Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
brighter, as in AR, Al, Lāl, , Laul, 1 and under many anther name, and in every land
from India to Armorika.
If Kaldiac Astronomy was fatal to ophiolatry, no less was the more advanced solar
worship of Egypt and the general culture of art and literature to every form of superstition
in Greece and Rome. Had these nations but educated the masses with a
hundredth part of the learning of the writers whose works have come down to us,
every old faith, fable, and superstition would have been blotted out, and even Christianity
would have been impossible to man; but it was not so, and we may be content to
think that it would not have heen good that it should be so. By tracing these faiths in
a general way through all the nations of the earth, which I trust to do in this chapter,
we shall see not only the rise of the Serpent to its zenith power, but its gradual decline,
and make clear a great number of points which will be stepping-stones to very
important after-results. I will here, therefore, merely continue as I have begun, to
throw together such facts or salient observations as will help to develop Ophite history.
In the early Orphic hymns, Kronos—Time, the first of all things, was a Serpent,
and from Time sprang Kaos (Chaos), Ether, and dark Erebus, the Mundane Egg in
the cloud, which produced Phanes, whom the Greeks called Pan, the Koptics, Phenix
or Light, and the English or Kelts, Fanny. In Greek, the serpent child was Erektheus,
2 the prodnce of Fire, or Voolkan upon Ge or Attica, for its soil was their world,
and Attica was the representative daughter of Kekrops, the representative king. The
Kopts said, the serpent was the generator of all things, and they viewed him as a sort
of Logos or attendant on the creator from the foundation of the world, and had very
many and solemn festivals in his honour at the same solar periods as Christians
celebrate theirs. They say he walked forth from a tomb or cave as winter began to
break up, and Eggs, Palms, and Phallic-looking objects were then offered to him as to
Venus in the Nortb., and Astarte in Southern Europe and Asia Minor; his spring
festival was called Eostre or Easter.
It is very remarkable to find all over Africa, even at this hour, the same Trinity
of gods as flourished, we know from records, some forty centuries ago, and how much
longer, we know not; Kaldia, Asyria, and the temple of Erektheus, on the Akropolia
of Athens, honoured and sacrificed to Zeus (the Sun, Hercules, or Phallic idea), the
Serpent and Ocean; and all Africa still does so to the Tree-Stem or Pole, the Serpent,
and the sea or Water; and this Trinity is one God, and yet serves to divide all gods
into three classes, of which these are types. Whida and Dahomey are parrticularly
clear on these matters, and our increasing knowledge of other parts of Africa is but
showing the developments of the same faith, though as these are in the lowest stage of
such Trinities, they are interminably mixed up with charms and fetishes. The earthly
serpent, says Western Africa, represents, “Supreme bliss,” “is the Supreme god,” and
1 The Serpent was once called Lāl or Laul, and Hu and Hui, in Armorika and with Kelts.
2 Erek or Arek, the Ark. Sanskrit Arka, “the Sun” and Tudor or Torthy, the “Striker” or “Stinger.”
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