Forlong - Rivers of Life

410
Rivers of Life, or Faiths of Man in all Lands.
Sabeanism. It was to Phallic objects, I think, they first gave the names Al, Ar, El,
&c., afterwards applied to the Sun and planets, as we see in many ways when we
press to their roots such terms as Rā, Rām, Deva, Am, Am-on, B-el-Peor, Jah, IAO,
AUM, IO, IOni, Pa, Ma, &c.
In every ancient nation we observe that men, especially heroes, incorporated these
Phallic names with their own, calling themselves or being called, bulls, rams, boars, wolves,
&c.—a strong proof of their animal propensities in primitive times. Yet it has been
often urged upon me by learned men, that the Solar idea was the first faith of man, and
that I erred in making it follow Tree and the more purely Phallic faiths. For a long
time I wavered. In the course, however, of study and research, overwhelming evidence
constantly cropped up that “the phallic idea is at the foundation of the planetary
cult of all the peoples of antiquity;” 1 and very many years before I read
this quotation I came to the conclusion, that it was Phallic faith and love of off-
spring that led man to look upwards to those orbs which marked to him the times of
fertility and sterility, as it was also Phallic faiths which led to the worship of progenitors,
and from them to ancestor cult. I long sought for evidence to enable me also to
put Ancestor before Solar worship, but this is wanting; and I am convinced that
every careful student of these matters, if he searches on through all faiths, will come
to the same opinion as I have done.
Some fetish and phallic-worshipping races are still without Sabeanism, though
reverencing and having a kind of cult regarding both Sun and Moon. As to the priority
of Fire, this was the servant of Siva and of all creating gods, but came, of course, after
the Serpent. We must not, however, press this matter of priority too far; nor, in
regard to the first four or five faiths, seek to keep these too strictly apart, or confine
them chronologically. This I mean to imply where I give an early break in the chart
between the years 3500 and 4000 B.C., but here also, quite arbitrarily, and merely for
convenience sake; I make no definite claims as to the time of the birth of these “Faith
Roots,” merely wishing them to appear at the head and beginning of all things, and
asserting that they run into streams, very much as I depict. I desire also to guard
against the idea of these early streams being considered Religions, as we now understrand
the term. Language can poorly express these matters; and I am compelled to
call rites in connection with symbols, “Faiths,” and the symbols themselves, “Roots of
faiths;” and just as we call Christianity “the faith of the Cross,” so Ophiolatry is “the faith
of the Serpent.” What we call the perfected religious idea is the result of a correct intellectual
development; but, if measured by this standard, the faiths of all earthly fetishes,
as well as prophets, would undoubtedly fall short; indeed, very few sects could bear
so strong a light. Yet I wish it to be here remembered that I do not seek to lay down
lines of such strict philosophical demarcation. I call that a Religion—whether a fetish
or intellectual development—which sways vast masses of men, and leads them to look
beyond the life that now is, to that which they hope will come hereafter, whether as
1 Anthrop. Journal, Oct. 1870. Art. iv.