Religion and Lust OB THE PSYCHICAL CORRELATION OF RELIGIOUS EMOTION AND SEXUAL DESIRE BY JAMES WEIR, JR., M. D. AUTHOR OF THE DAWN OF REASON, ANIMAL INTEL- LIGENCE, ETC. THIRD EDITION REVISED AND ENLARGED WITH ADDITIONAL NOTES. CHICAGO CHICAGO MEDICAL BOOK CO. 1905 1105 PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION. T/t^ author of this monograph has been incited to its publication by the commendations of three of the most eminent critics and editors of magazines in the United States, to whom it was submitted in manu- script. In this essay, he discusses his subject from a physio-psychical standpoint, and believes that he has kept intact the canons of scientific investigation, ob- servation, and discussion. "Waveland" June 8, 1897. PREFACE TO SECON 'DITION. In preparing The Psychical o rrelation of Reli- gious Emotion and Sexual Desire for its second edition, the author has incorporated in it a considerable amount of additional evidence in support of his theory. He has carefully verified all references; he has endeavored to eliminate all unnecessary material; and, finally, he has changed the style of the work by dividing it into three parts, thus greatly simplifying the text. He feels under many obligations to his critics, both to those who thought his little book worthy of commen- dation, and to those who deemed his premises and con- clusions erroneous. He feels grateful to the former, because they have caused him to believe that he has added somewhat to the literature of science; he thanks the latter, because in pointing out that which they con- sidered untrue, they have forced him to a new and more searching study of the questions involved, thereby strengthening his belief in the truthfulness of his con- clusions. To the second edition of The Psychical Correla- tion of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire, the au- thor has seen fit to add certain other essays. In prepar- ing these essays for publication, he has borrowed freely from his published papers, therefore, he desires to than/ the publishers of the New York Medical Record, Ce* tury Magazine, Denver Medical Times, Charlo Monthly and American Naturalist for granting hi. permission to use such of his published material (be- longing to them) as he saw fit. The author asks the indulgence of the reader for certain repetitions in the text. These have not been occasioned by any lack of data, but occur simply because he believes that an argument is rendered stronger and more convincing by the frequent use of the same data whenever and wherever it is possible to use them. When this plan is followed, the reader, so the author believes, becomes familiar with the author's line of thought, and is, consequently, better able to compre- hend and appreciate his meaning. Finally, the author has been led to the publication of these essays by a firm belief in the truthfulness of the propositions advanced therein. He may not live to see these propositions accepted, yet he believes that, in the future, perhaps, in worthier and more able hands, they will be so weightily and forcibly elaborated and advanced that their verity will be universally acknowl- edged. "Waveland" September 17, 1897. * PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. The author, after mature consideration, has ught it advisable to confine the subject matter of tne Third Edition of Religion and Lust almost wholly to the psychical correlation of religious emotion and sexual desire. He has eliminated certain of the psychical Problems embraced in the First and Second Editions and has added instead a bibliography. The student, he thinks, will find these changes of value, especially in the matter of reference. The author has also added certain data to the thesis of the work, as well as foot- notes; which, he thinks, will strengthen the deductions and conclusions therein enunciated. He has carefully and conscientiously edited and verified all notes and quotations to be found in the book and rests satisfied in the conviction that, whatever may be lacking in his little volume, it will not be "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." "Waveland," Owensboro, Ky., Feb. 25, 1905. CONTENTS. Religion and Lust Page Chap. I. The Origin of Religious Feeling. ... 9 Chap. II. Phallic Worship/ 41 Chap. III. The Psychical Correlation of Re- ligious Emotion and Sexual Desire 99 ^vyViraginity and Effeminatior^^A^>.^^ 121 'Borderlands and Crankdom 135 Genius and Degeneration^^V. . 155 The Effect of Female Suff^e 4 on Posterity 175 Is It the Beginning of the End ? 199 Bibliography 23 1 CHAPTER I. THE ORIGIN OF RELIGIOUS FEELING. I believe that man originated his first ideas of the supernatural from the external phenomena of nature which were percepti- ble to one or more of his five senses; his first theogony was a natural one and one taken directly from nature. In ideation the pri- mal bases of thought must have been founded, ab initio, upon sensual percep- tions; hence, must have been materialistic and natural. Spencer, on the contrary, maintains that in man, "the first traceable conception of a supernatural being is the conception of a ghost." 1 Primitive man's struggle for existence was so very severe that his limited sagacity was fully occupied in obtaining food and shelter; many thousands of years must have passed away before he evolved any idea of (l) Spencer: Principles of Sociology, vol. I, p. 281. 10 RELIGION AND LUST. weapons other than stones and clubs. When he arrived at a psychical acuteness that orig- inated traps, spears, bows and arrows, his struggle for existence became easier and he had leisure to notice the various natural phenomena by which he was surrounded. Man evolved a belief in a god long before he arrived at a conception of a ghost, double, or soul. He soon discovered that his welfare was mainly dependent on na- ture, consequently he began to propitiate nature, and finally ended by creating a sys- tem of theogony founded on nature alone.* "It is an evident historical fact that man first personified natural phenomena, and then made use of these personifications to personify his own inward acts, his psychical ideas and conceptions. This was the neces- sary process, and external idols were formed before those which were internal (*) "Theology and religion are of service in morals and conduct in direct proportion as they have become adapted to our knowledge of natural phenomena Lydston : The Diseases of Society, p. 68. RELIGION AND LUST. 11 and peculiar to himself." 2 Sun, moon, and star; mountain, hill, and dale; torrent, waterfall, and rill, all became to him dis- tinct personalities, powerful beings, that might do him great harm or much good. He therefore endeavored to propitiate them, just as a dog endeavors to get the good will of man by abjectly crawling to- ward him on his belly and licking his feet. There was no element of true worship in the propitiatory offerings of primitive man; in the beginning he was essentially a material- ist he became a spiritualist later on. Man's first religion must have been, neces- sarily, a material one; he worshiped (pro- pitiated) only that which he could see, or feel, or hear, or touch; his undeveloped psychical being could grasp nothing high- er; his limited understanding could not frame an idea involving a spiritual element such as animism undoubtedly presents. (2) Tito Vignoli: Myth and Science, p. 85.' 12 RELIGION AND LUST. Apropos of the dream birth of the soul, all terrestrial mammals dream, and in some of them, notably the dog and monkey, an ob- server can almost predicate the subject of their dreams by watching their actions while they are under dream influence; yet no animal save man, as far as we know, has ever evolved any idea of ghost or soul.* It may be said, on the other hand, that since animals show, unmistakably, that they are, in a measure, fully conscious of certain phe- nomena in the economy of nature, and while I am not prepared to state that any element of worship enters into their regard, I yet believe that an infinitesimal increase in the development of their psychical beings (*) Clarke in his interesting book gives us some very readable stories anent the ability of animals seeing imaginary objects. I myself have seen a parrot with a marked case of delirium tremens, due to excessive use of alcoholic stimulants (Vid. Author: The Dawn of Reason). Romanes also gives valuable data in his Mental Evolution (in Animal, and in Man) concern- ing this subject. The fox terrier (Vid. Author: Dawn of Reason) which carried his dreams into his awakened state is apropos. RELIGION AND LUST. 13 would, undoubtedly, lead some of them to a natural religion such as our pithecoid an- cestors practiced. The Egyptians noticed, over four thou- sand years ago, that cynocephali, the dog- headed apes of the Nile Valley, were in the habit of welcoming the rising sun with dancing and with howls of joy! "The habit of certain monkeys (cynocephali) assem- bling, as it were, in full court, and chatter- ing noisily at sunrise and sunset, would al- most justify the, as yet, uncivilized Egyptians in intrusting them with the charge of hailing the god morning and evening as he appeared in the east or passed away in the west" 3 An English fox-terrier of my acquaintance is very much afraid of thunder or any noise simulating thunder. A load of coal rushing through a chute into the coal cellar will send him, trembling and (3) Maspero (Sayce) : The Dawn of Civiliza- tion, p. 103, and Maspero: Etudes de Mythologie et d'Archiologie Egyptiennes, vol. ii, pp. 34, 35. 14 RELIGION AND LUST. alarmed, to his hiding-place beneath a bed. This dog has never been shot over, nor has he, as far as I know, ever heard the sound of a gun. I am confident that he considers the thunder as being supernatural, and that he would propitiate it, if he only knew how. It is not probable that, at the present time, there exists a race of people which has not formulated an idea of ghost or soul; yet in ancient times, and up to a century or so ago, there existed many peoples who had not conceived any idea of ghosts or doubles. According to Maspero, Sayce, Cham- pollion, and other Egyptologists, the an- cient Egyptians probably had a natural the- ogony long before they arrived at any idea of a double. In the beginning they treated the double or ghost with scant ceremony; it was only after many years that an element of worship entered into their treatment of the ghosts of their dead ancestors. They believed, at first, that the double dwelt for- ever in the tomb along with the dead body; RELIGION AND LUST. 15 afterward, they evolved the idea that the double of the dead man journeyed to the "Islands of the Blessed," where it was judged by Osiris according to its merits. 4 We have no reason for believing that .the ancient Hebrews at the time of the Exodus had any knowledge of, or belief in, the ex- istence of the soul or double, yet, that they did believe in the supernatural can not be questioned.* When Cook touched at Tierra del Fuego, he found a people in whom there existed mental habitudes but little above those to be found in the anthropoid apes. They had no knowledge whatever of the soul or double and but a dim concept of the powers of nature ; they had not yet advanced (4) Maspero (Sayce) : The Dawn of Civilization, p. 183 et seq. (*) That the patriarchs had their household gods, we have every reason for believing; these household gods were, however, tutelary divinities, such as were kept in the house of every Chaldean, and were not the images of ancestors. Rachel, the wife of Jacob, stole the household gods of Laban, her father, who is called a Syrian. Abraham himself was a Chaldean. Gen. ii 131 ; also Gen. 31 : 19-20. 16 RELIGION AND LUST. far enough in psychical development tc evolve any consistent form of natural the- ogony. They had only a shadowy concept of evil beings, powers of the air that inhab- ited the dense brakes of the forest, whom il would be dangerous to molest. Father Jun- ipero Serra declares that when he first es- tablished the Mission Dolores, the Ahwash- tees, Ohlones, Romanos, Altahmos, Tuo- lomos, and other Californian tribes had no word in their language for god, ghost, or devil. 6 The Inca Yupangui informed Bal- boa that there were many tribes in the inte- rior which had no idea of ghost or soul. 8 Another writer says, that the Chirihuanas did not worship anything either in heaven or on earth, and that they had no belief whatever in a future state. 7 Modern travel- ers have, however, found distinct evidences (5) Bancroft: The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. i, p. 400. (6) Balboa: History of Peru. (7) Garcilasso: The Royal Commentaries of the Incas. RELIGION AND LUST. 17 of phallic worship in certain observances and customs of this tribe. 8 Certain autochthons of India, when first discovered, were exceedingly immature in religious beliefs; they had neither god nor devil; they wandered through the woods subsisting on berries and fruits, and such small animals as their undeveloped and fee- ble sagacity allowed them to capture and slay. They did not even provide themselves with shelter, but, in pristine nakedness, roamed the forests of the Ghauts, animals but slightly above the anthropoid apes in point of intelligence. "In Central Califor- nia we find," says Bancroft, "whole tribes subsisting on roots, herbs, and insects; hav- ing no boats, no clothing, no laws, no God." 9 In the northwestern corner of the Amer- ican continent there dwells a primitive race, (8) Browlow: Travels, p. 136. (9) Bancroft: The Native Races of the Pacific States of North America, vol. i, p. 400. 18 RELIGION AND LUST. which, for the sake of unification, I will style the Aleutians. When these people were first discovered they were in that state of social economics which they had reached after thousands of years of psychical and social evolution; a primitive people, such as our own ancestors were in the very begin- ning of civilization. The word civilization is used advisedly; civilization is compara- tive, and its degrees begin with the incep- tion of man himself. In their theogony, the Aleutians had ar- rived at an idea of the double or soul, thus showing that their religion had progressed several steps toward abstraction, that tri- umph of civilized religiosity; yet there re- mained enough veneration of natural ob- jects to show that the origin of the religious feeling began, with them, in nature-propi- tiation. The bladder of the bear, which vis- cus, in the estimation of the Aleutians, is the seat of life, is at once suspended above the entrance of the kachim or communal RELIGION AND LUST. 19 dwelling and worshiped by the hunter who has slain the beast from which it was taken. Moreover, when the bear falls beneath the weapons of an Aleutian, the man begs par- don of the beast and prays the latter to for- give him and to do him no harm. "A hun- ter who has struck a mortal blow generally remains within his hut for one or several days, according to the importance of the slain animal." 10 The first herring that is caught is showered with compliments and blessings; pompous titles are lavished upon it, and it is handled with the greatest respect and reverence; it is the herring-god! 11 Sidne, chief god of the Aleutian theog- ony, on final analysis, is found to be the Earth, mother of all things. The anga- kouts, or priests, of this people individual- ize and deify, however, all the phenomena of nature; there are cloud-gods, sea-gods, (10) Reclus: Primitive Folk, p. 18. ( 1 1 ) Dall : Alaska and its Resources, p. 96. 20 RELIGION AND LUST. river-gods, fire-gods, rain-gods, storm-gods, etc., etc., etc. Everywhere, throughout all nature, the Inoit, or Aleutian system of the- ology, penetrates, stripped, it is true, of much of its original materialism, yet retain- ing enough to show its undoubted origin in the sensual percepts, recepts, and concepts of its primal founders. As I have observed above, the religion of these people has gained a certain degree of abstraction, and this abstraction is fur- ther shown by the presence of certain phal- lic rites and ceremonies in their religious observances; but of this, more anon.* In most of the tribes of Equatorial Af- rica, nature-worship has been superseded by ghost-worship, devil-worship, or witch- worship, or, rather, by ghost, devil, or witch propitiation; yet, in the sancity of the fetich, (*) In a letter to me, a naval officer of high rank states that, beyond question of doubt, the Aleutian priests keep male concubines whom they use in their religious observances. He, also, gives other evidences of phallic worship among these people. RELIGION AND LUST. 21 which is everywhere present, we see a relic of nature-worship. Moreover, many of these tribes deify natural phenomena, such as the sun, the moon, the stars, thunder, lightning, etc., etc., etc., showing that here, too, in all probability, religious feeling had its origin in nature propitiation. Abstraction also enters, to a certain ex- tent, into the religious beliefs of most of these negroes, in whom primal materialism has given place to the unbridled supersti- tion of crude spiritism. The curious habit these people have of scraping a little bone dust from the skull of a dead ancestor and then eating it with their food, thus, as they think, transmitting from the dead to the living the qualities of the former, is close kin to, and, in my opinion, is probably de- rived from, a worship of the generative principle. When we take into considera- tion the fact that circumcision, extensio clitoridis, and other phallic rites are ex- ceedingly common and prevalent among 22 RELIGION AND LUST. these negroes, this opinion has strong evi- dence in its support. 12 The Wa-kamba may have some idea of immortality, though observers have never been able to determine this definitely. "The dead bodies of chiefs are not thrown to the hyenas, as with the Masai, but are carefully buried instead. . . . The bodies of less important members of the tribe are simply thrown to the hyenas." 15 In this people, religious ideas are ex- ceedingly primitive and indefinite. They seem to propitiate nature, however, when they wish rain, for they offer up to the rain- spirit votive offerings of bananas, grain, and beer, which they place beneath the trees. This seems to be their only religious rite according to Gregory, who, in all proba- bility is in error. For, in the next sentence, (12) Negroes of Benin and Sierra Leone (Bos- man, loc. cit., p. 526), Mandingoes (Waitz, vol. ii, p. 3), Bechuanas (Holub, loc. cit., p. 398) ; quoted also by Westermarck, Human Marriage, p. 206. (13) Gregory: The Great Rift Valley, p. 351. RELIGION AND LUST. he informs us that these negroes practice circumcision. He thinks that they perform this operation for sanitary reasons, "as the natives have continually to ford streams and wade through swamps abounding in the larvae of Bilharzia haematuria, the rite no doubt lessens the danger of incurring haematuria." 14 This is bestowing upon ignorant and savage negroes a psychical acuteness which far transcends that of the laity of civilized races! What do the Wa- kamba know of sanitation, haematuria, and the larva of Bilharzia!* Circumcision among these people always occurs at pu- berty, and is, unquestionably, a phallic rite. Parenthetically, it may be stated here that a few of the primitive peoples still in exist- (14) Gregory: The Great Rift Valley, p. 351. (*) Inasmuch as the haematuria occasioned by the larvae of Bilharzia has its origin in the parenchyma of the kidney, and, since we have no reason for believing that this race has any idea of histology or pathology, it is manifest folly to ascribe circumcision as a phophylac- tic measure against this parasite. Bilharzia is now con- sidered a true parasite by Wolfe. 24 RELIGION AND LUST. ence appear to have grasped the idea of the life-giving principle, and to have estab- lished worship of the functio generations without having experienced certain prelim- inary psychical stages necessary for its evo- lution from nature-worship. I believe, however, that this is apparent and not realj nature-worship, very probably, at one time existed among all these people. The Kikuyu have a very elaborate sys- tem of theogony, in which all of the phe- nomena of nature with which they are ac- quainted are deified. A goat is invariably sacrificed to the sun when they set out on a journey, and its blood is carried along and sprinkled on the paths and bridges in order to appease the spirits of the forest and the river. Stuhlmann places this tribe among the Bantu; from the evidence of other observ- ers, however, they seem to be Nilotic Ham- ites, and belong properly to the Masai. 15 (15) Stuhlmann: Mit Emin Pasha, p. 848. RELIGION AND LUST. 25 This would account for the similarity of method in circumcision, which, among both Kikuyu and Masai, is incomplete. John- ston calls attention to this very peculiar method and describes it minutely in a Latin foot-note. 16 The Masai are mixed devil, nature, and phallic worshipers; the last mentioned cult being evolved, beyond question, from na- ture-worship. It may be set down as an established fact that, where nature-worship does not exist in some form or other among primitive peoples, phallic worship is like- wise absent. Indeed, such peoples gener- ally have no religious feeling whatever. They may have some shadowy idea of an evil spirit like the "Aurimwantya dsongo ngombe auri kinemu" the Old Man of the Woods 17 of the Wa-pokomo, but that is all. Carl Lumholtz, writing of the Austra- (16) Johnston: The Kilima-Njaro Expedition, p. 412. (17) Gregory: The Great Rift Valley, p. 344. 26 RELIGION AND LUST. lians, says : "The Australian blacks do not, like many other savage tribes, attach any ideas of divinity to the sun or moon. On one of our expeditions the full moon rose large and red over the palm forest. Struck by the splendor of the scene, I pointed at the moon and asked my companions, 'Who made it?' They answered, 'Other blacks.' Thereupon I asked, Who made the sun?' and got the same answer. The natives also believe that they themselves can produce rain, particularly with the help of wizards. To produce rain they call milka. When on our expeditions we were overtaken by vio- lent tropical storms, my blacks always became enraged at the strangers who had caused the rain." 18 In regard to their be- lief in the existence of a double or soul, the same author sums up as follows: "Upon the whole, it may be said that these children of nature are unable to conceive a human soul independent of the body, and (18) Lumholtz: Among Cannibals, p. 282. RELIGION AND LUST. 27 the future life of the individual lasts no longer than his physical remains." 19 Mr. Mann, of New South Wales, who, accord- ing to Lumholtz, has made a thirty years' study of the Australians, says that the na- tives have no religion whatever, except fear of the "devil-devil." 20 Another writer, and one abundantly qualified to judge, says that they acknowledge no supreme being, have no idols, and believe only in an evil spirit whom they do not worship. They say that this spirit is afraid of fire, so they never venture abroad after dusk without a fire- stick. 21 "I verily believe we have arrived at the sum total of their religion, if a superstitious dread of the unknown can be so designated. Their mental capacity does not admit of their grasping the higher truths of pure (19) Ibid, p. 279. (20) Lumholtz: Among Cannibals, p. 283. (21) Ibid., p. 283. 28 RELIGION AND LUST. religion," says Eden. 22 It is simply an in- herent fear of the unknown ; the natural, in- born caution of thousands of years of inher- ited experiences. In these savages we see a race whose psychical status is so low in the intellectual scale that they have not evolved any idea of the double or soul. The mental capacity of the Australians, I take it, is no lower than was that of any race (no matter how intel- lectual it may be at the present time) at one period of its history. All races have a ten- dency toward psychical development under favorable surroundings; it has been a progress instead of a decadence, a rise in- stead of a fall! Evolution has not ceased; nor will it end until Finis is written at the bottom of Time's last page. There are yet other people who believe in the supernatural, yet who have no idea of immortality. When Gregory ascended the (22) Eden: The Fifth Continent, p. 69; quoted also by Lumholtz: Among Cannibals. RELIGION AND LUST. 29 glacier of Mount Kenya, the water froze in the cooking-pots which had been filled over night. His carriers were terribly alarmed by the phenomenon, and swore that the water was bewitched! The explorer scolded them for their silliness and bade them set the pots on the fire, which, having been done, "the men sat round and anx- iously watched; when it melted they joy- fully told me that the demon was expelled, and I told them they could now use the water; but as soon as my back was turned they poured it away, and refilled their pots from the adjoining brook." 23 Stanley declares that no traces of reli- gious feeling can be found in the Wahuma. "They believe most thoroughly in the exist- ence of an evil influence in the form of a man, who exists in uninhabited places, as a wooded, darksome gorge, or large extent of reedy brake, but that he can be propitiated (23) Gregory: The Great Rift Valley, p. 170. 30 RELIGION AND LUST. by gifts; therefore the lucky hunter leaves a portion of the meat, which he tosses, how- ever, as he would to a dog, or he places an egg, or a small banana, or a kid-skin, at the door of the miniature dwelling, which is always at the entrance to the zeriba." 24 This observer shows that he does not know the true meaning of the word reli- gion; the example that he gives demon- strates the fact that these negroes do have religious feeling. The simple act of offer- ing propitiatory gifts to the "evil influence" is, from the very nature of the deed, a re- ligious observance. Furthermore, these savages have charms and fetiches innumer- able, which, in my opinion, are relics of nature-worship. The miniature house mentioned by Stanley is common to the ma- jority of the equatorial tribes, and seems to be a kind of common fetich; i. e., one that is enjoyed by the entire tribe. It is men- (24) Stanley: In Darkest Africa, vol. ii, p. 400. RELIGION AND LUST. 31 tioned by Du Chaillu, Chaille Long, Stanley, and many others. 25 Du Chaillu tells of one tribe, the Baka- lai, in which the women worship a particu- lar divinity named Njambai. 26 This writer is even more inexact than Stanley, hence, we get very little scientific data from his vol- uminous works. From what he says of Njambai,* I am inclined to believe that he is a negro Priapus ; this, however, is a con- jectural belief and has no scientific war- rant The Tucuna Indians of the Amazon Valley, who resemble the Passes, Juris, and Muahes in physical appearance and cus- toms, social and otherwise, are devil-wor- shipers. They are very much afraid of the Jupari, or devil, who seems to be "simply (25) Du Chaillu: Equatorial Africa; Chaille Long: Naked Truths of Naked People; Stanley: In Darkest Africa. (26) Du Chaillu: Equatorial Africa, p. 240. (*) Possibly, this god is the same as the % god men- tioned by Livingstone, Baker, and Stanley. 32 RELIGION AND LUST. a mischievous imp, who is at the bottom of all those mishaps of their daily life, the causes of which are not very immediate or obvious to their dull understandings. The idea of a Creator or a beneficent God has not entered the minds of these Indians." 27 The Peruvians, at the time of the Span- ish conquest, worshiped nature ; that is, the sun was deified under the name of Pachac- amac, the Giver of Life, and was worshiped as such. The Inca, who was his earthly representative, was likewise his chief priest, though there was a great High Priest, or V iliac Vmu, who stood at the head of the hierarchy, but who was second in dignity to the Inca. 28 The moon, wife of the sun, the stars, thunder, lightning, and other natural phenomena were also deified. But, as it invariably happens, where nature-worship is allowed to undergo its natural evolution, (27) Bates: The Naturalist on the River Ama- zon, p. 381. (28).Prescott: The Conquest of Peru, vol. i, p. RELIGION AND LUST. 33 certain elements of phallic worship had made their appearance. These I will dis- cuss later on. The great temple of the sun was at Cuzco, "where, under the munificence of successive sovereigns, it had become so rich that it received the name of Coricancha, or 'the Place of Gold.' " 29 According to the relaclon of Sarmiento, and the commentar- ies of Garcilasso and other Spanish writers, this building, which was surrounded by chapels and smaller edifices, and which stood in the heart of the city, must have been truly magnificent with its lavish adornments of virgin gold! Unlike the Aztecs, a kindred race of people, the Peruvians rarely sacrificed hu- man beings to their divinities, but, like the religion of the former, the religion of the latter had become greatly developed along (29) Prescott: The Conquest of Peru, vol. i, p. 95- 34 RELIGION AND LUST. ceremonial lines, as we will see later on in this essay. It is a far cry from Peru co Japan, from the Incas to the Ainus, yet these widely sep- arated races practiced religions that were almost identical in point of fundamental principles. Both worshiped nature, but the Peruvians were far ahead of the Ainus in civilization, and their religion, as far as ritual and ceremony are concerned, far sur- passed that of the "Hairy Men" when viewed from an aesthetic standpoint. Eth- ically, I am inclined to believe the religion of the Ainus is just as high as was that of the Incas. Literature is indebted to the Rev. John Batchelor for that which is, probably, the most readable book that has ever been pub- lished about these interesting people; from a scientific standpoint, however, this work is greatly lacking. Many ethnologists and anthropologists considered the Ainu autoch- thonic to Japan; I am forced to conclude RELIGION AND LUST. 35 from the evidence, however, that he is an emigrant, and that he came originally from North China or East Siberia. Be he emi- grant or indigene, one thing is certain, namely, that he has been an inhabitant of the Japanese Archipelago for thousands of years. The oldest book in the Japanese lan- guage has this in it anent the Ainus : "When our august ancestors descended from heaven in a boat, they found upon this island sev- eral barbarous races, the most fierce of whom were the Ainu." 29a The Ainu is probably the purest type of primitive man in existence. I had been led to believe by the work of Miss Bird 30 that these people were on a par with the Austra- lians, and that they had no religious ideas whatever. (Vogt seems to advance this con- clusion also, 31 while De Quatrefages 32 * ,ap- Batchelor: The Ainu of Japan, p. 13. (30) Bird: Unbeaten Tracks in Japan. (31) Vogt: Lectures on Man. (32) De Quatrefages: The Human Species. (*) De Quatrefages, in his Hommes Fossiles, 36 RELIGION AND LUST. pears to have omitted this people from his tabulation. Peschel places them among the Giliaks on the Lower Amoor, and the in- habitants of the Kurile Islands. 33 These tribes are mixed nature, devil, and phallic worshipers.) Batchelor, however, shows very clearly that these people do have a re- ligion, and that this religion is highly devel- oped. Their chief god, or rather goddess (for the Ainus regard the female as being higher than the male as far as gods are concerned) , is the sun. 34 Like the Peruvians, they re- gard the sun as the Creator, but they are unlike them in the fact that they think that they cannot reach the goddess by direct ap- peal. She must be addressed through inter- mediaries or messengers. These messen- gers, the goddess of the fire, the goddess of the water, etc., are in turn addressed places the Ainus anthropologically among the Pri- meval Teutons! (33) Peschel: The Races of Man, p. 388. (34) Batchelor: The Ainu of Japan, p. 89. RELIGION AND LUST. 37 through the agency of inao, or prayer-sticks. This intermediary idea is curiously like some practices of the Roman Catholic church, or, rather, of communicants, who get the saints to carry their petitions to God. The inao are peculiar, inasmuch as nothing exactly like them is known. The feather prayer-plumes of some of the West- ern Indians are used for like purposes, but these are offered directly to the Great Spirit, and not to intermediaries. "Inao, briefly described, are pieces of whittled willow wood, having the shavings attached to the top." 35 Like the Aleutians, when these peo- ple kill a bear or other wild animal, they propitiate its spirit by bestowing upon it the most fulsome compliments, and, like the re- ligion of these Indians, the religion of the Ainus has developed along natural lines, and shows certain phallic elements. We see from the examples here given, that religious feeling had its origin in the (35) Batchelor: The Ainu of Japan, p. 87. 38 RELIGION AND LUST. idea of propitiation ; in fact, that it was born in fear, and by fear was it fostered. We see, furthermore, that man was not created with religious feeling as a psychical trait, but that he acquired it later on. We see, finally, that religious feeling is based, primarily and fundamentally, on one of the chief laws of nature self-protection. The evolution and growth of Ethics demonstrate this beyond peradventure. It is not at all probable that man in the beginning, just after his evolution from his ape-like ancestor, had, at first, any belief whatever in supernatural agencies. In his struggle for existence, all of his powers were directed toward the procurement of his food and the preservation of life; the pithecoid man was only a degree higher than the beasts in the scale of animal life. His psy- chic being, as yet, remained, as it were, in ovo, and a long period of time must have elapsed before he began to formulate and to recognize a system of theogony. After RELIGION AND LUST. 39 years of experience, during which the laws of heredity and progressive evolution played prominent parts, he took precedence over other animals, and his struggle for ex- istence became easier. He then had time to study the wonderful and, to him, mysterious phenomena of nature. His limited knowl- edge could not explain the various natural operations by which he was surrounded, therefore he looked upon them as being mysterious and supernatural. His psychical being became active and inquiring, to sat- isfy which he created a system of gods which was founded on natural phenomena. At first, the gods of primitive man were, probably, few in number, and the chief god of all was the sun. Man early recognized the sun's importance in the economy of na- ture; this beautiful star, rising in the east in the morning, marching through the heav- ens during the day, and sinking behind the western horizon in the evening, must have been, to the awakening soul of man, a source 40 RELIGION AND LUST. of endless conjecture and debate. What was more natural than his making the sun the greatest god in his system of theogony? Man recognized in him the source of all life, and, when he arrived at an age when he could use abstract ideation in formulating his religion, he deified the life-giving func- tion as he noticed it in himself ; he began to worship the generative principle. Solar worship and its direct descendant, phallic worship, at one time or another were the re- ligions of almost every race on the face of the globe. Solar worship, owing to its ma- terial quality, has long since been aban- doned by civilized man; but phallic wor- ship, the first abstract religion evolved by man, has taken deeper root; its fundamental principles are still present, though they have their seat in our subliminal conscious- ness, and we are, therefore, not actively con- scious of their existence. But before enter- ing on the discussion of this last point, let us turn for a time to a study of phallic worship- CHAPTER II. PHALLIC WORSHIP. Phallic worship, in some form or other, has been practiced by almost every race under the sun. Indeed, among primitive peoples, those who do not practice this cult are so few in number that they have, prac- tically, no weight whatever in a discussion of this subject. Moreover, those primitive peoples who do not worship the generative principle, either directly or indirectly, are without any religion whatsoever, and are the very lowest of all mankind in point of intelligence. I have only to cite the Tierra del Fuegians, the Bushmen, the Australians, and the Akka or Ticki-Ticki, the Pygmies of Central Africa, to prove the truthfulness of this assertion. There are other peoples who would serve as examples, but it would be a work of supererogation to enumerate them to even the casual reader. D'Hancarville, in his magnificent work, 42 RELIGION AND LUST. has traced the progress of the worship of the generative principle over the entire world, while Knight, in his scholarly essay, 36 has brought out its psychological truths in a manner which cannot be surpassed. It is not my purpose to enter into a detailed ac- count of this cult; I propose rather to dis- cuss its probable origin in the beginning, and to give a brief outline of its history, as it is to.be observed among living peoples. I wish to show, also, its connection with cer- tain religious ceremonies and festivals of Christian peoples, which had their origin, ab initio, in the worship of Priapus. And, before beginning the discussion of this sub- ject, I beg to remind the reader that a priest of Priapus regarded his sistrum as being just as sacred as a Catholic priest now con- siders any vessel or robe used in the service of mass, and that the priests of Brahma look on the Lingam with as much reverence and awe as did the Levites on the Ark of the (36) Knight: The Worship of Priapus. RELIGION AND LUST. 43 Covenant and the Holy of Holies. Phallic worship is a religion, the oldest abstract re- ligion in existence. Fundamentally the Cre- ator the Life Giver is the phallic wor- shiper's god. Is he very far wrong in all that is absolutely essential? "Men think they know because they are sure they feel, and are firmly convinced because strongly agitated. Hence proceed that haste and vio- lence with which devout persons of all re- ligions condemn the rites and doctrines of others, and the furious zeal and bigotry with which they maintain their own, while, per- haps, if both were equally understood, both would be found to have the same meaning, and only to differ in the modes of convey- ing it." 37 The Pueblo Indians of New Mexico are worshipers of the generative principle, and, like most religious sects, have evolved some very curious rites and ceremonies. The ancient temples of Venus or Aphrodite were (37) Knight: The Worship of Pr'iapus, p. 14. 44 RELIGION AND LUST. filled with hetarae, who were necessary ad- juncts for the proper performance of the mysteries of Priapus. These Indians, how- ever, will not allow women to enter into their sacred ceremonies, but, on the con- trary, emasculate men (by occasioning or- ganic and functional degeneration of the sexual organs) , who serve as hetarae to the chiefs and shamans or priests.* These an- drogynes are called mujerados, a term which aptly describes their sexual condition. "In order to cultivate a mujerado, a very powerful man is chosen, and he is made to masturbate excessively and ride constantly. Gradually such irritable weakness of the genital organs is engendered that, in riding, great loss of semen is induced. This condi- tion of irritability passes into paralytic im- potence. Then the testicles and penis atro- phy, the hair of the beard falls out, the voice (*) The Aleutians, according to the testimony of unimpeachable witnesses, make their neophytes pass through like physical exercises in preparing them for their duties in celebrating Priapic Rites. RELIGION AND LUST. 45 loses its depth and compass, and physical strength and energy decrease. Inclinations and disposition become feminine. The mu- jerado loses his position in society as a man. He takes on feminine manners and customs, and associates with women; yet, for reli- gious reasons, he is held in high honor." 88 The phallic ceremonies of the Pueblos take place in the spring, when the life principle is exceedingly active throughout all nature. In all probability the "botes" of the Montana Indians and the "burdachs" of the Washington tribes serve as masculine hetarae to the chiefs and medicine men, though this has not been definitely determined. Dr. Holder described a typical "bote" of the Absaroke tribe in the New York Medical Journal, 1889. This androgyne, in many re- spects, resembled the mujerados of the Pu- eblo Indians, and probably served a like purpose in his tribe. (38) Krafft-Ebing : Psychopathia Sexualis, p. 2OI ; see also Hammond: Impotence in the Male. 46 RELIGION AND LUST. According to Ross, a Konyaga woman, when she has a good-looking boy, dresses him in girl's clothes and brings him up as a female. When he arrives at a suitable age he is sent to wait on the priests of the tribe and is introduced by them into the sacred mysteries of their cult; in fact, he becomes a masculine hetara. When we read of such things we feel pretty much as Herodotus felt when he saw the naked women of Mendes submitting themselves Openly (es emSetfii/ avO PO>TT