Part 2 (2/2)

[40] _Ibid._, verse 7.

Even the ”good kings,” such as Asa, Amaziah, _et al._, did not remove the high places and the groves, for we read that, notwithstanding the fact that these kings did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, they did not remove the high places. In the case of Amaziah, it is written:

”And he did that which was right in the sight of the Lord, yet not like David, his father; he did according to all things as Joash, his father, did.

”Howbeit, the high places were not taken away: as yet the people did sacrifice and burnt incense on the high places.”[41] All of the so-called ”wicked kings” were phallic wors.h.i.+pers, and both male and female hetarism flourished during their reigns. We read of Josiah, a ”good king,” ”And he broke down the houses of the sodomites (_kedescheim_) that were by the house of the Lord.”[42] Here, in unmistakable terms (_kedescheim_), the phallic act of the hetara is specified.

[41] _II Kings_: chap. xiv, verses 3, 4.

[42] _Ibid._, chap. xxiii, verse 7.

Herodotus wrote: ”Almost all mankind consort with women in their sacred temples, except in Greece and Egypt.”[43] This is a queer mistake for a Greek to make, yet this historian is noted for his unreliability, and we should not feel surprised at this gross error. Concerning the Aphrodite of Abydos, what she was and what took place in her temples, is a matter of history. Indeed, this G.o.ddess was surnamed _p.o.r.ne_! In Corinth, delubral hetarism was openly practiced; also at Bubastis and Naucratis in Egypt. Royal princesses were pallacides in the temple of Ammon; in fact, they took pride in the t.i.tle of _pallakis_![L] ”It is known what excessive debauchery took place in the 'groves' and 'high places' of the 'Great G.o.ddess.' The custom was so deeply rooted that in the grotto of Bethlehem what was done formerly in the name of Adonis is to-day in the name of the Virgin Mary by Christian pilgrims; and the Mussulman _hadjis_ do likewise in the sanctuaries of Mecca!”[44][M]

[43] Herodotus: _Euterpe_, 64.

[L] Strabo, when writing of the Armenians, who were phallic wors.h.i.+pers, says: ”It is the custom of the most ill.u.s.trious personages to consecrate their virgin daughters to this G.o.ddess (Anatis). This in no way prevents them from finding husbands, even after they have prost.i.tuted themselves for a long time in the temples of Anatis. No man feels on this account any repugnance to take them as wives.” Strabo: vol. xi., 14; quoted also by Letourneau: _The Evolution of Marriage_, p. 46.

[44] Reclus: _Primitive Folk_, p. 69; Sepp: _Heidenthum u.

Christenthum_.

[M] Brugsch Bey is of this same opinion.

But let us return to primitive peoples, from whose customs and beliefs we can learn what our own ancestors must have believed before the besom of civilization swept aside the crudities of savagery.

The Khonds of India are phallic wors.h.i.+pers, and, in the practice of their religion, Priapus saves many a girl who would be, otherwise, offered up on the b.l.o.o.d.y altars of their divinities. The pregnant woman is sacred, hence, religious prost.i.tution is exceedingly prevalent. But it frequently happens that some unfortunate creature, who is not pleasing to the shamans, is seized, tied to the stake and butchered.[45]

As the blood flows down and deluges the ground, ”the divine spirit enters into the priest and inspires him.”[46] This sacrifice is of itself a phallic rite; the blood-offering is supposed to be exceedingly acceptable to Earth, the mother of all things. Blood is the essence of the life-giving principle; hence, the essence is returned to the great Giver, as a propitiatory offering.[N]

[45] Sherwill: _The Rajmahal Hills_.

[46] Reclus: _Primitive Folk_, p. 317.

[N] Among certain peoples the blood and the s.e.m.e.n bore a close relations.h.i.+p; by certain races they were considered a.n.a.logous. The Old Testament, the Vedas, the Sagas, and many references of Greek, Latin, Egyptian, Hindu, and Persian mythology point to this as being conclusive.

In point of fact, the wors.h.i.+p of the generative principle is everywhere prevalent in India.[O] In the Lingam, or holy altar of the Brahmins, we see a conjunction of the male and female s.e.xual organs, while religious prost.i.tution, in the shape of hetarism, crowds the inner courts and corridors of almost every temple in the land with hierodules and bayaderes. The Vedas abound in references, either direct or indirect, to phallic wors.h.i.+p. Indeed, according to some authorities, the Hindu Brahma is the same as the Greek Pan,[P] ”who is the creative spirit of the deity transfused through matter.”[47]

[O] Speaking of the ceremony of priestly prelibation as it was practiced in the Kingdom of Malabar, Forbes writes as follows: ”The ecclesiastic power took precedence of the civil on this particular point, and the sovereign himself pa.s.sed under the yoke. Like the other women, the queen had to submit to the right of prelibation exercised by the high priest, who had a right to the first three nights, and who was paid fifty pieces of gold besides for his trouble.” Forbes: _Oriental Memoirs_, vol. i, p. 446; quoted also by Letourneau: _The Evolution of Marriage_, p. 48. De Remusat says that, in Cambodia, the daughters of poor parents retain their virginity longer than their richer sisters simply because they have not the money with which to pay the priest for defloration!

[P] ”The people have put the idol named _Coppal_ in a neighboring house; there she is served by priests and _Devadichi_, or slaves of the G.o.ds. These are prost.i.tute girls, whose employment is to dance and to ring little bells in cadence while singing infamous songs, either in the paG.o.da or in the streets when the idol is carried out in state,” writes Letourneau in _The Evolution of Marriage_, quoting from _Letters edifiantes_. _Coppal_ was and is a Brahminical Venus, and her wors.h.i.+p is wholly phallic in character.

The ancient Indo-Iranians wors.h.i.+ped a similar deity. The wors.h.i.+p of Coppal, both in ritual and in significance, is identical with that of the Greek Aphrodite.

[47] Brugsch, Knight, Muller, _et al._

Hundreds of pages have been written on snake-wors.h.i.+p, in which a wonderful amount of metaphysical lore has been expended. Mr. Herbert Spencer devotes several pages to the snake, and the reason for its appearance in the religion of primitive peoples. He ascribes to savages a psychical acuteness that I am by no means willing to allow them, inasmuch as he makes them give a psychical causation for their adoption of the serpent as a deity, such as no ignorant and uncultivated savage could have possibly evolved. I am inclined to believe that, like all great students and thinkers, Mr. Spencer has a hobby, and that this hobby is animism or ancestor-wors.h.i.+p. When he gives out, as a reason for the snake's almost universal appearance in the religions of primitive peoples, that the latter consider it an animal which has a.s.sumed the returning ghost, double, or soul of an ancestor,[48] I think that he is very much in error. There are very few primitive folk, comparatively speaking, who believe in metempsychosis. In all probability, when a race, like the ancient Egyptians, for instance, had reached a high degree of civilization, they idealized many of their religious beliefs and customs; hence, the serpent probably lost its initial and simple symbolical meaning, and stood for something higher and more ethical during the reign of the great Pharaohs, and the Golden Age of the Greeks and Latins. I am positive, however, that the snake's original significance was wholly phallic in character, and that its adoption as a symbol was simple and material, as I explain elsewhere in this essay.[Q]

[48] Spencer: _Principles of Sociology_, vol. i, p. 798.

[Q] The appearance of the erect male organ of generation is quite sufficient to explain why the snake should be chosen as a symbol in phallic rites.

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