book called in question the entire round of opinion and

of decision, in regard to remedies, as pronounced in England through the Press, and as emanating from the authorities, and confirmed and authorised by Parliament (then aroused to the intensest spirit of indignation and of excitement), its arguments were considered as in- credible, and its statements as too extraordinary, and as too truly unexpected, when announced as coming from (of all people in the world) an “Indian Missionary,” as was stated on the title-page. This authorship and this origin were very naturally regarded as a phenomenon when the “Indian Missionary” appeared as the apologist on the Indian side. He was only arguing, however, for truth. He offered real evidence. ‘The judicious people, on consideration, discovered, to the general amazement, that the foundations of Buddhism had been hitherto wholly misunderstood, It was realised at last that these foundations were not only mystical and unexplainable— because occult and cabalistic—not only impossible of denial, (that is, in their “results” or conclusions)— but that they were true. The difficulty, especially in this country, is to make new ideas, and new and apparently contsadictory views of things, understood, above all (and inveterately so) in the case of religion. There is an amount of prejudice inconceivable to all who have not been either compelled or have elected to move in the face of it.
(“Have you not. heard,” says Mr. William Morris, “how it has gone with many a cause before now? First, few men heed it. Next, most men contemn it. Lastly, all men accept it. And the cause is won !’’)
XV1 Introduction.
Mr. Gerald Massey, in his “Natural Genesis and Typology of Primitive Customs,” has drawn his ideas upon very important mythic subjects from a remote source. Comparatively speaking, he has thus rendered them second-hand. He has gained his notions from the ‘Indian Religions; or, The Results of the Mysterious Buddhism,” and the “Curious Things of the Outside World,” respectively published so long ago, and more particularly from the “ Rosicrucians,” in its first edition, published early in 1870.
Truly, in certain respects, Mr. Gerald Massey has read wrongly, and has been over-eager. He has traced erroneously the outlining of his conceptions when his originals seemed somewhat restive in his own mistaking hands. Mr. Gerald Massey’s two ponderous tomes, “The Book of the Beginnings,” present, in the first instance, the very serious fault of being greatly too bulky, and the book is far too expensive for general acceptance and circulation. In addition, the work is uninviting from its diffusiveness, and it labours under the singular demerit that, whilst many of its particulars are correct, and its groups of facts to a large extent trustworthy, the general deductions therefrom are wholly mistaken. They are guide-posts which indicate to those who consult and spell them over, in curiosity and hope, the wrong paths. It is certainly most inauspicious in the interests of the pro- founder students of these difficult subjects that this unintended although bewildering maze of erroneous. results from apparently correct particulars should be so confidently paraded. For doubt and continual distrust are the parents of successful discovery.
As if all the mysteries—reluctant enough to previous
Introduction. XVII
inquirers—had miraculously opened out of themselves to the new examiner, and had satisfactorily disclosed them- selves to the discovery of one man in the latter time! Such overweening confidence is most absurd and most disastrous. ‘Truly must we be forced to consider that all previous great men and the long line of profound thinkers —labouring through the ages—had worked in vain. Mr. Gerald Massey’s text is that, all religions and all mysteries evolved from out of the heart of Africa. We simply reject all his accumulation of particulars as founded on a wrong basis. ‘The effect of such books is only to clog the subject and to confuse the reader.
We prefer other claims to the reader’s consideration, The present book may be undoubtedly pronounced new and perfectly original. It is professedly constructive. It finds its justification in an elaborate consideration of the monuments of the old world, and in the usages and ideas of the moderns. It is most important in one respect. It seeks to be the builder up of a belief—of a CurisTIAN belief. This, in opposition to most modern books of its nature. It will be found strange, puzzling, startling. But all its conclusions will be supported by abundant proofs—to the right-minded and to the most accomplished and the most deeply-read among the antiquaries.
Curious and inquisitive readers will find in it all that they want to know concerning that extremely recondite and interesting subject. The Phallic ideas will be dis- covered herein, upon indisputable evidence, to be the foundation of ALL RELIGIONS. The tokens and traces of this peculiar—and, as it became in its treatment by the peoples of antiquity, this refined and picturesque— worship are to be recognised as deeply sunk in the
XVIII Introduction.
art and architecture of all nations. Phallicism gave richness, colour, and poetical variety to all the myths. Furthermore, these indications are detected as lying purposely and felicitously concealed (but only in their own pure method of acceptation) in all the insignia of the Christian Church. This at every point where mysterious- ness (and therefore truth) commences, and where plain- teaching (or the practical) ceases. It may be very safely assumed as a distinguishing fact in the examination of the work that just in proportion to the knowledge, learning, and taste of the reader will be the quickness of his discovery, recognition, and appreciation.
It is really believed that almost every book, in whatever language, from which anything of import could be obtained towards the flood of light (within the proper bounds) cast upon this fascinating subject, has been examined and adduced in evidence. The mystic sexual anatomy, as bearing upon religion, and the “ whys” and the “wherefores” of the necessarily occult existence of these curious subjects, have been carefully gone into.
The work will assume, as a sort of ground truth, that this contemporaneous—greatly too self-sufficient and too self-reliant—time remains too complacently confident in its own conclusions. The present age has made up its mind as to that which is to be believed and that which is not to be believed. ‘There is certainly no want of books to enter largely into an examination of the religious ideas and systems which have prevailed in all ages. Religion of some sort, and an acknowledgment of the gods, 1s necessary for man. Histories—more or less able, and books informing people, in the greater or lesser degree,
Introduction. XIX
of that which they did not know before—are continually — appearing. Memoirs, theses, and accounts, orthodox, critical, and explanatory, some with much learning and indicative of considerable labour, trace out the original footsteps of the nations, which, according to the earliest notions connected with the progress of the human race, set out, seeking new places of settlement and more convenient and inviting homes. But, like most of those who have descried first—and then traced—the reappear- ance of Indian religions, ideas, and myths in Egypt, in Persia, in Europe, in the most remote directions even in America—querists—truly the most undaunted and reso- lute querists—have thought that they ended when they pointed out the similarity.
Those who are surprised to find the tenacity of these Phallic vestiges, and that they are all to be re-read in the Egyptian and in the Greek and Roman systems of theological construction, and in their monuments, seem to think that the wonder disappears, and that the riddle has’ been read, when these strange things are seen reduced into order and are evident in their new home. On the contrary, the fact is that the wonder, instead of being explained, is only just beginning. The problem, instead of being resolved, has only just shifted its place, and is as much a problem still.
All religions commence in myths and disappear in myths ;—because the ends and purposes of life—of man altogether—the meaning of nature itself—are wrapped up in mystery. In the present work the author’s object is to show that the modern time owes everything to the ancient. There is not a form, an idea, a grace, a sentiment, a felicity in art which is not owing, mn
XX Introduction.
one form or another, to the Phallicism, and its means of indication, which at one time in the monuments— statuesque, architectural—covered the whole earth. All this has been ignored—averted from—carefully concealed (together with all the philosophy which went with it), because it has been judged indecent. As if anything seriously resting in nature, and being notoriously every- thing in nature and art (everything at least that is grand and beautiful), could be—apart from the mind making it so—indecent.
It may be at once boldly asserted as a truth that there is not a religion that does not spring from the sexual distinctions. All these great facts have been obliterated. In the present work an attempt has been made to do justice to the greatness and majesty of the ancients, and to exhibit their ideas of religion, and of the character of religion, as true—though necessarily clouded over (or rather illus- trated) with allegory (mythologies), as the truths of all religions must be—naked truth never being intended for man.
Thus we are pre-eminently constructive. ‘The work will be found to contain a complete survey of the rationale of Buddhism and its philosophical inflections and the depths of its mystic ideas. In regard to Buddhism and to its purpose and foundation—whether true or false— the world is in a state of greater contention than ever at the present period. ‘This is witnessed by the numerous books which continually appear, treating of Buddhism and of the theories concerning it. It will be found that, reposing upon the abstractions of Buddhism, the network of mythological allegory which has been raised over it, and the mystic dogmas which have been embraced
Introduction. XXI
in it, have refined, and metamorphosed, and spread, and fitted, and adapted themselves into the beliefs of other countries, the widest separated in time and place.
It is a noteworthy fact—a guiding principle in the influences of civilisation all over the world—that all religions and all forms of religion—preternatural, as we contend, and enlightened in man’s receptivity (or soul), from the original design and intention of a PeRsoNAL ProvipENcE—have started from the centre of Asia. The arts of life and the systems of living in community— the gradual coalescing and amalgamation and the settle- ment of nations—have moved majestically in the sublime march of the centuries—“ tiring out Time,” as it really seems to us—contemplating, in these latter days (when a general impatience seems to beset all mankind); these latter days, full of evil, full of fear, self-conceit, weariness, confusion, and woe, from the East, all round the world, to the West. The mind of man has moved forth from the Tigris and the Euphrates—only become errant when “driven out”’—out from the allegorical “ Garden;” in after time from Balkh (with foundation unknown), the Mother and Anarch of Cities, or as the commencement of a previous new era to the world, or to a new dispen- sation, from the Mountain of the Ark, or the Cradle of Humanity, following the course of the latitudes West- ward and tracking the Sun to the Westernmost shores of the New World. Here, arrested by the mighty Pacific Ocean, which seems the grand barrier to mankind and his designs—“ Thus far shalt thou come, but no farther” —along that never-ending line, ranging athwart the world, the histories of man seem to culminate. Perhaps here, on the shore of the far—the farthest—West, where the
XXIi1 Introduction.
“ tired civilisations” seem rousing up as for a new display —having made the whole circle of the earth—the rest- less demonstrative communities, with their inventions and astonishments (how unlike the tranquil greatness of the ancients!) may ‘subside to peace. For a second new « promenade of the peoples of the world around the earth seems unlikely.
Enormous labour—the labour of many years—and an enthusiasm which was converted out of the utmost original disbelief of these wondrously stimulating and beautiful Phallic beliefs ;—all this curious inquest into the meaning and reality of the Phallicism which lies at the root of all religions—as also of the Christian religion—pains, trouble, and suspicious examination until convinced, have gone to the compilation of the present book. Its chief merit, or at least one of its choice merits, is its conciseness and brevity. [It comprises, within the limits of a modest octavo, all that can be known (or, at least, all that is permitted to be known by prudent, competent persons) of the doctrines of the BuppuisTs, GNosTics, and RosICRUCIANS, as connected with “ Phallicism.”
We have gone over the whole ground with care to » distinguish. We have filled up with details of the primi- tive worship of the creative principle, under such symbols as the Obelisk, Pillar, and Pyramid. We have traced the division of sects, and have discriminated in the cha- racter of the Phallic monuments, whether as referring to the preference of the Lunar influence or of the Solar power, as the cause of. the earliest wars and of the “ primeval dispersion.” An endeavour has been made to effect this history of the monuments of antiquity, not in the spirit and in the manner of the antiquary and compiler only,
Introduction. XXIll
but with the object of the recovery of a faith, believing (as we do) that the peoples of antiquity had excellent reasons for what they did, and were actuated by a fine and true instinct. It will very readily be perceived that the element of faith is necessary to the proper apprehen- sion of the reality and seriousness of the array of real matters which we pass in review. Nothing strikes for- cibly, or arrests the attention efficaciously, which is not believed in by the writer, and the absence of this reliance is very soon detected.
Not to burthen our pages with small type and interrupt the narrative with subsidiary, confirmatory matter in the places where it is not so readily to be looked for, we have decided to relegate to an Appendix certain notes of value in elucidation, and transcripts of facts and items of evidence. These will be found to materially help the reader toa proper and consecutive understanding of the subject.
A subject lying so out of sight in the ordinarily beaten historical paths—in regard of which we have truly so much investigation and such exposition so reiterated that it wearies—will of course be found abstruse and difficult to reconcile with ordinary conclusions to those whose atten- tion before this has not been called thereto and to those who have not hitherto made it a special study.
The various accounts, and the conjectures more or less happily hazarded, given by different authors respecting the reality and meaning—philosophically and vitally— of the Phallic worship, and why its prevalence should _ have been so great in olden times, will not a little serve to puzzle the reader and to upset the foregone conclu- sions which he has derived in the course of his education.
XXIV Introduction.
He will find, indeed, that he has much to be enlightened concerning, if he has not diligently sought for knowledge at the right sources, for the proper understanding of these religious aberrations, and to comprehend the deep impres- sion which the unseen world (to the shame of the moderns) held over the ancients.
In this book will be found a more complete and more connected account than has hitherto appeared of the different forms of the worship (which has distinguished all ages), or peculiar veneration (not idolatry), generally denominated the Phallic worship. No previous writer has disserted so fully upon the shades and varieties of this singular ritual, or traced up so completely its mys- terious blendings with the ideas of the philosophers, as to what lies remotely in Nature in regard to the origin and history of the human race. The well-known work of Richard Payne Knight is a mine of learned matter bearing upon this subject; but it is devoted more espe- cially to the rites which celebrated the worship of Priapus among the Romans.
The antiquarian world has yet to do justice to the memory of Henry O’Brien, a most penetrating antiquary, who—gifted particularly and richly by nature—soon perceived the folly and inconsequence of the conclusions afloat in his day in regard to the Round Towers of Ireland. Among the competition essays as to the origin and destination of these famous Round Towers, furnished in answer to the desire to settle this point, if possible, by the offer of its first prize or gold medal, by the Royal Irish Academy, in 1833—34, appeared one essay— which proved to be by O’Brien—that should properly have settled the debate for ever. Its arguments and
Introduction. XXV
proofs, in justice to its well-directed learning, should have been accepted at once. However—as is generally the case in these remote and difficult inquiries—O’Brien was disbelieved. Owing to the want of resolute and quick-sighted capacity to judge accurately, the usual pur- blind conclusion was arrived at. Notwithstanding this conspicuous failure of literary justice the striking merits of O’Brien’s masterly treatise made themselves evident in a certain degree, and the second prize was adjudged to this piece, while the gold medal and the first place were assigned to an essay by Dr. Petrie—another Irish antiquary—whose notions, being commonplace, were safegoing and plausible, and better agreed with the temper of the adjudicators. Dr. Petrie refused to allow of the extreme antiquity of the Round Towers, gave them a Christian origin, and assigned to their erection a much later date. Never was incompetence made more manifest. Poor Henry O’Brien died a young man, having, when in London, become one of the chief contributors, in his own particular line of antiquities, to Fraser's Magazine at the time of its highest distinc- tion. He wrote and laboured with all the en- thusiasm of a cultured Irishman, and with the correctness of a sage. His book upon the “ Round Towers” is now acknowledged as the only correct book, and the est book, upon the subject. It has become very scarce, and is eagerly bought up wherever encountered.
Edward Sellon—to whose care, knowledge, and dis- crimination the world is indebted for the arrangement of the choice Phallic collection in the British Museum—has ._ furnished an account of the Phallic worship in India only,
which is authenticated by passages in the writings of c
XXVI Introduction.
Sir William Jones, Wilford, and other historians, travel- lers, and commentators, more or less skilled and prepared by study.
The most painstaking and indefatigable of all these explorers into the foundations of the old religions is Godfrey Higgins. But he loses sight of the great con- tention implied in the very cause in wading amidst the labyrinths of evidence. The question in reality is not whether the forms of the religion are true, but whether religion itself is true. We believe that it is, and we have written accordingly—that is, to con- struct. Godfrey Higgins has given to the world—like Thomas Inman and others—marvellous books, monu- ments of industry and of expense. But they reduce religion to a mechanical exercise. They are historical accounts of rites, ceremonies, and usages—and_ how they have passed in the practice of all the peoples—matters, truths, and relations which nobody disputes, ‘The ma- chinery of a religion, or of all religion, every person can understand. ‘That which impels the machinery is the great subject to be discussed,
To explain the symbols and the mysticism always accompanying them, together with the recondite refe- rences to the unsuspected powers of Nature implied in the imagery—often a purposed dream or “ masquerade” —of the celebrated Gnostic gems;—to decipher the hieroglyphics which puzzle strangers to these curious subjects ;—to elucidate the meanings conveyed in the monuments and relics, sculpturesque and architectural— all expressive of something of moment to be transmitted and communicated,—left as a legacy, as it were, by the old times to the later times,—all this, which, of course,
Introduction. XXVII
is the aim of all writers, is a work of difficulty, which must be still further aggravated unless the reader is ‘surrounded by books of prints, or by the actual gems, statues, sculpture, to which reference in the text is made. And even then the inferences will not be understood, since the only valuable foundation of all must be meta- physic truth, or none at all. It is with a view to further- ing the study of the subject that we write suggestively. Much, however (we may add), will be found in the book to be very original. Some considerable proportion of its contents, we apprehend, as it will sufficiently startle, will be thought—certainly at first—to be beyond belief.
Lest it should be supposed that the author shares the opinions—apparently wholly realistic—of the writers who express their views in the Appendix, superadded at the end of the book, he is desirous of recording a firm dis- claimer.
He admits, in many respects, the truth of facts put forward, whilst he dissents from, and disallows, as founded upon too hasty judgmént and upon mistake, the conclusions which seem to be sought to be elicited from them. The object of the author in the present