Forlong - Rivers of Life

184
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
bishop. Hats or head-dresses have also always formed a conspicuous emblem of faiths,
from the Phallic cone on the Tibetan Lama—worshipping Boodhist though he be
(see that strange Phallus which Huc gives us at page 92 of his 2d vol, figure further
on) to those of Western Asia, Europe, and Africa, which I give in Figs 66 and 105,
iv. 5, and elsewhere. The Rev. Mr. Deane correctly says, that the cones were intended as
representations of the sun’s rays, and are sometimes seen in the hands of priests kneeling
before the sacred serpent, . . . . the supplicating minister of the god offers a pyramid in
his left hand, while the right is held up in adoration; on his head is the deadly asp.”
Now, what is this worship but the requests of this “man of god” that he would make
these emblems of the people fruitful, and so bless the nation with abundance of offspring,
the only blessings early races appreciated. I give here an
illustration from Mr Sharpe's Egyptian Mythology, page
61, of such an offering being made by a king or priest “to
the dreaded Kabiri.” Mr Sharpe considers this supplicant
to be a King of Sais, and states that similar drawings
abound of Thebaic Kings making these “offerings to
Amon-Ra,” that is to the Heated or Passionate Sun of Fer-
Fig. 65.—EGYPTIAN KING AT WORSHIP
tility. The learned gentleman is not however acquainted,
I think, with Asiatic or Egyptian Phallic lore, for he
calls the Phalli here “Cones of baked clay!” I should fancy they are just such
Lingam-like sweet-bread as we still see in Indian Sivaik Temples. I think the
double-headed bovine deity is Isis, or Osiris and Isis, that is, Sun and Moon in conjunction,
and that the two cons represent male virility as well as the Lingam, all such
emblems being made, if possible, with a double signification. They correspond to
the two atones on coins as seen in Plates IV. 2; VI. 2; XIII. 1, and elsewhere. We can
imagine the afflicted Philistines, Bethshemites, and Attic Greeks, who offended
against the Arkite and Bacchite energies, making just such offerings as this royal
Ophite is here doing.
“The sacred cakes of honey and flour were marked,” says the Rev. Mr. Deane,
“with the Omphalos, and were offerings made at the shrine of the Sacred Serpent;” and
we know, as a matter of correct history, that the live serpent kept in the Akropolis of
Athens, and the serpent of Metele; were fed on these eakes (Deane 189); so also the
dragon of the Hesperides, and the serpents in the cave of Trophonius. This
Omphalos cake, the Rev. writer explains, “is a boss, upon which is inscribed a spiral
line” similar to that which is seen on rude stones in Ireland, and which, as Quintus
Curtius says, is also found on the rude stone at the temple of Jupiter Amon in Africa;
it is simply the prepuce in a slightly disguised form, and I say this after having seen
hundreds of these quite undisguised. It appears that a spiral is also made to
envelope the mystic baskets of the Bacchic orgies, “and that such an Omphalos with
spiral, or, in this case, I fancy, a zodiacal zone round it, was kept at Delphi (Strabo,