Fromm the bible. Examined by Joseph Wheless
Fascinating Research
PHALLISM, OR SEX-WORSHIP
The first notion of a supreme creator among early peoples was the great and glorious sun, giving light and heat and life; all early peoples, including the Hebrews, worshipped the sun, the beautiful, visible, shining agency of creation, as they did to the end, and as some primitive peoples do to this day.
Life was a wonderful thing to them, and creation the great miracle. Man discovered in himself the power to reproduce this miracle of creation, to recreate life; and the organ of procreation became from the earliest times an object of veneration and of worship, as the human representative of the divine Creator and Life-giver. The woman, too, or "womb-man" (as the derivation of the Anglo-Saxon word suggests), was an indispensable cooperator in this work of wonder, and almost equal veneration was paid to the organ by which she participated in the creative work and brought forth life. "Eve" was "Life" from the beginning of the human species. "And the man called his wife's name Havvah [Eve], because she was the mother of all living (Gen. 3: 20 ).
Hence, the human organs of life, symbolized as the "staff of life" and the "door of life," through which life entered and issued, were all through ancient history, Biblical and profane, and are at present among many peoples, sacred objects of worship.' Not only was it the soul of the Semitic religion, but of the religions of Egypt, [The Encyclopedia Biblica speaks of "the special sacredness of the generative organs," and says: "The organ of it in man could by the primitive Semites be taken as symbolizing the deity" (Vol. 3: col. 3453 ).] India, Greece, Rome, all Europe, and all primitive America. Its emblems have been unearthed in Missouri. We have many early Biblical illustrations of this ancient, Hebraic, Semitic, universal phallic worship. All the ancient monuments, as well as Hebrew Scripture, testify to the same customs. In Genesis, of the reputed sons of Shem, son of Noah, one was Asshur (Gen. 10: 22 ). This phallic name signifies, more or less, happy, fortunate, upright, erect -- unus cui membrum erectus est, vel fascinum ipsum.
Asshur went forth, we are told, out of that land, "and builded Nineveh," and founded the great kingdom of Assyria, which perpetuates his name, for its name in Assyrian, and in the Bible, is Asshur. Asshur, or Asher, as the triune God was called in their mythology, became deified; he represented the virile agency of creation, and was the special divinity of the Assyrians. His divine consort, Ishtar or Ashtoreth, was the deified personification of the female principle of creation. The idolic symbol under which they were worshipped was the Asherah, representing the creative union of Bel, or Baal, and Ashtoreth and typifying "happiness."
THE PRIMITIVE TRINITY
The Assyrians, no less than the Egyptians, the Hindus, the Canaanites, the Israelites, the Christians, and many other religious peoples, had and have their Trinity, purely phallic in origin and significance. The phallus was noted to be not alone efficient in the work of procreation; its creative labors were shared by two coefficients, the two testes, or tests of efficient manhood. Hence these were likewise honored, personified, and deified, with distinctive names: the right one, supposed to be prepotent in the generation of a man-child, was named Anu, or On -- that is, "strength, power"; the left, or female-producing test was called Hoa or Hea. When Jacob's youngest son was born, his motheachel with her dying breath "called his name Ben-oni [son of strength]: but his father called him Benjamin [son of my right hand] (Gen 35: 18 ). Thus Anu and Hea completed the Assyrian, and Hebrew, Trinity, side by side with Asshur. This triad of the miracle of human procreation was represented by the triune symbol of the phallic cross in its most primitive, and natural, form:
HE-A-NU
S
S
H
U
R
A universal religious symbol, perpetuated under many variations of form, but always with the identical phallic significance: Its most conspicuous adaptations to-day are the sacred cross of Christ, and the Christian temple with its towering steeple and lateral transept
The Assyrian supreme masculine creator, Bel, was manifested in this male triad of Asshur-Anu-Hea, with the female creative consort, Ashtoreth, the whole symbolized and worshipped under the Symbolic Asherah. Bel, Ashtoreth, and the Asherah were integrally part and parcel of the fervent worship of the Hebrews in the land of Canaan, just as they had been in the land of Chaldea whence they came, and so continued to be from first to last, as their Scriptures vividly show.
The Assyrian Asshur was not the only one of the name to whom the Hebrew Scriptures introduce us. One of the sons of Jacob and of his wife Leah was given the name of his old Semitic ancestor; "and she called his name Asher, for, she said, "Happy am I" (Gen. 30: 13 ); and this Asher gave his phallic name to one of the twelve tribes of Israel.
A few more instances of identity with other Semitic peoples may be noted briefly. Of the offspring of the reputed triplet sons of Noah set out in Genesis 10:from Cush came the Ethiopians; from Mizraim the Philistines and the Egyptians; from Canaan the Canaanites; from Shem the Hebrews, the Assyrians, the Ishmaelites or Arabians, the Elamites, etc. From Lot, by his own daughters, sprang the Moabites, and Ammorites (Gen. 19: 30-37 ). Thus we see connected all the Semitic peoples, and with identical origin, traditions, deities, religion, and worship.
PHALLIC EMBLEMS
The universality of the phallus worship and the peculiar significance and sanctity of its emblems, especially the cross, the triangle, the spire. and the oval, are indicated in the universality of the use of these sacred emblems in nearly all lands and among nearly all peoples, both ancient and modern. The Christian emblem, the cross of Christ, is simply the ancient conventional emblem of the phallus and testes, and of the phallus in conjunction with the female "door of life," represented in every land and age, and especially in almost every hieroglyphic Egyptian record, where the "ankh" -- cross (cross and oval) is the emblem of life. This is exemplified in the name of Tut-ankh-amen, or "Life- image of Amen." The cross, in diverse forms, but with always the same phallic significance of "life," antedates Christianity by ages, and is found on the ancient religious monuments of many far- scattered peoples, even in prehistoric America.
Another favorite Hebrew and universal emblem is the triangle, the perfect representation of the pubic hairs on man and woman. The famous six-pointed star of David, the national emblem of Israel, and always to-day blazoned on the banners of Zion, is formed by superimposing the male on the female pubic triangle, and is of very sacred significance. The pyramids of Egypt, as of Central America, are faced by four triangles, representing in Egypt the "four great gods"' purely phallic and very sacred.
Of like origin and significance are the Jewish manner of holding the hands in priestly blessing, the oval windows of Gothic churches, the heaven-pointing spires of Christian temples; all purely phallic devices, though to-day seemingly formal or conventional, as the pagan phallic origins are forgotten. We shall now observe some other phallic devices of universal heathen, and Hebrew, usage, out of the Scriptures.
THE PATRIARCHAL PHALLIC IDOLATRY
Abraham, the Chaldean of Ur, and the patriarchal family and tribes which he is said to have established were, in common with all their Semitic kindred, Semitic idolaters; he and his descendants worshipped phallic idols; and they retained and worshipped these same common Semitic idols through all their history down to the times of the last of the prophets, as the Hebrew Bible makes amply evident. We shall make some review of this phallic cult, so that the interested reader may appreciate what was this Hebrew religion and its God, now taken over by the Christian religion.
THE PHALLIC SYMBOLS OF SCRIPTURE
Principal among the idols or images of their Yahveh were, throughout Hebrew history, the phallic objects of worship mentioned a thousand times in the sacred pages under the euphemistic and misleading terms "Pillar" and "grove." These so popular and venerated emblems were nothing more or less than the phallic reproductions of the erect male organ of procreation, the symbolic "staff of life, and the receptive and fecund female "door of life," to euphemize them ourselves. In the English translations the term "pillar" is used for the representation called in Hebrew "mazzebah," of the male organ; and "grove" for the "asherah" or female organ of reproduction. For public and outdoor worship these images were of large size and bold design, often actual, sometimes conventional or symbolic, representations of the sex-organs. Smaller idols of the same nature, more for household worship, were images of Yahveh, the peculiarly sacred alias of the Hebraic El, with an enormous phallus, or male organ, erect in situ. The names given to these household images were "ephods" and "teraphim," words constantly occurring together throughout the Hebrew Bible to as late as Hosea 3: 4. These phallic idols were used for worship, and for the purposes of divination or oracular consultation with the God Yahveh, in seeking his advice and receiving his awful decrees.
Thus the religion and worship of the Hebrews and their Semitic neighbors were frankly and purely phallic. I shall illustrate this fact by a few instances from among hundreds in the Hebrew Scriptures. And first of the "pillars" and "groves" of almost universal worship.
THE "PILLARS" OR MAZZEBAHS OF YAHVEH
The first mentioned mazzebah, or "pillar," as it is deceptively rendered in the English translation, is the one piously set up by Jacob at the place where he dreamed of the ladder (Genesis 28 ); that he "took the stone he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar [mazzebah], and poured oil upon the top of it. And he called the name of that place Beth-el -- the house of God (28: 18, 19 ); and he said: "This stone, which I have set up for a mazzebah, shall be God's house" (28: 22 ). The same or a similar incident is recorded of Jacob at Padan-aram, when his name was changed to Israel (35: 14 ). Now, Beth-el was a very sacred "high place" and holy shrine throughout Hebrew history. It was a center of phallic idol worship, and as such was railed against by the later prophets, who were trying to reform the religion of Israel. They "cried against the altar in Bethel" (1 Kings 13: 4, 32 ); and Amos quotes Yahveh as commanding: "Seek not Beth-el. ... Beth-el shall come to nought" (Amos 5: 5 ); and Josiah, as one of his "reforms" in abolishing the phallic heathen practices of the Chosen, destroyed this holy phallic altar of Beth-el (2 Kings 23: 15 ), and burned the bones of its prophets and priests upon the polluted altar. This proves that the very sacred Beth-el was, from its beginning to its end, a place of heathen phallic Baal-Yahveh-worship, and somewhat discounts the eulogies heard upon it from modern Christian pulpits. Jeremiah declared: "The house of Israel was ashamed of Beth-el their confidence" (Jer. 48: 13 ). Again, following the hot family quarrel between Jacob and Laban over the stealing of Laban's phallic gods (teraphim) by Rachel, as an emblem of peace, "Jacob took a stone, and set it up for a mazzebah. ... And Laban said, This heap is a witness between me and thee this day"; and he called it Mizpah, "for he said, Yahveh watch between me and thee when we are absent one from another" (Gen. 31: 5, 48, 49 ). This mazzebah was a representative of the sacred phallus, for which a tall or pointed stone, or even a heap of stones, was used when nothing else was available.
When Rachel died, in pious grief "Jacob set up a pillar [mazzebah] upon her grave: that is the mazzebah of Rachel's grave unto this day" (Gen. 35: 20 ). Moses, when he came down from flaming Sinai, where he is said to have received the fearful law of Yahveh, straightway, in celebration, "builded an altar under the hill, and twelve mazzeboth [plural], according to the twelve tribes of Israel" (Ex. 24: 4 ). This proves that Moses did not receive the law there, for, but a few verses before, that law expressly declares: "Thou shalt utterly overthrow them, and quite break down their mazzeboth" (23: 24 ). But this evidently means the mazzeboth of the other peoples, the seven nations named in verse 23, not those of Yahveh, which were not then prohibited, as Moses' act in erecting the twelve pillars (mazzeboth) would indicate.
So all through the Hebrew Scriptures occurs mention of this popular phallic practice as perfectly proper and orthodox. A thousand years later the raptured vision of the great prophet Isaiah foresaw the glory of Yahveh in the heathen lands, and this is his ideal of the supreme emblem of that glory: "In that day shall there be an altar to Yahveh in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a mazzebah at the border thereof to Yahveh" (Isa. 19: 19 ). This is a further proof that there was yet no "law" of Yahveh condemning this phallic cult of the mazzebah, which Yahveh is quoted as having so fearfully denounced through Moses: "Neither shalt thou set thee up any mazzebah; which Yahveh thy God hateth" (Deut. 16: 22 ). Hosea speaks of the "goodly mazzeboth" (Hos. 10: 1 ); and laments that the Chosen shall be deprived of them (3: 4 ).
These phallic "pillars" or mazzeboth were regarded as the actual abiding-place of the deity who "put his name" on them; he verily lived in the stone, and it became sentient and possessed of faculties of sight, hearing, understanding, protecting. We have noticed the mazzebah which Jacob set up "for God's house" (Gen. 28: 22 ); and the mazzebah and stone heap which Jacob and Laban set up as a "witness" and "watch tower" between them, saying "this heap be witness and this pillar [mazzebah] be witness," to keep them from harming each other (Gen. 31: 45-52 ). And Joshua set up a great stone, and said unto all the people: "Behold, this stone shall be a witness unto us; for it hath heard all the words of Yahveh which he spake unto us" (Josh. 24: 26, 27 ). Samuel set up a "stone of help" (Ebenezer; I Sam. 7: 12 ). The superstition that deity, or spirits, or jinn resided in the sacred stones was almost universal among ancient peoples, and persists to-day among low tribes from Alaska to equatorial Africa.
And not only did the deity reside in the stones, but "stone" or "rock" was, and yet is, a favorite appellation of the Deity: Jacob calls Yahveh "stone of Israel"; Moses "the rock of our salvation," "the rock that begat me," "he is a rock"; and so says Samuel; and David says: "Yahveh is my rock; Elohim is my rock; my high tower, in whom I trust." Jesus says: "On this rock will I build my church," etc. All these inspired allusions are purely phallic in terms and in signification; and so is our "Rock of Ages, cleft for me." There could be no clearer evidence that the phallus, and the stone representation of it, were regarded religiously as the emblem of deity. |
