"It is not phantasy's hot fire
Whose wishes, soon as granted, fly," &c.
Figures 21, 22, are other indications of the same fundamental idea. The
first represents Nebo, the Nahbi, or the navel, characterised by a ring
with a central mound.
The second represents the circular and upright stone so common in
Oriental villages. The two indicate the male and female; and a medical
friend resident in India has told me, that he has seen women mount upon
the lower stone and seat themselves reverently upon the upright one,
having first adjusted their dress so as to prevent it interfering with
their perfect contact with the miniature obelisc. During the sitting, a
short prayer seemed flitting over the worshippers' lips, but the whole
affair was soon over.
Whilst upon this subject, it is right to call attention to the fact that
animate as well as inorganic representatives of the Creator have been
used by women with the same definite purpose. The dominant idea is
that contact with the emblem, a mundane representative of the deity, of
itself gives a blessing. Just as many Hindoo females seek a benefaction
by placing their own yoni upon the consecrated linga, so a few
regard intercourse with certain high priests of the Maharajah sect as
incarnations of Vishnu, and pay for the privilege of being spouses of
the god. In Egypt, where the goat was a sacred animal, there were some
religious women who sought good luck by uniting themselves therewith.
We have heard of British professors of religion endeavouring to persuade
their penitents to procure purity by what others would call defilement
and disgrace. And the "cord of St. Francis" replaces the stone "linga."
Sometimes with this "cord" the rod is associated; and those who have
read the trial of Father Gerard, for his seduction of Miss Cadiere under
a saintly guise, will know that Christianity does not always go hand in
hand with propriety.
With the Hindoo custom compare that which was done by Liber on the grave
of Prosumnus (Arnobius adverma Gentes, translated by Bryce and Campbell,
T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh, pp. 252, 258), which is far too gross to
be described here; and as regards the sanctity of a stone whose top had
been anointed with oil, see first sentence of paragraph 89, ibid, page
81. The whole book will well repay perusal.
Figures 28, 24, are discs, circles, aureoles, and wheels, to represent
the sun. Sometimes the emblem of this luminary is associated with rays,
as in Plate iii., Fig. 8, and in another Figure elsewhere. Occasionally,
as in some of the ancient temples in Egypt discovered in 1854, the sun's
rays are represented by lines terminating in hands. Sometimes one or
more of these contain objects as if they were gifts sent by the god;
amongst other objects, the crux ansata is shown conspicuously. In a
remarkable plate in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature
(second series, vol. i., p. 140), the sun is identified with the
serpent; its rays terminate in hands, some holding the handled cross or
tau, and before it a queen, apparently, worships. She is offering what
seems to be a lighted tobacco pipe, the bowl being of the same shape as
that commonly used in Turkey; from this a wavy pyramid of flame rises.
Behind her, two female slaves elevate the sistrum; whilst before her,
and apparently between herself and her husband, are two altars occupied
by round cakes and one crescent-shaped emblem.
The aureole was used in ancient days by Babylonian artists or sculptors,
when they wished to represent a being, apparently human, as a god. The
same plan has been adopted by the moderns, who have varied the symbol by
representing it now as a golden disc, now as a terrestrial orb, again as
a rayed sphere. A writer, when describing a god as a man, can say that
the object he sketches is divine; but a painter thinks too much of his
art to put on any of his designs, "this woman is a goddess," or "this
creature is a god"; he therefore adds an aureole round the head of his
subject, and thus converts a very ordinary man, woman, or child into a
deity to be reverenced; modern artists thus proving themselves to be
far more skilful in depicting the Almighty than the carpenters and
goldsmiths of the time of Isaiah (xl. 18, 19, xli. 6, 7, xliv. 9-19),
who used no such contrivance.
Figure 24 is another representation of the solar disc, in which it is
marked with a cross. This probably originated in the wheel of a chariot
having four spokes, and the sun being likened to a charioteer. The
chariots of the sun are referred to in 2 Kings xxiii. 11 as idolatrous
emblems. Of these the wheel was symbolic. The identification of this
emblem with the sun is very easy, for it has repeatedly been found in
Mesopotamian gems in conjunction with the moon. In a very remarkable one
figured in Rawlinson's Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii., p. 249, the cross
is contrived as five circles. It is remarkable that in many papal
pictures the wafer and the cup are depicted precisely as the sun and
moon in conjunction. See Pugin's Architectural Glossary, plate iv., fig.
5.
Figures 25, 26, 27, are simply varieties of the solar wheel, intended to
represent the idea of the sun and moon, the mystic triad and unit, the
"arba," or four. In Figure 26, the mural ornament is introduced, that
being symbolic of feminine virginity. For explanation of Figure 27, see
Figures 85, 86.
Figure 28 is copied from Lajard, Op. Cit., plate xiv. F. That author
states that he has taken it from a drawing of an Egyptian stele, made by
M. E. Prisse (Monum. Egypt., plate xxxvii.), and that the original is
in the British Museum. There is an imperfect copy of it in Rawlinson's
Herodotus, vol. ii.
The original is too indelicate to be represented fully. Isis, the
central figure, is wholly nude, with the exception of her head-dress,
and neck and breast ornaments. In one hand she holds two blades of corn
apparently, whilst in the other she has three lotus flowers, two being
egg-shaped, but the central one fully expanded; with these, which
evidently symbolise the mystic triad, is associated a circle emblematic
of the yoni, thus indicating the fourfold creator. Isis stands upon a
lioness; on one side of her stands a clothed male figure, holding in one
hand the crux ansata, and in the other an upright spear. On the opposite
side is a male figure wholly nude, like the goddess, save his head-dress
and collar, the ends of which are arranged so as to form a cross. His
hand points to a flagellum; behind him is a covert reference to the
triad, whilst in front Osiris offers undisguised homage to Isis. The
head-dress of the goddess appears to be a modified form of the crescent
moon inverted. It is not exclusively Egyptian, as it has been found in
conjunction with other emblems on an Assyrian obelisc of Phallic form.
Figures 29, 30, 31, 32, represent the various triangles and their union,
which have been adopted in worship. Figure 29 is said to represent fire,
which amongst the ancient Persians was depicted as a cone, whilst the
figure inverted represents water.
Figure 33 is an ancient Hindoo emblem, called Sri Iantra. The circle
represents the world, in which the living exist; the triangle pointing
upwards shows the male creator; and the triangle with the apex downwards
the female; distinct, yet united. These have a world within themselves,
in which the male is uppermost. In the central circle the image to be
worshipped is placed. When used, the figure is placed on the ground,
with Brahma to the east, and Laksmi to the west. Then a relic of any
saint, or image of Buddha, like a modern papal crucifix, is added, and
the shrine for worship is complete. It has now been adopted in Christian
churches and Freemasons' lodges.
It will be noticed that the male emblem points to the rising sun, and
the female triangle points to the setting sun, when the earth seems to
receive the god into her couch.
Figure 34 is a very ancient Hindoo emblem, whose real signification I am
unable to divine. It is used in calculation; it forms the basis of some
game, and it is a sign of vast import in sacti worship.
A coin, bearing this figure upon it, and having a central cavity with
the Etruscan letters SUPEN placed one between each two of the angles,
was found in a fictile urn, at Volaterrae, and is depicted in Fabretti's
Italian Glossary, plate xxvi., fig. 858, bis a. As the coin is round,
the reader will see that these letters may be read as Supen, Upens,
Pensu, Ensup, or Nsupe. A search through Fabretti's Lexicon affords no
clue to any meaning except for the third. There seems, indeed, strong
reason to believe that pensu was the Etruscan form of the Pali panca,
the Sanscrit panch, the Bengalli panch, and the Greek penta, i. e.,
five. Five, certainly, would be an appropriate word for the pentangle.
It is almost impossible to avoid speculating upon the value of this
fragment of archaeological evidence in support of the idea that the
Greeks, Aryans, and Etruscans had something in common; but into the
question it would be unprofitable to enter here.
But, although declining to enter upon this wide field of inquiry, I
would notice that whilst searching Fabretti's Glossary my eye fell upon
the figure of an equilateral triangle with the apex upwards, depicted
plate xliii., fig. 2440 ter. The triangle is of brass, and was found
in the territory of the Falisci. It bears a rude representation of the
outlines of the soles of two human feet, in this respect resembling a
Buddhist emblem; and there is on its edge an inscription which may be
rendered thus in Roman letters, KAYI: TERTINEI. POSTIKNU, which probably
signifies "Gavia, the wife of Tertius, offered it." The occurrence
of two Hindoo symbols in ancient Italy is very remarkable. It must,
however, be noticed that similar symbols have been found on ancient
sculptured stones in Ireland and Scotland. There may be no emblematic
ideas whatever conveyed by the design; but when the marks appear
on Gnostic gems, they are supposed to indicate death, i. e., the
impressions left by the feet of the individual as he springs from earth
to heaven.
Figures 35, 36, are Maltese crosses. In a large book of Etrurian
antiquities, which came casually under my notice about twenty years ago,
when I was endeavouring to master the language, theology, etc., of the
Etruscans, but whose name, and other particulars of which, I cannot
now remember; I found depicted two crosses, made up of four masculine
triads, each asher being erect, and united to its fellows by the gland,
forming a central diamond, emblem of the yoni. In one instance, the
limbs of the cross were of equal length; in the other, one asher was
three times as long as the others. A somewhat similar cross, but one
united with the circle, was found some time ago near Naples. It is made
of gold, and has apparently been used as an amulet and suspended to
the neck. It is figured in plate 35 of An Essay on the Worship of the
Generative Powers during the Middle Ages (London, privately printed,
1865). It may be thus described: the centre of the circle is occupied by
four oblate spheres arranged like a square; from the salient curves of
each of these springs a yoni (shaped as in Figure 59), with the point
outwards, thus forming a cross, each ray of which is an egg and fig. At
each junction of the ovoids a yoni is inserted with the apex inwards,
whilst from the broad end arise four ashers, which project beyond the
shield, each terminating in a few golden bead-like drops. The whole is
a graphic natural representation of the intimate union of the male and
female, sun and moon, cross and circle, Ouranos and Ge. The same idea is
embodied in Figure 27, p. 86, but in that the mystery is deeply veiled,
in that the long arms of the cross represent the sun, or male, indicated
by the triad; the short ones, the moon, or the female (see Plate xi.
Fig. 4).
The Maltese cross, a Phoenician emblem, was discovered cut on a rock
in the island from which it takes its name. Though cruciform, it had
nothing Christian about it; for, like the Etruscan ones referred to
above, it consisted of four lingas united together by the heads, the
"eggs" being at the outside. It was an easy thing for an unscrupulous
priesthood to represent this "invention" of the cross as a miracle,
and to make it presentable to the eyes of the faithful by leaving the
outlines of Anu and Hea incomplete. Sometimes this cross is figured
as four triangles meeting at the points, which has the same meaning,
Generally, however, the Church (as may be seen by a reference to Pugin's
Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament) adopts the use of crosses where
the inferior members of the trinity are more or less central, as in our
Plate xi., Figs. 2, 8, and as in the Figures 40, 41, 42, infra. When
once a person knows the true origin of the doctrine of the Trinity--one
which is far too improper to have been adopted by the writers of the
New Testament--it is impossible not to recognise in the signs which are
symbolic of it the thing which is signified.
It may readily be supposed that those who have knowledge of the
heathenish origin of many of the cherished doctrines of the so-called
Christian church, cannot remain enthusiastic members of her communion;
and it is equally easy for the enlightened philosopher to understand why
such persons are detested and abused by the ignorant, and charged with
being freethinkers, sceptics, or atheists. Sciolism is ever intolerant,
and theological hatred is generally to be measured by the mental
incapacity of those who indulge in the luxury. But no amount of abuse
can reduce the intrinsic value of facts. Nor will the most fiery
persecution demonstrate that the religion of Christ, as it appears
in our churches and cathedrals, especially if they are papal, is not
tainted by a mass of paganism of disgusting origin.
Figure 37 is copied from the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, vol.
xviii., p 898, plate 4. It is a Buddhist emblem, and represents the
same idea under different aspects. Each limb of the cross represents
the fascinum at right angles with the body, and presented towards a
barleycorn, one of the symbols of the yoni. Each limb is marked by the
same female emblem, and terminates with the triad triangle; beyond this
again is seen the conjunction of the sun and moon. The whole therefore
represents the mystic curba, the creative four, by some called Thor's
hammer. Copies of a cross similar to this have been recently found by
Dr. Schliemann in a very ancient city, buried under the remains of two
others, which he identifies as the Troy of Homer's Iliad.
Figures 38 to 42 are developments of the triad triangle, or trinity. If
the horizontal limb on the free end of the arm were to be prolonged
to twice its length, the most obtuse would recognise Asher, and the
inferior or lower members of the "triune."