Today, if you want to experience organized phallic worship you have to go to Japan, or find a Hindu temple. For the personal kind, there are still men around—Enrique met one recently—who say things like, "I expect women to worship at the altar of my cock." But that's another story.
JAPANESE PHALLUS FESTIVALS
Shinto, the original Japanese religion, was a nature religion, and phallic worship was worship of the life force. Apparently, Japan is full of naturally occurring, penis-shaped stones, and these are thought to have magical, protective powers. There are shrines to phallic stones all over the country. In 1953 there were 420 phallic stones extant in Nagano Prefecture and 14 in Tokyo alone.
Phallicism is mostly a rural religion now—in practice, a farmer and his wife might make love in a field while the seed is being sown to insure a good crop; or a couple might spend a night with the silkworms to encourage them to spin.
There are also various local fertility festivals with phallic elements. As recently as 1953, at a festival in Chiba, right near Tokyo, a wooden phallus would have ritual sex with a straw vagina, after which they would be anointed with milky rice beer. In Tohoku a basketware phallus covered in red papier-mache was paraded through the streets once a year to purify the air. In Hakata they would build a phallus as big as a house, set it on fire and throw it into the sea.
Each year during a phallus festival at the 1,500-year-old Tagata Shrine, a new seven-foot penis carved from a Japanese cypress, and weighing some seven hundred pounds, is carried by twelve men from the Kumano Shrine, a mile up the road, to the Tagata Shrine. The phallus is so heavy that several teams of twelve are needed. After appropriate ceremonies the phallus of the year is placed in a room with other attending phalluses, and last year's specimen can then be sold. This festival, meant to promote fertility and prosperity and protect against evil, is a tourist favorite.
In some towns there are festivals during which young men wear protective phalluses carved of daikon radishes on their belts. Many local festivals sell penis-shaped talismans, some of which—like a boat with a phallic mast— are used as children's toys.
In some cases just the sight of the penis can be enough to root out evil. A May festival in Kyoto was dedicated to an ugly goddess who tried to break up young lovers. In order to quiet the goddess, the young men of the district would carry her on a palanquin through the streets; they wore only short coats and no loincloths, so she could plainly see their penises. In a town called Bingo, if the rice pot bubbled too much on the stove, the man of the house would expose himself to the pot. The pot would calm down.
There are a number of local New Year's festivals during which young men hit young women with carved phalluses or phallic-shaped objects in order to wish them good luck.
THE HINDU LINGAM CEREMONY
In Hinduism—the major religion of India—the phallic god Shiva, who represents the creative principle and the origin of all things, is worshiped in the form of his lingam, or penis. Hindu sacred art is often erotic, and includes many representations of penises, some of them sculpted on the outsides of temples. Shiva lingams inside temples aren't penis-shaped exactly; most of them look more like wide, flat, oval stones, or like fat, squat candles. In lingam-conscious India, lingams are also found in nature; the most famous is an ice stalagmite ten feet high inside the Amarnatha Cave, a major pilgrimage site.
My own experience with a Shiva lingam was at a Hindu temple in Flushing, New York—and it was Enrique, who came with me, who got the most out of it. The temple was an airy place to stroll through, with chapels for various gods and goddesses, and niches for statuettes of gods and goddesses who didn't have chapels. Signs said "Please do not touch the Deity." It was early evening. We sat cross- legged on the floor along with some Indian women in saris and men in business clothes, in front of the lingam chapel. A small statue of a sitting bull, on a stand, also faced the chapel. When the ceremony began the chapel curtain was pulled to reveal a big, oval, reddish green lingam, set in a yoni, a vulva- shaped basin, so that the top two thirds of the lingam were visible.
(Apparently there's a bull facing the Shiva lingam in every temple in India, and the painter Rackstraw Downes told me a tale about this configuration that he heard from a guide in the ancient city of Hampi. Shiva, the story goes, was in the mood for sex one day. However, his lover, Parvati, was not receptive, and he was forced to resort to the bull in the field. Shiva promised the bull that after he screwed it, he would let it screw him. The bull agreed. Shiva took his pleasure with the bull, and ever since the bull has sat there, waiting for its turn.)
Two young priests officiated at the Flushing chapel. They were naked on top and wore white lengths of cloth, wrapped around the waist, like figures on an ancient frieze. Their work consisted mainly of pouring libations over the lingam, and over the bull. Among the offerings were milk, honey, yogurt, clarified butter and cut-up bananas, apples and oranges. After each new substance offered, the lingam and the bull were washed down with water. A bell was rung between offerings; a flower was placed on the lingam where its forehead would be if it were a face. All the while the men in the congregation chanted in Sanskrit.
I enjoyed watching the ceremony, but didn't get much of a charge from it. Enrique, on the other hand, was thrilled. He said it was like the Catholic Church, only better. There was the same tang of incense in your nostrils, and the chant droning in your brain; there were bells and candles—but instead of worshiping the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, you could celebrate the generative principle and its connection to your own maleness. Just the sort of thing Christianity wiped out and replaced in the West, two thousand years ago.
THE GENERATIVE PRINCIPLE
JAPANESE PHALLUS FESTIVALS
Shinto, the original Japanese religion, was a nature religion, and phallic worship was worship of the life force. Apparently, Japan is full of naturally occurring, penis-shaped stones, and these are thought to have magical, protective powers. There are shrines to phallic stones all over the country. In 1953 there were 420 phallic stones extant in Nagano Prefecture and 14 in Tokyo alone.
Phallicism is mostly a rural religion now—in practice, a farmer and his wife might make love in a field while the seed is being sown to insure a good crop; or a couple might spend a night with the silkworms to encourage them to spin.
There are also various local fertility festivals with phallic elements. As recently as 1953, at a festival in Chiba, right near Tokyo, a wooden phallus would have ritual sex with a straw vagina, after which they would be anointed with milky rice beer. In Tohoku a basketware phallus covered in red papier-mache was paraded through the streets once a year to purify the air. In Hakata they would build a phallus as big as a house, set it on fire and throw it into the sea.
Each year during a phallus festival at the 1,500-year-old Tagata Shrine, a new seven-foot penis carved from a Japanese cypress, and weighing some seven hundred pounds, is carried by twelve men from the Kumano Shrine, a mile up the road, to the Tagata Shrine. The phallus is so heavy that several teams of twelve are needed. After appropriate ceremonies the phallus of the year is placed in a room with other attending phalluses, and last year's specimen can then be sold. This festival, meant to promote fertility and prosperity and protect against evil, is a tourist favorite.
In some towns there are festivals during which young men wear protective phalluses carved of daikon radishes on their belts. Many local festivals sell penis-shaped talismans, some of which—like a boat with a phallic mast— are used as children's toys.
In some cases just the sight of the penis can be enough to root out evil. A May festival in Kyoto was dedicated to an ugly goddess who tried to break up young lovers. In order to quiet the goddess, the young men of the district would carry her on a palanquin through the streets; they wore only short coats and no loincloths, so she could plainly see their penises. In a town called Bingo, if the rice pot bubbled too much on the stove, the man of the house would expose himself to the pot. The pot would calm down.
There are a number of local New Year's festivals during which young men hit young women with carved phalluses or phallic-shaped objects in order to wish them good luck.
THE HINDU LINGAM CEREMONY
In Hinduism—the major religion of India—the phallic god Shiva, who represents the creative principle and the origin of all things, is worshiped in the form of his lingam, or penis. Hindu sacred art is often erotic, and includes many representations of penises, some of them sculpted on the outsides of temples. Shiva lingams inside temples aren't penis-shaped exactly; most of them look more like wide, flat, oval stones, or like fat, squat candles. In lingam-conscious India, lingams are also found in nature; the most famous is an ice stalagmite ten feet high inside the Amarnatha Cave, a major pilgrimage site.
My own experience with a Shiva lingam was at a Hindu temple in Flushing, New York—and it was Enrique, who came with me, who got the most out of it. The temple was an airy place to stroll through, with chapels for various gods and goddesses, and niches for statuettes of gods and goddesses who didn't have chapels. Signs said "Please do not touch the Deity." It was early evening. We sat cross- legged on the floor along with some Indian women in saris and men in business clothes, in front of the lingam chapel. A small statue of a sitting bull, on a stand, also faced the chapel. When the ceremony began the chapel curtain was pulled to reveal a big, oval, reddish green lingam, set in a yoni, a vulva- shaped basin, so that the top two thirds of the lingam were visible.
(Apparently there's a bull facing the Shiva lingam in every temple in India, and the painter Rackstraw Downes told me a tale about this configuration that he heard from a guide in the ancient city of Hampi. Shiva, the story goes, was in the mood for sex one day. However, his lover, Parvati, was not receptive, and he was forced to resort to the bull in the field. Shiva promised the bull that after he screwed it, he would let it screw him. The bull agreed. Shiva took his pleasure with the bull, and ever since the bull has sat there, waiting for its turn.)
Two young priests officiated at the Flushing chapel. They were naked on top and wore white lengths of cloth, wrapped around the waist, like figures on an ancient frieze. Their work consisted mainly of pouring libations over the lingam, and over the bull. Among the offerings were milk, honey, yogurt, clarified butter and cut-up bananas, apples and oranges. After each new substance offered, the lingam and the bull were washed down with water. A bell was rung between offerings; a flower was placed on the lingam where its forehead would be if it were a face. All the while the men in the congregation chanted in Sanskrit.
I enjoyed watching the ceremony, but didn't get much of a charge from it. Enrique, on the other hand, was thrilled. He said it was like the Catholic Church, only better. There was the same tang of incense in your nostrils, and the chant droning in your brain; there were bells and candles—but instead of worshiping the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, you could celebrate the generative principle and its connection to your own maleness. Just the sort of thing Christianity wiped out and replaced in the West, two thousand years ago.
THE GENERATIVE PRINCIPLE
Enrique said a man could look at the lingam as a kind of model. "Because to accomplish anything you must penetrate. You penetrate other people's consciousness, or you take a seed and push it into the ground, and that's the beginning of anything you do. So the generative principle permeates absolutely everything. And isn't it fun? You can see it in a banal, silly piece of flesh plumbing. Through that silly piece of flesh plumbing comes anybody who's walked this earth."
Source: The Book of the Penis by Maggie Paley
Source: The Book of the Penis by Maggie Paley
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