For the most part the comments we receive under our videos and articles are immensely positive, although every now and then we get one that is slightly mocking in nature. Of course we expect this from time to time, this is the internet after all! We welcome all comments both positive and negative as either can serve as inspiration, which is an invaluable resource for work such as ours. The other week we received such a comment under one of our videos.
The comment itself was quite subtle, and could have been done in good spirits, although given that the poster appeared to be of an orthodox Christian stance, I would doubt it. All the comment stated was “Hello Pagans” then had a link to a video from Athens showing a festival in honour of Dionysus called “Phallephoria”. As you can imagine given its name and being a festival dedicated to a God of wine, fertility and ecstasy, some of the “creations” on display were not for prudes. The scene linked opened with female “devotees” dancing around a rather large and proud Phallic creation. I cannot say how serious these so called devotees were, but I guess given Dionysus’s connections to theatre and revelry, it could be considered rather a mute point. I believe the overall point of the comment was to look down upon Heathen practices as primitive oddities, devoid of any real spiritual significance.
As practitioners of the old ways I am sure most of us have come across such accusations before. Christians in general see themselves in a more refined light and can often perceive their ancestors devotions to such “crude” symbols as little more than some unenlightened display of ignorance. Even modern Pagan groups tend to shy away from this sort of thing, preferring to keep their ceremony in alignment with current social sensibilities and aesthetic ideals. These ancient ceremonies and the symbolic imagery involved are of course some of the oldest “religious” creations known to man, and far from being some primitive idea from Africa, have their beginnings in Europe!
One of the oldest representations of a Phallic symbol is of course from the world famous Hohle fels cave in Germany, dating from around 28k BC. Since then it has been represented throughout Europe’s vast pagan history, from Neolithic sculptures, Herma stones and Norse effigies of deities. This constant and enduring symbol therefore cannot be viewed as just some passing and embarrassing phase in European spirituality, but rather as a foundational stone of our religious enlightenment.
History has a way of making us face questions we would rather not, it forces us to peer into ourselves and doesn’t care much for our modern frailties. The process of facing these hard and sometimes dark questions is not one to be feared, in fact once fully embraced can open our eyes and teach us more than we could ever have imagined. So, what of these phallic symbols and fertility symbols in general? Are they something we should look back at with shame, or is there some deeper meaning far beyond most modern minds?
Most people including myself see these symbols as representing fertility on one level, so before we move deeper into their meanings we should first take a look at why this is so important. Fertility is the ultimate in creation, and unlike say a house or a tool, it is of a divine nature. All life partakes in it, regardless of its ability to visualise or reason. Science has yet to replicate it even on the most basic of levels, let alone enlighten us on the most simplest of questions, the why, so preoccupied as it is on the how.
Even a simple look at why our ancestors would value the idea of fertility enough to dedicate whole ceremonies to it renders reasonable answers. As a father I can attest that there is no greater feeling or emotion than seeing your child enter this world. None that have experienced it has ever been able to adequately explain it. From that moment your life changes forever and if we send our minds through time and try to understand this emotion with the backdrop of a much harsher and volatile world, I can only imagine the emotions are magnified by equal magnitude. It should also not be forgotten that in these times child mortality rates were high, and numbers alone were a very real aspect of survival.
The importance of fertility was not only limited to that of mankind either, on another practical level fertility was essential in the land too. No matter how many of you there were, or how deep your love for them, with no food for their bellies it would all turn into a horror story before too long.
Given the examples above it is quite easy to see why our ancestors gave this aspect of existence so much effort and saw it as a divine manifestation. The very idea that this is a “primitive notion” is quite absurd to me in any case. As stated, science has yet to create life from scratch, and as much as we have advanced in knowledge we have yet to rid the world of famine. Add to this the feeling of holding your newborn close is still a spiritual experience regardless of science’s attempt to reduce it to some basic chemical changes.
It is also no wonder man expressed this divine aspect of life with sculptures and effigies of the human form. You have to look within to see without, and thus voluptuous ladies bare breasted and effigies carved with exaggerated phallus’s not only show our ancestors understanding of themselves, but also a humility in face of such impossible questions, choosing to represent what they knew rather than speculate upon what they didn’t. This is far more in keeping with truth and honesty than many that claim to represent the same in this time!
On a side note, I have always found it quite amusing that Christians especially seem to look down upon this form of veneration. That a people that believe that their God, a God who by their reckoning created the natural world and who made man as a living image of the divine, would believe that such unashamed veneration of the naked human form to be an act of shame. Surely with such a belief there could be no more sacred sight than the naked image. The phallus is given extra special treatment by other Abrahamic faiths as well. Judaism and Islam take their offence to this most divine creation to a whole new level and deface it via mutilation and then have the audacity to call it a covenant!
If we look deeper into this symbol, it becomes clear that it is also associated with reincarnation and boundaries. Even in early churches and gravestones a phallic image can be imagined from their design. Thus representing the penetration of the soul into the womb of the Great Mother, to be born anew. A symbol of the boundary between this world and the next, in its eternal cycles. It is little wonder then why Herma stones, that were placed at boundaries in ancient times, were constructed of little more than an oblong stone with a head at one end and a penis at the other. The Greek God of boundaries himself, Hermes, is often depicted with a larger than life erect phallus.
As Christianity begins to decay, the shame aspect, which at its height in the Victorian age had them deface ancient artwork in the name of modesty, begins to die with it. Sadly this has not lead to these ancient fertility symbols being liberated from their imposed position of shame. In the modern age the symbol has become fully subverted. Where as the Christian mindset looked upon these symbols and their ancestors associated with them as a kind of embarrassment representing ideas of a primitive lustful sinner, the modern man with no shame at all began to embrace them in a very different way.
As man drifted even further from his tribal beginnings, that of blood and soil, two things intimately linked to fertility, he began to worship selfishness and greed. As these new “gods” took hold, perversion became the main propellant of culture and the old fertility symbols became corrupted along with everything else. Unlike the festival in Greece in honour of Dionysus the most common place to now see a phallic symbol is a so called “pride” parade. A festival that reeks of self indulgence as the ancient virile symbol of life, is inverted to a symbol of self pleasure and death.
I am sure many Christians see little difference between ancient festivals in honour of Dionysus and modern “pride” parades, but as they shelter their fragile eyes from the ceremony they miss the point of what is going on. For tens of thousands of years the Fertility Gods and Goddesses of Europe reigned supreme, and with them so did the European peoples. Now in the age of self these same symbols are made impotent devices of self pleasure, rather than revered as implements of divine creation.
The responsibility that came with new life, whether it be crop or newborn babe, was not lost upon them and was most likely far more real for them than it is for us today. These ceremonies were not simply some absurd hedonistic barbarity, but reverence to the most sacred aspect of life, its creation. When we fail to give respect to this most holy aspect of the divine, we hand it over to those that would only subvert it. Taking shame in your being is the first step to creating a void in the self, that will be filled one way or another. If we are to take back our world and once again thrive, I can see no better place to start than once again giving honour and thanks to the most ancient of Deities that despite their fall from favour have served us longer and have been more instrumental in our prominence than any other.
Edited by CJ