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THE MASCULINE CROSS.


[Illustration: _God Indra Nailed to a Cross._]

[Illustration: _Buddhist Cross._]

[Illustration: _Cross Common on Ancient Assyrian Monuments._]

[Illustration: _Ancient Heathen,--Mexican Cross._]


THE MASCULINE CROSS

Or
A History of Ancient and Modern Crosses and
Their Connection with the Mysteries of Sex Worship
Also an Account of the Kindred Phases of
Phallic Faiths and Practices.







Privately Printed
1904.




CONTENTS.


                                                  PAGE

  CHAPTER I.
    THE CROSS                                        1


  CHAPTER II.
    THE CROSS (Continued)                           23


  CHAPTER III.
    THE DOCTRINE OF A SACRED TRIAD                  42


  CHAPTER IV.
    THE DOCTRINE OF A SACRED TRIAD (Continued)      63


  CHAPTER V.
    THE GOLDEN CALF OF AARON                        79


  CHAPTER VI.
    CIRCUMCISION                                    91


  CHAPTER VII.
    ANDROGYNOUS DEITIES, SEX WORSHIP, &C.          100




INTRODUCTORY.


_In the following pages certain things supposed to be of comparatively
modern origin have been traced back to the remotest historic ages of the
world; as a consequence, it follows that the modern symbolical meaning
given to such things is sometimes only one acquired in subsequent times,
and not that exactly which was originally intended,--it must not be
supposed, therefore, that the interpretation belonging to the epoch in
which we are first enabled to trace a definite meaning is to be
conclusively regarded as that which gave birth to the form of the symbol.
The original may have been--probably was--very different to what came
after; the starting point may have been simplicity and purity, whilst the
developments of after years were degrading and vicious. Particularly so
was this the case in the Lingam worship of the vast empire of India;
originally the adoration of an Almighty Creator of all things, it became,
in time, the worship of the regenerative powers of material nature, and
then the mere indulgence in the debased passions of an abandoned and
voluptuous nature._

_With regard to the symbol of the Cross, it may be repugnant to the
feelings of some to be told that their recognition of its purely Christian
origin is a mistake, and that it was as common in Pagan as in more
advanced times; they may find consolation, however, in the fact that its
real beginning was further back still in the world's history, and that
with Paganism it was, as it had been with Christianity, simply an adopted
favourite._

_Our story is taken up in the middle epoch of the history, and shews the
relationship of the things we deal with to prevailing phallic faiths and
practices._




THE MASCULINE CROSS.




CHAPTER I.

    _Universal prevalence of the Cross--Mistakes--The Cross not of
    Christian Origin--Christian Veneration of the Cross--The Roman
    Ritual--The Cross equally honoured by the Gentile and Christian
    Worlds--Druidical Crosses--The Copt Oak of Charnwood Forest--Assyrian
    Crosses in British Museum--Pectoral Crosses--Egyptian Crosses--Greek
    Cross--St. Andrew's Cross--Planetary Signs and Crosses--Monogram of
    Christ at Serapis--Cross in India--Pagodas in form of
    Crosses--Mariette Bey's Discovery--Buddhist and Roman Crosses--Chinese
    Crosses--Kampschatkan Crosses--American Crosses--Cross among the Red
    Indians--The Royal Commentaries of Peru--Mexican Ideas relative to the
    Cross--The Spaniards in America--Sign of the Cross--Cross as an
    Amulet--Hot-cross Buns--Tertullian on the Use of the Cross._


The universal prevalence of the cross as an ornament and symbol during the
last eighteen centuries