So very ancient was the inception of the worship of the generative principle that we have some reason for believing that even the cave-dwellers practiced this cult. It was stated in the Moniteur, January, 1865, that “in the province of Venice, in Italy, excavations in a bone-cave have brought to light, beneath ten feet of stalagmite, bones of animals, mostly post-tertiary, of the usual description found in such places, flint implements, with a needle of bone having an eye and point, and a plate of argillaceous compound, on which was scratched a rude drawing of the phallus.”[90] Thus we see that, possibly, from the time of the cave-dwellers to almost the beginning of the nineteenth century, phallic worship existed in Southern Europe! From the Sagas, folklore tales, and myths of the Norse we have every reason for believing that it existed for almost as great a length of time in Northern Europe. That in Western Europe, before and during the Middle Ages, it flourished in a variety of forms, we have unimpeachable testimony.
In this brief outline of phallic worship I have endeavored to show that the worship of the generative principle has been universal; that it is still practiced by primitive peoples, and that vestiges of it lingered among certain civilized peoples until, comparatively speaking, a recent time. In order to show what a height of idealization and abstraction it had reached at a time when Greece stood at the head of the civilized world, I will close this part of my essay with the following quotation from Knight’s strong, erudite, and exhaustive treatise: “The ancient theologists … finding that they could conceive no idea of infinity, were content to revere the Infinite Being in the most general and efficient exertion of his power—attraction; whose agency is perceptible through all matter, and to which all motion may, perhaps, be ultimately traced. His agency being supposed to extend through the whole material world, and to produce all the various revolutions by which its system is sustained, his attributes were, of course, extremely numerous and varied. These were expressed by various titles and epithets in the mystic hymns and litanies, which the artists endeavored to represent by various forms and characters of men and animals. The great characteristic attribute was represented by the organ of generation in that state of tension and rigidity which is necessary to the due performance of its functions. Many small images of this kind have been found among the ruins of Herculaneum and Pompeii, attached to bracelets, which the chaste and pious matrons of antiquity wore round their necks and arms. In these the organ of generation appears alone, or accompanied by the wings of incubation, in order to show that the wearer devoted herself wholly and solely to procreation, the great end for which she was ordained. So expressive a symbol, being constantly in view, must keep her attention fixed on its natural object, and continually remind her of the gratitude she owed the Creator for having taken her into his service, made her partaker of his most valuable blessings, and employed her as the passive instrument in the exertion of his most beneficial power. The female organs of generation were revered as symbols of the generative power of nature or matter, as the male’s were of the generative powers of God.”[91]
CHAPTER III.
THE PSYCHICAL CORRELATION OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION AND SEXUAL DESIRE.
That there exists a relationship between the cultivated ethical emotion, religious feeling, and the essentially natural physio-psychical function, sexual desire or libido, is a fact noticed and commented on by many thinkers and writers. The literature of the subject is, however, exceedingly fragmentary and disconnected, no author (as far as I have been able to determine) having devoted as much as one thousand words to the consideration of this very interesting psychical phenomenon. Hence, my data have been gathered from many sources, which are as diversified as they are numerous.
Beyond a question of doubt, man becomes religiously enthused most frequently either early in life, when pubescence is, or is about to be, established, or late in life, when sexual desire has become either entirely extinct or very much abated. Young boys and girls are exceedingly impressionable at, or just before, puberty, and are apt to embrace religion with the utmost enthusiasm. A distinguished evangelist declares that “men and women seldom or never enter into the kingdom of God after they have arrived at maturity. Out of a thousand converts, seven hundred are converted before they are twenty years old.”[92]
The Roman Catholic church is keenly alive to these facts, therefore requires the rite of confirmation to be administered, if possible, to its would-be communicants at, or before, the age of puberty.[AE]
Of all the insanities of the pubescent state, erotomania and religious mania are the most frequent and the most pronounced. Sometimes they go hand in hand, the most inordinate sensuality being coupled with abnormal religious zeal. A young woman of my acquaintance, whose conduct has given rise to much scandal, is, at times, a reincarnate Messalina, while at other times she is the very embodiment of ethical and religious purity. Another young girl, in whom vita sexualis was about to be established, became religiously insane and had delusions in which she declared that she was in heaven and sitting at the right hand of God. She declared this over and over again, while shamelessly committing manustrupation! Krafft-Ebing calls attention to this relation between religious and sexual feeling in psycho-pathological states. “It suffices,” says he, “to recall how intense sensuality makes itself manifest in the clinical history of many religious maniacs; the motley mixture of religious and sexual delusions that is so frequently observed in psychoses (e. g., in maniacal women who think they are or will be the mother of God), but particularly in masturbatic insanity; and finally, the sexual, cruel self-punishment, injuries, self-castrations, and even self-crucifixions, resulting from abnormal religio-sexual feeling.”[93]
An example of the last mentioned self-immolation (self-crucifixion) is given by Berghierri, and is a remarkable instance of the interchangeableness of religious emotion and sexual desire in psychopathic individuals. The man in question, who had been intensely sensual, manufactured a cross, nailed himself to it, and ingeniously managed to suspend himself and cross from the window of his sleeping apartment.