Phallic Worship / A description of the mysteries of the sex worship of the ancients, with the history of the masculine cross. An account of primitive symbolism, Hebrew phallicism, bacchic festivals, sexual rites, and the mysteries of the ancient faiths.

by Hargrave Jennings

ARCHITECTURAL PILLARS DEVISED FROM THE LOTUS

The earliest capital seems to have been the bell or seed vessel, simply copied without alteration, except a little expansion at the bottom to give it stability. The leaves of some other plant were then added to it, and varied in different capitals according to the different meanings intended to be signified by the accessory symbols. The Greeks decorated it in the same manner, with the foliage of various plants, sometimes of the acanthus and sometimes of the aquatic kind, which are, however, generally so transformed by excessive attention to elegance, that it is difficult to distinguish them. The most usual seems to be the Egyptian acacia, which was probably adopted as a mystic symbol for the same reasons as the olive, it being equally remarkable for its powers of reproduction. Theophrastus mentions a large wood of it in the “Thebaid,” where the olive will not grow, so that we reasonably suppose it to have been employed by the Egyptians in the same symbolical sense. From them the Greeks seem to have borrowed it about the time of the Macedonian conquest, it not occurring in any of their buildings of a much earlier date; and as for the story of the Corinthian architect, who is said to have invented this kind of capital from observing a thorn growing round a basket, it deserved no credit, being fully contradicted by the buildings still remaining in Upper Egypt.

The Doric column, which appears to have been the only one known to the very ancient Greeks, was equally derived from the Nelumbo; its capital being the same seed-vessel pressed flat, as it appears when withered and dry—the only state probably in which it had been seen in Europe. The flutes in the shaft were made to hold spears and staves, whence a spear-holder is spoken of in the “Odyssey” as part of a column. The triglyphs and blocks of the cornice were also derived from utility, they having been intended to represent the projecting ends of the beams and rafters which formed the roof.

The Ionic capital has no bell, but volutes formed in imitation of sea-shells, which have the same symbolical meaning. To them is frequently added the ornament which architects call a honeysuckle, but which seems to be meant for the young petals of the same flower viewed horizontally, before they are opened or expanded. Another ornament is also introduced in this capital, which they call eggs and anchors, but which is, in fact, composed of eggs and spear-heads, the symbols of female generation and male destructive power, or in the language of mythology, of Venus and Mars.—Payne Knight.