Part 17 (1/2)
That the exhibition of these emblems should be part of the original 'Mystery'-rituals was perfectly natural--especially because, as we have explained already (3) old customs often continued on in a quite naive fas.h.i.+on in the rituals, when they had come to be thought indecent or improper by a later public opinion; and (we may say) was perfectly in order, because there is plenty of evidence to show that in SAVAGE initiations, of which the Mysteries were the linear descendants, all these things WERE explained to the novices, and their use actually taught. (4) No doubt also there were some representations or dramatic incidents of a fairly coa.r.s.e character, as deriving from these ancient sources. (5) It is, however, quaint to observe how the mere mention of such things has caused an almost hysterical commotion among the critics of the Mysteries--from the day of the early Christians who (in order to belaud their own religion) were never tired of abusing the Pagans, onward to the present day when modern scholars either on the one hand follow the early Christians in representing the Mysteries as sinks of iniquity or on the other (knowing this charge could not be substantiated except in the period of their final decadence) take the line of ignoring the s.e.xual interest attaching to them as non-existent or at any rate unworthy of attention. The good Archdeacon Cheetham, for instance, while writing an interesting book on the Mysteries pa.s.ses by this side of the subject ALMOST as if it did not exist; while the learned Dr. Farnell, overcome apparently by the weight of his learning, and unable to confront the alarming obstacle presented by these s.e.xual rites and aspects, hides himself behind the rather non-committal remark (speaking of the Eleusinian rites) ”we have no right to imagine any part of this solemn ceremony as coa.r.s.e or obscene.” (6) As Nature, however, has been known (quite frequently) to be coa.r.s.e or obscene, and as the initiators of the Mysteries were probably neither 'good' nor 'learned,' but were simply anxious to interpret Nature as best they could, we cannot find fault with the latter for the way they handled the problem, nor indeed well see how they could have handled it better.
(1) F. Nork, Der Mystagog, mentions that the Roman Penates were commonly anointed with oil. J. Stuart Hay, in his Life of Elagabalus (1911), says that ”Elagabal was wors.h.i.+pped under the symbol of a great black stone or meteorite, in the shape of a Phallus, which having fallen from the heavens represented a true portion of the G.o.dhead, much after the style of those black stone images popularly venerated in Norway and other parts of Europe.”
(2) J. E. Hewitt, in his Ruling Races of Pre-historic Times (p.
64), gives a long list of pre-historic races who wors.h.i.+pped the lingam.
(3) See Ch. XI.
(4) See Ernest Crawley's Mystic Rose, ch. xiii, pp. 310 and 313: ”In certain tribes of Central Africa both boys and girls after initiation must as soon as possible have intercourse.” Initiation being not merely preliminary to, but often ACTUALLY marriage. The same among Kaffirs, Congo tribes, Senegalese, etc. Also among the Arunta of Australia.
(5) Professor Diederichs has said that ”in much ancient ritual it was thought that mystic communion with the deity could be obtained through the semblance of s.e.x-intercourse--as in the Attis-Cybele wors.h.i.+p, and the Isis-ritual.” (Farnell.) Reitzenstein says (op. cit., p. 20.) that the Initiates, like some of the Christian Nuns at a later time, believed in union with G.o.d through receiving the seed.
(6) Farnell, op. cit., iii. 176. Messrs. Gardner and Jevons, in their Manual of Greek Antiquities, above-quoted, compare the Eleusinian Mysteries favorably with some of the others, like the Arcadian, the Troezenian, the Aeginaean, and the very primitive Samothracian: saying (p. 278) that of the last-mentioned ”we know little, but safely conjecture that in them the ideas of s.e.x and procreation dominated EVEN MORE than in those of Eleusis.”
After all it is pretty clear that the early peoples saw in s.e.x the great cohesive force which kept (we will not say Humanity but at any rate) the Tribe together, and sustained the race. In the stage of simple Consciousness this must have been one of the first things that the budding intellect perceived. s.e.x became one of the earliest divinities, and there is abundant evidence that its organs and processes generally were invested with a religious sense of awe and sanct.i.ty. It was in fact the symbol (or rather the actuality) of the permanent undying life of the race, and as such was sacred to the uses of the race. Whatever taboos may have, among different peoples, guarded its operations, it was not essentially a thing to be concealed, or ashamed of. Rather the contrary. For instance the early Christian writer, Hippolytus, Bishop of Pontus (A.D. 200), in his Refutation of all Heresies, Book V, says that the Samothracian Mysteries, just mentioned, celebrate Adam as the primal or archetypal Man eternal in the heavens; and he then continues: ”Habitually there stand in the temple of the Samothracians two images of naked men having both hands stretched aloft towards heaven, and their pudenda turned upwards, as is also the case with the statue of Mercury on Mt. Cyllene. And the aforesaid images are figures of the primal man, and of that spiritual one that is born again, in every respect of the same substance with that (first) man.”
This extract from Hippolytus occurs in the long discourse in which he 'exposes' the heresy of the so-called Naa.s.sene doctrines and mysteries.
But the whole discourse should be read by those who wish to understand the Gnostic philosophy of the period contemporary with and anterior to the birth of Christianity. A translation of the discourse, carefully a.n.a.lyzed and annotated, is given in G. R. S. Mead's Thrice-greatest Hermes (1) (vol. i); and Mead himself, speaking of it, says (p. 141): ”The claim of these Gnostics was practically that the good news of the Christ (the Christos) was the consummation of the inner doctrine of the Mystery-inst.i.tutions of all the nations; the end of them all being the revelation of the Mystery of Man.” Further, he explains that the Soul, in these doctrines, was regarded as synonymous with the Cause of All; and that its loves were twain--of Aphrodite (or Life), and of Persephone (or Death and the other world). Also that Attis, abandoning his s.e.x in the wors.h.i.+p of the Mother-G.o.ddess (Dea Syria), ascends to Heaven--a new man, Male-female, and the origin of all things: the hidden Mystery being the Phallus itself, erected as Hermes in all roads and boundaries and temples, the Conductor and Reconductor of Souls.
(1) Reitzenstein, op. cit., quotes the discourse largely. The Thrice-greatest Hermes may also be consulted for a translation of Plutarch's Isis and Osiris.
All this may sound strange, but one may fairly say that it represented in its degree, and in that first 'unfallen' stage of human thought and psychology, a true conception of the cosmic Life, and indeed a conception quite sensible and admirable, until, of course, the Second Stage brought corruption. No sooner was this great force of the cosmic life diverted from its true uses of Generation and Regeneration (1) and appropriated by the individual to his own private pleasure--no sooner was its religious character as a tribal service (2), (often rendered within the Temple precincts) lost sight of or degraded into a commercial transaction--than every kind of evil fell upon mankind. Corruptio optimi pessima. It must be remembered too that simultaneous with this s.e.xual disruption occurred the disruption of other human relations; and we cease to be surprised that disease and selfish pa.s.sions, greed, jealousy, slander, cruelty, and wholesale murder, raged--and have raged ever since.
(1) For the special meaning of these two terms, see The Drama of Love and Death, by E. Carpenter, pp. 59-61.
(2) Ernest Crawley in The Mystic Rose challenges this identification of Religion with tribal interests; yet his arguments are not very convincing. On p. 5 he admits that ”there is a religious meaning inherent in the primitive conception and practice of ALL human relations”; and a large part of his ch. xii is taken up in showing that even such inst.i.tutions as the Saturnalia were religious in confirming the sense of social union and leading to 'extended ident.i.ty.'
But for the human soul--whatever its fate, and whatever the dangers and disasters that threaten it--there is always redemption waiting. As we saw in the last chapter, this corruption of s.e.x led (quite naturally) to its denial and rejection; and its denial led to the differentiation from it of Love. Humanity gained by the enthronement And deification of Love, pure and undefiled, and (for the time being) exalted beyond this mortal world, and free from all earthly contracts. But again in the end, the divorce thus introduced between the physical and the spiritual led to the crippling of both. Love relegated, so to speak, to heaven as a purely philanthropical, pious and 'spiritual' affair, became exceedingly DULL; and s.e.x, remaining on earth, but deserted by the redeeming presence, fell into mere ”carnal curiosity and wretchedness of unclean living.” Obviously for the human race there remains nothing, in the final event, but the reconciliation of the physical and the spiritual, and after many sufferings, the reunion of Eros and Psyche.
There is still, however, much to be said about the Third State of Consciousness. Let us examine into it a little more closely. Clearly, since it is a new state, and not merely an extension of a former one, one cannot arrive at it by argument derived from the Second state, for all conscious Thought such as we habitually use simply keeps us IN the Second state. No animal or quite primitive man could possibly understand what we mean by Self-consciousness till he had experienced it. Mere argument would not enlighten him. And so no one in the Second state can quite realize the Third state till he has experienced it. Still, explanations may help us to perceive in what direction to look, and to recognize in some of our experiences an approach to the condition sought.
Evidently it is a mental condition in some respects more similar to the first than to the second stage. The second stage of human psychologic evolution is an aberration, a divorce, a parenthesis. With its culmination and dismissal the mind pa.s.ses back into the simple state of union with the Whole. (The state of Ekagrata in the Hindu philosophy: one-pointedness, singleness of mind.) And the consciousness of the Whole, and of things past and things to come and things far around--which consciousness had been shut out by the concentration on the local self--begins to return again. This is not to say, of course, that the excursus in the second stage has been a loss and a defect. On the contrary, it means that the Return is a bringing of all that has been gained during the period of exile (all sorts of mental and technical knowledge and skill, emotional developments, finesse and adaptability of mind) BACK into harmony with the Whole. It means ultimately a great gain. The Man, perfected, comes back to a vastly extended harmony. He enters again into a real understanding and confidential relations.h.i.+p with his physical body and with the body of the society in which he dwells--from both of which he has been sadly divorced; and he takes up again the broken thread of the Cosmic Life.
Everyone has noticed the extraordinary consent sometimes observable among the members of an animal community--how a flock of 500 birds (e.
g. starlings) will suddenly change its direction of flight--the light on the wings s.h.i.+fting INSTANTANEOUSLY, as if the impulse to veer came to all at the same identical moment; or how bees will swarm or otherwise act with one accord, or migrating creatures (lemmings, deer, gossamer spiders, winged ants) the same. Whatever explanation of these facts we favor--whether the possession of swifter and finer means of external communication than we can perceive, or whether a common and inner sensitivity to the genius of the Tribe (the ”Spirit of the Hive”) or to the promptings of great Nature around--in any case these facts of animal life appear to throw light on the possibilities of an accord and consent among the members of emaciated humanity, such as we dream of now, and seem to bid us have good hope for the future.
It is here, perhaps, that the ancient wors.h.i.+p of the Lingam comes in.
The word itself is apparently connected with our word 'link,' and has originally the same meaning. (1) It is the link between the generations.
Beginning with the wors.h.i.+p of the physical Race-life, the course of psychologic evolution has been first to the wors.h.i.+p of the Tribe (or of the Totem which represents the tribe); then to the wors.h.i.+p of the human-formed G.o.d of the tribe--the G.o.d who dies and rises again eternally, as the tribe pa.s.ses on eternal--though its members perpetually perish; then to the conception of an undying Savior, and the realization and distinct experience of some kind of Super-consciousness which does certainly reside, more or less hidden, in the deeps of the mind, and has been waiting through the ages for its disclosure and recognition. Then again to the recognition that in the sacrifices, the Slayer and the Slain are one--the strange and profoundly mystic perception that the G.o.d and the Victim are in essence the same--the dedication of 'Himself to Himself' (2) and simultaneously with this the interpretation of the Eucharist as meaning, even for the individual, the partic.i.p.ation in Eternal Life--the continuing life of the Tribe, or ultimately of Humanity. (3) The Tribal order rises to Humanity; love ascends from the lingam to yogam, from physical union alone to the union with the Whole--which of course includes physical and all other kinds of union. No wonder that the good St. Paul, witnessing that extraordinary whirlpool of beliefs and practices, new and old, there in the first century A.D.--the unabashed adoration of s.e.x side by side with the transcendental devotions of the Vedic sages and the Gnostics--became somewhat confused himself and even a little violent, scolding his disciples (I Cor. x. 21) for their undiscriminating acceptance, as it seemed to him, of things utterly alien and antagonistic. ”Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table and the table of devils.”
(1) See Sanskrit Dictionary.
(2) See Ch. VIII.
(3) There are many indications in literature--in prophetic or poetic form--of this awareness and distinct conviction of an eternal life, reached through love and an inner sense of union with others and with humanity at large; indications which bear the mark of absolute genuineness and sincerity of feeling. See, for instance, Whitman's poem, ”To the Garden the World” (Leaves of Gra.s.s, complete edition, p. 79).