Part 7 (1/2)

Cicero well suggested: ”Do you not see how, from the beginning, from the productions of nature and the useful inventions of men have arisen fict.i.tious and imaginary deities, which have been the foundations of false opinions, pernicious errors, and miserable superst.i.tions?” He a.s.serts that ”if the sacred mysteries celebrated by the most ancient peoples were properly understood, they would rather explicate the nature of things than portray the knowledge of the G.o.ds.” Plato said he ”would exclude from his ideal republic the poems of Homer, because the young would not be able to distinguish between what was allegorical and what was actual.” Proclus alleges that even Plato himself drew many of his peculiar dogmas from the symbolisms of the ancients. It is also said that he was curious to find out what was the secret meaning of the allegories of the more ancient sages and philosophers, while at the same time he affirmed that what he should successfully find out he would keep to himself. It is well known that the real offence of Socrates was in publis.h.i.+ng to the common people the wisdom secreted by other teachers.

Heyne has truly said that ”from myths all the history and all the philosophy of the ancients proceed.” Gerald Ma.s.sey, in his great work _The Natural Genesis_, claims that it is only in the symbolic stage of expression that we can expect to recover the lost meanings of priestly dogmas. These are preserved in the gesture-signs, ideographic types, images, and myths scattered over the world. The symbolic extends beyond the written or spoken language of any people now extant.

He well says that ”ancient symbolism was a mode of expression which has bequeathed a mould of thought that imprisons the minds of myriads as effectually as the toad shut up in the rock in which it dwells is confined.” Myths and allegories, anciently unfolded to initiates in the mysteries, have been ignorantly adopted by modern priests and published to the world as the literal truth. The main dogmas of modern theology are based on distorted myths, ”under the shadow of which we have been cowering as timorously as birds in a stubble when an artificial kite in the shape of a hawk is hovering overhead.” Modern dogmatic theology is largely what Mr. Ma.s.sey has tersely called ”fossilized symbolism.” It was the habit of the Oriental mind to personify almost everything.

Ancient mystics veiled all their thoughts in allegory and draped their sacred lessons in symbols. They invented many poetic riddles and fantastic stories, which the initiated knew to be fanciful, but which in time came to be regarded by the ma.s.ses as substantial historic facts. It is well known that this method was not confined to the ancients, but played a conspicuous part in the Middle Ages, and that its baneful influence is not yet exhausted. It will hereafter be shown that in no writings extant can be found so many ill.u.s.trations of the symbolic method of teaching as in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. Even in our day the common people have not outgrown this habit of personification, and are wont to tell their children of Santa Claus and Kriss Kringle who bring them presents at Christmastime, and of Jack Frost who will bite them if they go out in the cold. Modern folk-lore is full of symbolisms and personifications, as real to mult.i.tudes as are the mythical stories found in writings supposed to contain an infallible divine revelation.

A large number of learned authors favor the theory that all systems of dogmatic theology are mythic suggestions of the phenomena of physical nature, postulated by philosophers and poets in the most ancient periods of the world. They maintain this hypothesis, in part from the well-known fact that many of the most widely-separated peoples, who never could have had any intercourse, directly or indirectly, have used the same imagery and substantially adopted the same systems of religion. This suggestion regarding Nature-wors.h.i.+p is worthy of careful and reverent examination. Primitive peoples, living mostly in the open air, were brought in close contact with external natural objects and phenomena.

One of the most prevalent forms of religion in ancient times was _tree-wors.h.i.+p,_ and it entered largely into the religious thought of the ancient Jews. The tree furnished the food, mainly, upon which our race in its infancy depended for subsistence. The grove was called ”the retreat beloved by G.o.ds and men.” It furnished shelter from storm, and shade from the tropical sun. It was a place of rest and a thing of beauty. Mr. Barlow, in his excellent book on Symbolism, says the most generally-received symbol of life was a tree. It was inseparable from the ancient conception of a garden. It was the ”tree of life” in the mythic paradise. It was suggestive of pa.s.sion and offspring in connection with the serpent, which was an emblem of male virility. The tree has many suggestions, not only in it leaves, but in its fruit and mode of propagation. The sap of certain trees has an exhilarating, and even an intoxicating, quality. The sacred soma was taken before reading the Vedic hymns ”to quicken the memory.” It was supposed to promote spirituality and inspiration. Various trees and plants are suggestive of fertility and fecundity in man. The lotus is the flower of Venus. There is a ”language of trees” as well as ”language of flowers.” There are poetic and symbolic reasons in the form of the stems and shape of the leaves for the display of orange-blossoms as bridal decorations, as thoughtful botanists can readily see. Much of the symbolism of the Old Testament is identical with the Eastern tree-wors.h.i.+p; and without some knowledge of this form of imagery much of the Hebrew Scriptures must remain a dead letter. The frequent references to palms, cedars, oaks, vines, mandrakes, etc. etc., are vastly significant to the adept in symbolism.

The Jewish Bible is full of Nature-wors.h.i.+p to all whose eyes are not veiled by sacerdotalism. The fact that G.o.d is said to have appeared to Moses in the burning bush is suggestive of both tree- and fire-wors.h.i.+p (Ex. 3: 2). Josephus says, ”The bush was holy before the flame appeared in it and because it was holy it became the vehicle of the burning, fiery, jealous G.o.d of the Jews. Even our Christmas evergreens contain a recognition of the G.o.ds of the trees. The feet is, many of the religious rites of both Jews and Christians are but slight modifications of the ancient Nature-wors.h.i.+p, as all well-read men know, but to which truth our modern theologians are as blind as bats. Abraham, the alleged progenitor of the Jewish nation (so called), is represented as a dissenter from the religion of his native country; yet he, and his descendants and followers after him for hundreds of years, employed the same religious symbols and forms of wors.h.i.+p used by the people of Chaldea and other so-called idolatrous nations. Read the solemn arraignment of the ”chosen people” by the prophet, recorded in Ezek.

16:15 to the end of that chapter, if you would have proof of this charge. The fact is, if we treat the story of Abraham and other so-called Old-Testament patriarchs as we do the traditions of other nations, we shall be forced to give it an esoteric interpretation rather than a literal or an historic one. But more of this farther on.

_Serpent-wors.h.i.+p_ is another form of sacred symbolism, and has an intimate connection with phallic rites. The serpent was not at first a personification of evil, but of wisdom, and is so used in our New Testament, ”... wise (shrewd) as serpents, harmless as doves.” It also denotes the art or gift of healing, and was not only so used by Esculapius, but also by Moses, and is recognized as a type by Jesus himself: ”... And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have, eternal life” (Num. 21:9; John 3:14, 15).

Indeed, the serpent has almost universally been regarded as a symbol of immortal life, and especially, as frequently presented in ancient sculptures, with its tail in its mouth, thus forming an endless circle.

This idea may have been suggested at first by its tenacity of life, and its being so thoroughly alive in all its parts, its body and tail moving and living after its head has been crushed; and, further, from the periodic renewal of its skin, suggesting a new and continuous life. Then there are other significant qualities in the serpent-viz. its power of voluntary enlargement and self-erection, combined with its intense gaze and wonderful secret of fascination and its noiseless and mysterious movement-all suggestive of the _spirituel_. It is also a symbol of power and divinity, and as such was embroidered upon ancient robes and flags of royalty. Upon a decorative banner recently displayed upon the walls of an edifice in Philadelphia wherein recently met the General a.s.sembly of the Presbyterian Church of the United States, the symbolic serpent was prominent; and those who criticised it were silenced by a member's pointing to the fact that the serpent is engraved upon the seal of the General a.s.sembly itself. Think of Presbyterians perpetuating serpent-symbolism!

It was doubtless the emblematic snakes which had been used in Ireland in the Druidic wors.h.i.+p, before the introduction of Christianity, that the somewhat mythical St. Patrick drove out of the ”Emerald Isle”-all the snakes according to Romish tradition, now believed by millions of devout wors.h.i.+ppers to be strictly historical, though known by priests to be mythical. He destroyed the emblematic serpents. It was not until after the invention of the talking subtle serpent that tempted Eve in Eden that the serpent became a symbol of evil. The Jews never heard of that ”old serpent the devil” until after their captivity in Babylon. We must not fail, however, according to the Old Testament, to give King Hezekiah credit for having been a sort of Hebrew St. Patrick, in attempting to drive serpent-wors.h.i.+p from among the Israelites after it had prevailed among them for about seven hundred years.

In a line or two we sum up the symbolism of the serpent, as has been suggested, in that it is thoroughly alive, has a fiery nature, is swift in motion, and moves without bands or feet. It a.s.sumes a variety of forms, is long-lived, and renews its youth by shedding its external covering, and at pleasure stands erect, enlarges its size, is strong, and is said to have the marvellous secret of fascination.

Initiates wors.h.i.+pped only the qualities or principles symbolized by outward forms, while the ignorant may have really wors.h.i.+pped the external or literal object. Every quality in the objects of the ancient Nature-wors.h.i.+p has suggested a religious dogma, which was first incorporated into ancient systems of sacerdotalism, and can now be traced in an occult and esoteric sense in all bodies of modern dogmatic theology. Ninety-nine out of every one hundred of professional ecclesiastics are as ignorant of these things as unborn babes, while the select few know, but conceal, the truth. The larger cla.s.s are honest dupes and dunces, while the others are hypocrites and impostors.

_Phallieism_, the wors.h.i.+p of the genital organs, was another form of natural symbolism. Men saw that in some mysterious way the race was propagated by the congress of the generative organs, male and female, and soon naturally wors.h.i.+pped them as at least the symbols of the unknown fecundating power of the universe.

This form of symbolism prevailed in the most distant ages, and has continued in many countries unto the present time. Richard Payne Knight, an honorable English gentleman, in 1865 wrote a quarto book, of which only two hundred copies were printed, ent.i.tled _A Discourse on the Wors.h.i.+p of Priapus, and its Connection with the Theology of the Ancients_, in which this whole subject is boldly discussed, and phallicism ill.u.s.trated by one hundred and thirty-eight engravings, many of them copied from actual emblems now preserved in the British Museum and in the Secret Museum in Naples. Major-General Forlong, of the British army, has also fully presented this subject in his recent quarto in two volumes, ent.i.tled _Rivers of Life; or, Sources and Streams of the Faiths of Man in all Lands._

It would doubtless astound many modern theologians to be told that even the Jews did not escape the influence of this form of Nature-wors.h.i.+p, and that our Bible, especially the Old Testament, contains many evidences of it; and yet it is a fact. Circ.u.mcision was no doubt an offshoot of phallicism. It did not originate with Abraham. It was known by the Egyptians, Abyssinians, and African tribes long before the time he is said to have lived. It was practised, according to Herodotus, at least twenty-four hundred years before our era, and was even then an ancient custom. When Jacob entered into a covenant with Laban, a pillar was set up, surrounded by a heap of stones (Gen. 31:45-53), which was a phallic emblem, and frequently used in the Old Testament. Hebrew patriarchs desired numerous descendants, and hence the symbolic pillar was well suited to their religious cult.

The name of the reputed father of Abraham, Terah, signifies ”a maker of images.” In Amos 5: 26 it is said that the Hebrews in the wilderness wors.h.i.+pped a deity known by a name signifying ”G.o.d of the Pillar,” as is shown by the name Baal Tamar, which means the ”fructifying G.o.d.” The Semitic custom of giving sanction to an oath or sacred pledge by what the Hebrews called the ”putting of the hand under the thigh” is explained by the Talmudists to be the touching of that part of the body which is sealed and made holy by circ.u.mcision. The translations of the Jewish Scriptures through motives of delicacy are full of these euphemisms. Professor Joseph P. Lesley, in his _Man's Origin and Destiny_, suggests that phallicism converted all the older Arkite symbols into ill.u.s.trations of its own philosophical conceptions of the mystery of generation, and thus gave to the various parts of the human body those names which const.i.tute the special vocabulary of obscenity of the present day. Every scholar knows it to be a fact that certain words and names now never spoken except by the vulgar abound in the original Jewish writings, and are partly concealed by the convenient methods of euphemism. When Abraham called his servant to take a solemn oath, he required him to lay his hands upon his parts of generation as the most sacred and revered parts of his body (Gen. 24:2), and Jacob, when dying, made his son Joseph take the same form of oath (Gen. 47: 29). This was but little more than the equivalent of the modern custom of laying the hand upon the heart as a token of sincerity. The proper translation of what the servant of Abraham was required to do is given in the margin of Bagster's _Comprehensive Bible_ thus: ”In sectione circ.u.mcisionis meae.”

We have in this form of phallic oath an important suggestion as to the origin, or at least the use, of the words _testimony, testament, testify_, and their cognates (_testis_, a witness), which cannot fail to occur to the learned reader, but which cannot here be fully explained.

”_Caute lege_” (read carefully) was a warning of a secret or concealed meaning which esoteric writers anciently put in the margin of their books when they would call the special attention of the initiated to what is now called ”reading between the lines.” Until our readers comprehend this hint they will not be able to understand what is really meant by the ”testimony” mentioned in connection with the ”ark of the covenant,” as it occurs in Ex. 16: 34, before any laws, or even altars, were known in Sinai or its thunders heard of. In this hint may also be found the true explanation of David's nude dance before the ark, and of the attending circ.u.mstances. Scores and scores of proofs could here be furnished from the Old-Testament Scriptures, showing that the use of phallic emblems was the rule rather than the exception for centuries among the Jews; and the idols stolen by Rachel (teraphim) need no longer be misunderstood, nor the meaning of the wedges upon which she sat and refused to rise when the ”custom of women was upon her” (Gen. 31:35).

She was engaged in an act of devotion. General Forlong a.s.serts that at this present day Queen Victoria of Christian England rules over more than one hundred millions of phallic wors.h.i.+ppers! Indeed, more than half of the population of our globe still wors.h.i.+p, as symbols of fertility and fecundity, the genital organs.

A correspondent of the London Times, of April 8, 1875, says: ”The Roman Catholic Church still keeps up certain suggestions of phallicism. As the ancient temple or dagoba was the womb or feminine principle of the G.o.d Siva or Bod and others, so the new cardinal, Archbishop Manning, was after his elevation conducted to his church, which is here ent.i.tled, in its relation to him, bride or spouse, he calling it _sponsa mea_. The cardinal was called the bridegroom, and the _actual building_ (the shrine of St. Gregory) _his_ spouse, and not the spiritual Church, which is called Chrises.” The _Times_' correspondent further writes of this ”sacerdos magnus,” as he is termed, going to meet his spouse, the Church: ”He stood reverently at the door, when holy water was presented to him and clouds of incense spread around him, to symbolize that, inasmuch as before the bridegroom enters the bride-chamber he washes and is perfumed, so the cardinal, having been espoused to the Church with the putting on of a ring, of his t.i.tle, holy water and incense were offered to him, when the choir burst forth with the antiphon, 'Ecce sacerdos magnus'-'Behold the great sacerdotal!'”

We are thus a.s.sured, as far as this is possible, that the phallic idea and a phallic faith lie at the base of this creed; and we are reminded of Apis of the Nile entering his palace for his works of sacrifice and mercy-terms applied to the Great Generator or Great Creator. The ancients all taught that their Great One, Manu,* Man, or Noh, was in the great ark which floats in the midst of the waters, and that the whole was a mystery incomprehensible to the uninitiated. He who is lord of the Christian ark is the lord of all nations, which the great sacerdos or pope claims to be. He was till very lately a temporal as well as a spiritual head of kings and nations. So no wonder that the holder of the rod, baton, or banner, who occupies the place also of Moses to lead his flocks through this wilderness, is always examined as to his phallic completeness before being confirmed in the pontificate. This, we read in the life of Leo X. by Roscoe, is required in the case of popes, just as the laws of Moses required that all who came to wors.h.i.+p their very phallic JHVH should first prove their completeness as men. From this we may conclude that eunuchs or incompetent men were children of the devil, or at least, not of this phallic G.o.d-a fact which the writer of Matt.

19:12, and the Fathers Origen and Valentine, and a host of other saints who acted on this text, must have overlooked. Wm. Roscoe, the historian, thus writes: ”On the 11th of August, 1492, after old Roderigo (Borgia) had a.s.sumed the name of Alexander VI., and made his entrance as supreme pontiff into the church of St. Peter, after the procession and pageants had all been gone through, Alexander was taken aside to undergo the final test of his qualifications, which in his particular case might have been dispensed with.” The historian of course alludes to his numerous progeny.

The author expects to be criticised, and perhaps charged with obscenity, for introducing this subject. But it has been well said: ”Prudery and pruriency are frequently companions, equally impure and cowardly; and in all scientific investigations they should be disregarded rather than conciliated.” The ancients saw no impurity in the symbolism of parentage to indicate the work of creation. What is divine and natural to be and to do cannot be immodest and obscene. No person can with decency and propriety impugn the operation of Nature's laws to which he owes his existence; and he is degraded and corrupt above all others who regards that law as essentially sensual. Phallicism meant no wrong until sensuality and impurity of life suggested that to mention it was indecorous. No clean and chaste mind can be shocked by the most obvious laws of nature. Lydia Maria Child and other grand women have written brave words on this subject which silly prudes would do well to study, if, indeed, they ever read anything beyond a lascivious French novel.

Women only expose their ignorance when they are reddened with blushes at the mention of phallic wors.h.i.+p, and at the same time wear the mystic horse-shoe or the crescent upon their immaculate bosoms, eat hot cross-buns, dance around the Maypole, and wors.h.i.+p beneath the church steeple. Even the vestments of priests are ornamented with phallic emblems; and one can hardly go abroad without beholding things which show how innocently and unconsciously ”the records of the past” are preserved in church architecture, ecclesiastical rites, and many other things daily before our eyes-well understood by really learned men, but to the true origin and significance of which the ma.s.ses are totally blind. There are churches in Philadelphia, and elsewhere, even among those who call themselves _liberal_, which are ornamented with all the emblems of the ancient Nature-wors.h.i.+p, especially sun-wors.h.i.+p and phallus-wors.h.i.+p. The Women's Christian Temperance Union held a great meeting recently at Ocean Grove, N. J., and innocently used a programme decorated with the horseshoe and many other phallic emblems. They had the cat seated on the crescent, which, according to Egyptian mythology, said, ”We are virgins, but nevertheless desire that commerce which eventuates in offspring.” They had the emblematic _hare_ also, which always denotes _fecundity_, and many other emblems not to be mentioned in polite society. Even our ordinary playing-cards, over which so much precious time is wasted, are distinguished by phallic symbols!

Pa.s.sing by the symbolism of fire-wors.h.i.+p prevalent in nearly all ancient lands, and omitting to notice ancestor-wors.h.i.+p, the _wors.h.i.+p of the sun_, which embraces nearly all the forms of Nature-wors.h.i.+p, now claims our attention. It should be kept in mind what has already been intimated, that the use of natural objects in wors.h.i.+p is not necessarily idolatrous.

The priests of Chaldea, Babylonia, Hindostan, and Egypt disclaimed the actual wors.h.i.+p of the material objects prominent in their rituals, and held that these visible signs were necessary for the vulgar to contemplate, while intelligent wors.h.i.+ppers fixed their spiritual eyes upon the thing or principle signified by the sign. The Roman Catholic Church well understands this principle, and by its appeal to the ear and eye of uneducated people attracts them to its gorgeous temples and holds them in loyal subjection to the priests. Take the following as an ill.u.s.tration of the ancient customs referred to:

”Mr. F. Buckland tells us, in _Land and Water_, that on the first of May all the choristers of Magdalen College, Oxford, still meet on the summit of their tower, one hundred and fifty feet high, and sing a Latin hymn as the sun rises, whilst the final peal of ten bells simultaneously welcomes the gracious Apollo. In former days high ma.s.s was held here, and the rector of Slymbridge, in Gloucesters.h.i.+re, it appears, still has to pay ten pounds yearly for the one performance of sundry pieces of choir-music at 5 A. M. on the top of this tower. This May music, Christian priests explain, is for the repose of the souls of kings and others, which, of course, is quite an after-thought. Early ma.s.s for Sol used also to be held in the college chapel, but it is now explained that, owing to this having been forbidden at the Reformation, it has since been performed at the top of the tower. After the present hymn is sung by the choristers-boys dressed in womanly raiment-the lads throw down eggs upon the crowd beneath, and blow long loud blasts to Sol through bright new tin horns-showing us that the Bacchic and Jewish trumpet fetes are not yet forgotten by Christians. Long before daybreak the youths of both s.e.xes used to rise and go to a great distance to gather boughs and flowers, and reach home at sunrise to deck all doors, windows, and loved spots.... Long before man was able to appreciate ploughing and harvesting, he keenly felt the force of the winter and of the vernal equinox, and was ready to appreciate the joyous warmth of the sun and its energizing power on himself, as well as on fruits and flowers.”