Since ancient times, people have invested hidden meaning in various items. Also, the so-called phallic symbols have been known since ancient times. But what is it? What does the phallic symbol mean? What role did such signs play? What were they for? What is their place in religion and where did it all begin?
What does the phallic symbol mean?
The phallic image is partly associated with the cult of worship of the phallus itself - a symbol of strength and fertility for people of the past. In fact, people could see such symbols in many objects: in swords, thin long vertical stones, monuments, and in general in anything that had the corresponding shape of an erect penis. Can also be considered phallic symbols: mountains, horns, towers, swords, lightning, trees, sticks, towers and other objects. There are those things that are similar purely symbolically, and there are specific objects made by people in the form of a phallus.
For different nations such an image had the same meanings. The phallic symbol was a sign of fertility, masculinity, physical and spiritual strength, prosperity, life, harvest, activity, comedy, creative energy.
What caused the deification of the phallus with all the attendant cults? Probably, people saw in the male reproductive organ and seed something that gives life to others, a kind of continuation of everything and male power. And the almost complete uncontrollability of the processes associated with this, that is, sexual arousal and orgasm, correlated the phallus with something incredible, beyond the control of man, but very important for many peoples. In other words, the phallus was considered something separate from the person.
Phallic symbols include the male phallus itself and, to some extent, also the female genital organs.
Phallic symbols of the past
- The very first phallic symbols are found in the Neolithic era in the form of drawings. Images of the phallus were found in French caves, made 30-35 thousand years ago.
- Drawings of naked men dating back to the Bronze Age have been found in Sweden.
- Similar drawings were also found in Africa. 5000 BC, erect penises were painted next to killed animals.
- Drawings of a male genital organ ending in a flower were found in Zimbabwe.
- Among the heritage Ancient Egypt There are phallic symbols depicted in the drawings. The Egyptians put a deep meaning into this. They also had a fertility god, Min, whose figurines and images are found with an erect genital organ. In addition, many phallic figurines of that time were found in one of the temples. The figurines were displayed in front of a drawing of the goddess of love, which was purely symbolic.
- In Celtic culture, the phallus was identified with the head and symbolized fertility.
- In China there was a lingam made of jade, which had an oblong shape.
- Lingams made between the 8th and 16th centuries have been found in Vietnam.
History of phallic symbols in Antiquity
And in antiquity, for example, sculpture ancient Greek god Priapus's fertility system was installed in parks, gardens and productive areas to attract productivity. Priapus was symbolically depicted with an erection. His figures were carried with them or placed at home for protection and amulet.
IN Ancient Greece on Decembers, orgies were held, scenes from which were subsequently depicted on vases. These orgies were called festivals of Dionysus. During the celebration, people carried wooden or stone phallus figurines.
In ancient Rome, phallic figurines were also used as decorations for women and depicted in temples. They could also be hung at home to protect against the evil eye and for good luck.
In Hellas, so-called herms were erected in honor of Priapus. They depicted the head of a man with a beard and an erect penis on a pole. Herms were installed along roads, near fields and near houses, as it was believed that this would deter thieves, robbers and the evil eye.
Hinduism
IN Ancient India There was another phallic symbol - the so-called lingam, which was a cylinder with a rounded end and was made of stone, clay or wood. The symbol is part of the cult of Shiva, is considered masculine and is found in many temples. Hindus worshiped the linga not as a mere human organ, but as a divine manifestation of life. This tradition of worship continues to this day.
Slavic phallic symbols
The most famous phallic symbol among the Slavs is the phallus of the pagan god of the spring sun, Yarila. He has a lot of symbols. Yarilo served the Slavs as a sign of warmth, fertility and, accordingly, sexual energy.
He was depicted as a healthy young man, and his arrows and spear served as phallic symbols.
The effigy of Yarila was used in various spring rituals and they tried to focus on his phallus.
Kulich also symbolizes the male genital organ. The tradition of baking Easter cakes in Rus' dates back to paganism. By itself, it very much resembles a phallus: the appropriate shape and eggs arranged around it. And just such baking was done with the arrival of spring, when people performed rituals to attract crop yields.
Phallic symbols in Christianity
For Christians, the phallus also had special meaning, and there is evidence of this.
For example, pilgrims from the Middle Ages could receive figurines in the form of a phallus as a souvenir from the priests in one of the Parisian monasteries. This could be considered echoes of paganism, but even some Christian churches were decorated with figurines with phalluses. Phallic shrines previously existed.
There were saints of that time, whose phallus played a significant role for believers. For example, Saint Photin, Saint Gerlicho, Saint Priapus of Antwerp and others. It was believed that these saints could help infertile women and save them from this disease, or help unmarried girls marry.
Unfortunately, many phallic symbols medieval Europe did not survive to this day, because after that the period of witch hunts began, and everything connected with paganism and witches was condemned. It was believed that it was witches who resorted to the cult of phallus worship. Phallic symbolism was eradicated. This was approximately the end of the 14th - beginning of the 16th century.
Modern phallic symbols
Modern phallic symbols are different from those that came before. They are no longer associated with the cult of phallus worship and do not have divine significance, as in some cultures. Nevertheless, they also have a special sacredness. Here is one example: "Monolith" in Oslo. This stele was made by Gustav Vigeland. Around her there are sculptures of naked people, which symbolically means the “circle of life” and the craving for the spiritual.
There are a number of other monuments, such as: “Woman and Bird” in Barcelona, “Velvet of the Nation” in Denevre, “Maiden of the Stream” in Pengam and others. All sculptures are united only by an elongated shape. The sculptors were not at all trying to create something that would look like a phallus. However, local residents manage to see in this what they wanted to see.
Bruce Armstrong's "Giant Owl" looks like a bird. In this harmless monument, symbolizing wisdom, people see a phallic symbol, especially when viewed from different angles.
Phallic symbols according to Freud
The father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, noted that a person sees images and symbols in everything. And that people subconsciously see a phallic symbol in something that at least looks a little like a genital organ. Sexuality and everything connected with it was a key part of his research. Sigmund Freud even singled out cigars as an obvious phallic symbol.
Although Freud's theories are still questionable, their popularity has helped open people up to the topic of sexual symbols.
Conclusion
You can find phallic objects everywhere: in religions, in magic, in paganism. They originated in ancient times, when people had just begun to see the hidden meaning in things and objects, continued in paganism, and then became a significant part of world religions, art and culture. Phallic symbols have existed all the time, ever since man began to think about more deep things such as the meaning of life, God, life after death. Phallic symbols are corresponding figures, drawings, steles, and various objects.
The phallic cult had a high meaning for people in ancient times, since the phallus was perceived not as an organ, but as something symbolic and abstract, giving the continuation of life. He was for them a symbol of life, procreation. Therefore, people saw a lot of phallic symbolism. Many such objects were magnets of good luck, life, fertility, happiness and prosperity. Phallic symbols were of great importance in religion. They were found in Christianity, in Judaism, among many tribes and among different peoples. They still exist today.
The phallic cult is expressed:
1) in the deification of the organs of fertilization, male (phallus) and female (kteis), as independent divine beings;
2) in the deification of real or symbolic images of these organs;
3) in anthropomorphizing these organs as deities of the fertility of the earth and man,
4) and in the worship of these deities by extremely varied acts, starting with the sacrifice of images of genitalia and ending with excesses of voluptuousness, public prostitution and the opposite acts: self-castration, periodic abstinence and asceticism.
This cult reigned not only in the classical world, where its name came from. It is equally common in various stages of development among the most primitive tribes and among civilized non-European peoples (for example, the Japanese), and in the form of numerous experiences among the peasant population of Europe. The rude custom, which is so often encountered among us, of placing a “fig” on an offender or to protect against the evil eye, originates from the phallic cult, since the image of a phallus, the symbol of which in this case is the “fig”, was in the past considered everywhere as a protector from all evil spirits and enchantments. The typical country of the phallic cult, which has survived to this day despite prohibitions, is Japan. The genesis of the phallic cult lies in the animism of primitive man in general and in particular in the idea of the plurality of souls of the individual, that is, in the idea that, in addition to the main duplicate soul of the whole person, there are also independent souls of individual parts of the body. The organs of fertilization, from this point of view, more than any other, should have had an independent existence; Everything spoke for this: the mystery of the process of reproduction, and the even more impulsive unconsciousness of the process in which the organs of fertilization act in addition to and even against the wishes of the individual. Hence the idea of the phallus as individual, able to exist even completely separately from a person and manifest its miraculous actions in such a state.
The meaning of the phallic cult
In the La Madeleine cave, a pebble of an apparently phallic shape was found with a man and a woman engraved on opposite sides. In all likelihood, gynandromorphic images symbolize the unity of the clan corporation. Researchers do not give a clear interpretation to individual finds, calling them simply objects. However, the specificity of the form and the peculiarities of the ornamentation also make it possible to discern a phallic semantic meaning.
Based on the general appearance of the sculptural figures and the repeating features of the details, it is reasonable to conclude that they had different functional purposes.
Firstly, phallic figurines undoubtedly served as objects of cult worship, conventional sign spiritual power coming from outside, physical and mental energy penetrating into female body through the phallus, transforming there into the soul of the future person.
Secondly, these figurines seem to have been used in childbirth, as was observed in the 19th century among northern peoples Russia, when a phallic-looking god was placed next to the woman in labor and was supposed to contribute to the successful delivery of the child. It cannot be ruled out that in earlier times phallic figurines were widely used for the same purpose: to influence mentally and even physically on a pregnant woman in order to cause excitement and muscle contraction to facilitate childbirth (using the placebo effect).
Third, These items could be used in the ritual defloration of girls of the clan community. The sculptural phallus in this case acted as a symbol of the clan, whose members had lost the right to incest. Over time, the ancestral phallus acquired the meaning of a symbol of power in the family and became the rod of the ancestor. Echoes of this ritual have survived to this day. For example, in a number of places in India, on the eve of marriage, a girl performs self-defloration with the help of a stone deity. If an unmarried woman dies, then the priest of the temple performs the ritual of defloration with the same stone device.
Fourthly, The possibility of a purely pragmatic use of phallic-shaped objects as a lustmaker for masturbation and erotic experiences cannot be ruled out. For example, if a woman is dissatisfied with her sexual partners or lacks them due to war, protracted hunting, etc.
One can assume, by analogy with the Scythian-Sarmatian culture, a different practical function. The fact is that the Cimmerians, “milkers of mares,” the Scythians and Sarmatians, in order to increase milk yield, used an ingenious invention - a hollow bone tube through which air was blown in to excite the mare. The same effect of sexual stimulation could also be used to increase the flow of mother's milk in lactating women, especially since breastfeeding, due to limited food supplies, sometimes continued until 5-7 years of age. And finally fifthly, It may well be that phallic objects were used for sadistically cruel punishments of incorrigibly guilty members of the clan, who were thereby deprived of their male social role. Among the same Scythian-Sarmatians, a young man who refused a military feat that should have transferred him to the category of men was obliged to wear women's clothing and perform all women's functions. By Old Testament, “Whoever has his yatra crushed or his genital organ cut off cannot enter the company of the Lord.” But the most extreme punishment known in history was impalement - an execution that became widespread in Sarmatia, as the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was called in the West in the 16th-17th centuries.
The identification of functional differences does not mean that phallic objects were strictly differentiated. They could also have a multi-purpose purpose. (Thus, the combination of the first and third of these functions gave rise to the idea of power). At the same time, they themselves were subjected to stylization, turning into amulets and symbolic decorations, sometimes very piquant. For example, a ceramic figurine-vessel depicting a blowjob (Peru), with a handle that has a vertical outlet. And these days, lipstick in the shape of a phallus was in great demand among Kursk women.
Of course, it cannot be ruled out that the drawings, engravings and sculptural compositions contained motifs that are mildly called today “toilet creativity.” The fence-wall painting observed today has its origins in the work of the ancients, who, just like modern people, there was a burst of sublimated energy.
As the patriarchal tendencies of the primitive community intensify, and especially with the transition to a productive economy and the virilocal principle of social organization, such ritual and cult objects and images are found more and more often, and their symbolic meaning moves further and further away from the original complex emotional experiences, as evidenced by the gradual stylization of the form. One can even definitely say that along with the change in form, there is a transformation of the idea that takes on the meaning of strength, the power of tribal power, and, ultimately, power in general.
Perhaps the most indicative in this regard is the so-called “hammer pin”, found in burials (funeral complexes) of the Catacomb culture (2nd millennium BC), associated by archaeologists with ancestry. It was made from the bone of the now extinct spurus fish. The hammer-shaped pin had an elongated cigar-shaped shape and was decorated with an ornament of ribbon notches.
Characteristically in this regard, we note, the presence among the Don Cossacks up to the 20th century as the main symbol of the transfer of power to the ataman - an incision (analogous to the ancestor’s staff), on which each successive reign was marked with notches. Just as in other cases, the insect rod had a stylized shape. There is also a possible semantic connection between the marks drawn on the incision and the ornamentation of the chief’s staff in clan societies.
The idea of power and authority is also objectified in the images of the snake, the royal staff and the scepter. It can also be traced in architectural ensemble a medieval knight's castle, an obligatory component of which is a soaring tower. The phallus also symbolized the general spiritualizing principle. The seed was considered the embodiment and source of life force. IN ancient Indian mythology it is identified with the absolute ideal principle underlying the universe. Among many peoples, castrati were considered socially inferior. Castrating a man meant depriving him of a symbol of power and life. The penis of a defeated enemy was often considered an honorable military trophy, like the scalp of the Indians. (Some egyptian pharaoh The XIX dynasty, talking about the defeat they inflicted on the Libyans, names among the trophies 6,359 sexual members of Libyan warriors, as well as the sons and brothers of leaders and priests.
Particular importance was attached to the erect phallus, the appearance of which, according to the beliefs of many peoples, was supposed to inspire fear and respect in others. Among the Australian Aborigines, when men met, they touched each other's penis as a sign of greeting. On the Stone Age Tassili frescoes, bearers of a high social cue are a religious symbol. In Ancient Greece, square columns (herms) with a male head and an erect penis were placed in front of temples and houses, guarding roads, borders, and gates. Damaging herms was considered sacrilege. Children wore phallus-shaped amulets around their necks as a means of protection against evil. And the mythological Priapus, the deity of fertility and the patron of sensual pleasures, was originally the phallus itself.
His name became a poetic euphemism for the penis. This is where the medical term “priapism” originated. The ancient Greeks and Romans sometimes tied the foreskin or used a special clamp - fibula (hence infibulation).
Along with direct symbols of strength and power, other indirectly characterizing signs of male sexual behavior were also widely cultivated. Eagles, falcons, lions act as a totemic power attribute, reflecting in their appearance the aggressiveness characteristic of the male ethological type. It is significant that in the initial periods of the formation of state power, its essence was associated in the minds of people with male potency, therefore social expectations required the ruler to have countless wives and concubines. Of course, to a certain extent this strengthened sovereign paternalism, since not only in public opinion, but also in reality, thereby reproducing the relationship between the father, the ruler, and the children, his subjects. However, to an even greater extent, male strength was regarded as the ability to govern the state, the ability to maintain the power of state education and protect the country from external enemies. Even Egyptian Queen Hatshepsut Having accepted the title of Pharaoh, she ordered herself to be portrayed as a man with an artificial beard, and this despite the powerful remnants of matriarchy in the dynastic succession of power. And in the mythology of the ancient Greeks, Uranus, the god of the sky and the first ruler of Olympus, lost power over the gods along with the loss of his reproductive organ as a result of a conspiracy by his sons.
The youngest son of Uranus, Cronus, who carried out this operation with a curved steel sword, became the new heavenly hierarch. As is known, from the drops of blood of the divine phallus were born the goddesses of curse, punishment and revenge - Erinyes (Alecto, Tisiphone, Megaera), and from the foam raised by its fall into the sea - the goddess of love Aphrodite.
The root "yar" has a sexual meaning in all Turkic languages. In Russian, “yar” carries the concepts of spring light, warmth, sexual activity, fertility; "rage" - anger, lust, "yarun" - lustful, etc.
Yarilo - Slavic deity, associated with the pagan cult of the Sun. During the rituals, a straw effigy of Yarila was made with a huge protruding phallus.
In Tantric Buddhism and other Eastern teachings, the phallus is called jade stem, flute, wand, scepter, precious stone, positive peak, mountain cliff, yang pagoda, weapon of love, diplomat, ambassador, general, tiger, snake, cockerel, minion, boy, monk , adept, warrior, hero.
In Sweden, there are Bronze Age paintings of naked men hunting. Also in the Sahara Desert, images of phalluses were found next to the heads of killed animals, the age of these images is 5000 years before the birth of Christ.
In Zimbabwe, drawings from prehistoric times were found that depicted an erect penis with a long line extending from it and ending with a tulip flower.
Phallic cult in India
In the culture of Ancient India, the linga is known - a phallic symbol in the cult of Shiva. . It is a vertically mounted stone cylinder, externally resembling a horn, usually approximately 75 centimeters high, with a diameter at the base of 30 centimeters. True, those installed in temples dedicated to Shiva, where millions of Hindus come every day to worship the gods, can reach gigantic proportions. Indian women wear small lingams around their necks, just as Christians wear pectoral crosses. IN holy books it is written: the worship of the phallus does not mean the worship of a physical organ, but simply the recognition of the eternal divine form manifested in the microcosm. The human organ is nothing more than an image of this divine emblem, the original form of life.
In Erika Leichtag's book, published in 1960 and dedicated to memories of a trip to Nepal, there are the following lines: “In this country, the lingam comes out of the heart of the lotus, the female yoni. This symbol is present everywhere, made of stone, bronze, copper, iron, gold , glass, painted wood. I saw him on the stairs of temples, on the side of roads, on the doors of houses, surrounded by gifts - flowers, rice, water... In the end I stopped noticing him."
In India, the lotus, an aquatic plant with red, white and blue petals, is a symbol of the female reproductive organ, while the fig tree symbolizes the phallus.
Phallic cult in Greece and Egypt
Phallus culture is widely represented in Egyptian mythology the gods Min, Amon-Ra and Osiris. The phallus is a symbol of male power and this is associated with the legends about the phallus of Osiris. Amon-Ra, the king of all gods, is also shown in all images with a naked phallus.
Egyptians celebrate the festival of Bacchus. Instead of phalluses, they have figurines 50 centimeters high, which are set in motion with the help of ropes tied to them. A musician opens the ceremony by playing a flute, and women carry figurines, singing hymns dedicated to Bacchus and manipulating their penises, whose length almost reaches the length of their bodies.
In ancient Greece, the gods had unlimited power and could personally determine the fate of people, at the same time, despite the fact that the gods were almost always located on Mount Olympus, the fame of their sexual exploits spread throughout the world. During the reign of the Cretan-Mycenaean civilization, wild orgies took place in the month of December and this is reflected in many drawings on antique vases. These orgies were called festivals of Dionysus - the son of Zeus and his mistress Semele
During these festivals, a procession would carry large wooden or stone phalluses and glorify Dionysus. The gods Pan and Priapus also preached the culture of the phallus. Pan - the Arcadian god of sheep, son of Hermes and Penelope, was turned into a goat by Hermes. Priapus - the god of fertility, in Asian countries was known as the god Bes, and was always depicted with a penis higher than his own body.
Phallic cult in the Roman Empire
In the Roman Empire, here and there there were “herms” dedicated to Priapus can be found everywhere. Herma is a square pillar with the head of a bearded man at the top and an erect penis in the middle. These herms were placed near fields, roads and inside houses, people believed that they would provide protection from thieves and robbers and were also used as scarecrows. Their main duty was to ward off the “evil eye.”
The sexual significance of the phallus in the Roman Empire spread to a more significant magical power. This also applies to the countless phallic sacrifices and the use of phallus figurines as "amulets" to protect against evil forces. The phalluses were called "fascinum", translated from Latin it means "to bewitch, to enchant." Large phallic sculptures were installed on the gates of Roman cities and the walls of houses, and this also had a protective function - it warded off the “evil eye” and brought good luck and happiness.
Phallic cult in Syria
Lucien de Samosat reports the existence of a phallic cult of the goddess in Syria. Lucien de Samosat talks about the purpose of the 54-meter phalluses: “Twice a year a man climbs to the top of one of them to stay there for a week. He does this with the help of a rope tied around the body and phallus, and a piece of wood that serves as a Once at the top, he throws down the end of another long rope, which he took with him. Everything he needs is passed along it, and he makes something like a nest on the top.” This man spends time in prayer and sometimes beats a gong, which makes a very impressive sound.
Phallic cult in France
Sometimes during the procession on occasion Palm Sunday the children carried five loaves in the shape of a phallus. A church council in the 9th century condemned the use of phallic amulets, which were extremely common in that era. This custom continued until the 14th century.
Priapus became a saint in France: in the south - Saint Futin, in Burg - Saint Greluchon or Gerluchon, in Brittany - Saint Gilles and Saint Genol. All these saints give men virility and women fertility.
The phallic cult most often found its embodiment in stone. Once upon a time in the Pyrenees there was a Bourbo stone, around which obscene dances were held on the evening of the day when Mardi Gras was celebrated.
Women of Brittany who suffered from infertility came to the Bourg d'Uille menhir to touch it in a special way.
In the village of Saint-Ours, located in the Lower Alps, there was a sacred stone. The girls sliding down it were sure that they would soon find a husband.
Phallic cult in Japan
Even though Japan has a Buddhist-Shinto culture, the phallus symbol has also been found here. For example, the city of Komakashi holds the Toshira jinga festival in March. The priests carry a huge phallus carved from wood through the streets of the city. After the festival, this new phallus will be installed next to the phalluses installed in previous years. The Huns (Xiongnu) in ancient times also crossed over to the Japanese islands, participating in the ethnogenesis of the Japanese nation. Japanese mythology reports that the divine couple Izanagi and Izanami "disturbed the ocean with a huge spear tipped with gemstone(phallus); dripping from the tip sea water formed the first island, named Onogoro, which looks like a huge phallus. Then they began to run around the heavenly pillar, artificially made in the shape of a phallus, and gave birth to the rest of the Japanese islands, and also produced many other deities."
In Japan, the cult of the phallus and ktenes was officially prohibited in 1872, but “in remote areas it can still be found. These “female and male stones” ... are both natural and artificial. Natural phalluses and ktenes are found in various sizes, reaching the size of the cliffs, of which one forms an entire island called Onogoro. They are given much more. greater value, than artificial, and they probably caused the emergence of a cult, since they, of course, are older than artificial images. Artificial ctenes are not made, but phalluses made of stone, clay, wood and iron are very common. Infertile and sick women sacrifice two types of shells to the phallus. The peach and bean serve as a symbol of the ctenes, the mushroom and the snout of a pig - the phallus. Large specimens of phallus and ctenes are sometimes found separately, but most often in pairs; they are sometimes placed in small containers, under a canopy, but in most cases directly under open air. Sacrifices consisting of food and drinks are made to them. Small symbols are used in home worship."
One day, the Japanese Maiden Tamaeri-hime, having fun on the banks of the Ishikawa River, saw an arrow painted red floating down the stream. She picked up this arrow and put it in her bed, which is why she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. Here there is a parallel between military weapons and the phallus. The Koreans called the phallic spirit Pugyn, and in shrines dedicated to it they hung a phallus made of wood on the wall. Despite the ban, his cult persisted until the beginning of the twentieth century.
Antiphallic Europe
IN Western Europe During the period of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, old habits changed and a strict taboo was imposed on sexuality. Drawings of genitals or nudity were painted over or hidden under fig leaves. Only in “scientific” works were images of the penis allowed.
The antiphallic tendency increased with the publication in England in 1715 of a pamphlet entitled "Onanism, or the terrible sin of self-defilement, and the terrible consequences thereof, considered in both sexes, and mental and physical advice for those who have already injured themselves by this abnormal practice." Three ideas were considered here: “mortal sin”, “abnormal practice” and “terrible consequences”, this brochure influenced the morals of citizens until the twentieth century. There was also a book by Dr. Tissot published in 1758, first in Latin and then, with much greater effect, in French, Masturbation or an Inquiry into the Mental and Physical Effects of Masturbation.
In the old days, the phallic symbol was considered very a strong talisman. Our ancestors had no shame and did not pretend that the phallus did not exist. Not knowing when and where misfortune could come from, people saved themselves from the unknown by attaching various symbols to the gates of their houses, including a talisman in the shape of a phallus. Did you know that the word "luck" comes from the word "ud"? This is what the ancient Slavs called the mysterious god, the patron of love affairs. Accordingly, figurines in the form of a body organ - the phallus, without which this connection cannot be achieved, were considered powerful amulets.
The word "pleasure" also has the root "ud" and is directly related to to the ancient god. God Oud was depicted as a curly-haired young man who sat on a tour. The aurochs' horns were entwined with a wreath of viburnum branches - a symbol of virginity.
Household utensils, rings, earrings, and necklaces were decorated with phallic symbols. Sometimes bells were hung from these symbols, which were supposed to enhance the power of the amulet, scaring away evil spirits and “ evil spirits" The phalluses with bells were hung in the bedroom and hallway. Merchants believed that such amulets brought good luck and hung them in their shops.
In those distant times, phalluses made of bronze, with a loop for hanging, were very popular. Some peoples put such amulets around their necks, hidden in gold cases, around children's necks. Warriors painted the phallus on their helmets and shields, sailors - on the bow of the ship. The Romans, returning from victory, attached phalluses-amulets to the chariot to weaken the power of envious glances.
I couldn’t stand the phallic bacchanalia. She was very strict about various kinds of amulets. It was not easy for the Church to cope with pagan traditions and make people refuse help mysterious forces amulets. Even the Church fought zealously against magic and witchcraft, superstitions, without doubting their existence. In 221, a special decree of Pope Gregory II was issued prohibiting the wearing of amulets. The Council of Laodicea confirmed this prohibition in the 4th century. The Inquisition confiscated amulets and love potions from women convicted of witchcraft.
Religion was unable to fight the desire to protect oneself with material things, and not just the banner of the cross. Then, instead of bronze phalluses and magic stones, medallions with images, figurines of angels, images of saints, and incense with relics appeared. Pagan spells were replaced with quotations from Holy Scripture. Thus, the inscription appeared on the Orthodox cross: “Save and preserve.”
Today, phalluses made of wood, painted with bright colors and tied with colored ribbons can be seen in Thailand. These are symbols of fertility and wealth. The Thais bring them to the Princess of Love Cave, located on one of the islands in Krabi province. There is a grove in Bangkok called the Fertility Temple where wooden phalluses of various sizes are placed.
A giant stone phallus is located at Wat Pho monastery in Bangkok. People come here to touch the symbol of fertility in order to get rich or get pregnant. On the island of Koh Samui there is a miracle created by nature - rocks representing the image of male and female genitalia. Thais affectionately call them “Grandma” and “Grandfather”. Numerous tourists take pictures here for happiness and health.
Virgo
