive, as fire was the active,
the one being of Terrestial, and the other of setherial origin. The
pouring of water upon the sacred symbols is a mode of worship
very much practised by the Hindoos, particularly in their devotion
to the Bull and the Lingam.”

The Hindoos have a space for flooding their little Lingam-in-
Yoni altars with water, and Knight says, “ The areas of Greek
Temples, were, in like manner in some instance floated with water."

The square areas in the Hindoo altar, over which the lotus spreads,
and which surrounds the Lingam-in-Yoni altar, " were occasionally
flooded with water; which by a forcing machine was thrown in a
spout upon the Lingam." Water was thus considered the essence
of female principle of nature, and hence the Dolphin, or Delphin
from Delphys womb, an inhabitant of the ocean which was represen-
tative of all life, as not only representing fish (fecundity), but being
an air breathing, warm blooded animal, which suckles its young,
represented also all animal life. The great Greek shrine was called
Delphi, for the same reason, and its oracle was Idaia Mater, Mother
of all Knowledge.

I have here an illustration of the Lingam-in-Y oni altar introduc-
ing all the Phallic symbolism. (Fig. 17, from the Brit. Mus.] We
 52

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

have a column of life, a Lingam, surrounded by four heads repre-
senting Truth (which the Lingam represents in Egypt), Religion,
Matter, and Passion, and surrounded by the circle of Eternity re-
presented by a Serpent, or “ passion.*’ On the top of the Phallus
rests the lotus,—emblem of fertility,—while kneeling at the entrance
of the Yoni is the bull (male force), in an attitude of worship. This
attitude of the bull to the Yoni is the basis of Sakti worship.

I give here [Fig. 18] the commonest form of Lingam-Yoni altar,
showing the absolutely constant association of the serpent of desire
with the joint male and female symbols. And so, as in the first chap-
ter of Genesis, "Knowledge” (of life) only came after the sexual act,
and as knowledge was always associated with sexual desire (“Adam
knew Eve ”) the serpent became a symbol of wisdom, "Be ye wise

M«. 17

as serpents.’* The Greeks had this clearly expressed in their god
or goddess of wisdom Pallas, or Phallos, Philis and Philip loving
ones, Ph and P being equivalent and “a,” “u,” and “i,” being
used indifferently, as they are to-day even in English (p. 42). Anglo-
Indians write “ Burmah *’ or “ Barma,” “ Mohamedan ” or
” Mahamadan,” or *’ Bengal ” and •“ Bangal,” and so on, quite
indifferently.

“The serpent was wise,” says the writer of Genesis. Pallas
Athene was the Greek Lingam-Yoni deity, Pallas being a woman
endowed with male symbols and names. Athene is derived from
Thenen, Serpent, and the name Palias-Athen6 may be translated
" Phallus the seat of desire ” or “ wisdom.” The serpent was the
symbol in all countries for wisdom or knowledge and sexual passion.

The ancients considered man’s arrival at the age of puberty,
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

53

and at the years of discretion or knowledge as synonymous—the
age when he cut his “ wisdom ” teeth.

They were always treated as identical as in Genesis: Tree of
“ Knowledge.” Adam ” knew ” his wife. In the Sodomite story
of Lot, Genesis xix. 5 (repeated of a Levite at Judges xix. 22),
•“ knew ” is used in the sexual sense. The tree of ” Knowledge ”
was the source of “ shame.”

We have that idea still applied to temples; we speak of the
“Basilica” of Montmartre for instance, from Basileus, serpent.

Pallas was herself sexless or feminine, but she was the carrier
of the spear, symbolical of the masculine Phallus, and was thus

Fig. 18

Androgynous. In India we have the idea clearly portrayed by
two altars [Fig. 19 and 20], the first having symbols of Sun worship,
and the second expressing the Lingam idea. The central altar in
Fig. 19 is occupied by a many-headed serpent, i.e., desire and
passion or fire, which is also expressed by the sun which is portrayed
on the pillars and dome. The serpent rests on an Ark, thus form-
ing the bi-sexual symbol. The second [No. 201 is the worship of
the Lingam in a conventional form called the Trisool, a pillar con-
taining the symbols of a Lingam as a conventional tree of Life.
Here the many-headed serpents are transferred to two Queens of
Passion, while the attendants fan the flames of desire. The chest
 54

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

represents the Yoni or Womb, as do all chests, coffers, or arks, and
this is symbolised by the nudity of the attendant to the left of the
Lingam. This also forms the bi-sexual symbol with the ark on

Fig. 19

which it stands. This Trisool is the Tree of Life, and as we shall
see all primitive religions had a story of a Tree of Life in the midst
of a garden. The sacred garden is the Yoni, and the name of
Aphrodite, the Greek Love Goddess, has the same meaning as the
Persian or Sanskrit Paradesa, or garden.

Fig. 20

The *' Red *' one, Adam, who tills the garden, is the Lingam
or Phallus in all countries, and the sun is the “ Adam ” who tills
the earth in Spring represented by a plough, the earth being
feminine and bearing fruit. The sun is likened to a bridegroom
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

55

and the earth to a bride* and all the sons of the sun, or sons of
God, as bridegrooms, as was Jesus (pp. 38-39, 45, 114).

In the Persian Mirodox of Creation* the demiurge, or earth-
creating* working god* Yima, was given two implements, a ring
and a dagger (our egg and dart decoration of cornices), the symbols
of Yoni and Lingam (see 44 Bible Folk-lore,” p. 341), wherewith to
produce all life, men* beasts, and other riches. The ring was the
“ door ” or “ entrance ** to the garden containing all seeds. Yima’s
garden contained the seeds of creation.

As nations became more civilized, the symbols were modified
and conventionalised, and later on we will follow the steps of these
modifications. Phallic symbolism, like all other symbolisms which
depend on the imagination and are called forth by the mirophilic
sentiment in man, being under no control, wanders into all sorts
of curious fancies and emblems, leading to such a chaos of symbols,
that volumes could be and have been written, to unravel all the
tangled ideas of reproduction represented by those diverse symbols.

The lotus bud, flower, and seed vessel, are symbols one could
not suspect having a Phallic meaning, but they were the most
widely used of any Phallic symbols in the world, and are incor-
porated in all Temple and Church decoration as symbols of fertility.
In Egypt they are the basis of all church pillars and altars, as well
as decoration. This arose from the fact that the seed vessel does
not shed the seeds, but retains them until they form little plants,
roots, leaves, and all at the expense of the womb or seed vessel
of the mother plant, so they are nourished and born alive as human
children are. Hence the plant became the emblem of generation.
The whole plant, stem, buds, and leaves thus came to be venerated.
It gave rise to the triangular symbol of the Yoni, as the seed pod
seen edge-wise is a triangle, yet it also produced the circle symbol,
as the top of the seed pod, with all the little plants sprouting is a
circle, the favourite symbol of the universal Mother, O or Om
(pp. 45-46).

The buds, before they opened to flowers, were used as symbols
of the Lingam, as were the stems of the plant (see p. 73, Fig. 61).

Forlong especially shows us many of these bye-paths, but as
many are debatable and are sometimes dependent on philological
parallels for their elucidation, 1 shall not enter on the debatable
parts of this field but shall, in this volume, deal only with such
symbolism as is direct and unmistakable and admitted by all
authorities, including ancient writers who were witnesses of the
customs illustrated. The silent stone witnesses are perhaps the
best we have, and in passing we may compare the Phallic pillars in
many lands and have a glimpse of the widespread character of the
worship.
 56

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

PHALLIC SYMBOLISM OF BRITAIN AND OTHER LANDS

COMPARED.

To take our own country, we have the stone set up, according to our
exquisite literateur Thomas Hardy, O.M., in a well-known poem,
to mark the finding of the Pyx (itself a very Phallic emblem of life),
and it requires no description except this photograph to explain
what it represents. It stands in a very holy situation on Blackmoor
in Dorset, whence two seas are visible, namely, the English and
the Bristol Channels ; and the ancient sculptor has actually chosen
a shaded stone to give a real portrait of the Phallus. It is called
the Christ-in-hand (see p. 252). This is the ‘ ‘ Rock that begot
thee ” of Moses’ song in Deut. xxxii. 18, identified with “ Ale-im ”
and ” Yahweh,” ’* God ” and ’’ Lord ” of the Bible (pp. 153-155).

It must not be thought that these Phallic columns were un-
common in Britain. We have lengthy lists of such sacred columns
in antiquarian writings. Many have been destroyed or thrown
down, and some re-erected in a different form, others mutilated or
weather worn at the top, as this one shown in the photo; but where
investigation has been made it has been found that they were
Phallic columns such as an Indian sivaite would fall down and
worship to-day, and others simply represent the glans like the forms
the Assyrians worshipped.

The following may be mentioned :—

Chester High Shaft.

Glendower Shaft at Corwen, Merioneth.

Stalbridge, Dorset.

Iron-Acton, Gloucestershire. Crosses at Hereford, Malmes-
bury, Chichester.

Aylburton and Lydney Shafts in Gloucestershire.

Hemsted, Gloucestershire.

An Ark or Cell known as “ Our Lady’s Well," close to
Hemsted and St. Mary’s, High Street, Lincoln.

The Bisley Shaft, Gloucestershire.

Obelisks of White Friars, Hereford, and Clearwell, Glouces-
tershire, and Bomboro, Cheshire.

Tottenham or Tot-Haiftshire.

Sand-Bach Shafts, Cheshire, Carew Shaft, Pembroke.
 DORSETSHIRE PHALLIC PILLAR.

lo fate p. 56, Fig. 2/.]
 
 57

Eyam <   oik Column;

Nevem Column, Pembroke.

Cheddar Shaft, on the Mendip Hills, ^Morth Petherton, and
Dindar, Somerset, Chipping, CampdeJl, North Gloucester-
shire.

Glastonbury Shaft.

Gloucester Column.

[Prometheus]

Shafts of Devizes, Wiltshire, Holbeach, Lincoln, Cirencester,
Ampney Crucis, Wheston, Derby, Bitterly, Salop, Crick-
lade, Langley, Norwich.

Besides these there are innumerable Phallic pillars spread all
over England, Scotland, and Ireland; but as they were not rever-
enced in late times, in fact their meaning had been forgotton, they
were uprooted and used in buildings wherever human habitations
were near. So, at the present day, they are only found in num-

bers in inhospitable situations, such as Dartmoor, Blackmoor
Dorset, Wales, all along the West of Scotland and Ireland, especially
in the more barren islands. Fig. 21, in Dorsetshire, shows their

drawings cannot be given.

In other lands we have the Pompeian posts, such as are repre-
sented here [Fig. 22]. and some of very Phallic form in Fiji, called
Sun stones [Fig. 23].

Then to show them to be joyous they began to decorate them

Fig. 22

Fig. 23

true meaning. But it is also shown in the churches themselves, and
Payne Knight gives us drawings of the nude figures exhibiting the
male and female organs from the porches and arches of Irish
churches. I cannot do better than refer to a quotation which illus-
trates the whole subject (pp. 97-98). For obvious reasons the
 58   GHRlteTfAN^TY :   SOURCES

* * ' *

- '

with ribbon*, a* shown heje in the Fiji Paw at the present day
(Fig. 23], or away back in Parthia thousands of year* ago [Fig 24]
r River* of Lifer' L.fffj.   . * .

We have them a«o in Polynesia [Fig. 25], Tibet [Fig. 27],

Fig. 24   Fig, 25

Ireland [Fig. 26] (“Rivera of Life,” /., 485), and Karnak,
Brittany [Fig. 28] (p. 598, //.), some recent and some thousands
of years old [Figs. 25, 27, 26, and 28]. These ribbons or flags

are decorations indicating joyousness, are called rt hangings for the
' Ashra, or Groves,” in the Bible. We have such conical mound*
9* ” The Great Obo,” indicating' the Phallus in Mongolia, Tibet,
 

*
 
 59

of its teaching and symbousm

Tartary, and India [Fig, 27]. Round such constructions the people
still dance, blowing horns, believing such rites drive away evil
spirits, and render fertile their women and cattle.

Finally, we have the Burmese pagoda poles, with banners and
a cock on the top, just as our Campaniles, Bell towers, and Church
steeples have to-day [Fig. 29]. The idea of the Burmese pole

Fig. 30

exists in England as the May-pole which was1 worshipped or cele-
brated at the season of fertility when “ young man's fancy lightly
turns to thoughts of love."   *
 60

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

The ithyphallic idea may be represented in a perfectly decent
way as was the case of the Phallic Mars in the Campus Martis,
Rome, which I show here [Fig. 30]. The flame, issuing from the
top of the Column signifies sexual fire, and shows the nature of
the Column.

Although we have not any Lingam-Yoni altars in our churches
we have their equivalent in our pulpits. The pulpit is essentially a
Phallus or shaft carrying an ark-like box from which the preachers
or oracles prophesy.

At Delphi (womb), a purely Phallic shrine, there was a Phallic
column, both outside and inside the shrine, with a box from which

Fig. 31

the oracle spoke. We have, in Britain, pulpits outside, sometimes,
as well as inside the churches, and the word pulpit is a Latin word
derived from Hebrew Pul “ a vigorous one '*—the Phallus,—and
pit, a cave or well, the Yoni, so that the pulpit is simply the Lingam-
Yoni altar of India, devoted to a different end. So much for the
masculine side of Phallic worship.

The female or left hand cult is represented by all hollow bodies
or lenticular openings (pp. 16, 26, 46), and by the Conch or
shell, usually winged. This is formally called Concha Veneris,
the Conch shell of Venus, and is shown here [Fig. 31]. It is
generally used in gem sculptures and symbolic carvings to indicate
woman, just as the tree indicates man [Figs. 32 and 33].
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

61

We have here the illustration of creation and the continuation of
life [Fig. 33]. In the centre is the mundane egg of creation, and
coiled round it the serpent of passion, or the Tree Stem as the

Fig. 32   Fig. 33

Phallus with the Serpent [Fig. 32], and on one side a palm tree,
man, and on the other a conch, woman, the two guarantee the
continuance of life,—a very common form of engraved gem or seal
cutting in all countries and in all ages.

According to an Indian tradition, Sakra, the chief deva, caused
ten thousand Conches or Sankhas, as they are called in India, to be
blown when Buddha was born.
 62

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

It was the wide-spread symbol of woman in ancient times, and
is still called the “ woman ” in the Solomon Islands and used as a
sacred trumpet. It is one of the emblems carried by Vishnu, the
special god of female energies.

Lenticular forms represent the Womb.

The Roman Catholic Church has adopted this symbol, the
Vesica Pisces, as shown in the Venetian picture, where the spirit
of God (dove) is seen impregnating the Virgin, printed at Venice
in 1542, illustrated by Dr. Inman [Fig. 34], or this more artistic
rendering from Didron [Fig. 35].

The cult is most completely illustrated by a drawing of a Dagoba
from India, shown by Forlong in Plate XIV., “ Rivers of Life ”
[Fig. 36]. Note here the Venus in the lenticular frame or “ Vesica
Pisces ” (Fish’s bladder), and the dome itself a Phallus, supported
by a colonade of Phalli, and the dancing nymphs on the upper
stories with the Phalli. The word Dagoba, used for Shrine in India,
means Womb, the woman in English is the Womb Man (pp. 23-48).

A bowl or globe held by a woman on her knees, or in a middle
position, was one of the most common conventional symbols of the
Yoni, as shown in places as widely separated as Greece, Ireland,
and Japan (p. JOI). I give here one from the church door in be-
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

63

land [Fig. 39], a symbol used like the horse-shoe, to ward off the
evil eye (see pp. 97, 98, 101). Here is a Greek one from
Knight, a very beautiful statue [Fig. 38], and one from Japan will

be found on p. 101 (“ Rioera of Life,” II., 528), which represents
Kwan-Yon, the Venus of China and Japan.

The Greek symbol is very corhplete. In one hand the Bowl or
Womb, in the other fruit, and the young Bull in her lap deal with
all the facts of creative energy.
 64

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

The Cornucopia, or shell full of fruit and flowers, is another
form of the same emblem and here we have “ honour and virtue ”
represented by Woman and Man, her fertility represented by the
Cornucopia, and his by the baton. This was struck on a coin in
Rome in the days of Galba, in first century A.D., and it is represented
in modern school books.

In figures 40, 50, and 51 are shown the direct worship of the
Yoni from a gem and seals found by Layard at Nineveh.

The systrum was also a symbol of female nature, and on this
one [Fig. 37] we find the male organ depicted, so that the combina-
tion is Omphallic, a favourite subject in Egypt as we shall see.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

65

PHALLISM IN ASYRIA. BABYLONIA AND ACCADIA.

THESE nations, unlike the Indian, have passed away so completely
that the cults they practised can only be gleaned from the ruins of
these towers and palaces, or from the remarks of contemporary
writers or historians. That the worship of fertility had a great
place in their religions, and that they practised the rites which are,
as I have shown, still practised in India, we know from many
sources.

Even the Jews, who, as Forlong says, " were probably the great-
est worshippers amongst all thbse Phallo-solar, serpent-sun devotees
who then covered every land and sea,'* and had little right to cast
the first stone, wrote about Babylon where they learnt most of their
religious practices :—" And upon her forehead was a name written.
Mystery, the Great Babylon, the mother of harlots and abomina-
tions of the earth " (Rev. xvii,, 5). As to the facts, the Jews
should know, because, as we shall see, they strictly maintained
those Phallic faiths and public practices, long after the days of
Hezekiah.

The Assyrian and Persian idea of the creation of life was, that
the Creator was given a ring and a sword or arrow with which to
create life. The sword, arrow, dagger, or spear is always the
Phallus, the piercer, and all rings are Yonis, so here again we have
the Lingam-Yoni symbol. The symbolism of Assyria is seldom of
the direct naked type we have in other countries.

No doubt their earliest symbols may have been so, and what
we now have are the later or conventionalised symbols. They had
a scarcity of stone, and everything was made of clay, which un-
fortunately perishes; so we have no very early symbols. In
" Rivers of Life," II., p. 83, Forlong describes the Dian Nisei
representing the Assyrian Sun or Creator (from whom is derived
the Greek Dionysos) "passing through his aerial path, as on the
Tomb of Cyrus (the Tomba, or Cave, or Kurios the Sun or God,
Cyrus and Kurios are identical), where he holds in his hands the
two organs of creation, and travels, as a winged god on a winged
sun, and as if this were not clear enough, a Yoni is placed in front
oJLhim and a Crux Ansata, the Egyptian Lingam-Yoni sign, behind."

F
 66

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

The Egyptian Crux Ansata was adopted by the Assyrians, as
may be seen from the goddess’s head-dress here shown [Fig. 42],
with four cruces ansatae hung from it. (“ Rivera of Life,” II., p.
82.)

Fig. 42   Fig. 43

We have some sculptures or gems of Phallic worship as depicted
here in the anointing (see p. 221) of the pole or Phallus by two
priests [Fig. 43]. In this worship of the budding “Tree of Life,”
from the British Museum, the Phallically hatted priest is inclosed in
a Lingam line, a common device in all lands, and especially in India
where the God Siva is often drawn inside the Lingam on the Lingam-
Yoni altars. This [Fig. 43] is the “Grove ” of the Bible. Acorns
are universal symbols of the Phallus.

Over this “ Grove ” altar may be seen the Creator as a Trinity,
the three heads in the “ ring-and-dart" idea of creation, showing
that the mysterious Trinity of the Christians also existed long before

Fig. 44   Fig. 45

Even on those carvings which are lingaist, such as the worship
of the Cock [Fig. 44], we see the Chaldean or Assyrians put the
female symbol three times, first, the ark on which the Cock stands,
secondly the bag in the hand of the winged god, and thirdly in the
crescent moon or ark in the sky.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

67

In another very complete system of symbols we have the worship
of the Phallus in Fig. 45, where on the right we have a cock on an
ark or chest, then a lingam post on an ark, but the lingam supports
the crescent moon symbol of the Yoni or female energies, a lingam
between two Yonis. We then have that repeated by another
Phallic pillar supported by an arch-shaped foot, this arch symbolis-
ing the Yoni, and the two surmounted by a basin, also representing
female qualities, thus again forming a lingam between two Yonis.
The priest himself has the "bag*’ or sack (the special Assyrian
symbol of the Yoni) in one hand and Thor's hammer in the other.
This is also the T, “ tau ” form of cross. This T, “ tau,” was, as
Mr. C. W. King says, “that ancient symbol of the generative
power," and such a cross is found on the walls of a house in
Pompeii, in juxta-position with the Phallus in fact, the T, “tau,"

the handled cross (crux ansata), and the Christian cross were every-
where used as conventional Phallic symbols. Everywhere the
moon’s cusp represented the feminine side, just as the sun repre-
sented the masculine. Fig. 46 (p. 67) is a cut gem given by
Lajard in his “ Culte de Venus.”

The woman has a bowl or moon’s cusp in her hand, and also
behind her, and a jug in the other, and an eight-rayed star sym-
bolical of love, the whole being worshipped by a man.

Below the man is a bull’s head, male force, and below the
woman a bowl, female emblem, full of fruit or eggs.

But the principal symbol which will interest us as having been
adopted by the Jews is one called euphemistically, in holy writ,
the “ Grove,” but which, in the original, is the ” Ashera,” which
we will presently see is the Lingam-in-Yoni, just as the Bashar,
which the reforming prophet called the ” Shameful thing,” was
the Lingam.

Fig, 46
 68

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

We have this idea elaborated in Fig. 47, where two winged
gods are demonstrating before the Grove, Lingam-in-Yoni, each
having in his right hand a cone, symbol of the Lingam, and in

Fig. 47   Fig. 48

his left the bag, indictive of the Yoni (see right and left hand sects
ante, p. 47).

That the cone was a Phallic symbol is shown by this figure [48]
of two Greek women going to anoint or worship the Cone (Phallus).
In Fig. 49 we have the common Assyrian Deity, with bag and

Fig. 49

cone, such as may be seen in numbers in the Assyrian department
of the British Museum. On the bag is depicted the worship of the
“ Grove,*’ or Ashera, as shown in Fig. 49 above.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

69

That the bag or sack was the female symbol is shown by the
Indian word Bhaga-vati, “the lady of the sack,” called by the
Catholics in Italy " Madonna del sacco,” " My Lady of the sack."

The true meaning of the Jewish Asher and Ashera, male and
female emblems (which we must know, to understand Old Testa-
ment practises) can only be proved, apart from its condemnation as
the “ shameful thing,” “ abominable thing,” worshipped under
” every tree ” (see p. 242), by tracing its derivation. We have, in
India, Esh—love, also Esh—woman, Goddess of Love ; Isri, Iswara,
Issurya, and Ish as man, or the creator, or fertiliser, always sym-
bolised by the Phallus. This, in Assyrian, is called Ashur, the erect
one (” A-esh, or Ar-esh, or Esh-ar ”), god of love becoming Esh-ir,
Hessiri, Asar, or Osiris, in Egypt, also god of love, and also sym-
bolished by the Phallus or by an ithyphallic god.

Asher, or Assur, from whom Asyria or Ashuria is named (" y ”
and “ u ” are the same), was the Phallic god of Mesopotamia, and
was often considered simply as the lingam, but sometimes as the
Omphe also, as in the ** Mound ” of Asia.

We must understand how completely this word penetrated into
the Hebrew if we are to understand Jewish practises and beliefs in
the Old Testament.

We have, in Hebrew, ” Ashar,” to be united in love, as an
equivalent to Osiris or Asar, a name of Baal, husband of Ashera.

Asher—happy.

Asheru—spear or javelin.

Athar (Sh, Th are interchangeable)—to stretch wide.

Astereth—a married female companion.

Asher was the “Abraham ” or the “ strong one ” of Syria—the
” Progenitor,” ” he who lived in the circle of life,” the holder of
the bow.

“The word asher,” says Forlong, "would be at once pronounced
by every Eastern linguist to be derived from Ish * man,’ or Esh
* love,’ and Ar, the god, or active power, and as connected with
‘ Aish-oo-Isherat,’ ’ sexual pleasure ’ ” (Forlong).

“ Asher, or as it is also anciently pronounced Ather (the exact
Egyptian name for the Goddess of Love and Beauty), was the name
given to the whole country of the lower Tigris. This is now very
generally called Louristan, which signify a place devoted to the
worshippers of the Phallic emblems.”

[Prometheus]

“The word Louri is still very common over all India and its
coasts, and is used indiscriminately as a term of abuse to both male
and female.” So Louristan is the land of the Louri, just as Palestine
is Pala-8tan, or Phallus-stan, the land of the worship of the Phallus.
 70

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

The “ Grove ” (Ashera) of our Old Testament translation was pure.
Phallic Worship, approaching to the Vishnu, or Sakti, or left hand
sect in India, whilst the worship of Asher or Baal was the lingam
worship, the Siva or right hand sect (pp. 214-260).

Another of Layard’s cut gems from Nineveh shows the complete
worship of Lingam and Yoni [Fig. 50]. Here we have a priest with
an ark (or a ladder on its side, see below), holding a lingam with its
delta or triangular point, and a Yoni or narrow door. On the
priest’s side of the gem is a lenticular Yoni and the crescent of the
moon above, as the feminine emblems, while on the other side is
a palm tree and the sun as indicating man. No symbolism could
be more fully depicted.

Another Lingam-Yoni altar is illustrated in Fig. 51, where a
ladder-like image stands on an altar, also ladder-like. On the

Fig. 50

top is the sun and the usual priest worshipper making a Phallic sign
with his hand. This “ Ladder to Heaven *’ altar is explained by
Forlong as signifying the same as Isis* systrum [Fig. 37], a barred
instrument of music, representing a virgin or “Virgo intacta,” the
barring having that significance. Above the symbol of the Yoni is
a seven rayed star or sun symbol of virile power, making a true
Lingam-Y oni altar.

How old symbols drift on into new religions is shown by two
drawings, one from Kitto's “Biblical Cyclopaedia’* and the other
from Elliott’s “ Horse.”

The Babylonian seal shows the worship of woman, who carries
a cup or vase as the female symbol [Fig. 53]. The Roman Jubilee
medal of Pope Leo XII. shows the Church of Rome as a woman
with a vase or cup also [Fig. 52].
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

71

The Babylonians were fond of figuring the Phallic idea very
completely on their gems or seals. Here [Fig. 54J is an example
where we have animals, male and female, dancing round the “Tree
of Life/’ a palm.

In order to emphasise the part played by the palm it is
drawn with its upright leaves as a Phallus with the two fruits

hanging on each side. Then the male animal stands opposite
a Yoni or female emblem, while the female animal is opposite the
Fleur-de-lys, always a male emblem. This is the same symbolism as
David dancing before the ark (p. 236), or Usertesen before Min.
(p. 238).

Fig. 54

Such was the symbolism of the Euphrates valley, the land in the
midst of the rivers. They had sun worship and planetary temples
also, as had all other nations. They were exceptionally good
astronomers, and had their zodiacal temples; their official religion
was Astronomic.

But the Phallic cult was the most deeply rooted of their practices,
and the origin of their sacred symbolism.
 72

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

PHALLISM IN EGYPT.

As Christianity took its rise at Alexandria, the Egyptian faiths are
of great importance in tracking the development of the Christian
practices, and as the warm and dry Egyptian climate has preserved

Fig. 55

their monuments, and even the frail papyrus rolls, we have a very
complete illustrated record of their beliefs. That it was Phallic in
a very high degree will be apparent from an examination of their
monuments and written scrolls.

In the first place, the legend round which all their religions
centred, was about the body of the slain Osiris. Isis found all the
parts which had been dispersed throughout Egypt by the wicked
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

73

Typhon, except the Phallus. She, however, consecrated a model of
the lost Phallus as a symbol of Osiris, and so introduced the Phallus
worship, and it became the sacred symbol of Egypt. In the earlier
crude sculptures it was represented naturally, as in this of Lazoni
(Tav. ccio.) [Fig. 55], where two Phalli support the sky, but it was
gradually conventionalised into the Tet, or Tat, or Dad. The

I   -ZZi

Fig. 68

Fii. 69

Fig. 70

O KJ

Fig. 71 Fig. 72

formation of a conventional sign from a natural emblem is well illus-
trated in the Tat, and as it is impossible, in a moderate space, to
trace the descent of all symbols from their natural originals, 1 will
give the Tat as an example.

The complete evolution of the Tet, Tat, or Dad, from the
Phallus, is shown in this series [Fig. 62 to 72] so that, from 65 to
72, we see that the Phallic idea is lost, and a mere sign remains.
 74

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

Tat or Dad is the name for father in all childish or primitive
languages.

For want of the comparative method I use here, the most
ridiculous guesses were made as to the meaning of the Tat, one
learned author going the length of describing it as a sculptor’s
stand for building his clay on. Why should a sculptor’s stand be
glorified and drawn in purple and gold and universally worshipped
as the symbol of life ?

We find then the original form in these Phalli supporting the
sky, or in the famous one of Seb and Nut,—earth and sky,—being
separated [Fig. 56]. The problem arose with the priests, “How

could a single individual produce life?” Lanzoni shows how.
Their Phalli are drawn inordinately long, and they fertilise them-
selves by the mouth'. They are too gross for reproduction here,
but the symbols are shown by Lanzoni in Tav. 329 “ Mitologia
bgizia.

We also find the Phallus used in a horizontal position [Figs. 83,
84, 85], perhaps the earliest form, and adopted in Egyptian -writing,
as indicating strength, honesty, goodness, and justice, as in a just
judge. 1 will deal with that later; meanwhile we will trace the
progress of the evolution of the Phallic symbolism from the upright
Phallus to the conventional symbols used by all nations.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

75

We have then the Phallus unaltered as above (p. 72), [Fig. 55],
then as given by Budge in his “ Gods of Egyptians,” Vol. II., p. 144,
and again as Buckle or Girdle [Fig. 58], also Fig. 82, p. 78, and
on Lotus Column [Fig. 57] and Papyrus Column [Figs. 59 and 60],
and still further conventionalised, as here shown, combined with
the lotus stem [Fig. 61], and seed pod (which in all countries
represent the womb), conventionalised, and beginning to be
decorated.

We have in Fig. 73 the god Bes as a Tat. Bes was the symbol
of Good Luck.

The Tat was called the Noble Pillar, and was “ erected ” at the
spring equinox (when all life was renewed) with great ceremony by
the Egyptian Court, as described on pp. 81-82.

Now let us go to the female side of these symbols. We will
see the development of these two symbols into an ” eternal life,”
Lingam-Yoni combination, similar to the altar used in India to-day.

Fig. 74

[>0

Fig. 75

In a splendid papyrus given by the late King Edward to the British
Museum, one can see the priests writing of the Ankh sign, thus
[Fig. 74], as the Yoni over the Lingam, and with rays of glory at
the conjunction of the two, indicating creation of life, just as such
rays proceed from the head of a creative god.

This then becomes conventionalised, as in Fig. 75, and further
in Fig. 77, in the hands of a god, and, in Fig. 76, the centre dividing
piece being represented as a scroll tied up with cord instead of
rays, as the cartouches of the Kings were tied.

This scroll is the scroll of life, or knowledge, as it is shown
supporting a god in Fig. 79, and the Phallus is here( as it was in
the Garden of Eden), the Tree of Knowledge. In Fig. 76 the lotus
bud (phallus) pierces the Yoni, as in Fig. 14 (p. 49), shov/ing the
same symbolism in India and Egypt.

On the coffins or Sarcophagi, we have very often the sexual
parts represented in black, while other surrounding parts or decora-
 76

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

tion are in bright colours. Whatever was the significance of black,
it was common enough, as the original Osiris and Isis were black,
so was the Horus and Krishna; and most of the famous lingam
stones, down to that of the Prophet’s stone at Mecca, are black
stones.

Gradually the rays or the scroll of knowledge were joined up to
the two organs, and the Phallic form of the male stem allowed to
disappear. Thus was formed the ankh or handled cross, “ crux

ansata ” of classic writers, illustrated in its final forms in the hands
and on the arms of a god [Fig. 77].

So popular did the conventionalised form of Phallus [Fig. 70,
p. 73] become, that three were linked together, thus [Fig. 80], and
in writing meant ** good luck ” or fortune (“ The Mummy,” Budge,
p. 263, VIII.), and necklaces were composed of repetitions of the
two Lingam-Yoni symbols, with the Tat or Phallus in the middle,
thus Ankh, Tat, and Thet [Fig. 81]. These were also used as
decoration round sarcophagi and the frieze or cornice of chambers,
just as our egg and dart are.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

77

The egg and dart are admittedly phallic, being the Peraian
symbol of creation,—the egg representing the mundane egg, circle,
or Yoni, and the dart the Lingam, as did all darts, spears, swords,
and daggers (p. 55).

This decoration was used in Persia, in ancient times, as their
ring and dagger creative symbol; sometimes the symbol was
doubled, in order to make clear its meaning, as in Fig. 77, from
Lanzoni CLV., where the Lingam-Yoni symbol has the ” tet ”
(Phallus) added to the stem of the cross, as shown hung on the right
arm of the God separating Seb and Nut.

In early times the Yoni was separated from the Lingam, and
the cross consisted of three separate pieces [Figs. 76 and 78].

The Christian Cross, however, did not descend directly from
the Egyptian, which never quite reached the form of a simple cross.
The Christian Cross was in use in the Euphrates Valley and all
over the world from very early times, and much of the Christian

Fig. 81   Fig. 80

symbolism reached Europe by a route through Asia Minor, and not
by the Southern route through Egypt. We will deal with the deriva-
tion of crosses later. (See pp. 305-306).

Thet. The Egyptians had a combination of Lingam-in-Yoni,
given by Budge, under the name of ” Woman’s Girdle,” but also
called the Thet or ” buckle or tie,” as it was stuck in, or was part
of the god's belt [Figs. 58, 81 and 82]. I have no doubt that this
arose as a symbol of the self-created gods, and Budge’s illustration
gives a conventional form of it. It was not a woman’s article at all,
but was stuck in the belt of self-creative gods. The belt has its
proper buckle, and the Thet was stuck in the belt, where there was
no join, as shown by Budge in pp. 34, 36 and 58, ” Gods of the
Egyptians,” Khensu and Heru Shefit, so it was a symbol, not a
buckle.

Maspero, in the Archaeological Tracts, 1840-1874, Chapitre de
La Boucle, tells us that this was one of the commonest amulets, the
” Noeud,” or ” Boucle de Ceinture.” It must have been of great
importance as it was made in gold and enamelled porcelain, red
 78

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

stone, jasper, camelian, porphiry, and sycamore wood, blackened
and set in gold, with a legend " Salut k la boucle qui fait r£unir
ton essence, a ton corps, profit^ d'astarte,” so it was the complete
symbol of life.

Its form was much more elaborate than the Tat, and amounted
to anatomical drawing or section of the Lingam-in-the-Yoni, or
conjoined reproductive organs [Fig.- 82]. It was portrayed thus on
an enormous number of papyri, and on nearly every monument in
Egypt.

This is the most complete, as it is the most natural Lingam-in-
Yoni symbol hitherto portrayed in religious art. That there might

be no mistaking of the parts essential to re-production, the uterus
and the phallus were always coloured the same, while the other
parts had other colours.

Thus, if the Lingam was black (most stone Lingams were so),
then the Uterus was also black, while the Vagina was red, or the
colours are sometimes reversed, making the Vagina dark. Again,
when the Phallus is blue (Krishna, the Phallic god of India, was
often coloured blue), the Uterus or Womb is also blue, while the
surroundings are red-brown or blue-green [Fig. 82].

On the decorated Coffins, the Lingam-Yoni was frequently black,
no doubt a very ancient sign, and we know that it was very difficult
to change the insignia of funerals.
 
 H1 lYi 11/fLLIC MIN. DD'ACED 1JV AHAHS.
I o face p. 79, Fig. 83.]
 79

OF Ilf TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

The blue and black parts of the Lingam-Yoni were generally
emphasised by being in low relief, as seen on coffins in the British
Museum, while the Vagina was not raised, but painted on the flat.

So much for upright symbols. But, to emphasise the creative
power of the gods, they were sculptured, in many cases, ithyphallic.
I show one sculpture between the columns in Fig. 83, where the
natives have with their spears chiselled off the Phallus, and another
at Fig. 116, p. 238, but this God Min was always shown ithyphallic,
as may be seen in numbers in a wall case, 124, British Museum,
Egyptian Section, and also with the scourge,—sexual power and
asceticism combined. Curiously this was the case in nearly all
countries, the Siva worshippers of India being strict ascetics.

So much was the ithyphallic condition considered a symbol of
power by the early Egyptians, that the third King in this fragment,
from a long list of Kings [Fig. 84, with the supplicating arms], has
for his name (in a “Cartouche** or Cartridge form) three Phalli

Fig. 86

and arms extending to heaven, praying that he may have that
power on earth, Ka Kau.

In writing, the Phallus often became conventionalised into a
simple symbol as may be seen in this photo of a papyrus in column^
1 to 5 of King Edward’s papyrus, British Museum, Fig. 83, or again
in an upright form purely conventional, but quite expressive, having
the conventional “ Tat “ stem with cross lines [Fig. 70].

The Phallus used in manuscript often had the derived meaning
of justice and strength, and is represented in the Zodiac by the
Balance or Libra, ** the scales,’* which were at one time a repre-
sentation of the Tri-une complete reproductive organs of man repre-
sented also by the ivy and fig leaf, the Fleur-de-Lys, and the Trident.
Libra is shown in Fig. 86 quite Phallic. This is copied from the
supplement to Webster’s English Dictionary. Probably the word
Balance is a corruption of Phallus, as its derivation is doubtful.

On a great sarcophagus in the British Museum we find the Phallus
in action with the above meaning. {Sarcophagus 811, Great Hall,
? Egyptian Gallery, British Museum.)
 60

[Prometheus]

I^RISTIANITY: THE SOUF.CES

Aa mentioned on p. 64, the ay strum, which is a purely Egyptian
symbol and musical instrument, represents virginity.

King, in his “ Gnostics,** tells us of a beautiful Sard gem with
serapis engraved on it, and standing in front of him is Isis with a
systrum (virgin, see p. 70) in her hand and a wheat sheaf, the ever
fruitful, with the legend, ” Immaculate is our Lady Isis.’* “This
address,” said King, “ is couched in the exact words applied later
to the personage (the Virgin Mary) who succeeded to the form,
titles, symbols, and ceremonies of Isis with even less variation
than marked other similar interchanges.” The Virgin Mary

worship in Christianity is derived direct from Babylon and
Egypt, and not through the Hebrew Bible, because the Jews
so despised women. Babylon, which worshipped Istar as much
as Egypt worshipped Isis, had ceased to exist, so it was Isis
who was adopted into Christianity, under the Indian name Mary or
Maya, and it was her statues, with the infant Son of God immacu-
lately conceived, called the Heru or Horus (Greek), which were
worshipped all over Europe as the Virgin Mary and Infant Jesus.

This Virgin and Child, cast in bronze and identical with her
Roman Catholic copy, was the most popular image worshipped in
ancient Egypt, and has been found in tens of thousands all over
 
 V

PHALLIC CARTOUC1IL OF KA KAU.

To face p. 81. Fig. 84. ]
 OF ITS REACHING AND SYMBOLISM

81

the country, and the statues of Isis and Horus were used by the
early Christians for Mary and Jesus.

The systrum was carried by women in all Phallic processions,
and its tinkling sound was the accompaniment of such rites, and of
Phallic songs.

Fig. 87 shows a conventional systrum, held in such a position as
to indicate its meaning, by the Goddess of Fertility, Thoueris, or
Ta Urt. See also Apet [Fig. 88], Budge, " Gods of the Egyptians.'*

Next in popularity to the statues of the Virgin and Child were
ithyphallic bronze figures of the God Min, which were found in
great numbers all over Egypt, no doubt in private houses as well as
in temples, as can be seen in the British Museum.   (Third Egyptian

Room, Wall case 124, Nos. 115, 116, etc.)

Horus, Amen Ra, and Osiris were represented in hundreds of
statuettes, ithyphallic like Min [Fig. 83], Budge, "Gods of the
Egyptians."

If anyone desires to obtain an idea of the absolutely naturalistic
treatment of the Phallus and its action, and of its various derivative
meanings, he may refer to Dr. Wallis Budge's interesting and
popular "Egyptian Literature" {“Legends of the Gods" and
“Annals of Nubian Kings," 1912.)

Now, although the Egyptians were great sun worshippers, the
more ancient Phallic cult remained popular, and the two are often
combined. For instance, in all countries the advent of Spring is
always a time for highly Phallic fetes. The Spring is solar, yet
always combined with Phallic ideas, as all the animals and birds
breed at that season, and all nature is awakened to reproduce its
kind.

The worship of the sun, however, was the product of a more
intellectually developed age, and when made into a cult with
priestly codes, was not at all easy to understand, so the common
people held on to their festivals and Phallic saturnalia, as, we shall
see at page 91, was the practice of the Romans and the Greeks.

Ermann tells us, in his " Life in Ancient Egypt," that at the feast
of Ptah-Sokaris-Osiris, the memphitic God, in the last ten days of
Choiakh, at the Temple of Medineh Habu, there was a protracted
feast, greatest on the 26th and culminating on the 30th, by the erec-
tion of the Tet, Dad, father or Phallus. Before erection, attendants
dressed the God and re-rouged him. The Pharaoh then repaired,
with his suite, to the place where, lying on the ground, was the
" Noble Pillar," the " erection " of which forms the object of the
festival. Ropes (some say of gold cord) were placed around it,
and the Monarch, with the help of the Royal relatives and of a

G
 82

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

Priest, drew it up. The Queen, “ who fills the Palace with love,"
looks on at the sacred proceedings, and her sixteen daughters made
music with rattles and the jingling systrum (Phallic instrument, see
pp. 62 and 80), the usual instruments played by women on sacred
occasions.

The Queen also piously carried the sexual symbols of Osiris
modeled in solid gold.

We get a glimpse of the “ manners and customs " of the ancient
Egyptians in the details of the publicly posted tariffs for transport
between Coptos and Berenicia, which include an impost of 108
drachmas for each "slave for prostitution" (see p. 227).

Some of these symbols and terms have come down to us. For
instance, the Dad, or Father, which is the phallus, has reached
Western Europe in the form shown at Fig. 72, p. 73, as the " Orb
of Power ” which is placed in the hand of the Monarch on Coro-
nation. That this is admittedly phallic is shown by its being called
in Germany the Reichs-apfel or State-Apple, and we know that
Eve‘s love of the apple or Phallus in Eden was the source of shame.
 
 
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

83

PHALLISM IN GREECE.

1 HAVE treated at some length the evidences of Phallic worship in
the three nations, India, Babylonia, and Egypt, from which many
other nations, especially the Jewish, derived their religious symbols.
India and Egypt especially, are nations which have kept their
religions (subject only to inevitable development) quite distinct, from
very early times, and so have reacted on'smaller nations, which
were subject to more rapid changes. The very important influ-
ences of the religions of the Euphrates valley on the Jewish
religion, made it imperative to treat of their symbolism quite as
fully. It will be seen, from the examination of the religions of
these nations, how thoroughly all their practices and beliefs were
saturated with, and expressed through, Phallism.

Those three nations belonged to a period when there was no
great philosophical awakening, so that their faiths were compara-
tively stable.

In the case of Greece we have another state of affairs, and,
just as Greece rose quickly to the highest position attainable in sculp-
ture, so, outside of physical science, she raised a crop of philoso-
phers, whose modes of thought and outlook are more comparable
to the ideas of advanced thinkers of the present day, than those of
any other nation. We find Greece, therefore, in a state of fusion as
regards religion, and their legends can scarcely be regarded as the
solid belief of the enlightened part of the community. Still, these
beliefs were the official religion, and one must accept them as
representing the religion of Greece. We know that, however grand
may have been their original conception of Zeus or the Divine
Father, the literature regarding him is intensely Phallic, and the
worship of Aphrodite impregnated all the temple practices of the
land.

Although they believed in their Gods in a very half-hearted
manner, just as the majority; of Christian Church goers do to-day,
yet it was the official religion, and they spasmodically punished some
of . their greatest men, even with death, for expressing their dis-
belief in the very human and often obscene gods of the land.

The fact that the language of Greece gave the name to the Phallic
cult, shows at least that it was widely practised there. The Phallic
 84

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

God of Greece was Hermes or Mercury. He was the Herald^
messenger or agent of the gods in bringing life to earth, and the
wjord Hermes was used as the name of the Phallus, which was
spoken of as “a hermes.” He held in his hand the caduceus, or
twin embracing serpents, a doubly Phallic sign, as we shall see.
Aesculapius, the healer, also had this sign, as we see in druggist's
windows to-day, and the word hermetic is still used by chemists.

Forlong (“ Rivers of Life ” /., 223) gives the origin of the twined
serpents as follows :—

“ It would seem that the caduceus of Mercury, that rod of life,
is due to the fact of the ancients having observed that serpents
conjoin in the double circular but erect form as in TEsculapeu's rod.
Mr. Newton records his belief of this at p. 117 of his appendix
to Dr. Inman’s “Symbolism.” It appears, as stated by Dr. C. E.
Balfour, in Fergusson’s 4 Tree and Serpent Worship,’ that when at
Ahmednagar in 1841 he saw two living snakes drop into his garden
off the thatch of his bungalow in a perfectly clear moonlight night.
They were (he says) cobras, and stood erect as in the form of the
/Esculapian rod, and no one could have seen them without at once
recognizing that they were in congress.”

“It is a most fortunate thing to see this, say Easterns ; and
if a cloth be thrown over them it becomes a form of Lakshmi and
of the highest procreative energy.”

From this we see that the symbol of Hermes, Mercury, and
/Esculpaius, was a doubly Phallic symbol, expressing both agent
and act.

When I come to deal with the “ Saviour of the World ” idea,
1 shall show how ancient and how widely spread was this idea,
and how many claimants there were to the title. The Greeks,
seeing that the “saving” of the world consisted in insuring the
continuous succession of life on the globe, embodied the Phallic
ideas of surrounding nations, in a very materialistic emblem, but
one which would be understood by all nations, and which was not
concealed or rendered obscure by conventionalism. Knight illus-
trates this emblem, and describes it thus :—44 The celebrated bronze
in the Vatican has the male organs of generation placed upon the
head of a cock, supported by the neck and shoulders of a man. In
this composition they represented the generating power of the
Eros, the Osiris, Mithras, or Bacchus. By the inscription on the
pedestal, the attribute thus personified is styled 4 The Saviour of the
World,' 'Sotor Kosmoi,’ a title always venerable under whatever
image it be presented.”

But in earlier times the Greeks, like all other nations, worshipped
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

85

tree stems as Phalli, and serpents coiled round them as passion or
desire (see p. 61). Fergusson, in his “ Tree and Serpent Worship,”
shows us the gradual dying out of this form of Phallic faith as their
civilization advanced.

It advanced so quickly in Greece that the decay can be traced,
whereas other nations, less brilliant, advanced so slowly, that their
emblems remained stationary for long periods. In the Erectheum
at Athens we still find a temple dedicated to fire and serpent
worship, and it was to the Serpent Erekthoneous that Minerva
handed over her sacred olive tree.

The tree under which Agamemnon was sacrificed was mounted
by a serpent, whom Zeus turned into a stone ; for the trunk became
stone, and every part of it became sacred, like the “true cross,”
says Forlong.

The later Greeks, however, were so refined in their art, as
shown at p. 63, that they wrapped up all the crude symbols of other
more prosaic nations, in fine language, or complicated mythological
stories, or in most beautiful and refined sculpture. Yet all the
sculpture of Zeus simply referred to Phallic stories of the creation
of minor gods and goddesses, by connection with maiden goddesses,
and are variants of the sun marrying the earth in Spring, and their
union bringing forth fruit and flowers.

Plutarch tells us, in his ” de Isis et Osiris,” as can still be verified
in Egypt (see p. 81), that the “ Egyptians represented ” (Knight,
p. 16), ” Osiris with the organ of generation erect to show his genera-
tive and prolific power, and that Osiris was the same deity as the
Bacchus of Greek mythology and the same as the * first begotten
love ’ of Orpheus and Hesiod. This deity is celebrated as the
Creator of all things and the father of gods and men, and the
organ of generation was the symbol of his great characteristic
attribute. They thus personified the epithets and titles applied to
him in hymns and litanies. The organ of generation represented
the generative or creative attributes.”

I give here [Fig. 89J, as complete an expression of the
Phallic cult in Greece as can be found in any country. It is given
by Maffei in his ” Gemme Antiche Figurati,” tome iii., pi. 40
The Phallic pillar is here divided by fillets, like the Polynesian
column on p. 80, bjit, instead of a knot on the top, there is a man
carrying a thyrsus terminating in the Phallic pine cone and decorated
with ribbons. The thyrsus was usually a spear decorated with
vine leaves, whose point excited to madness, as described in Smith's
” Dictionary of Antiquities.” The worshipping woman is laying
down burning hearts on the altar, which has an ass's head (Phallic
 86

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

sign), and a serpent of passion twining round it. The true offering,
however, is brought by a lad who offers a pine cone and a basket
containing two Phalli with flowers. Such gems can be duplicated
by hundreds out of museums, but most are too natural for produc-
tion here. Payne Knight, Fig. 3, Plate III., shows another gem,
representing a nude woman offering Phalli instead of hearts on an
altar.

Payne Knight goes on to say: "In an age therefore, when no
prejudices of artificial decency existed, what more just and natural
image could they find by which to express their idea of the
beneficent power of the Creator than that organ which endowed
them with the power of procreation and made them partakers not
only of the felicity of the deity, but of his great characteristic attri-
bute, that of multiplying his own image.’*

Fig. 89

In fact, it was the creative organs which made man equal to
his god, in that (although he individually could not live for ever)
he, by the exercise of his creative power, could cause the continuity
of life, or “ life eternal,” of which the Phallus was everywhere
the symbol.

Payne Knight says: ” Perhaps there is no surer rule for judging
than to compare the epithets and allegories with the symbols and
monograms on the Greek medals, and to make their agreement the
test of authenticity ” [that is to say, the poets so wrapped up their
ideas in fine allegory that one must look to the medallists’ represen-
tations in the concrete to get the true idea].   ” The medals were

the public acts and records of the State, made under the direction
of the magistrates, who were generally initiated into the mysteries.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

87

[Prometheus]

We may be assured that whatever theological and mythological
allusion as found upon them, were part of the ancient religion of
Greece,”

Mr. Knight’s plates are full of copies of medals, etc., which
cannot be reproduced here, but which illustrate the sexual act in
the most realistic manner. (Plate IX., Fig. 9, from the island of
Lesbos, or Plate X., Fig. 2, 5, or 8, all Plates II., III., f.o., which
conclusively prove the universal practise of the cult in Greece.)

The early Greeks were not fond of conventional symbols, but
illustrated everything in fine sculpture of the human body (like the
sculpture of the Cave of Elephanta), so that it is quite impossible
to reproduce their illustrations here.

One of their ideas is widely held in Britain at this day. They
considered that the nude human body was the most beautiful thing
on earth, and, like the Irish, a sight of it, especially female, brought

luck. (See pp. 43-44, 96.)

But Selene, or Diana the Moon, was considered, on account of
her cold light, to be extremely chaste, and she was always beautifully
draped. Hence, to see her nude, being a difficult thing to
accomplish, and only possible when newly-born like a human
baby, was absolutely sure to bring good fortune. Many of our
modern young people, on seeing the new moon for the first time,
wish a wish, and it will come true ” some day.” But it is of no
use if the moon is seen through glass, as Diana is then ” veiled,”
and no luck can ensue. She must be seen nude.

This wide-spread belief in the good fortune of the female emblem
and in seeing it without a veil is the basis of the story of Susannah
and the elders. As the story stands in the Bible it is a piece of)
obscenity, but like seeing the moon without a veil, it takes its place
as a popular myth when viewed as a variant of the ” luck ” pertain-
ing to all things feminine. It is similar to modern Sakti worship
and that of the emblems at the doors of the Churches (pp. 26 and
96).

The Greeks practised their Sacti or Saturnalia rites, performed
mostly by night, in their “ sacrifices ” to Bacchus, and Knight says :
” Then acts of devotion were indeed attended with such rites as
most naturally shock the prejudices of a chaste and temperate mind,
not liable to be warmed by that extatic enthusiasm which is peculiar
to devout persons when their attention is absorbed in the con-
templation of the beneficient powers of the Creator, and all these
faculties directed to imitate him in the exertion of his great charac-
teristic attribute. To heighten this enthusiasm the male and female
saints of antiquity used to lie promiscuously together in tb e temples,
 88

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

and honour God by a liberal display and general communication of
his bounties.**

The extent to which this cult was practised in Greece was shown
by the thousand sacred prostitutes kept at each of the temples of
Corinth and Eryx. So great was the fame of Paphos in Cyprus
for the practice of the rites of Venus or Aphrodite, that the word
Paphian is used as symonymous with prostitute in our modern
dictionaries, and ” Paphos and Paphia,** as Lingam and Yoni, or
as male and female prostitutes of the temples.

The early Christian religion was full of this, and even now
revivals are not free from erotic passions, as may be gathered from
statistics of illegitimacy after a wave of religious frenzy has spread
over the country.

In ** Rivers of Life,** I., 502, we learn that Bishop Theophilus
of the early Christian Alexandrian Church, Alexandria being now
thoroughly Greek, turned out and destroyed all the mysteries of
Serapis. idols and gods, and had the Phalli of Priapus carried
through the midst of the Forum ; that is to say he turned out
the male symbol, the rock or stone pillar, the ” Tsur,** “ Zur,” or
** Sar ** symbol of the Bull “ Apis,*’ the symbol of male force (the
rock that begot thee, of the Old Testament, Deut. xxxii., 18), and
set up the real bisexual human symbol, the Peor apis or Priapus of
the Latins, representing both male and female organs. (See p. 229.)

Sacrifice, which simply means ”to make sacred,” was a word
used to designate not only the killing of men or animals to purge
away sins, but latterly, when that had fallen into disuse, was used
to indicate temple sexual intercourse. The writer of “Idolomania”
says, ” On a silver tridrachm of the island of Lesbos, in M.
D’Ennery's cabinet, is a man embracing a woman, and on the
reverse a Phallus or cross, which shows us clearly,** says Forlong,
“what holy ceremony or ‘sacrifice* these symbols signified.**
Payne Knight gives an illustration of this medal.

The presentation of the Phallic idea by the Greek was too direct
and natural for illustration here. They revelled in the nude, but
always beautifully presented.

The omphallic or double~sexed idea was also very frequently
expressed in Greek works of art. For instance. Votive offerings in
the Terra Cotta Room of the British Museum, are represented by
tablets, in which a woman presents a cock, and a man presents a
bowl,—each symbolising the double sex.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

89

PHALLISM IN ROME.

PHALLISM in Rome was carried on under the title of worship of
Priapus, and was accompanied by obscene ceremonies.

Some derive this word from the Greek “ Briapos,” “ loud sound-
ings,” but I believe it to be derived from Poer Apis, the Phallic
emblems of Palestine and Egypt combined. Both were provinces
of Rome, and the conquerors adopted many of their words, just
as we have adopted the Phallic names of India or Greece. Their
native familiar words, having an indecent sound, they cloaked their
religious practice under borrowed words, as we do.

Tree and serpent worship flourished in Rome from before 600
B.C. down till the time of Constantine, and was so powerful that no
ruler could oppose it. That such worship was entirely Phallic is
shown by the fact that, in the grove of the Dodona Jove, the virgins
had to approach the sacred serpent, with its food, in a state ofl
absolute nudity, thus creating the bisexual symbol, and its manner
of taking the food was the oracle on which they judged of the
prosperity of the coming year. But the significant fact is the juxta-
position of the nude female and the serpent forming the Lingam-
Yoni or bi-sexual combination. Fergusson says that serpent shrines
were everywhere, and the Roman maidens proved their chastity by
offering food to the sacred serpent of the Argonian Juno, on the
grove of the temple of Argiva, about 16 miles from Rome. If the
food were accepted they were considered pure, and certain to be
fertile.

The lares and penates of the Romans were Phallic emblems,
sacred by having been the objects of worship by their forefathers.
Many historians are astonished when they come across passages
which show that these ” household ” gods were merely stones.
Forlong derives the word lares from Larissa, the great City of
Lares, or Yoni worship, emblematically shown on the seal [Fig.

40. p. 63J.

The word penates is, on the face of it, Phallic, the medical or
Latin word for Phallus having the same base. They were not
human images at all, but were Phallic emblems which were
anointed, as Mr. Glover tells us in the ” Conflict of Religions in the
early Roman Empire,” when he speaks of the black Lares,
 90

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

“ trickling with unguent,” a condition of the Lingam altars in India
described as disgusting by Forlong and Oman, who were familiar
with the sight in India for thirty years.

The old Hebrew custom of anointing Lingams to show their
lively condition, is carried out in India to the present day with
” Ghi ” (melted butter), milk, honey, wine, and water, leading to
filthy conditions. Glover pictures to us one form of the Roman
worship of lares and penates. ” The child would see his mother
pale at her prayers to the sacred stone that stood by the house. He
would,—raised on his nurse’s shoulders,—press his lips to the stone
and ask riches from the blind rock.”

We see that as man became more civilised and clothed, these
Phallic rites were considered wrong or immoral, so that, as always
happens when any practice is made penal, it is at once debased;
and the awakening morality of the Romans rendered their Phallic
worship much lower and more conscious of its degrading influence
than it was in the early times, as in Egypt, when the population
practically went naked. The description of Phallism in Greece
may almost stand for that in Rome, but we may, perhaps, quote a
description of the Liberalia of the Romans.

Payne Knight (pp. 154, 155, and 156) thus describes the Roman
Phallic festivals:—

” Besides the invocations addressed individually to Priapus, or
to the generative powers, the ancients had established great festivals
in their honour, which were remarkable for their licentious gaiety,
and in which the image of the Phallus was carried openly and in
triumph. These festivities were especially celebrated among the
rural population, and they were held chiefly during the summer
months. The preparatory labours of the agriculturist were over,
and people had leisure to welcome with joyfulness the activity of
Nature’s reproductive powers, which was in due time to bring their
fruits. Among the most celebrated of these festivals were the
Liberalia, which were held on the 17th of March. A monstrous
Phallus was carried in procession in a car, and its worshippers
indulged loudly and openly in obscene songs, conversation, and
attitudes, and when it halted, the most respectable of the matrons
ceremoniously crowned the head of the Phallus with a garland.
The Bacchanalia, representing the Dionysia of the Greeks, were
celebrated in the latter part of October, when the harvest was
completed, and wer6 attended with much the same ceremonies as
the Liberalia. The Phallus was familiarly carried in procession,
and, as in the Liberalia, the festivities being carried on into the
night, as the celebrators became heated with wine, they degenerated
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

91

into the extreme of licentiousness, in which people indulged with-
out a blush in the most infamous vices. The Festival of Venus was
celebrated towards the beginning of April, and in it the Phallus
was again carried in its car, and led in procession by the Roman
ladies to the Temple of Venus outside the Colline gate, and there
presented by them to the sexual parts of the goddess. This part
of the scene is represented in a well-known intaglio, which has
been published in several works on antiquities. At the close of the
month last mentioned came the Floralia, which, if possible, excelled
all the others in licence. Ausonius, in whose time (the latter half
of the fourth century) the Floralia were still in full force, speaks of
lasciviousness.

" Nec non lascivi Floralia laeta theatri, Quae spectare colunt
qui voilusse negant. Ausonii Eclog. de feriis Romanis.

" The loose women of the town and its neighbourhood, called
together by the sounding of horns, mixed with the multitude in
perfect nakedness, and excited their passions with obscene motions
and language, until the festival ended in a scene of mad revelry
in which all restraint was laid aside. Juvenal describes a Roman
dame of very depraved manner, as:—

“ Dignissima prorsus
Florali matrona tuba."

Juvenalis. Sat. VI. 1. 249.

“ These scenes of unbounded licence and depravity, deeply
rooted in people's minds by long established customs, caused so
little public scandal that it is related of Cato the younger that,
when he was present at the celebration of the Floralia, instead of
showing any disapproved of them, he retired, that his well-known
gravity might be no restraint upon them, because the multitude
manifested some hesitation in stripping the women naked in the
presence of a man so celebrated for his modesty. The festivals
more specially dedicated to Priapus, the Priapeia, were attended
with similar ceremonies and similarly licentious orgies. Their
forms and characteristics are better known because they are so
frequently represented to us as the subjects of works of Roman
art. The Romans had other festivals of similar character, and
some were celebrated in strict privacy. Such were the rites of the
Bona Dea, established among the Roman matrons in the time of
the republic, the disorders of which are described in such glowing
language by the satirist Juvenal, in his enumeration of the vices of
die Roman women."
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

Like the Greeks, the Roman medals, sculptures, bronzes, and
paintings, are so absolutely naturalistic that no illustrations can be
given here, but the cult was universal. The Romans had very
frequent Phallic feasts, Liberalia, Floralia, Lupercalia, Vulcanalia,
Fornicalia, Bacchanalia, Dionysiaca, Maternalia, Hilaria, Priapeia,
Bona Dea, and Adonai, when all bonds were loosed.
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93

PHALLISM IN EUROPE.

As might be expected from the complete saturation of all Roman
religion with Phallism, they carried this cult all over Europe in
their great campaign of conquest, and, in consequence, Phallic
emblems are found in all ruins of Roman cities in Europe, not
excepting Britain. In fact, in dredging rivers like the Seine or
Thames, many Roman metallic Phalli have been found, some even
fitted with a safety pin for a brooch, showing they were worn in
public, but all much too gross and realistic to reproduce here.
(Payne Knight).

Before the advent of the Romans there is no doubt that the
Druids carried out the worship of sex in their rites, but we have
very little direct proof, as the arts had not been developed suffi-
ciently among the rude people of Britain. (See Fig. 21.)

The Germanic nations had a great Phallic pillar, called Irmin
Sul, or Herman Sul, “Sul,'* “Sur,” or "Tsur," Rock of God,
representing the great Sun God, or rock, “ Sul," " Sur," and
" Tsur " being the same (pp. 88, 241), which they all worshipped
at stated periods, making pilgrimages from great distances ; and
which Sir Edward Creasy says was the Palladium of their liberty.
Probably it was an ancient Phallic column.

The Phallic pillar in Dorsetshire, already illustrated (p. 56), and
celebrated by Thomas Hardy, is no doubt a Druid monument.

Owen Morgan, in his " Light of Britannia," shows the Phallic
meaning of the story of Arthur, of course, mixed with sun worship ;
as all sun heroes have 12 knights at a round table, the 12 months
of the year, or 12 labours, etc. We will deal with this under sun
worship.

When Arthur (Arthur, the Gardener Adam) came to die, he
threw away his sword, Excalibur, which Morgan gives as meaning
the " Phallus which swelled no more," or was dead, like all suns
in winter, when the fertilising power was dead. Arthur became
deified to the common people, and there are people in Wales now
who believe that King Arthur will return. (Daily Chronicle, June
20.1912).

All over the Continent are found these Phallic symbols, but the
cult, as shown, openly on public monuments and on the pillars
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[Prometheus]

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

of theatres and places of amusement, seems to have reached its
most violent expression at Nismes, in Southern France. It is quite
impossible even to describe in words the crass and weird forms in
which they placed these emblems, whole capitals of columns having
been formed of Yoni carvings, and anyone interested must refer
to the '* Catalogue du Musee secrete de Nismes ” of Auguste Pelet,
or gain admission to the Museum itself, or consult Knight. These
were erected in all solemnity by the magistrates.

It will be seen that the Phallic cult reigned as completely in
Europe as it ever did, or does in India, Egypt, or Babylon, and was
expressed more crassly. There are echoes of it even to the present
day, as shown by certain customs in Italy.

We shall see that the Phallic emblems were allowed to remain
publicly exposed on Churches in Ireland till the end of the 18th
century, and curiously, in Italy, gross Phallic votive offerings were
still encouraged in the Roman Catholic Church down to about that
date, as was shown by the famous letter of Sir William Hamilton
to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society.

This showed the absorption of an old Pagan cult into the Church.
The Church was one near a little town called Isemia, and was
dedicated to St. Cosimo and St. Damian. There is a great fair,
and an exposure of the relics of the Saints, followed by a great
concourse of people. In the city at the fair, wax Phalli were offered
for sale. The devotees bought them and carried them to the
Church and deposited them in a large basin in presence of the
Canons of the Church. These offerings were chiefly presented by
the female sex. “ They repeat their wishes at the time of depositing
the wax model along with some money. One was heard saying,
* Blessed St. Cosmo, let it be like this.* They pray also for the
restoration or invigoration of other organs, and the priests sell an
invigorating oil to be rubbed on the thighs and adjacent parts.'*
No fewer than 1,400 flasks of the oil having been sold at the fair
of 1780. (Here is Phallic worship in full swing in the Holy Roman
Church in 1780.) Another Phallic procession which I witnessed in
the early eighties, and which is still practised, although the Italian
Government has tried to suppress it, is that of St. Rosalie, at
Palermo, in Sicily. The descriptions by Dr. Oman of the Phallic
processions in India (pp. 37-41) pretty well describe that of Palermo.

St. Rosalie is honoured in the Catholic Calendar on September
4th, and an antique image of the saint is carried round the town
practically all night, and Phallic dances and practices are freely
indulged in till the image is re-housed. It seems to be simply the
old Bacchanalia, Saturnalia, Liberalia, or Lupercalia, still continued
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

95

from ancient times. When attempts are made to stop the practice
there is always trouble, as the people resist the interdict of their
pleasures.

I quote here from a newspaper cutting of 1905, when an attempt
at reform was made.

EXPRESS.

“ HONOURING ” PALERMO’S SAINT.

St. Rosalie is honoured in Calendar September 4th.

(From our Correspondent.)

Rome, Tuesday (1905).

In pursuance of local custom the Palermo annual festivities of
Santa Rosalia, patroness of the city, are celebrated by all-night
opdh-air processions, escorting the antique image of the saint kept
in the Cathedral. Owing to abuses consequent thereon the new
Archbishop, Mgr. Lualdi, ordered this year that the image be
brought home and deposited in the Cathedral on the stroke of
midnight. At two o’clock in the morning the image was still on
the road, surrounded by fanatical and intoxicated crowds, who
ever and anon executed weird and disgusting dances around the
effigy to musical accompaniment.

The ponderous statue of Rosalia was eventually escorted to the
Cathedral on the shoulders of Carabinieri amidst the jeers and hisses
of the saint’s devotees.
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

PHALLISM IN IRELAND.

The stone monuments show us that Phallic serpent worship was
very widely carried out in Ireland, and no doubt the expulsion of
snakes by St. Patrick (they never were expelled) refers to the
Christian cult replacing the old Phallic worship with its snakej
symbolism. But Christianity, as we shall see, was not a pure
religion, but a compromise, and it adopted all pagan rites too
strong for repression. So in Ireland Lingam-Yoni (snake) worship
went on till the end of the 16th century.

Ireland was full of sacred stones, and, even on the pillars of the
Church doors, there were sculptured naked women and men, but
more frequently women, exposing themselves. This was done so
that the people, by gazing at the sign of eternal life, might avert
the “evil eye,” or that the sign, like the horse shoe, its modern
form, might “ bring luck.” They are too gross for reproduction
here ; some were removed at the end of the 18th century, and
placed in the Dublin Museum ; others were destroyed. As in the
case of the Greek coins and Nismes sculptures, these sculptured
nudities, placed so prominently on the Churches, were not the
mere impulse of a private citizen in erotic moments; they were
the symbolism of a cult, and a belief expressed deliberately by the
Church Authorities or Magistrates. Had such ideas not been held
and respected by a large part of the population they would never
have been allowed to be exposed in such a public position.

Payne Knight says:—“ The practice of placing the figure of a
Phallus on the walls of buildings, derived as we have seen from the
Romans, prevailed also in the middle ages, and the buildings
especially placed under the influence of this symbol were churches.
It was believed to be a protection against enchantments of all kinds,
of which the people of those times lived in constant terror, and this
protection extended over the place and over those who frequented
it, provided they cast a confiding look upon the image. Such images
were seen usually upon the portals, on the cathedral church of
Toulouse, on more than one Church in Bourdeaux, and on various
other Churches in France, but, at the time of the revolution, they
were often destroyed as marks only of the depravity of the clergy.
Dulaure tells us that an artist, whom he knew, but whose name he
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

97

has not given» had made drawings of a number of these figures
which he had met with in such situations. A Christian Saint exer-
cised some of the qualities thus deputed to Priapus, the image of
St. Nicholas was usually painted in a conspicuous position in the
Church, for it was believed that whoever had looked upon it was
protected against enchantments, and especially against that great
object of popular terror, the evil eye, during the rest of the day.
It is a singular fact that in Ireland it was the female organ which
was shown in this position of protector upon the Churches, and
the elaborate though rude manner in which these figures were
sculptured shows that they were considered as objects of great
importance. They represented a female exposing herself to view
in the most unequivocal manner, and are carved on a block which
appears to have served as the key-stone to the arch of the door-
way of the Church, where they were presented to the gaze of all
who entered. They appear to have been found principally in the
very old churches, and have been mostly taken down, so that they
are only found among the ruins. People have given them the
name of Shelah-na-Gig, which we are told, means in Irish, * Julian
the Giddy,* and is simply a term for an immodest woman, but it
is well understood that they were intended as protecting charms
against fascination of the evil eye. We have given copies of all
the examples yet known in our Plates XXIX. and XXX. The first
of these was found in an old Church at Rochestown, in the County
of Tipperary, where it had long been known among the people of
the neighbourhood by the name given above. It was placed in the
arch over the doorway, but has since been taken away. Our
second example of the Shelah-na-Gig was taken from an old Church
lately pulled down in the County Cavan, and is now preserved in
the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Dublin. The third
was found at Ballinahend Castle, also in the County of Tipperary,
and the fourth is preserved in the Museum at Dublin, but we are
not informed from whence it was obtained. The next, which is
also now preserved in the Dublin Museum, was taken from the old
Church on the White Island, in Lough Erne, County Fermanagh.
This Church is supposed by the Irish antiquaries to be a structure
of very great antiquity, for some of them would carry its date as
far back as the seventh century, but this is probably an exaggera-
tion. The one which follows was furnished by an old church
pulled down by order of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and it
was presented to the Museum at Dublin, by the late Dean Dawson.
Our last example was formerly in the possession of Sir Benjamin
Chapman, Bart., of Killoa Castle, Westmeath, and is now in *
 CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

98

private collection in London. It was found in 1859 at Chloran, in
a field on Sir Benjamin’s estate, known by the name of the * Old
Town,* from whence stones had been removed at previous periods,
though there are now very small remains of building. This stone
was found at a depth of about five feet from the surface, which
shows that the buildings, a church no doubt, must have fallen into
ruin a long time ago. Contiguous to this field, and at a distance of
about two hundred yards from the spot where the Shelah'na>Gig
was found, there is an abandoned churchyard, separated from the
* Old Town * field only by a loose stone wall.”   (Knight, pp,

131-134.)

Some were shown holding the symbolic bowl in a middle
position, instead of exposing the actual organ [Fig. 39, p. 63].
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

99

PHALLfcM IN CHINA.

In spite of the fine teaching of the Rational Confucius, which forms
the Official National Religion (pp. 347-354), the old faiths run on
in China, and underneath them all is the old tortoise, serpent.
Phallic idea, representing the continuity of life. In fact, as
Confucius did not teach a spiritual eternal life, the old symbols were
never displaced nor even modernised or toned down, with the
result that, in translating the Christian Bible, the idea of God could
find no expression in Chinese but that of Lingam-Yoni, or in Chinese
Yin-Yang. It was necessary in China to get the ruling powers to
legalise the publication of the Christian Bible, and they did so the
more readily, as it taught the great Confucian golden rule (Do to
others, etc.).

But, as the Rev. G. McClatchey wrote in the “China Review/*
in 1872 and 1875, “ the worship which permeated the whole heathen
world still exists in China.** (He forgets, or does not know that
Phallic worship, as 1 shall show, not only permeates, but is the
basis of Christianity.) The old Phallic god (Shang-ti) is still repre-
sented under the same two indecent symbols, viz. : Keen or Yang,
which is the Phallus or Membrum Virile, and Khwang or Yin, or
Pudendum Muliebre, or Yoni of Hindus, and Juno of the Greeks
and Romans. The Rev. Mr. McClatchey*s protest arose over the
origin and proper translation of the God idea. The Taoists of
China offered sacrifices to the lords of heaven, earth, and war ; to
the lords of the **yang and yin operation** (reproduction), to the
sun, moon, and four seasons. Thus sexual worship existed there,
as in India,. Babylon, and Egypt, and, in fact, all over the world.

Forlong shows that Shang-ti was the old Phallic god of Yang
and Yin, and his symbol, like the Egyptian Pharoah of old, was the
multiple phallus written in Chinese cgf (see Fig. 84, p. 79), with
the Phalli reversed, however.

The double Phallus is clear, and the post on which they lie is
also a Chinese Phallic symbol, as Ti the creator (with whom Shang
often interchanges) and Is Represented by the well-known Phallic

symbol for man, also used all over the world, the   like the

swathed Osiris or Ithyphallic Min, or Osiris (Fig. 83), and other gods
of Egypt. They even had a Lingam-Yoni symbol complete in this
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CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

£ the double Phalli and the ark ; the inverted Y, ^ thug

on which the Phalli rest, being the ideogram for the two-legged
man. The upper part is the female ark, or barred systrum (pp.
70, 80, etc.).

Mr. McClatchey protested against the Christian God being
called Omphal6, or Hermaphrodite, or Yang-Yin, or Lingam-Yoni,
but his objections were over-ruled, as the Chinese censors said that
no gods could be found in any religion but were founded on this
sexual base; so *' Shang-ti," or “ Yang-ti,” or “ Yang-yin,” all
meaning Lingam-Yoni, is the God of the Christian Chinese Bible,
as it was the God of the Hebrews.
 OF ITS TEACHING AND SYMBOLISM

101

PHALLISM IN JAPAN.

We may take the Japanese and Chinese Venus (Fig. 90) as an
illustration here. It includes the entire cult.

•tramcrura. *•»xvu

fttfMMtf «WN«K»«4 ti>i jsfiN, is vam *u hwm —   am rtut uruMwns

‘   * - - Si m-- •» •-•

ir«Mf   JMSMrfi*. *•«?>   “Ymmtf Ymm." «r Jfe* f«a*   Ibaam.

Fig. 90

In the centre will be seen the bowl symbol with the Yoni-like
opening (see Figs. 38, 39, p. 63). This form was common, and the
“ eyes ** all over the Bible Cherubim and Seraphim were Yonis.
 102

CHRISTIANITY: THE SOURCES

Kwan-yon, whose name signifies “ Yoni of Yonies,” is also
“ Queen of Heaven ” (like Mary), “ Lady of Plenty,” “ Goddess of
a thousand arms,” and a ” hundred synonyms.” This plate
(Fig. 90] was drawn carefully by one of her worshippers, nearly
two hundred years ago, for Dr. Kaempfen, for his ” History of
Japan,” 1726, Plate V. She sits on a lotus (emblem of fertility),
under her lord the Shang-ti, “ Cloudy Jove,” “ Ell Shaddim,” or any
of the hundred names the male creator is called. The male is
here quite secondary to the female, as was the case in many early
religions—the mother god is supreme (pp. 161 >170 and 324). She
has the ” golden vial ” containing all the treasures of the gods in
her lap, containing the water of life, the tree of life also, while over
all broods Ti Shang of watchful eye, supported by two of the
thousand arms of his Ruach Aleim, or Mother of the Gods (Genesis),
without which nought is or can continue to be. ” This picture,”
says Forlong, ” is a complete arcanum of the whole vast mythology,
both spiritual and material.”

It details nearly every concrete idea of the Phallic faith, it is
also a symmetrical and philosophic whole, from the solar Iah
sitting on his cow-clouds, down to the Lotus (or Womb) base rising
from the waters of fertility. She is the ” Jewel of the Lotus,” that
“gem” which so puzzled not only European scholars but some
modern Buddhists, but is only a euphemism for her energy or
omphalos. In her hair is also shown the Yoni in the ” Jewel of
India ” form. The dot on her forehead is the Shang, or second
hieroglyphic, necessary to complete the ineffable name of the
Chinese creator.

She has also the ark or burning bush, the female emblem with
its ” fire,” the chakra, or solar swastika, or prayer wheel, the Book
of Life, and beads typifying religion and piety. With open hands
she distributes fruit, flowers, and Yoni loops, or joys (as on Indian
trees, p. 49). She wears crosses, and has the Bystrum, bow of love
(arrow is Lingam), and Lotus buds, as Goddess of Love.