Note 47:5 — Chapter V

We find that there was nothing gross or immoral in the worship of the male and female generative organs among the ancients, when the subject is properly understood. Being the most intimately connected with the reproduction of life on earth, the Linga became the symbol under which the Sun, invoked with a thousand names, has been worshiped throughout the world as the restorer of the powers of nature after the long sleep or death of winter. But if the Linga is the Sun-god in his majesty, the Yoni is the earth who yields her fruit under his fertilizing warmth.

The Phallic tree is introduced into the narrative of the book of Genesis: but it is here called a tree, not of life, but of the knowledge of good and evil, that knowledge which dawns in the mind with the first consciousness of difference between man and woman. In contrast with this tree of carnal indulgence, tending to death, is the tree of life, denoting the higher existence for which man was designed, and which would bring with it the happiness and the freedom of the children of God. In the brazen serpent of the Pentateuch, the two emblems of the cross and serpent, the quiescent and energising Phallos, are united. (See Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. pp. 113, 116, 118.)