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From: catherine yronwodeSubject: What "Phallic" Means (was:Re:saints of mass:was crowley on women Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2000 19:24:57 -0800 This is being sent to the thelema93 e-list (thelema93-l@egroups.com) in response to a query there about the meaning of the word "phallic," but it is also crossposted to the Sacred Landscape list (sacredlandscapelist@egroups.com) as it deals with ancient religious monuments. tim@maroney.org wrote: > > Hello Cat, > > > Phallus means "penis or clitoris" (that is, the external genital > > organ of pleasure) in Greek and in English. > > I have heard this before, notably in Hymenaeus Beta's Address > to the Women's Conference. He ascribed the gender-neutral > meaning of "phallus" to Jung and Freud. If so, he may have been wrong. They used it to mean exclusively male symbols. (They were wrong.) > I did not find such a usage in their work. I am not surprised. > I also did not find any such usage in the > usage examples in the Oxford English Dictionary or the > Liddell-Scott Greek Lexicon. If I was mistaken in this, could you > please cite a specific reference that I can use to verify that? I already posted the Webster's 5th Collegiate Dictionary definition from 1936, reprinted in 1941: Phallus (2): "penis or clitoris." > > Go read the works of that wonderful Gniostic Saint Hargrave > > Jennings. > > Well, I try from time to time, but somnolence soon ensues > uncontrollably. I have just awoken from a nap induced by reading > a few chapters from "The Rosicrucians: Their Rites and > Mysteries" and I did see some references to the phallus, but > none of them appeared to be gender-neutral. See below, and in addition to Jennings as a source, you will also get (free of extra charge) a reference to female-gendered Phallic Emblems by Richard Brash. My sincere thanks to nagasiva yronwode for typing out the following from my reading aloud of the passages. ----------------------------------------------------- Hargrave Jennings "Phallic Objects and Remains: Illustrations of the Rise and Development of the Phallic Idea (Sex Worship) and its Embodiment in Works of Nature and Art" Privately printed, 1889 [frontispiece shows a penile form of "phallic object" titled "Round Tower, Central America" and a vulvar form of "phallic object" titled "Stone of Constantine, Cornwall;" the latter is a large triangular holed stone.] Chapter 6 [the first five chapters deal with the penile forms of phallic objects; what follows is a series of extracts developing the idea of holed or vulvar stones as phallic objects.] Stone Worship has not been confined to pillars or any other particular form; in every quarter of the globe, north, south, east and west, it has existed in connection with the cromlech, the pillar, the circle, the rocking-stone, and the holed stone. It is a singular thing that notwithstanding the ages that have passed since these things first came into existence, superstitious memories and practices still linger in connection with them. If we look across to Ireland we shall find a number of them, with most of which some remote and extraordinary tradition is associated. Ryan, in his "History and Antiquities of the County of Carlow," describes one standing two miles south of Tullogh in the parish of Aghade, it is called Cloch-a-Phoill, i.e. in Irish, the "hole stone." He says -- "It is about twelve feet in height, and four feet in breadth, having an aperture through near the top. There is a tradition that the son of an Irish king was chained to this stone, but that he contrived to break his chain and escape. The stone is now thrown from its perpendicular; and it was a practice with the peasantry to pass ill-thriven infants through the aperture in order to improve their constitutions. Great numbers formerly indulged in this superstitious folly, but for the last twenty years this practice has been discontinued. My informant on this occasion was a woman who had herself passed one of her infants through the aperture of this singular stone." page 62 The Dublin Penny Journal for 1832 gives an account of one of these stones at Ballyveruish, about a mile from the village of Doagh, in the parish of Kilbride and county of Antrim. It is a large slab of whinstone, according to the drawings extremely rough and unhewn, about five feet high, two feet six inches wide at the base, and about ten inches in thickness. The hole is three feet from the ground and two and a half inches in diameter. page 63 There is another in the churchyard of Kilquare, near Mallow, county of Cork, six feet high, two feet four inches wide with a hole four inches in diameter, of dark red sandstone. It is called Cloch na-Pecaibh, or the Sinner's Stone, as it is marked on the maps. It was the custom for the women to draw clothes through the hole, as children through holes of greater dimensions. page 64 [snip descriptions of 8 more similar holed stones in Ireland.] We now turn to Cornwall, a most remarkable country; the country "par excellence" says the Gentleman's Magazine, "of megalithic monuments." Borlase, in his "Antiquities" [written in the mid-1700s -- cat] says, after describing certain forms of rocks -- "There is another kind of stone-deity which has never been taken notice of by any author that I have heard of. Its common name in Cornwall and Scilly is Tolmen; that is, the Hole of Stone. It consists of a large orbicular stone, supported by two stones, betwixt which there is a passage. "... I am apt to think that [these] were erected ... with an intent to consecrate and prepare the worshippers by passing through these holy rocks for the better entering upon the offices which were to be performed in their penetralia [in English, this is the inner sanctum of a holy site -- cat], the most sacred part of the temple.... "The inhabitants of Shetland and the Isles used to pour libations of milk or beer through a holed stone in honour to the spiritual Browny which is therefore called Browny's Stone. Now whether the Cornish Druids applied this stone to the use of such offerings I cannot say, but the Cornish to this day invoke the spirit Browny when their bees swarm, and think that their crying 'Browny, Browny,' will prevent their returning into their former hive, and make them pitch and form a new colony. It is not improbable but this holed stone (consecrated, as by its structure and present uses, it appears to have been) might have served several delusive purposes. I apprehend it served for libations, served to initiate and dedicate children to the offices of rock-worship by drawing them through this hole, and also to purify the victim before it was sacrificed; and considering the many lucrative juggles of the Druids (which are confirmed by their monuments) it is not wholly improbable that some miraculous restoration of health might be promised to the people for themselves and children upon proper pecuniary gratifications, provided that at a certain season of the moon and whilst a priest officiated at one of the stones adjoining, with prayers adapted to the occasion, they would draw their infirm children through this hole. And, I must observe, that this passing through stones and holes in order to recover or secure health, is the more likely to be one of the Druid principles because I find that they used to pass their cattle through a hollow tree or through a hole made in the earth (for like superstitious reasons probably) which was therefore prohibited by law.... When I was last at the monument, in the year 1749, a very intelligent farmer of the neighborhood assured me that he had known many persons who had crept through this holed stone for pains in their back and limbs, and that fanciful parents at certain times of the year do customarily draw their young children through in order to cure them of the rickets. He showed me also two pins carefully laid across each other on the top of this holed stone. This is the way of the over-curious, even at this time, and by recurring to these pins and observing their direction to be the same, or different from what they left them in, or by their being lost or gone, they are informed of and resolve upon some material incident of love or fortune, which they could not know soon enough in a natural way...." pp. 65-8 [snip mentions of 7 more neolithic holed stones in England by Jennings and a long except from Daniel Wilson's "Pre-historic Annals of Scotland" concerning holed stones in Scotland.] Stones of a very similar character are found in various parts of India, especially in Southern Bengal; some of these are rude to a degree while others are refined and delicate, or as Dr. Wise says, of beautifully dressed stone, richly ornamented. page 72 [Then, from Captain Wilford, writing in "Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society" is an account about holed stones of India.] "...perforated stones are not uncommon in India, and devout people pass through them when the opening will admit of it, in order to be regenerated. If the hole be too small, they put either the hand or foot through it, and with a sufficient degree of faith, it answers nearly the same purpose. ... [Next, also from Captain Wilford in "Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society," comes a long account of two Hindus who came to England on a "political expedition" at the behest of their ruler but who, upon returning to India, where found to have "lost caste" by eating food not permitted to those of the Brahmin caste. Consultations with Brhaminical authorities disclosed that in former times a person in this situation could be placed inside a huge statue of a goddess and "rebirthed" through her vagina but now, in the 19th century...] "...As a statue of pure gold and of proper dimensions [for an adult to pass through the birth canal] would be too expensive, it is sufficient to make an image of the sacred Yoni [vulva, external genitalia], through which the person to be regenerated is to pass. Rayhu-Nath-Raya had one made of pure gold and of proper dimensions; his ambassadors were regenerated, and the usual ceremonies of ordination having been performed, and immense presents bestowed on the Brahmins, they were re-admitted into the communion of the faithful." pp. 74-75 Mr. Richard Brash, writing in the Gentleman's Magazine for 1864, winds up an article on these [holed] stones [of Ireland by listing their attributes] as follows: " ... the virtues attributed [to holed stones] are the binding nature of contracts made through them [and] the regenerative power supposed to be communicated by passing through the orifice, whether it be of a diseased limb, or the weakly and rickety infant, or the linen about to be used in childwork [childbirth, labaur]. ... It undoubtedly was a Phallic emblem.... In Ireland ample evidences are not wanting to show that Phallic dogmas and rites were very extensively known and practiced in ancient times. ..." page 75 [Snip an account of the Constantine stone, the large triagular holed stone whose image is one of two in the frontispiece of "Phallic Remains" -- and how its triangular shape, and the triangular shape of several other large holed stones, is reminiscent of the public triangle of a woman.] The object we set out with has now been achieved, and we have in the foregoing pages endeavoured as clearly as possible to describe three particular forms of "objects, monuments and remains," viz., the Round Towers, the Pillar Stones, and the Holed Stones. That the bulk of them were not of Christian origin, to whatever uses they may have been put in Christian times, has probably struck the reader as unquestionable. ... little difficulty will probably be felt in coming to the conclusion that the theory which regards them as emblems of the male and female organs of generation, and therefore as Phallic Remains has the preponderance of argument in its favour. page 76 ----------------------------------------------------- For other 19th century treatments of female genital images as "Phallic," see also the following by Hargrave Jennings: "Phallicism: A Description of the Worship of Lingam-Yoni in Various Parts of the World, and in Different Ages" (1888) and "Fishes, Flowers, and Fire as Phallic Symbols" (listed as forthcoming in the back of "Phallic Reamins") I have never seen this latter book, but since fishes and flowers are generally seen by human beings as "female" symbols, the title ("Phallicism") speaks for itself. cat yronwode Karezza and Sacred Sex ------ http://www.luckymojo.com/sacredsex.html The Sacred Landscape ------- http://www.luckymojo.com/sacredland.html No personal e-mail, please; just catch me in usenet; i read it daily. Lucky Mojo Curio Co. http://www.luckymojo.com/luckymojocatalogue.html Send e-mail with your street address to catalogue@luckymojo.com and receive our free 32 page catalogue of hoodoo supplies and amulets Copyright (c) 2000 catherine yronwode. All rights reserved. END
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