CHAPTER Il.

THE HISTORY OF THE PHALLIC “ SYMBOL-STRUCTURES ;”’ THEIR ORIGIN, GENEALOGY, AND VARIETY THROUGH THE SUCCESSION OF THE HISTORICO-RELIGIOUS AGES.
To cite the expressions of a very able and original writer, who adopted the subject of Phallicism, and the highly important part it has played in the history of the religions of the world, we might have spoken of the terins in which we treat of our general subject, in the present chapter. We might have professed to give ‘The Causes of the Original Dispersion of Primitive Nations in times of remote antiquity ;? and enlarged on ‘presumptive proofs of original connexion between various nations, now widely scattered; deducible from a critical examination into the intrinsic signification and character of ancient sacred edifices, &c., of .which the ruins and imperishable remains still exist in several countries.” This was substantially the title of an ably reasoned article, published under the name of mPoTeyrs, author of a work on the “Real Nature of the Sin of Adam.” The article appeared with the two words, “Fiat Lux,” printed on. its forefront, in the Freemasons’ Quarterly Review, in the year 1840. In proceeding with this dissertation the author says he shall discuss the subject generally, under the four following heads—viz, : Firstly, in examining what was in reality intended, mysti- cally figured, and represented, under the colossal and other national monuments, and sacred edifices of antiquity,
6 Phallicism.
—Secondly, in showing that it was in consequence of a disturbance which took place in the unity of the faith of the early inhabitants of the earth, at the renewed period of its existence (that is to say, soon after the Flood), that these same symbolical edifices came to be erected in commemoration of the grand schismatic division.— Thirdly, in setting forth that the ancient emigrations with which we are acquainted, are to be distinctly attributed, in the first instance, solely to this division of faith and to separate religious opinions.—Fourthly, and chiefly, in pointing out the value of a system of interpretation which seems to supply the only key for expounding the religious mysteries of all nations, or which may prevail to open the sealed historic ‘volume that contains the records of remote antiquity, and by applying it to the problematical dispersion of nations, (which has so often occupied the attention of the learned), and tracing the original motives of their separation by a series of almost irrefutable in- ferences, show that it may thus be determined on a surer basis than can otherwise be established, what nations were in reality of an original stock, by proving them to have held common religious opinions when, as yet, but — two grand sectarian divisions disputed for ascendency in the minds of men.
In answer to the first of these inquiries, as to what was mystically figured, and represented under the colossal and other monuments and sacred edifices of antiquity, we will proceed to designate respectively, as the head and type of all succeeding edifices of like character, the Tower of Babel, and the great Pyramids of Egypt. The first of these was erected not long after the foundation of the Chal- dzean monarchy, by Nimrod, the son of Cush, 2221 B.c.
Phallic Symbol-Structures. 7
The temple of Belus formed a square nearly three miles in compass. In the middle of the temple was an immense tower, six hundred feet in height. The ruins are now two hundred and thirty-five feet high. The Great Pyramid forms a square, each side of whose base is seven hundred and forty-five feet, and covers an area of nearly fourteen.acres. The perpendicular height is five hundred and sixty feet. ‘The Pyramids were erected probably not long after the foundation of the Egyptian monarchy by Misraim, the son of Ham, 2188 B.c., Babylon and Memphis being among the first cities built after the Flood. And when the totally different forms of these immense national edifices are considered, the in- quiring mind can scarcely fail to seek for the causes which decided their ancient architects to employ so gigantic a mass of materials, in one or the other of these two definite forms, above every other which might have been selected ; and we think it will scarcely be denied that the forms respectively of these stupendous monuments (which, as will be shown, were only the original arche- types of innumerable others which have been subse- quently constructed,) must unavoidably be considered as having been adopted as the carrying out of some paramount idea or intention on the part of their primeval founders. There is cause to believe, that in the erection of the _Chaldzan Tower, the principles of true “ Masonry” were at first abided by; but, subsequently, the corrup- tion of human nature urging men to overthrow a spiritual worship, which absolutely required purity and holiness, they sought to establish a system that virtually incul- cated the worship of the creature more than the Creator, and furnished a pretext for the practice of unrestrained
8 PUL Seo
licentiousness, as part and parcel of religious rites. Such was the ancient worship of the Lingam—a worship which we read of as recognised and established throughout all antiquity ; such was the object really worshipped under its colossal representative, in the Chaldean Tower, that magnificent, monster “ Upright,” defiant, as it were, or appealing, for both of these meanings are, in certain senses, (and acceptations), identical. ‘This was the pro- digious Tower, or obelisc, (or obelisk, the “k” and the “c” being interchangeable), known from the description in Scripture, and the hints contained in its allegories, or rather magnificent. myths, as to the causes of the original Dispersion, as the Tower of Babel, Bab, or Babble. Thence has come down to us the name for vain talking, confusion, the “confusion of tongues,” or languages ; when the sudden supernatural interposition came from the divine Architect of the Universe, making a fool of mankind, and, in the impossibility of the people under- standing each other’s meaning, rendering society, or a general community of design and purpose of the human race, as working to one common end—however obvious, in common sense, the object might be—impossible,
We are here seeking to establish, firstly, the philo- sophical possibility of magic; and, secondly, the actual working of magic in the real affairs of the world; not- withstanding the contradictions of common sense, rightly enough, perhaps, to the possibility of magic, which means the unnatural interference with nature, and is a contradiction in terms, when we estimate “ nature” as all that is, or as fixed and unalterable, in its own laws, as supreme; especially, in the total absence of any proof, at any time, or at any period of the world’s history, as
Phallic Symbol-Structures. 9
receivable in record or testimony, reasonable and_believ- able, that anything like magic, or interference from with- out nature, ever obtruded or interjected from outside that nature, into that nature—which, however mistaken or misunderstood from the natural infirmities of man—still “builds the world,” and is the world :—nothing other being so, or being possible to be so. But, after all— man is not all! Nor is common sense all—or indeed anything out of this our world of Man!
So much for this famous Chaldzan Tower, “'Tower of Babel,” or PHaLLus, of whose notorious existence traditions, even in the most remote nations, almost uni- versally exist; and of whose actual signification many weighty proofs have been collected by that very zealous, penetrating and able antiquary, the late Mr. Henry O’Brien, author of a very conclusive book, “’The Round Towers of Ireland.” ‘These Round Towers were all « Phalli,”? or Fire-Towers, raised in adherence to, and in expression of the inconceivably ancient faith of the Per- sians, Parsees, or Fire-worshippers. 'To Mr. O’Brien’s proofs we might certainly add others equally numerous and irrefragable, were we here intending, in this chapter, an elaborate treatise, instead of a circumscribed review of the circumstances affording proofs.
The worship of the Lingam, then, of which the Pillar Tower was, as has been said, a gigantic figure, involved and signified the worship of the Male Principle of the Universe ; by which was intended, originally, as has been intimated, the worship of the True and Only God; in accordance with which assertion we find that one inter- pretation of the word Jehovah undoubtedly signifies the Universal Male. In India, where undeniable proofs have
TO. - Phallicism,
been found of the existence, at one period, of true “Masonry” (see Freemasons Quarterly Review, p. 159)s this signification is found to be involved in the names of the principal deities, Accordingly we find that temples in honour of this Universal Male Power, were always erected in the figure of its representative, the Lingam; that is to say, in the form of a tower or column—God in his unity. Almost innumerable examples of such edifices abound in ancient countries, where this worship was either primitive, or introduced at later periods, and they ee illustrate these facts.
Wilford remarks (Works, vol. ii., 365) that the Phallus was publicly worshipped by the name of Balleswara Linga, on the banks of the Euphrates. The cubic room in the cave of Elephanta likewise contains the Lingam (vol. iv., 413), as does also the pagoda of stone at Maherbaliporam, or City of the Great Baal (vol. v.,69). Sir William Jones observes, (vol. ii., 47), “columns were erected, perhaps as gnomons, others probably to represent the Phallus of Iswara.” Enough has here been cited, without doubt, to dispose both the learned and the unlearned to con- sider that the true signification of the pillar and tower was in reality such as has here been stated.
In many parts of the Bible we find the pillar to have been undoubtedly a sacred emblem; as in Isaiah, xix. : “In that day shall there be an altar to Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof, to Jehovah, and it shall be for a sign, and a witness to the Lord.” And this was the especial form in which it pleased God himself to appear, when he dwelt in the pillar that went before his chosen people, as solemnly recorded by Moses.
Phallic Symbol-Structures. ct
When, however, pillars were set up to receive the profane rites of idolatrous worship, we find them noticed in Scripture as an abomination, in like manner as their great Babylonian archetype; which being obnoxious to God, as such, was destroyed by “fire from Heaven,” as its blasted and vitrified ruins still remain incontrovertibly to attest.
Having thus briefly noticed the worship of the Lincam, or male principle, it remains to show what was the true and real thing signified under the form of the pyRamID, TRIANGLE, Or CONE: and with respect to the mysteries concealed and represented in the figure of the pyramid, I apprehend, that before Mr. O’Brien’s luminous remarks on that subject, the scientific world in general were in almost Cimmerian obscurity as to the real and opposite tendency of the worship indicated by edifices erected in that form. A remark in the Asiatic Researches (vol. ii., 477), that “the pyramids of Egypt, as well as those discovered in Ireland, [the Round Towers are meant, which are obelisks, and not pyramids|, and probably, too, the Tower of Babel, seem to have been intended as nothing more than images of Mahadeo,”* shows how confused were the notions of the learned, as to the real character of the pyramid, “when we are thus led to suppose that the pyramid and tower alike represent an identical and male power, and typify an identical object of adoration.” The writer of the foregoing passages seems to be in some fault here, because the pyramids, towers, obelisks, and pillars, although of the same family of objects, imply a different significance, In reality, the towers and inclined pillars, and the obelisks with the
* Mahadeo, Maha- Deo—How like, this, to ‘‘ Mother of God !”
12 Phailicism.
characteristic which the architects call the “ orbicular” curve, are the same as the broad pyramid, only slim and aspiring; and the pyramids are the same as the pillars and towers, only broad in the base and latitudinal. The fact of the matter is that all of these are pyra- midal forms, and that they only differ in their slimness or breadth, for they all express the same religious, mys- terious idea; which is, swelling, rising, or extension— the characteristic or the motive movement, in both sexes, for that “grand act”—that grand human act—which secures us everything, the uprising and protrusion of the peculiar instruments, male and female, for success in the sexual magic congress. This we shall declare in different parts of our book, to be macic, and a holy sacrament or charm; and it doubtless is sympathetic magnetism of its kind, from which it is perfectly possible, and proper, to extract all irregular ideas, or obscenity, if the mind be purified adequately to will it so.
Certain philosophers have chosen to view this matter in another light, in regard of the sameness of the Phallic symbols, whether the pillar, tower, or pyramid. We reckon all these symbol-structures to signify, ultimately, but one thing—the “ Fire,” apotheosised as celestial, and worshipped as the only possible, and the genuine repre- sentative of the supreme, the chief deity, to be addressed in adoration, appeased and moved to mercy in mystic rites, protesting sacrifices, and innumerable appealing services, solemnities and observances, forming a fixed code, con- stituting an immutable law; to be confided to the hand of the Arch-Priests as Sovereigns, and to Sovereigns in their character of Hierophants and Sacred Guardians. These theorists say that as the tower was sacred to the
Phallic Symbol-Structures. 13
male power of the universe, so likewise was the pyramid, triangle, or cone, adopted by the votaries of an opposite worship, as the real and consecrated emblem and repre- sentation of that procreative female energy: in which, according to them (considering it as the true and vital conceptive power of nature), resided absolutely and solely the underived principle of life ; which female power they chose alone to deify, and, like their opponents, conse- crated their unhallowed worship by the most profane and licentious rites. .
Thus the great Pyramids were at Memphis the colossal monuments of a separate worship, with all its concomitant mysteries; and as in the Tower of Babel, the three- fold objects of astronomy, astrology, and religion were indissolubly involved and united in them.
Baron Humboldt observes, in his Researches (in total ignorance, however, of this theory), “In every part of the globe, on the ridge of the Cordilleras as well as in the Isle of Samothrace, in the /lgean Sea, fragments of primitive languages are preserved in religious rites.” Sir William Jones expressly states that the meaning of ¢ yéni or ‘ bhaga, is undoubtedly the female special sensual part ; and in his plate of the Hindu Lunar Mansions, (see the article on the Antiquity of the Indian Zodiac), this con- stellation of the ‘yoni is figured as three stars, inclosed by the Hindu draughtsman in a representation of that object ; which, in his figure, is made to resemble an in- verted pyramid, or truncated cone. Venus Genetrix is sometimes represented in the form of a conical marble; ‘for the reason of which figure,” says Tacitus, “ we are left in the dark;?? but, adds Sir William Jones, “the reason appears too clearly in the temples and paintings of
14 Phallicism.
Hindustan, where it never seems to have entered the heads of the legislators or people, that anything natural could be offensively indecent.” Wilford mentions that according to Theodoret, Arnobius, and Clemens Alex- andrinus, the Yoni of the Hindus was the sole object of veneration in the mysteries of Eleusis. For proofs of the high antiquity of this worship in China, the discerning reader need only consult Lord Macartney’s Travels, vol. 1. ‘Hager, Monument of Yu. “In both Americas,” we learn, “it is a matter of inquiry what was the intention of the natives when they raised so many artificial pyramidal hills, several of which appear to have served neither as tombs, nor watch-towers, nor the base of a temple.” About 2,000 years before our era, sacrifices were offered in China, to the supreme being, on four great mountains, called the Four Yo. The whole country of Mexico abounded in pyramids, and Humboldt declares the basis of the Great Cholula to have been twice as broad as that of the Egyptian Cheops, though its height is little more than that of Mycerinus. The fact is, that wherever this peculiar worship has flourished (and «it must never be lost sight of that all idolatry can be shown to have been originally based on one or other ramification of it, ) traces are left behind and relics remain, which have always been found to puzzle the learned antiquarian no less than the unlettered conjecturer.
“In the Mexican Codex Borgianus,”’ says Humboldt, “the head of the sacrificing priest is covered with one of those conical caps which are worn in China and on the north-west coast of America; opposite this figure is seated the god of fire.” We may note that the triangle was indisputably a sacred emblem from all antiquity, as
Phallic Symbol-Structures. I
Oa
might be shown by innumerable examples. There are exceedingly curious coins called Cistophori of Pergamos, which city Cicero mentions as possessing a great number of them, on which we see represented various devices, indi- cative of recondite mysteries; the triangle surmounting the whole, and held in the deadly fangs of serpents.
In commenting on the particular branch of idolatry under discussion, we cannot but remark, that there appears just reason to believe, that this was the peculiar abomina- tion into which the Ten Tribes of Israel lapsed, at their separation from Judah under Jeroboam, Indeed strong presumptive proof is offered, insomuch as, from the account given by Herodotus, and cited by Josephus, of the invasion of the Egyptian Shishak, under Rehoboam, it appears that, having conquered Jerusalem, and defiled the public buildings, by carving on them the distinctive symbols of his own peculiar and national creed (that is to say, according to the same author, by defacing them with representations of that very symbol, the mysterious yoni, which we have been discussing), he returned to his own country without in any way molesting Samaria, the residence of the Ten Tribes, who, it needs not any great measure of sagacity to perceive, had doubtless embraced his religious views. What those views were, in the sight of God, is fully expressed in Kings, 1, xiv., 7, 8, 9, and myeeacsqO, 24; also Kings, 2, i, 23; 3, &c.
It is supposed by those who have pursued these deeply interesting and original Phallic inquiries the most closely, ~and achieved philosophic results therefrom with the greatest success, that it was in consequence of a dis- turbance which took place in the unity of the faith of the early inhabitants of the earth, that is to say, soon after
16 | Phallicism.
the Flood, that these same symbolical edifices came to be erected, in commemoration of the grand schismatic divi- sion.
At the time of the building of Babel, we have the highest authority for knowing that the sentiments of the men then and there engaged, were in complete unison, for Moses records that “the Lord said, Behold, the people is One.” Had this unity of feeling been mani- fested in persevering in the worship of the true and only God, upon whose almighty name men already began to call, even while Adam was yet alive, doubtless it would have been, instead of a subject of reproach, an occasion of approval to Him “whose name is One.” (See Ephes., iv., 5, 6.) But when this unanimity was manifested only in the departure of men from the principles of religion and true ‘ Masonry,’ and consequently from Truth itself, the Lord God “scattered them abroad,” as we read, ‘upon the face of all the earth.” |
As has been already observed, traditions are still extended almost throughout the length and breadth of the earth, of this miraculous and notable transaction: it is impossible in the space here assigned even casually to designate the various and modified forms in which this history has been handed down, from the remarkable legend preserved by the Mexican priests, as related by Humboldt, even to the wild fables believed by the savages of the South Seas, and strangely analogous to the primeval account.
In Wilford’s Essay on the Nile, vol. iii., p. 360, we find that this diversity of opinion (i.e, the superiority of the male or female emblem of the sexual part, that of genera- tion, in regard of the idolatrous, magic worship) seems to
Phallic Symbol-Structures. i
have occasioned the general war which is often mentioned in.the Puranas, and was celebrated by the poets of the west as the basis of the Grecian mythology. According to both Nonnus and the Hindu mythologists, it began in India, whence it spread over the whole globe, and all mankind appear to have borne a part in it. These physiological contests, arising from a profound considera- tion of the mysteries of animal generation, and its super- natural “wherefore,” and on the comparative influences of the sexes in the production of perfect offspring (in itself, down to this instant day, the greatest possible, and the apparently irresolvable, mystery) :—these mighty physiological disputes, induced in the reflective wisdom of the earliest thinkers, laid the sublime foundations of the Phallic Worship. They led to violent schisms in religion, and even to bloody and devastating wars, which have wholly passed out of the history of these earliest times ; or rather they have never been recorded in history; remaining only as a tradition, or, if at all holding place, holding it only in the faintest, although the sublimest form, asa fable. ‘These physiological contests were dis- guised under a veil of the wildest allegories and emblems, in Egypt, and India especially, and generally in every other country.
The epoch of warfare and bloodshed is alluded to frequently as the “ Age of Contention,” or “ Confusion.” That this essential difference of opinion as to the real ascendency and superiority of male or female, as such, involved also the physical problem of the predominant agency of either sex in the mystery of generation, which | it is clear they were pleased erroneously to look upon as synonymous with Creation itself, is we think fully evident,
C
18 Phallicism.
We are inclined, however, also to believe that the Pish-de- Danaan sect, those fierce contenders for the supremacy of the female influence, certainly derived no little of the plausibility of their pretensions from a reference to the primeval prophecy that the “ woman’s seed should bruise the serpent’s head.” In that sense at least it is natural to suppose that they could hardly fail to consider other- wise than as supremely sacred and magical, that mystical centre of woman’s body, reference to which is, in the grandly superstitious and grandly sacramental sense, made in a whisper, the best proof of the possibility of magic, and of the supernatural, motived, directly personal interference of the gods (by whatever name we may call Them, or, in concentration, as One, Him) with the doings of Man. ‘That female part, before which we even, now, apart from Phallicism, can “fall down and worship,” as the most glorious object in all God’s creation, when disclosed as the Rose in the Garden of Flowers in the perfectly-formed naked* figure of a beautiful woman, is, in fact, that which it is desecration to uncover other than reverentially and worthily. Notably, according to the ancient true ideas, especially among the Jews, it was
* The word “naked,” considered radically, comes, we think, from the Greek word—“ Nike”—meaning “victory,” in one sense as the victory of the Evil Genius, and also “victory” in the sense of power— that is, female power. The same word also signifies “ death.”? Thus in Genesis :—
“But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the Garden, God hath said :—‘ Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it— Lest ye pie!’ This injunction, be it remarked, strangely and con- tradictorily as it sounds, was made to both “ Man” and “ Woman.”— (Genesis. —Chap. iii., v. 3.) The whole of Genesis is cabalistic, and therefore of the fullest force, though its purpose and its meanings are impenetrably covered over with mystery.
Phallic Symbol-Structures. 19
always regarded as the very centre and most sacred point of the religions. Amongst the Hebrews it was philo- sophically and mystically considered as deep sunk in the profundities of mystery, to break in, unpreparedly, upon which would impugn the eternal supernatural “‘ charm” the legend of which lay inextricably in the “ Cabala :” and which display would compromise, nay, obliterate its pur- pose and use, in the reproduction of the generations; thus disobeying, in its extinguishment, the enjoined exercise of the physical means for the renewal and perpetuation of life out of ourselves. The abstract strangeness of this fact has escaped the wonder of people, however startling it would appear of itself, even naturally, except from experience, which takes away the surprise from everything, and which familiarity reconciles us to the miracle even of our own being.
Take away the shame incident to the sexual parts of woman and of man, and accustom us to the continual familiar sight of them, and we shall grow to regard them with as much indifference as the face or the feet. Shame, human shame, is taught and acquired, it being the effect of community, coming from the natural habit of blushing at fellowship in relation to these things. We never blush at the mere consciousness of being in love, yet grow confused even at love which is the purest when we are brought to book in the sight of other people. Another remarkable effect in the case of experiencing passion, or love, is that when it is felt most intensely, it becomes embodied, as it were, even as a sort of sickness. And it is doubtful whether, indeed, to the natural man, love be not a disease, like a fever that is caught, although it is delicious in its sensations, and in its “ love-lorn”’
20 Phallicism.
weakness and lassitude. Is this a proof of what strange, glorious, unimaginable heaven there may be prepared for us, of which, in this state, we know nothing; when even its premonitory, anticipative, mysterious illnesses, or diseases, may be actually the deliciously divine affliction of immortal Love, descending out of the skies, or out of the celestial regions, into the responsive soul of man? Thus it may really be profoundly true, as Plato thought, that not only the “music of the spheres is true,” and that, thus, music is veritably the atmosphere, or mag- netism, of the angels, as Robert Flood and the Rosi- crucians taught; but that Shakespeare was right when he implied that “ Music is the food of love;” which almost every man’s and woman’s daily experience assures them it must be.
We were, however, about to instance, as a remarkable proof of the purifying power of real, intense, although personal love, when gone forth and incorporate, as it were, into the object, which then becomes truly an enchanted object, that, in these exalted cases, bodily desire for the object is rarely felt or thought of,* which would seem to show, wild enough as it seems to assert it, that
* If it be thought about at all, in relation to the individual with whom the person may be in love, in these exalted cases, the thought of the “loved one” is simply magic im excelsis, or a state of passionate delirium, in which the object transcends out of the natural. Hence Platonic love, and love of the highest, may be true. Therefore this sort of love is so refined and spiritual as to be sinless, bodily contact being impossible of it. Such ideas as the foregoing are the groundwork and the raison d’étre of the possibility of perfect monasticism; and of nunhood or the maintenance of perpetual virginity; and of the realisa- tion of that self-devoted trampling upon the flesh, which is the glorious distinctive mark of the Saints, Martyrs, and Hermits, male and female, all the more gloriously great, when the one class—as in the Roman
Phallic Symbol-Structures. 21
the passion of copulation is truly accidental to man, and not natural to him. [Refer to our chapter upon the Mystic Anatomy of Henry Cornelius Agrippa, and to passages referring to the reveries of some of the Gnostics.] Indeed, unless the mystery maintained in the hiding away and rendering unknown these objects had conserved com- pletely the irresistible desire to “know,” and to be secret viewers of the male special distinctions and the female special peculiarities—the human man, having a soul, and woman, having a soul, as a son and a daughter of God in a certain sublime, physical sense—it would seem philo- sophically that desire must have become obliterated, and that means must have failed, through the extinguishment, first of impulse, and then absolutely of power—the magic, in this respect, being conjured-out of man through interference, ab extra; with the fullest proof of con- centrate, occasional design of a still stronger magic, and of a still more powerful exertion of power than the con- genital magic and the natural power. For it must always be remembered that man is an object of himself, as a being with a “soul,” shipwrecked from without (he knows not whence), into this world of animated forms, with destinies wholly opposite; and here produced and domesticated wholly for a different object, seemingly by accident, as a contrast and phenomenon, the ruin of a ruined spirit, perhaps, yet the acknowledged master, no mate, of all the lower animals, even up to those of the highest grade, whose characteristics yet touch the brute
Catholic religion they are presumed to be—are perfect, and the other class, the female devotees, are beautiful. All this, from a certain point of view, is considered fanaticism ; but nevertheless it is a very fine fanaticism.
22. Phallicism.
in some respects. Some such view as this is clearly the only hope of humanity. Manis a machine, dependent upon the surrounding elements, and upon his food and its decom- position for his nutrition, and consuming his exquisitely- attuned and manipulated machinery, gradually, in the terrestrial, vital, antmal heat (or “flameless fire,” to make use of a paradoxical figure); for man falls to pieces (again, a figure or rhodomontade), when he can no longer maintain himself in his “nature.” Yet the valorous defence, that his nature makes, even against itself, is truly wonderful, stupendous. But man fails, at last, in the incessant war, because he is endowed—however, in health and constitution, richly endowed—only to endure for a brief time. There is a never-ceasing ravage, except for the indispensable intervals of restoring sleep, effected upon his fine nerves ; upon which his emotions, beautiful, or the reverse, according to his refinement, play as upon harpstrings, when the angels touch or the devils assail. All this, the astrologers say, is regulated by the “ traverse through time” of his horoscope (fatality, or necessity) ; although man, nevertheless, has his independent will, or power of election for good or evil, in ways and by methods which supernaturally render free-will and “ne- cessity” identical in the divine counsels ; of which Man, in his extremely limited capacity, “ most ignorant of what he’s most assured,” can form no more conclusive idea, than he can of abstract time or space, or anything scarcely, even the “cogito, ergo sum,” identity. He has only a fear of that outside—and a reverence for it, born out of fear, scarcely out of love of it.
Classes. of the Phalli. 2.3
CTPA BA eel i: THE STORY OF THE CLASSES OF THE PHALLI.
THE two influences, Male and Female, are conspicuous in certain differences in the Phallic monuments, which unitedly, however, signify the same thing. The disputes of the comparative superiority of the Male over the Female principle, or of the Female over the Male, were the origin, amongst the earliest nations, of vast desolating wars, of which no history, scarcely even legend, has descended to modern periods, ‘Therefore, no account remains of these primeval wars, which brought about the building of the famous Tower of Babel, and were ultimately the cause of the confusion of languages and the original dispersion of the nations. Obelisks, Towers, and Steeples represent and figure forth the Male principle. Pyramids, Circular magnified forms, and Rhomboidal, or Undulating, Ser- pentine shapes, denote the Female natural power. The one set of forms are masculine; therefore aggressive, and compelling. The other set of forms are feminine; there- fore submissive, and ennobling. But all are alike Phallic, and mean the same thing, that is the natural motived power which causes and directs the world, that power which is the world, in fact.
We have perhaps brought sufficiently into view, and realised to the reader’s attention, as most important, in every sense, as explanatory of religion and of religious mysteries, both the theories of the myths, and the actualities of the mysteries, whether heathen or ethnic,
24 Phallicism.
Christian or vindicatory. These Phallic objects, innume- rable, are always peculiar in their form, and are of all sizes. If these sometimes prodigious structures are Obelisks, Columns, or Pillars, or as occasionally happens, single, rough-hewn, or partly-fashioned uprights, they represent and figure forth the male principle. Subse- quent to the very early, devotional ages, these pins, or uprights, assumed the forms of solid or slender towers, tors, or springiny, rising, pointed fabrics. Amongst the Muslemmim these were minarets, with egg-shaped sum- mits; in the architectural practice among the Christians, the tower attenuated into the spire or steeple. But the memorial structures with the larger base, and with that broader incidence which might be denominated, with a certain aptness, the Saturnian angle, indicated the oppo- site influence, that of the Female, in mystic type or apotheosis. ‘These symbol-structures, involving the idea of the feminine power, are the more broadly vaulting in shape. Chief, and most majestic of all these monuments, are the Pyramids. All the mystical monuments of this form and fashion are in the general sense, equally Phalli— that is, devoted to, and in witness of the worship of the distinctive sexual peculiarities. We accept the whole as meaning the one thing, Phallicism, all interpreted under the general, rising, forceful form, aspiring towards the stars. Stately beyond idea, and gloomily majestic, as is the aspect of these Lunar or Womanly monumental structures, they can be soon distinguished. ‘This group of the Feminine- Phallic forms comprises the Pyramids in the first rank. The Obelisk is a shrunken, vertically thin, concentrated pyramid: the Pyramid is a widely squared out obelisk: both express the same idea. In the conveyance of certain
Classes of the Phalli. 25
ideas to those who contemplate them, the pyramid boasts of prouder significance, and impresses with a hint of still more impenetrable and more removed mystery. We seem to gather dim, supernatural ideas of the mighty mother of Nature, the dusk divinity crowned with towers, the ancientest among the ancients, the Isis, or mysterious consort of the Dethroned, and Ruined, that almost two- sexed entity without a name, She of the Veil which is never to be lifted, perhaps not even by the angels, for their knowledge is limited. In short, this tremendous abstraction, Cybele, Idea Mater, Isiac controller of the zodiacs, whatever she be, has her representative figure in the half-buried Sphynx, even to our own day, watching the stars, although nearly swallowed up in the engulphing sands. This is the Gorgon survival of the period of the Ark, eldest daughter of the mythologies, whose other face (for, Janus-like, she looks two ways,) turned away from the world, is beautiful as the fairest one of Paradise. That other face of the Gorgon, or Sphynx, resembles, in one respect, that side of the Lunar disc; the side of the Moon turned away from observers on the earth, that face which no mortal eye ever saw, or will see, and which, for this reason, is one of the greatest mysteries in all the sky.
The foregoing remarks furnish the clue to this double history of the Phallus, in the divided character of its worship, whether the Obelisk or Pillar, or whether the Pyramid be the idol. It is too plain to be misunder- stood. As the Greeks wrote Pa/ai for Pali, they rendered the word Paliputra, by Palaigonos, which also means the offspring of Pali, literally signifying the offspring of the Phallus. It was notoriously the Yéni and not the Phallus,
26 Phallicism,
which alone received the veneration of the Hindus, though now divided into innumerable sects and an in- extricable maze of polytheism. Wilford observes that the Yavanas were the ancestors of the Greeks, and (vol, iil., p. 358) that the Pandits insist that the words Yavana and Yoni are derived from the same root, Yu, and that the Yavanas were so named from their obstinate assertion of a superior influence in the female over the male nature. An ancient book on astronomy, in San- scrit, bears the title of Yavana ‘fatica, which may be interpreted “the Ionic sect.” ‘There is an ancient proverb amongst the Pandits, that “no base creature can be lower than a Yavana,” truly showing the fluctuating nature of human opinions and theories, which, nevertheless, have torn the bosom of society, and shaken nations to their centre. Their creed caused the new people in Greece to name their new country itself Ionia, from that conse- crated Yoni which they revered, and to distinguish them- selves as the Ionic, or Y6-nic sect, in indubitable reference to their peculiar opinions. These and such-like researches, furnish us with the real meaning of proper names, and amongst others that of the great goddess Ju-no, which Wilford asserts to be derived from the Yoni of the Hindus; also if we analyse the name of Diana, or Di- Yana, the great goddess of the Ephesians, we shall at once perceive an identical etymology; and when we remember that Ju-no was fabled to have been born at Argos, and that she was peculiarly worshipped there, we shall fully coincide in that opinion, for it is to be observed that this name of Argha is derived from the Bhaga of
the Hindus, and both signified the Y6ni, and likewise an — ark or boat, which was used throughout antiquity as a
Classes of the Phalli. 29
type of the Yoni itself. The Hindu goddess, Bagis, was indifferently called Vagis, from which, no doubt, is derived the Latin vagina; and when we remember that Plutarch makes the otherwise inexplicable assertion, that Osiris* (or the incarnation of the male principle) was commander of the Argo; and when we learn that the true meaning of the name Argha-nat’ha, or, as we mostly render it, (speaking of the great idol), Jagernath, is no other than “lord of the boat,” we shall perceive at once the drift of these dark sentences, when truly and _ intelligibly expounded,
The discussion of this word Argha naturally induces us to remark concerning an intermediate or middle sect, which, says Wilford, “is now prevalent in India, and which was generally diffused over ancient Europe.” It was introduced by the Pelargi, who, Herodotus says, were the same as the Pelasgi. Many ancient writers affirm that they were one of the most ancient peoples in the world. It is asserted that they first inhabited Argolis, and about 1883, B.c., passed into Cémonia, or Yo- monia, and were afterwards dispersed, or emigrated into several parts of Greece. Some of the Pelasgians that had been driven from Attica, (Ya-tica), settled at Lemnos, whither, some time after, they carried some Athenian women, whom they had seized on the coast of Africa. They raised children by these captive females, but after- wards destroyed them together with their mothers, through jealousy, because they differed in manners from themselves, which horrid murder was attended by a dreadful pestilence. Such is the account given by the classic writers (Pausanias, Strabo, Herodotus, Plato,
*® Osiris and Isis, the Is’ wara and J’ si of the Hindus.
28 Phallicism.
Virgil, Ovid, Flaccus, Seneca, &c.). But, when we weigh the foregoing arguments, can we doubt that these women were destroyed through jealousy of their religion, and not because they differed merely in manners, in accordance with the peculiar characteristics of fanaticism, which brooks no opposition to its devouring nature ?
The word Pelargos was derived, says Wilford, from P’hala and Argha, (Phallus, and Argha from Bhaga, or Y6ni), those mysterious types which the later mythologist distinguished under the names of Pallas and Argo.
The Pelargi venerated both male and female prin- ciples in union, as their compound appellation indicates, and represented them conjointly, when their powers were supposed to be combined, by the intersection of two equilateral triangles, thus, x, that peculiar symbol
‘“‘Form’d all mysteries to bear,”
the emblem of Lux, and to which innumerable perfec- tions and virtues, including those of the Cross, have been attributed, from time immemorial. The union of these two symbols, denoting the Male nature, and the Female nature, or the Phallus, the mark of which is the upright line, and the Yoni, the recognitive mark of which is the horizontal line, are best rendered, or depicted, in the double, or conjoined equilateral triangle in intersection. The pyramidal, aspiring, equilateral triangle is Male, and signifies Fire, and the rushing force of fire, mounting upwards in its own impulse, contradicting nature, inas- much as it shoots up against gravity. The pyramid in reverse, or pointing down, is the indicating symbol ot Water, or of the lunar, Female influence. The cross section of these all-significant figures gives the sexalpha,
Classes of the Phalli. 29
or Six-Alphas, the one half of the Cabalistic Machataloth or the six ascending signs of the zodiac, moving to junc- tion upwards in their influences (the one half of the ecliptic, figuratively the spear or glaive of Saint Michael), and also the other half of the same, six signs in reverse, meaning the junction, in cross action, and importing the whole number of the astronomical, and astrological, twelve equal divisions, or the Twelve Signs of the Great Circle. This, also, means the dominion of the Moon in man’s body, as passing through all the twelve signs, The symbol, or sign, of this mystical union is framed as thus :—Fire-Water, Water-Fire, Male-Female, Female- Male, in equal interchange, and the figure representing its idea, its glyph or special “hieroglyph,” is given in our illustration, This figure means Life mystically, and the giving of life; it is the solemn mark, typical of the sexes in conjunction ; and it is also called the seal of the princely magician, Solomon, the King of the Jews, who builds and sanctifies the temple, Solomon’s temple ; the myths regard- ing which are manifold. Solomon, in this view, is not only the monarch, and the mighty enchanter ; he is not only the king of the Jews, but he is, also, supernaturally viewed, the Champion, or Hero of the Fire. Fire, in all the religions, has been chosen as the representative mark of the supreme divinity, as the most faithful and closest mystical celestial image ; as that idea of God vouchsafed and approved ; in all the forms of faith, Chaldaic, Hebrew, Oriental, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Northern and Sou- thern, Eastern and Western, nay, distinguishing the Mexican and Peruvian, the Toltecque, and other religions found prevailing on the discovery of the New World; and all which, heathen and Christian alike, find direct
30 Phallicism.
exemplification in the Phalli, speaking as it were all over the world, from all time; and yet remaining the symbol (only to be understood by the “ Rosicrucians,” and even to these vouchsafed, limitedly, with the “ seven-fold guard” for silence,) which gives to Man, mystically and supernaturally, at once his only hope and, at the same time, his deepest dread. For, according to the assertion of the ancient philosopher, man found all his Gods in fear.
With the analysis of one more example we must im- perfectly conclude this portion of our Gnostic subject ; and the next example that occurs in this line of exami- nation is the history of Mycenze; which, we are of opinion, will confirm what has hitherto been advanced. Mycene, on which xame Henry O’Brien has commented, was situate at the extremity of the plain of Argos, and was the capital of a kingdom whose last sovereign, Epytus, was dispossessed, 1104, B.c., on the return of the Hera- clidee, descendants of Hercules.
History informs us that Hercules was a Myceneean prince, who was, for some reason or other, banished with all his family and descendants from the country, and his throne possessed by an usurper. Let us examine this name of Hercules. Chris, becoming the Christus, Christ, in the Christian ideas, or the Conservator, Saviour, the Greeks used to express by x or Spanish zota, the aspirated Aa of the Orientals, who said Aaris. In Hebrew, heres signifies the Sun (Isaiah, xix. 18), but in Arabic the meaning of the radical word is to preserve (haris, pre- server) ; and Heri-cal, trom which Hercules, is a Hindoo name of the sun. “I cannot help suspecting,” says Wilford, “ that Hercules is the same with Heracula, and signifying the race of Hera-or Heri ;” that is, the children
Classes of the Phalli. at
of the sun, of which the Phallus always presented the emblem, as the vivifier and preserver of nature. Hence, perhaps, the cry, or appeal, Haro! (Rescue! Preserve !) in Jersey. This is valid by ancient law. We may here _observe, as a curious citation, that this is a very old custom in Jersey, surviving time out of mind, the origin of which no one knows. Concerning its meaning there has been prodigious dispute. It is sufficient to say that it has puzzled all the antiquaries in England, to judge from the Transactions of all the learned societies, and reiterated inquiries and examination in Notes and Queries, and other professedly explaining periodicals. The supposed ag- grieved person, in regard of this singular calling upon the name of Haro, has the right to go into the highway, and to make public protestation of his wrong. He acclaims upon this mysterious name, shouting as if to an imaginary person. He kneels down in the middle of the road, turns his face to the east, like a Mahommedan, raises his voice, and calls aloud upon an invisible some- body, to whom he appeals by the unintelligible name of Haro, Haro, “to the rescue;” invoking help, or a champion, which, in some sort of superstitious, super- natural fashion, the suppliant is imagined thereby to obtain.
That Hercules and his followers of the Phallic sect were driven from Mycenz by conquerors of the opposite religious party, we deduce from the ruins themselves of the Cyclopzean pyramidal gate of Mycenze (of which so many puerile and flimsy explanations have been given), whose stupendous triangular pediment, and other appropriate architectural arrangements, prove it to have been con- structed by the upholders of a contrary faith. In con-
20. Phallicism.,
firmation of this, we read (vol. v. p. 270, Asiatic Researches,) that Diodorus Siculus says, “the posterity of Hercules reigned for many centuries in Pali-bothra (or Baali-putra),” which means literally a country peopled by the children of the sun. | We have here to explain that all Architecture, ancient and modern, is governed simply by two ideas of expres- sion, both of which are eminently Phallic, and full of meaning, certainly of sacred meaning. The governing line of all the temples in the old religions is horizontal ; thus the Jewish temple, or tabernacle, line is horizontal, following the form of the ark (argha, arc, arche, case or container), the oblong magical depository of the mysteries, in the penetralia of which, the altar-fire, or fire of the gods, is to burn. This is the shrine of the gods, the container of gods or their images. The Egyptian temples—the architectural wonders of the world—are vast, horizontal, hieroglyphic-covered bulks, severe, pon- derous, pyramidal, impressive only of gloom, and of majestic, though terrible rites always. The Greek temples, with their elaborate, richly-detailed friezes, resembled long chests, with rows of colonnades stretching down the sides, and widened on platforms, or stylobates, as they are technically called. Besides, following out the same levelled lines, which expressed the architectural feminine idea, there were the magnificent depressed pedi- ments, the ¢ympana of which were filled with mythological sculpture. These were the tetrastyles, sestyles, octostyles, decastyles, or dodecastyles, into which the grades of the frontal and rearward colonnades of the temples were distinguished; the porticus pronaos, and. posticus, were technical names of the grand colonnades east and west.
Classes of the Phalii. 33
Over all, the glory of the sun of the Olympian
Greece was lavished. All the temples, and their majestic detail, were made up to the sight in the superb, deeply- sunk, architectural shadows, the grandeur and the beauty of which are known only to the artist, revelling as he does upon the pictorial wonders of Grecian colonnades, entablatures, pediment, /acune (in the interiors), and mouldings, and the outlines that exhaust elegance and taste, literally. _ The Roman temples indicate the same feminine lateral line and horizontal extension. This horizontal archi- tectural form was that sacred to the feminine mysticism. Construction of this character hinted the adoption of the female idea, as to the principal ruling power. But the ascending or aspiring line, such as that of the perpen- dicular Phallus, or obelisk, meant the opposite idea, or the male influence. This was the Phallus or Phallos (¢addos), proper, the masculine upright, the ascending, forceful assertion of armed nature, the column of slender, sworded, celestial Fire.
The double Lithoi, or Phalli, are twin powers, or double, just as Light itself is a twin power, or double, in its own nature and capacity, for it is not only light, but also, and at the same time, the Matter out of which light is made; the light being always the brighter, in pro- portion as the substantive matter which supplies its life (magically), is the thickest and the densest. All this is well understood among the most acute and the soundest naturalists and physiologists. ‘These are the gods of the Phalli; for, in the philosophic, theosophic, theogonic sense, the Phalli are not idols. They are Male-Female, Mind-Matter, Sun-Moon, Heaven-Earth, Conception-
D
34 Phallicism.
Image, Fire-Water; the Upright Line and the Lateral Line together constituting the Cross, and (farther) the cross of Crucifixion, Which of all this—Two Senses, or Double Sense, or United Sense in Double Sense—which of all is first? or which can be first in dignity, when we examine abstractions so profound, and so evading, and metaphysics so extremely attenuated and shadowy?
We may now pass on to the results of these curious inquiries as to the real meaning of the Phalli, the over- powering significance of which has been too much ignored. ‘The Phalli are sacred monuments, but, for fear of certain ideas that might be raised in relation to them, many worthy scholars shrink from them. We aim in our dissertation, involving the architectural and archzeological points of our general subject, at explaining the value of a system of interpretation which seems to contain the only key for expounding the religious mysteries of all nations, or which may prevail to open the sealed historic volume that contains the records of long bygone antiquity, and a whole round of interesting puzzles. The riches obtainable in the more remote and hidden departments of this Phallic, and consequently Gnostic, subject, we may almost say are inexhaustible. We have care- fully refrained from straying in, or have only dis- cursively visited, those tempting nooks and avenues, those inviting paths whose bright vistas, branching out of the subject, would have led us undesirably far. But keeping the straight line traced out for our purpose, we find ourselves, as it were, arrived at the shores of an ocean which abounds indeed in precious spoils, but which time will not admit the means of adequately securing. However, we seek, in all proper, justifiable respects, to
Classes of the Phalli, 35
fathom a doctrine which, more than any other ever broached, promises to unravel and disentangle the real history of mankind, the true causes of their ancient wars and emigrations, and of their institutions from the earliest records of humanity, and which certainly affords the only rational clue to the mazes of universal mythology.
Sir William Jones has casually remarked on the . analogy between the Gothic, Celtic, and Persian, with the Sanscrit; on the identity of many of the Indian, Egyptian, and Grecian gods; on the analogy between Peru and part of India; on the early connexion between India and Africa; on the probability of Ireland being peopled by Persian migration, But if the foregoing . principles that guided that process of inquiry by which we clearly identified the worship of the Mexicans and of the ancient Chinese (by an inquisition into the radical names and natures of their temples and their gods) were followed up and duly carried out by men of real erudition, conversant with primitive and radical languages, and ancient universal history, we are persuaded that—by a strict etymological inquiry into the proper names (with all their ramifications) of the countries, of the gods, and of the temples of the ancients, in connexion with the foregoing theories—we might arrive at a knowledge of the universal history of the world, far exceeding in scientific interest any yet possessed, and at a complete and satisfactory elucidation of innumerable obscure and enigmatical facts relative to the vestiges and records which remain of the nations of old, whether architectural, mythological, or historical, and which only atlord food for, we had almost said, irrational conjecture, vague surmise, or puerile and pedantic disquisition.
36 Phallicism.
Very recently a most industrious author and antiquary, who spent many years on military service in India, labo- riously and enthusiastically, recognising the importance of his quest into the meaning of worships, made comparison of the monuments, to deduce the tokens of real religion. He found them all, on close and critical examination, to mean but the one thing, the very Phallic worship which in remote days overspread the whole world, and which has left its living remains, even conspicuously to be observed about us in our own day, with solid foundations actually in our own religion, and in every intelligible form of Christianity. :
Major-General Forlong’s book, entitled “The Rivers of Life: An Account of the Faiths,”-—abounding in illustra- tions, and published in two elaborate quarto volumes,—is to a very considerable extent Godfrey Higgins over again. And Godfrey Higgins’ encyclopedic works may be con- sidered as seriously compromising, nay as destructive of, real lively faith and real religion; because that which is supernatural is submitted to realistic questioning that damages the mystery in which yet truly lies the power and the force of all religions. We however repudiate in this present book all idea of offering to the reader any- thing but “construction ;” true, although doubtless it will prove to be profound, mystical, strictly * Christian” paradoxical construction. We contend for special revela- tion, necessarily wrapt up in mysteries. We maintain the possibility of miracle m the mysteries of God; although in the world, and in the ideas of the world, there is nothing more fixed and true than the impossibility of miracle. The principle for which we contend throughout all cur statements and arguments is that the ideas of
Classes of the Phalli. 37
man—-such a limited, vain creature as he is, beside the Mighty Powers outside of him—are all wrong and absurd, and that his common sense and his ‘ reason’ are utterly no reason at a'l. These ambitious* attempts to wrestle with Divinity—not in the mystic senses involved in the matching of his powers with the Angel of the Lord, in the figurative struggle of the Patriarch, when on his journey, in the emblematic Scriptures, he meets and strives with the Mysterious Being sent on a message to him—are but the puffed-up vanity, as it were, of the over- educated, audacious child!
We are all for construction—even for Christian, although, of course, philosophical, construction. We have nothing to do with reality, in man’s limited, mecha- nical, scientific sense, or with realism. We have under- taken to show that mysticism is the very life and soul of
* Let the words of Goethe always be present to men gifted with habits of thought, if they, at the same time, happen to be blest with penetration.— The marionette fable of Faust,’’ says Goethe, “ mur- mured with many voices in my soul. I too had wandered into every department of knowledge, and had returned early enough satisfied with the vanity of science. And life, too, I had tried under various aspects, and always came back sorrowing and unsatisfied.”
Let such seeker check himself, and recur to the wise warnings supplied poetically in Christopher Marlowe’s “ Faustus’’—the unques- tionable original of all the ‘* Fausts,” and their instigator—these subjects of the daring man, and the too ambitious and questioning and defiant learned man, inducing him to overpass his nature, and to “rush in’”— like the fool—where ‘“ Angels fear to tread.”
“Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight, And burned is Apollo’s laurel -bough, That sometime grew within this learned man ; Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise Only to wonder at unlawful things, Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits.”
38 Phallicism.
religion; that rites and ritual and formal’ worship and prayers are of the absolute necessity of things; that the Bible is only misread and misrepresented when refected as advancing supposed fabulous and contradictory things ; that Moses did not make mistakes, but spoke to the “ children of men” in the only way in which children, in their nonage, can be addressed;—that the world is, indeed, a very different. place from that which it is assumed to be; that what is derided as superstition is the only true and the only scientific knowledge; and, moreover, that modern knowledge, and modern science, are to a great extent not only superstition, but superstition of a very destructive and deadly kind.
In the first book which we published concerning these subjects, and in beginning our design to bring to the con- temporaneous knowledge some true ideas of the Rost- CRUCIANS, we descanted in a work* called “The Indian Religions ; or Results of the Mysterious Buddhism,” on the fact of Stonehenge being phallic in its design and purpose, a phallic temple of an antiquity prodigious, even probably a relic of the First Dispersion; and we stated that it expressed deified phallicism in perplexing but convincing forms all over it. Such statements were, of course, greatly to the consternation of jog-trot believers, who could not, for a moment, conceive that such extraordinary, and sup- posedly indecent, things were possible. Doubtless, at
* “London Asiatic Society.—‘ The subject of Rama, or Boodh, and the Buddhists, or Bhuddists, is so enveloped in obscurity, but still of such deep interest, that it is well worthy the attention of the learned and curious; for it is a religion that has spread far and wide; of which Fo in China was the chief; and which it is said is recognised in this country, at Stonehenge.” ‘'The Wonders of Elora; or The Narrative of a Journey in India.” By Joun B. Seery, Captain B.N.I. London ; 1825. See also Godfrey Higgins’ « Anacalypsis,” * Celtic Druids,” &c.
Classes of the Phalli. 39
first, the safely-moving, would-be respectable antiquarian world, and, still more suspiciously, the rigidly judicious Christian and the orthodox, were full of disbelief and disapproval. Yet they are, now, fast changing their opinions, and giving in one after the other, more or less reluctantly, in the face of such insurmountable evidence. But, as yet, they do not fully see the majesty and grandeur, and even the profoundly sublime, Christian beautiful side in the mysterious and solemn sense of this truly great subject; so guardedly watched by the philo- sophers and mystics of all time.
We find that Major-General Forlong has adopted all our references, made so long ago, as to the sexual mean- ings of the myth indicated in Stonehenge. He treats of it as a Phallic monument, and places his mysterious “ Snake,” whose effigy is the key and symbol of all these Lunar Theosophic reveries, immediately in front of and below his drawing of Stonehenge. He identifies the symbol with the singular object, standing solitarily in advance of Stonehenge, popularly known under the name of the “ Friar’s Heel.”* ‘This upright, dark stone, which rears itself singularly and weirdly in the solitude, and stands by itself, some distance in advance of the circles of gigantic Tvrilithoi, collectively called “Stonehenge,” is strangely changed in its transmission down to modern times, and is now passed off into a masquerade of
* The “Friar’s Heel,” always anxiously shown to every visitor and explorer at Stonehenge, is a dark, formless, oblong stone, evidently in direct connexion with, but placed much in advance of, the grand exterior circle of stones. It is the same kind of stone, and of about the same significance, as the famous Cab, Keb, Kebla, or Caaba ; or Beth-el, Bothel, or “‘ House of God’?—or central-point for adoration for the Hadgis, or pilgrims to the sacred Mecca,—which is, as is well © known, the “ Jerusalem’’ of the Mahommedans.
40 Phallicism.
lingual transformation or re-rendering. This commemo- rative stone, or upright, is no “ Friar’s Heel,” as it is familiarly designated; but it is a Lingham or Phallus, and is dedicated to Freya or Freia, or the “ Friday Divinity,” god or goddess, for there is no sex in these respects ; it is either or both, as an abstraction or a personified Idea. It is a Friday god or goddess, or a queen, Venus or Aphrodite, Bhaga, or the “Genius of Fire,” not, of course, the genius of ordinary fire, but of the super- sensual, superessential, divinely operative, celestial Fire.
Obelisks have been raised as sacred mystical objects, and bowed before as idols in all ages; looked upon, mystically and figuratively, as the “Keys of Paradise.” We in England should properly have set our greatest archeological acquisition, the Obelisk, not as at present, standing in its mistaken, mean position, amidst the angles of the Thames Embankment; but, imitating the ancients, and the acute, judicious, artistic people of the middle ages, in Italy and elsewhere, we should have placed this priceless, magnificent Memphian trophy between Sir Christopher Wren’s kingly towers, flanking the western porticoes of Saint Paul’s Cathedral; and having raised this magic Emperor of the Uprights in front of our colossal Christian Temple, we should have crowned and surmounted him with the glorious symbol of the “ Saviour” (in this Christian country), emphasising and capping the splendours and dignities of all the gods of all the thousands of years of Egypt, with the trium- phant Cross! Such would, indeed, have been a worthy object for the multitude of London to gaze at. But London is confessedly not Athens, any more than any one of its metropolitan and corporate administrators has ever proved himself a Phidias, or a Pericles.
Transcendental Phallicism. 4I