Part 5 (1/2)
This use of the phallus is mentioned in the Bible, where it is bitterly condemned by one of the prophets: ”Thou hast also taken thy fair jewels of my gold and of my silver, which I had given thee, and madest to thyself images of men, and didst commit wh.o.r.edom with them.”[86]
Finally, it was the custom of the young girls of France during the Middle Ages (like the maidens of certain savage races), who were on the eve of marriage, to offer up to St. Foutin their last maiden robes. From the evidence here adduced, we see that phallic wors.h.i.+p existed in some parts of Europe as late as the latter half of the eighteenth century, and that it was almost universal during the Middle Ages. According to Becan,[87] Golnitz,[88] and other historians, there were several other phallic saints besides St. Foutin who were wors.h.i.+ped in Belgium, Spain, Germany and other European countries; but, since their adoration was similar to that of St. Foutin, I do not think it necessary to give a description of it here. It has been shown conclusively that wors.h.i.+p of the generative principle was in vogue among the Latins, the Greeks, the ancient Germans, the Saxons, the Danes, the Gauls, the Iberians, the Picts, the Celts and the Britons. It has been demonstrated, also, that vestiges of phallic wors.h.i.+p existed in England, France, Italy, Spain and Germany during the Middle Ages. As late as the latter part of the eighteenth century wax images of the phallus were used as votive offerings in the town of Isernia, not many miles from Naples; the beribboned Maypole of our Mayday festival is but the flower decked phallus of the Roman matrons; charms against _jett.i.tura_, ”the evil eye,” little coral hands with the middle finger extended (in ancient days one of the most common symbols of Priapus) can still be purchased in the streets of Rome.[AD] ”This wors.h.i.+p” (that of Priapus) ”which was but part of that of the generative powers, appears to have been the most ancient of the superst.i.tions of the human race, and has prevailed more or less among all known peoples before the introduction of Christianity; and, singularly enough, _so deeply it seems to have been implanted in human nature_ that even the promulgation of the gospel did not abolish it, for it continued to exist, accepted and often encouraged by the medieval clergy.”[89]
[86] _Ezekiel_: chap, xiv[i], v. 17.
[i] Transcriber's Note - This has been corrected in handwriting to 'xvi'.
[87] Becan: _Origines Antwerpianae, lib_. i, pp. 26, 101.
[88] Golnitz: _Itinerarium Belgico-Gallic.u.m_, p. 52.
[AD] The phallic hand in some form or other is frequently found in the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The so-called _maison d'
joie_ found in one of the streets of Pompeii is considered by some authorities to have been a minor temple to Venus where priapic rites were celebrated. The stone phallus at the entrance as well as the erotic frescoes on the wall, point to this as being true.
[89] Knight: _op. cit. ante._, p. 117.
So very ancient was the inception of the wors.h.i.+p of the generative principle that we have some reason for believing that even the cave-dwellers practiced this cult. It was stated in the _Moniteur_, January, 1865, that ”in the province of Venice, in Italy, excavations in a bone-cave have brought to light, beneath ten feet of stalagmite, bones of animals, mostly post-tertiary, of the usual description found in such places, flint implements, with a needle of bone having an eye and point, and a plate of argillaceous compound, on which was scratched a rude drawing of the phallus.”[90] Thus we see that, possibly, from the time of the cave-dwellers to almost the beginning of the nineteenth century, phallic wors.h.i.+p existed in Southern Europe! From the Sagas, folklore tales, and myths of the Norse we have every reason for believing that it existed for almost as great a length of time in Northern Europe. That in Western Europe, before and during the Middle Ages, it flourished in a variety of forms, we have unimpeachable testimony.
[90] _The Wors.h.i.+p of the Generative Powers_, footnote p. 117.
In this brief outline of phallic wors.h.i.+p I have endeavored to show that the wors.h.i.+p of the generative principle has been universal; that it is still practiced by primitive peoples, and that vestiges of it lingered among certain civilized peoples until, comparatively speaking, a recent time. In order to show what a height of idealization and abstraction it had reached at a time when Greece stood at the head of the civilized world, I will close this part of my essay with the following quotation from Knight's strong, erudite, and exhaustive treatise: ”The ancient theologists ... finding that they could conceive no idea of infinity, were content to revere the Infinite Being in the most general and efficient exertion of his power--attraction; whose agency is perceptible through all matter, and to which all motion may, perhaps, be ultimately traced. His agency being supposed to extend through the whole material world, and to produce all the various revolutions by which its system is sustained, his attributes were, of course, extremely numerous and varied. These were expressed by various t.i.tles and epithets in the mystic hymns and litanies, which the artists endeavored to represent by various forms and characters of men and animals. The great characteristic attribute was represented by the organ of generation in that state of tension and rigidity which is necessary to the due performance of its functions. Many small images of this kind have been found among the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, attached to bracelets, which the chaste and pious matrons of antiquity wore round their necks and arms. In these the organ of generation appears alone, or accompanied by the wings of incubation, in order to show that the wearer devoted herself wholly and solely to procreation, the great end for which she was ordained. So expressive a symbol, being constantly in view, must keep her attention fixed on its natural object, and continually remind her of the grat.i.tude she owed the Creator for having taken her into his service, made her partaker of his most valuable blessings, and employed her as the pa.s.sive instrument in the exertion of his most beneficial power. The female organs of generation were revered as symbols of the generative power of nature or matter, as the male's were of the generative powers of G.o.d.”[91]
[91] Knight: _The Wors.h.i.+p of Priapus_, p. 27, _et seq._
CHAPTER III.
THE PSYCHICAL CORRELATION OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION AND s.e.xUAL DESIRE.
That there exists a relations.h.i.+p between the cultivated ethical emotion, religious feeling, and the essentially natural physio-psychical function, s.e.xual desire or _libido_, is a fact noticed and commented on by many thinkers and writers. The literature of the subject is, however, exceedingly fragmentary and disconnected, no author (as far as I have been able to determine) having devoted as much as one thousand words to the consideration of this very interesting psychical phenomenon. Hence, my data have been gathered from many sources, which are as diversified as they are numerous.
Beyond a question of doubt, man becomes religiously enthused most frequently either early in life, when p.u.b.escence is, or is about to be, established, or late in life, when s.e.xual desire has become either entirely extinct or very much abated. Young boys and girls are exceedingly impressionable at, or just before, p.u.b.erty, and are apt to embrace religion with the utmost enthusiasm. A distinguished evangelist declares that ”men and women seldom or never enter into the kingdom of G.o.d after they have arrived at maturity. Out of a thousand converts, seven hundred are converted before they are twenty years old.”[92]
[92] B. Fay Mills, _Sermon to Young Men and Young Women_, at Owensboro, Ky., May 20, 1894.
The Roman Catholic church is keenly alive to these facts, therefore requires the rite of confirmation to be administered, if possible, to its would-be communicants at, or before, the age of p.u.b.erty.[AE]
[AE] This knowledge is not confined to the Catholic church alone; in all denominations the p.u.b.escent human being is considered most susceptible to religious influences. The cause or _raison d 'etre_ of this susceptibility is, by no means, generally recognized.
Of all the insanities of the p.u.b.escent state, erotomania and religious mania are the most frequent and the most p.r.o.nounced. Sometimes they go hand in hand, the most inordinate sensuality being coupled with abnormal religious zeal. A young woman of my acquaintance, whose conduct has given rise to much scandal, is, at times, a reincarnate Messalina, while at other times she is the very embodiment of ethical and religious purity. Another young girl, in whom _vita s.e.xualis_ was about to be established, became religiously insane and had delusions in which she declared that she was in heaven and sitting at the right hand of G.o.d.
She declared this over and over again, while shamelessly committing ma.n.u.strupation! Krafft-Ebing calls attention to this relation between religious and s.e.xual feeling in psycho-pathological states. ”It suffices,” says he, ”to recall how intense sensuality makes itself manifest in the clinical history of many religious maniacs; the motley mixture of religious and s.e.xual delusions that is so frequently observed in psychoses (_e. g._, in maniacal women who think they are or will be the mother of G.o.d), but particularly in masturbatic insanity; and finally, the s.e.xual, cruel self-punishment, injuries, self-castrations, and even self-crucifixions, resulting from abnormal religio-s.e.xual feeling.”[93]
[93] Krafft-Ebing, _Psychopathia s.e.xualis_, p. 8.
An example of the last mentioned self-immolation (self-crucifixion) is given by Berghierri, and is a remarkable instance of the interchangeableness of religious emotion and s.e.xual desire in psychopathic individuals. The man in question, who had been intensely sensual, manufactured a cross, nailed himself to it, and ingeniously managed to suspend himself and cross from the window of his sleeping apartment.
”All through the history of insanity the student has occasion to observe this close alliance of s.e.xual and religious ideas; an alliance which may be partly accounted for because of the prominence which s.e.xual themes have in most creeds, as ill.u.s.trated in ancient times by the phallus wors.h.i.+p of the Egyptians, the ceremonies of the Friga cultus of the Saxons, the frequent and detailed reference to s.e.xual topics in the Koran and several other books of the kind, and which is further ill.u.s.trated in the performances which, to come down to a modern period, characterize the religious revival and camp-meeting as they tinctured their medieval model, the Munster Anabaptist movement.”[94]
[94] Spitzka: _Insanity_, p. 39.
Men, owing to their greater freedom, soon learn the difference of the s.e.xes and the delights of s.e.xual congress; women, hedged in by conventionalities and deterred by their innate pa.s.sivity, remain, for the most part, in ignorance of s.e.xual knowledge until their marriage.