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

LOGGIN STONES, ETC.

Loggin stones are by Payne Knight considered as Phallic emblems. “Their remains,” he says, “are still extant, and appear to have been composed of a crone set into the ground, and another placed upon the point of it and so nicely balanced that the wind could move it, though so ponderous that no human force, unaided by machinery, can displace it; whence they are called ‘logging rocks’ and ‘pendre stones,’ as they were anciently ‘living stones’ and ‘stones of God,’ titles which differ very little in meaning from that on the Tyrian coins. Damascius saw several of them in the neighbourhood of Heliopolis or Baalbeck, in Syria, particularly one which was then moved by the wind; and they are equally found in the Western extremities of Europe and the Eastern extremities of Asia, in Britain, and in China.”

Bryant mentions it as very usual among the Egyptians to place with much labour one vast stone upon another for a religious memorial.

Such immense masses, being moved by causes seeming so inadequate, must naturally have conveyed the idea of spontaneous motion to ignorant observers, and persuaded them that they were animated by an emanation of the vital spirit, whence they were consulted as oracles, the responses of which could always be easily obtained by interpreting the different oscillatory movements into nods of approbation or dissent.

Phallic emblems abounded at Heliopolis in Syria, and many other places, even in modern times. A physician, writing to Dr. Inman, says: “I was in Egypt last winter (1865-66), and there certainly are numerous figures of gods and kings, on the walls of the temple at Thebes, depicted with the male genital erect. The great temple at Karnak is, in particular, full of such figures, and the temple of Danclesa likewise, though that is of much later date, and built merely in imitation of old Egyptian art. The same inspiring bas-reliefs are pointed out by Ezek. xxiii. 14. I remember one scene of a king (Rameses II) returning in triumph with captives, many of whom were undergoing the process of castration.”

Obelisks were also representative of the same emblem. Payne Knight mentions several terminating in a cross, which had exactly the appearance of one of those crosses erected in churchyards and at cross roads for the adoration of devout persons, when devotions were more prevalent than at present. Stones, pillars, obelisks, stumps of trees, upright stones have all the same signification, and are means by which the male element was symbolised.