Forlong - Rivers of Life

236
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
distinct and mostly sensuous meaning is attached to every letter, and that, in the most
ancient forms of these, this rule is still more fully and clearly dominant, thus:
A. Aleph, is the Bull, symbol of generation. M. Mem, is Water as in ripples.
B. Beth, is the House, or Home. N. Nun, is a Fish, and Woman.
G. Gimmel, is a Yoke. O. Oin is the Eye, and Sun.
D. Daleth, is the Door of Life—Woman. P. Phe is the Mouth, Oracle or Male.
E. Hé, is a Window. Q. or K. Koph, is the Ear.
L. Lamed, is a Stimulus, generally female. T. Tau is the Mark, and Future Life.
The ancient Hebrew Aleph was apparently a shaft or pole with serpent, and
rather more pronouncedly so than the present a; the Tau or T was a sloping Tor’s
hammer, like that seen in my Fig. 19, page 65. This was called in the Canaanitic
language by the phallic name of “the mark,” that is the mark of sex—in Hindostani,
the Nishān, a common word for the pudendum of any creature. The first and last
letters of alphabets are the priestly favourites, and then to these the following are very
important: B, D, I, K, M, O, P, T, and U, or V. Our European priests still adorn
their churches and altars—the arks of old, with flags displaying in prominent red figures
(red is the holy phallic colour) such symbols as the circle with cross, or the Greek R—
the shepherd’s crozier. At marriages and confirmations, which last correspond to the
period of puberty, when the male assumed the Toga Virilis—a great occasion with all
old peoples, the Christian priest usually suspends banners from poles or crosses, &c.,
each banner having a bright red Α and Ω (Alpha and Omega) such as we saw the
Ancients hang from their sacred Palm trees, Fig. 16, page 62. This picture-literature proclaims
to the initiated and learned, that now, especially at a marriage, is the end of
childhood and beginning of new life; the ignorant of course remain ignorant still, and
only think the whole scenes and ceremonies, very “pretty and impressive!” To the
initiated, the Omega is “the eye,” or womb, or vesica piscis, according to the occasion
on which used; and the conjunction of the Alpha with the Omega is therefore ratherindecently
distinct. In Europe we are almost too far removed from the times and
ideas which originated such marriage and “confirmation” signs, to judge the originators,
but some parts of our “Prayer Books” and Bibles, which we will not on
any account yield up, are as gross as is to be found in the most ancient faiths.
We had not very long ago a Royal confirmation ceremony on the occasion of our
Queen’s eldest grandson coming of age, and from my notes regarding this, taken at the
time in the daily newspapers, I observe that “the walks were decorated with alternate
A’s and Ω’s, and the double triangle (see Fig. 105, II. 5), the emblem it was stated, of
the Trinity; and this figure was repeated, worked in Ivy and Oak, around the altar
and its elaborately illumined niche.” Now clearly “the Trinity” here was the Solo-
Phallic one, for Oaks and Ivy, and male and female signs, are all his, and could not
be imputed to the later “Aba Father,” Paraklete or Logos. The church has here clearly
forgotten herself and stepped down from the s£rx; of John i. 14, to its ancient equivalent
the Basar of Gen. xvii. 11; even the colour, green everywhere, assures us that the