Forlong - Rivers of Life

Serpent and Phallic Worship.
the same souud, though, as is sometimes the case, the spelling and gender differ;
but this is not of material importance, as Jove, Jehovah, Sun, and Moon have
all been male and female by turns. In Hebrew, Baal is masculine, but in the Greek
translation he is feminine both in the Old and New Testament. It would seem
that the Kaduceus of Mercury—that Rod of life, is due to the fact of the ancients
having observed that serpents conjoin in this double circular but erect form, as in
Eskulapius’ rod. Mr Newton records his belief of this at p. 117 of his Appendix to
Dr. Inman’s Symbolism. It appears, as stated by Dr. C.E. Balfour, in Fergusson’s Tree
and Serpent-Worship, that when at Ahmednagar in 1841, he saw two living snakes
drop into his garden off the thatch of his bungalow in a perfectly clear moon-
light night:—“They were (he says) cobras, and stood erect as in the form of the
Eskulapian rod, and no one could have seen them without at once recognising that
they were in congress.” It is a most fortunate thing, say Easterns, to see this, and if
a cloth be then thrown over them, it becomes a form of Lakshmi, and of the highest
procreative energy.
In time we shall probably come at the origin of many other ancient hieroglyphs,
forms, rites, and customs. The mysterie of Eleusis have long puzzled all, yet they
too, are now pretty well known to the initiated. The serpent, we have learned, can
always take Maha-Deva’s or Siva’s place, especially in an Ark; and a serpent in
an ark, as already dwelt upon, is a perfect object of worship, which neither is separately,
except on the well-known religious axiom that “a part represents the whole.”
This coin, from Mr. Sharpe’s Egyptian Mythology, is held to reveal
the long insoluble secret of Eleusis. Here we have the ark or
cist which the virgins used to carry, at certain solar phases,
to and from the Temple of Ceres, and on which, not to say into
which, none dare look; it was a more dangerous fetish even
than that Jewish ark proved to poor Uzzah. The garland of hearts
or fig leaves around this maidenly burden—itself an omphe—is ex-
pressive enough. It is, however, very easy to lose the clue of this occult faith, and
learning and cultiviation, instead of helping us, do, until our minds are most
thoroughly awakened and taught, often drive us still further from the meaning
of its signs and rites. Thus, the philosopies of the later Greeks followed by the
stoicism of Rome, and intense piety and spirituality of the schools of the great
Marcus Aurelius, followed by that of the good, earnest, and cultivated men of the
Christian communities enshrouded nearly the whole of Phallic lore in a gloom which
scientific research is only now beginning to dissipate.
A sister coin to my Fig. 94 will be seen in Smith’s “Class. Dict.” at p. 753, as
belonging to Tralles in Ionia where on the reverse side the aerpent is seen entering
the cist, and on the obverse two serpents in a state of passion surrounding the cist;
the male is shown as with a beard, and a bunch of corn tied up in fleur-de-lis
fashion. It would make this work too costly, else it would be easy to illustrate it to
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Fig 94—SERPENT IN ARK
ENCIRCLED BY HEARTS OR
PHALLI AND FRUIT.