Some Toys to Trip over
Correspondent:: Dan Clore
Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 16:24:20 -0800
--------
[I should note that not all entries provide suitable reading
for the immature, and that I strictly forbid anyone under
the age of 69 from reading this post. Further information on
these lexical items always appreciated.--DC]
argha, n. [< Skr] An ark or ship, or a model thereof,
especially one so fashioned that the hull represents the
yoni, and the mast the lingam.
[Not in OED.]
The Ark is the sacred Argha of the Hindus, and thus, the
relation in which it stands to Noah's ark may be easily
inferred, when we learn that the Argha was an oblong vessel,
used by the high priests as a sacrificial chalice in the
worship of Isis, Astarte, and Venus-Aphrodite, all of whom
were goddesses of the generative powers of nature, or of
matter -- hence, representing symbolically the Ark
containing the germs of all living things.
H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries
of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology
The ark is the navi-form Argha of the Mysteries.
H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy
Noah, a divine permutation, the supposed Saviour of
Humanity, who carries in his ark or argha (the moon), the
germs of all living things, worships before the "body of
Adam," which body is the image of, and a Creator itself.
Hence Adam is called the "Prophet of the Moon," the Argha or
"Holy of Holies" of the [Y] (Yodh).
H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy
"And your female relatives are just as annoying, with their
eternal whispered enigmas, and their crescent moons, and
their mystic roses that change colour and require continual
gardening, and their pathetic belief that I have the time to
fool with them. And the entire pack practises symbolism
until the house is positively littered with asherahs and
combs and phalloses and linghams and yonis and arghas and
pulleiars and talys, and I do not know what other idiotic
toys that I am continually stepping on!"
James Branch Cabell, Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice
Arigazartor, Arigizator, ?. [?] ?
[Not in OED.]
It must not be supposed that no counter-charms or amulets
existed. The curate Thiers, who has written at large upon
this subject, enumerates twenty-two different ones, the most
potent of which were the following:
[. . .]
9. To write upon virgin parchment, before sunrise, and
for nine days successively, the word Arigazartor.
10. To pronounce the word Temon three times
successively at sunrise, provided the day promises to be fine.
John Davenport, Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs
So Jurgen and the lovely vampire were duly married. First
Jurgen's nails were trimmed, and the pairings were given to
Florimel. A broomstick was laid before them, and they
stepped over it. Then Florimel said "Temon!" thrice, and
nine times did Jurgen reply "Arigizator!"
James Branch Cabell, Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice
band, v.i. [< Fr bander, to get an erection] To become
aroused; to get an erection.
[Not in OED.]
"Splash me a little," he cried, and the boys teased him with
water and quite excited him. He chased the prettiest of them
and bit his fesses, and kissed him upon the perineum till
the dear fellow banded like a carmelite, and its little bald
top-knot looked like a great pink pearl under the water. As
the boy seemed anxious to take up the active attitude,
Tannhäuser graciously descended to the passive—a generous
trait that won him the complete affections of his valets de
bain, or pretty fish, as he called them, because they loved
to swim between his legs.
Aubrey Beardsley, The Story of Venus and Tannhäuser: A
Romantic Novel
[As the Marquis de Sade's Juliette says, drawing on her own
experience: "Oh, my friends, how justly they refer to a
Carmelite when wishing to describe the optimum in erected
pricks." Beardsley follows the French usage in leaving the
word carmelite uncapitalized.]
"Banded" seems to mean "became marked with lines." A
carmelite in the eighteenth century was a kind of pear. (A
Carmelite is, of course, a member of the Roman Catholic
order of mendicant friars. Beardsley no doubt delighted in
the possibilities of the ambiguity.)
Karl Beckson, note to Aubrey Beardsley, The Story of Venus
and Tannhäuser: A Romantic Novel in Æsthetes and Decadents
of the 1890s: An Anthology of British Poetry and Prose
coynte, coynt, n. Cunt.
[Not in OED.]
Titles: Aubrey Beardsley, "Lysistrata Shielding Her Coynte"
(drawing)
Martial, on his wife's complaining of his intercourse with
youths and reminding him that she too has a posterior, tells
her that Juno had said the same thing to Jupiter, who
nevertheless lay with Ganymede, and recommends her to think
that she has merely two coyntes.
Priapeia, sive diversarum poetarum in Priapum lusus; or,
Sportive Epigrams on Priapus, by diverse poets in English
verse and prose
Now, with hasty gaze, I know
All the cloven Hill has hidden --
Nymphs that rutting gods have ridden
Under suns of long ago;
Givers of a gift divine
Which the Fathers deemed malign;
They that tempted Antony,
Fair or sable succubi;
Vampires by the saints arointed,
Sanguine-lipped and purple coynted;
After whom, in lubric dances,
Now a stranger crew advances,
Tangles limbs and flanks revealing: --
Mountain-roaming oreads,
They whose pleasures icy-keen
Soon benumb the pulse of feeling;
Fountain-fresh limoniads,
All their lilied sex concealing
Under dripping fleeces green;
Golden-tailed, coquetting sphinxes,
Graceful, mad and silent minxes,
Fain for some enormous lover
Their unique behinds to cover;
Exile fays with childish bosoms,
And their undevirginate
Vulvas wrought like budding blossoms
Cool and small and delicate;
Mild and milky titanesses,
With their autumn-colored tresses,
Who would gently squat upon me
In the mode of centauresses;
Umber dryads fleet to shun me --
All are in a lovely rout
That rings me round and round about.
Clark Ashton Smith, "The Temptation"
Some their shameless bottoms show
In a long and swelling row;
Some assail me with their pointed
Nipples keen as clitori --
Frantic perfume troublously
Crushed from out their breasts anointed;
Others with their ell-long hair
Seek my thrilling thighs to snare
And my moving body bind
With their amorous bottoms joined;
Some their lubric navels proffer --
Loins and bellies forward curving
Hard with avid lust unswerving;
One, a fringeless coynt would offer,
Veined and pale, that scarcely shows
Aught of all its folded rose;
One, with dim and shielded breast,
Coyly in the shadow lingers,
Golden thighs together pressed
For a stern and iron raping;
One, with deft lascivious fingers,
Holds the soft and coral chalice
Of her rounded vulva gaping
For the horizontal phallus.
Clark Ashton Smith, "The Temptation"
cteis, kteis, n. [< Gr kteís] A comb; the yoni (q.v.); a
comb or a cowry shell considered as a yonic symbol.
[Not in OED.]
What is the cteis? It is the house of the phallus.
Éliphas Lévi (trans. A.E. Waite), Transcendental Magic: Its
Doctrine and Ritual
On the other side is the double TAU of the hierophants, the
Lingam with the double Cteis or triple Phallus, supported,
with interlacement and repeated insertion, by the kabalistic
and masonic M, representing the square between the two
Pillars JAKIN and BOAZ.
Éliphas Lévi (trans. A.E. Waite), Transcendental Magic: Its
Doctrine and Ritual
These two Divinities, the Active and Passive Principles of
the Universe, were commonly symbolized by the generative
parts of man and woman; to which, in remote ages, no idea of
indecency was attached; the Phallus and Cteis, emblems of
generation and production, and which, as such, appeared in
the Mysteries. The Indian Lingam was the union of both, as
were the boat and mast and the point within a circle: all of
which expressed the same philosophical idea as to the Union
of the two great Causes of Nature, which concur, one
actively and the other passively, in the generation of all
beings: which were symbolized by what we now term Gemini,
the Twins, at that remote period when the Sun was in that
sign at the Vernal Equinox, and when they were Male and
Female; and of which the Phallus was perhaps taken from the
generative organ of the Bull, when about twenty-five hundred
years before our era he opened that equinox, and became to
the Ancient World the symbol of the creative and generative
Power.
Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted
Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, Prepared for the Supreme
Council of the Thirty-Third Degree for the Southern
Jurisdiction of the United States and Published by Its Authority
Among the Hindoos a religious reverence was paid to the
Lingam and Yoni, and among the Greeks and Romans to the
Phallus and Cteis.
Hodder M. Westropp, "Phallic Worship"
And the Angel sayeth: Blessed are the saints, that their
blood is mingled in the cup, and can never be separate any
more. For Babylon the Beautiful, the Mother of abominations,
hath sworn by her holy cteis, whereof every point is a pang,
that she will not rest from her adulteries until the blood
of everything that liveth is gathered therein, and the wine
thereof laid up and matured and consecrated, and worthy to
gladden the heart of my Father.
Aleister Crowley, The Vision and the Voice
Note also that the symbol of the Fish has been chosen to
represent the Redeemer or Phallus, the god through whose
virtue man passes through the waters of death. The common
name for this god, in southern Italy to-day, and elsewhere,
is Il pesce. So, also, his female counterpart, Kteis, is
represented by the Vesica Piscis, the bladder of the fish,
and this shape is continually exhibited in many church
windows and in the episcopal ring.
Aleister Crowley, The Book of Thoth
And when they approached the adytum, the head priestess came
toward them exhibiting a cteis, or large copper comb, which
she offered to Tenjo. The King accepted it, he parted her
hair in the middle, and he spoke the Word of Entry.
James Branch Cabell, Something About Eve: A Comedy of Fig-Leaves
"For the mystical tendency, Wronski advises bearing in the
mind the techniques of the possessed nuns of Loudon, the
convulsives of Saint-Médard, the mystical beverages, the
wine of Egypt, the elixir of life, and arsenic water. For
the principle of evil -- but I realize that here we come to
the most delicate part of a possible series -- I would say
we need to acquaint the reader with the mysteries of
Beelzebub as destruction proper, with Satan as dethroned
prince, and with Eurynomius, Moloch, incubi and succubi. For
the positive principle, the celestial mysteries of Saint
Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, and the agathodemons. Then of
course the mysteries of Isis, Mithra, Morpheus, Samothrace,
and Eleusis, and the natural mysteries of the male sex,
phallus, Wood of Life, Key of Science, Baphomet, mallet,
then the natural mysteries of the female sex, Ceres, Cteis,
Patera, Cybele, Astarte."
Umberto Eco (trans. William Weaver), Foucault's Pendulum
delta, n. [< Gr delta, the letter corresponding to Eng D:
?.] The female pudendum, as conventionally triangular in shape.
[This sense not in OED.]
Titles: Anaïs Nin, Delta of Venus
Adown the cliffs I saw red satyrs clamber,
To stare at emerald evening on the bay
Where floating sea-nymphs from the riven spray
Offered their swelling deltas fleeced with amber.
Christophe des Laurières (trans. Clark Ashton Smith), "The
Pagan"
eruca, n. The rocket plant.
[Not in OED.]
The plant Rocket (brasica eruca) has likewise been
especially celebrated by the ancient poets for possessing
the virtue of restoring vigour to the sexual organs, on
which account it was consecrated to and sown around the
statue of Priapus [. . .]
John Davenport, Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs
[More properly, Brassica eruca.]
Th'eruca, Priapus, near thee we sow
To rouse to duty husbands who are slow.
Columella, as quoted in John Davenport, Aphrodisiacs and
Anti-Aphrodisiacs
fascinum, n. [< L] A penis; a dildo; a spell, enchantment,
charm; the evil eye.
[Not in OED.]
Here are some more pictures. Here is Virgil who could the
nymphet sing in single tone, but probably preferred a lad's
perineum. Here are two of King Akhnaten's and Queen
Nefertiti's pre-nubile Nile daughters (that royal couple had
a litter of six), wearing nothing but many necklaces of
bright beads, relaxed on cushions, intact after three
thousand years, with their soft brown puppybodies, cropped
hair and long ebony eyes. Here are some brides of ten
compelled to seat themselves on the fascinum, the virile
ivory in the temples of classical scholarship.
Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
The point is that "the spectacle is so fascinating." For the
world is a spell (in Latin, fascinum), an enchantment (being
thrilled by a chant), an amazement (being lost in a maze),
an arabesque of such stunning rhythm and a plot so
intriguing that we are drawn by its web into a state of
involvement where we forget that it is a game.
Alan Watts, The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are
herm (pl. herms), herma (pl. hermæ), n. [< L < Gr Hermês] A
rectangular standing-stone or pillar bearing a carven head
or bust, often of the Greek god Hermes, with a projecting
phallus at midlevel.
Though the orchard had been stripped of its fruit, what with
the red and yellow leaves, and the marvellous ruby-red of
the lateral branches of the peach trees there was colour
enough in the background of the old grey herm, and, in
addition, there twined around him the scarlet and gold of a
vine.
Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist
For in the moonlight the old herm had found his element, and
under her rays his stone flickered and glimmered into living
silver flesh, while his archaic smile had gained a new
significance.
Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist
ichthyphallic, adj. Presumably, a solecism for ithyphallic
(q.v.), though a possible derivation from Greek ichthýs,
"fish", is certainly suggestive.
[Not in OED.]
Nightly thereafter I repeated the experience, each time
discovering to my delight and marvel something previously
unglimpsed in the unearthly landscape. Where gnarled and
ancient oaks grew beyond the village, the dream-world of my
visions sprouted monstrous and ichthyphallic fungoid growths
with obscene, nodding bulbous heads all striped or splotched
or mottled with surly crimson, febrile nacarat-orange,
sinister purples, virulent and venomous greens; beyond the
fungi grove I perceived curious, twisted trees whose
serpentine and rugous trunks writhed with unwholesome
vitality like undulating vipers, as if striving to reach the
pale and leprous moons that drifted across the purpureal
skies where strange stars flared and flickered in odd
alignments, very alien to the constellations of our earthly
skies. And once I glimpsed, far off across that
ultra-telluric sea of coiling vapours, a stately ship with
sails of lambent luxurious tapestry, so different from any
vessel that ever plied our earthly seas as to hint at ports
of origin beyond the moon, as if it had floated here across
the unguessable abysses of space itself.
Lin Carter, "The Bell in the Tower"
ithyphallic, adj. Characterized by an erect phallus; lewd,
lascivious, lustful, obscene, indecent.
The tunics and caps of this leering, waving, shouting,
staggering bare-legged phalanx had evidently been stolen
from the Poppol (where were they now, where were they?) and
a card on a stick was held high, lettered neatly COPULATION
POLICE. They belaboured each other with truncheons of
stuffed sacking or thrust at the air with them in
ithyphallic rhythms. "What's that word mean, Ethal?" cried
the woman behind Tristram. "Real jaw-breaker, that is." A
small man with a hat on told her in one brief Lawrentian
term. "Eeeeeee," she screamed.
Anthony Burgess, The Wanting Seed
Loup-Garou took another peek. The Rehnquist was still there.
It was a great big one -- ithyphallique, as the
anthropologists would say. This was Madness, or else
something unspeakable was afoot.
Robert Anton Wilson, The Homing Pigeons in the Schrödinger's
Cat Trilogy
lingam, lingham, linga, ling, n. [< Skr li?gam (root:
li?ga-)] The phallus, especially when considered as
symbolizing the masculine religious principle; a stylized
representation thereof, used in the worship of the Hindu god
Shiva. Cf. pulleiar, yoni.
The Lingham and Yoni of the modern average Hindu is, on the
face of it, of course, no better than the Rabbinical "Holy
of Holies," -- but it is no worse; and this is a point
gained on the Christian traducers of the Asiatic religious
philosophies.
H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy
The Hindu Lingham is identical with "Jacob's Pillar" -- most
undeniably. But the difference, as said, seems to consist in
that the esoteric significance of the Lingham was too truly
sacred and metaphysical to be revealed to the profane and
the vulgar; hence its superficial appearance was left to the
speculations of the mob.
H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy
Either behind the symbolic substitute -- Jehovah -- there
was the unknown, incognizable Deity, the Kabalistic
Ain-Soph; or, the Jews have been from the beginning, no
better than the dead-letter Lingham-worshippers of the India
of to-day.
H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy
The consecrated pillars (unhewn stones) erected by Abraham
and Jacob were LINGHI.
H.P. Blavatsky, note to The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis
of Science, Religion, and Philosophy
Wherefore again in sexless sanctity
The mighty lingam rears its stilled sublime;
The mighty yoni spreads its chastity
Against the assaulting gods of space and time.
Aleister Crowley, Clouds Without Water
Lingam. -- The Hindu God (!) -- the male organ of generation.
Yoni -- Its feminine equivalent. That the poor Hindus should
worship these shameful things! And we? Oh how poor and
inadequate is all our missionary effort! Let us send out
more, and yet more, to our perishing brothers!
Rev. C. Verey (Aleister Crowley), notes to Clouds Without Water
"And he rebels against my creed, which he believes a mere
affair of the lingham and the yoni, saying, 'This is not
enough.'"
James Branch Cabell, The High Place: A Comedy of Disenchantment
At the gate of this garden, beside the lingham post which
stood there in eternal erection, sat a young man who was
diverting himself by whittling, with a small green-handled
knife, a bit of cedar-wood into the quaint shaping which
that post had.
James Branch Cabell, "The Way of Ecben: A Comedietta
Involving a Gentleman"
And lastly,
the lingham's rigid rectilinear line
bisecting the yoni's cloven, soft triangle.
Clark Ashton Smith, "Geometries"
"Lingam and yoni as spiritual principles have amazing
possibilities," Chang Wo assured her. "Try it. You might be
surprised."
E. Hoffman Price, The Jade Enchantress
Around an old grass hut three Negro priests were dancing
beneath a symbol of striking masculinity. It was a rain
dance, and a drizzle accompanied their posturings. They
threw off their grass skirts, dancing nude under the huge
lingam, their black hides greasy with the rain.
Charles G. Finney, The Circus of Dr. Lao
The great lingam shook and trembled; the grey dust of the
rain settled like ashes on the black skins; the wind laughed
and screamed; the rain ceased; and out of the forest stalked
Mumbo Jumbo thumping a tomtom.
Charles G. Finney, The Circus of Dr. Lao
"We shall enter the universe of Siva together. You have much
to teach me and I shall teach you to procreate the
all-embracing spirit of the Soma. We shall worship the
twelve sacred Lingas together."
Alfred Bester, Golem100
linghayic, adj. Of or pertaining to a lingam.
[Not in OED.]
This significance lies in Siva, as Rudra has certainly the
same meaning as the Egyptian ansated cross in its cosmic and
mystic meaning. In the hand of Siva it becomes linghayic and
yonic. That which is meant is this: Siva, as said before, is
unknown by that name in the Vedas; and it is in the white
Yajur Veda that he appears for the first time as the great
god -- MAHADEVA -- whose symbol is the lingham.
H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy
lithos (pl. lithoi), n. [< Gr líthos, stone] An upright
stone or pillar; in particular, one in the form of a phallus
or lingam.
[Not in OED.]
Before casting slurs on a symbol whose profound metaphysical
meaning is too much for the modern champions of that
religion of sensualism par excellence, Roman Catholicism, to
grasp, they are in duty bound to destroy their oldest
churches, and change the form of the cupolas of their own
temples. The Mahâdeva of Elephanta, the Round Tower of
Bhagalpur, the minarets of Islam -- either rounded or
pointed -- are the originals of the Campanile column of San
Marco, at Venice, of Rochester Cathedral, and of the modern
Duomo of Milan. All of these steeples, turrets, domes, and
Christian temples, are the reproductions of the primitive
idea of the lithos, the upright phallus. "The Western tower
of St. Paul's Cathedral, London," says the author [Hargrave
Jennings] of The Rosicrucians, "is one of the double lithoi
placed always in front of every temple, Christian as well as
heathen."
H.P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries
of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology
Before casting slurs on a symbol whose profound metaphysical
meaning is too much for the modern champions of that
religion of sensualism par excellence, Roman Catholicism, to
grasp, they are in duty bound to destroy their oldest
churches, and change the form of the cupolas of their own
temples. The Mahody of Elephanta, the Round Tower of
Bhangulpore, the minarets of Islam -- either rounded or
pointed -- are the originals of the Campanile column of San
Marco, at Venice, of the Rochester Cathedral, and of the
modern Duomo of Milan. All of these steeples, turrets,
domes, and Christian temples, are the reproductions of the
primitive idea of the lithos, the upright phallus. "The
Western tower of St. Paul's Cathedral, London, is one of the
double lithoi placed always in front of every temple,
Christian as well as heathen."
L.W. de Laurence, The Great Book of Magical Art, Hindu Magic
and East Indian Occultism and the Book of Secret Hindu,
Ceremonial, and Talismanic Magic
One recognizes them in the caves and rock-cut temples of
Hindostan and Central Asia, as in the pyramids and lithoi of
Egypt and America; in the Catacombs of Ozimandyas, in the
mounds of the Caucasian snow~capped fastnesses, in the ruins
of Palenque, in Easter Island, everywhere whither the foot
of ancient man has ever journeyed.
H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy
Why then should not the rocking stones of Ireland, or those
of Brinham, in Yorkshire, have served for the same mode of
divination or oracular communications? The hugest of them
are evidently the relics of the Atlanteans; the smaller
ones, such as Brinham Rocks, with some revolving stones on
their summit, are copies from the more ancient lithoi.
H.P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of
Science, Religion, and Philosophy
It was in these prehistoric times that the symbols of the
two creative forces of nature developed, represented by
crux-ansata, lithoi, or lingam, and the vesica piscis, or yoni.
John Yarker, The Arcane Schools, a Review of Their Origin
and Antiquity, with a History of Freemasonry and Its
Relation to the Theosophic, Scientific, and Philosophic
Mysteries
Then the Philistines erected lithoi (which were not unlike
may-poles), and began to celebrate their religious rites.
James Branch Cabell, Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice
pulleiar, n. [?] A combined representation of the lingam
(q.v.) and the yoni (q.v.), used as an object of worship in
Hinduism. Cf. lingam, yoni.
[Not in OED.]
Besides the lingham, the equally significant yoni or cteis
is to be seen, being the female organ of generation. It is
sometimes single, often in conjunction, for the Indians,
believing that the emblem of fecundity might be rendered
more energetic by combining the organs of both sexes, did so
unite them, giving to this double symbol the name of
pulleiar, confounded by some writers with the lingham
itself. This pulleiar is highly venerated by the sectarian
worshippers of Siva (the third god of the Trimourti), who
hang it round their neck as a charm or amulet, or, enclosing
it in a small box, fasten it upon their arm.
John Davenport, Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs
In the East the worship of the phallus has been perpetuated
with still greater unreserve; and the lingam or pulleiar
worshipped amongst the Indians, is, as is well known, a
symbol of the union of the two sexes.
Stanislas-Marie-César Famin (trans. ?), The Royal Museum at
Naples: Being Some Account of the Erotic Paintings, Bronzes,
and Statues Contained in That Famous "Cabinet Secret"
Spintria (pl. Spintriæ), spintria (pl. spintriæ), spintry,
pr.n. & n. [< L < Gr sphingkte^'r, sphincter] One of a group
established by the Roman emperor Tiberius, devoted to the
invention and performance of novel sexual acts; a male
prostitute.
[In OED only in the form spintry.]
He added moreover, that though Raderus, and others of his
Order, did use to gelde Poets, and other Authors: (and heere
I could not choose but wonder, why they have not gelded
their Vulgar Edition, which in some places hath such obscene
words as the Hebrew tongue, which is therefore called Holy,
doth so much abhorre, that no obscene things can be uttered
in it) insomuch, that (as one of them very subtilly notes)
the starre of Venus is very seldome called by that name in
the Scripture: for how could it be, the word being not
Hebrew? yet (said hee) our men doe not geld them to that
purpose, that the memory thereof should bee abolished; but
that when themselves had first tried, whether Tiberius his
Spintria and Martialis symplegma, and others of that kinde,
were not rather Chimeraes, and speculations of luxuriant
wits, than things certain and constant, and such as might
bee reduced to an Art and methode in licentiousnes (for
Jesuits never content themselves with the Theory in
anything, but straight proceed to practise) they might after
communicate them to their owne Disciples and Novitiates: for
this Church is fruitfull in producing Sacraments; and being
now loaded with Divine sacraments, it produces Morall
sacraments.
John Donne, Ignatius his Conclave; or, His Introduction in a
Late Election in Hell: Wherein Many Things Are Mingled by
Way of Satyr
For let them but consider what fearful maladies, feral
diseases, gross inconveniences, come to both sexes by this
enforced temperance; it troubles me to think of, much more
to relate, those frequent aborts and murdering of infants in
their nunneries (read Kemnisius and others), their notorious
fornications, those spintrias, tribadas, ambubaias, etc.,
those rapes, incests, adulteries, mastuprations, sodomies,
buggeries of monks and friars.
Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy: What It Is, With
All the Kinds, Causes, Symptomes, Prognostickes & Severall
Cures of It
No antiquarian, unfolding with trembling hand the calcined
leaves of an Herculaneum manuscript, and hoping to discover
some lost lines of the Æneis in Virgil's own autograph, or
at least some unutterable abomination of Petronius or
Martial, happily elucidatory of the mysteries of the
Spintriæ, or the orgies of the Phallic worshippers, ever
pored with more luckless diligence, or shook a head of more
hopeless despondency over his task.
Charles Maturin, Melmoth the Wanderer: A Tale
Spintrian, spintrian, adj. Of or pertaining to the Spintriæ
(q.v.).
[Browne antedates OED's first citation by over ten years.]
For there are certain tempers of body, which matcht with an
humorous depravity of mind, do hatch and produce
vitiosities, whose newness and monstrosity of nature admits
no name; this was the temper of that Lecher that carnal'd
with a Statua, and constitution of Nero in his Spintrian
recreations.
Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici
[Browne clarifies in Annotations upon Religio Medici: The
Author doth not mean the last Nero, but Tiberius the
Emperour, whose name was Nero too; of whom Sueton. Successu
vero Capreensi etiam sellariam excogitavit sedem arcanarum
libidinum, in quam undique conquisiti puellarum et
exoletorum greges monstrosiq; concubitus repertores, quos
spintrias appellabit, triplici serie connexi invicem
incestarent se coram ipso, ut adspectu deficientes libidines
excitaret. Suet. in Tib. 43.]
"And now, my dear boy, here is my library which holds as
many secrets as the Spintrian books of Elephantis, long ago
lost and purified by the sea."
Compton Mackenzie, Sinister Street
Then Anaïtis put purple powder on her hair, and hastily got
together a few beguiling devices, and went into the Thebaid.
Jurgen went back to the Library, and the System of
Worshipping a Girl, and the unique manuscripts of Astyanassa
and Elephantis and Sotadês, and the Dionysiac Formulæ, and
the Chart of Postures, and the Litany of the Centre of
Delight, and the Spintrian Treatises, and the Thirty-two
Gratifications, and innumerable other volumes which he found
instructive.
James Branch Cabell, Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice
SPINTRIAN TREATISES -- It is not difficult to guess the
character of these treatises when we recall that Tiberius
Cæsar had at Capri a troupe of men and women, especially
trained in sexual perversities, whom he called spintriæ.
James P. Cover, Notes on Jurgen
After this was done, Gentien avowed that the worshippers,
one and all, abandoned themselves to a very riot of lust and
spintrian pollutions.
Montague Summers, A Popular History of Witchcraft
thali, tali, taly, n. [< Tamil ta-li] A phallic emblem worn
on a necklace by brides in the Dravidian south of India.
[Form taly not in OED; Davenport antedates their citations.]
The Indians have also a little jewel called taly, worn, in
like manner, by females round their necks as a charm. It is
presented to them on their wedding day by their husbands,
who receive it from the hands of the Brahmins. Upon these
jewels is engraved the representation, either of the lingham
or of the pulleiar.
John Davenport, Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs
A Capuchin missionary had a serious dispute the Jesuits
residing at Pondicherry, which was referred for decision to
the judicial courts. The disciples of Loyola, who can be
toleration itself when toleration furthers their crafty and
ambitious views, had declined all interference with the
above custom. M. Tournon, the Pope's legate apostolic, who
regarded the matter as one not to be trifled with, and with
whom, moreover, the Jesuits were no favourites, strictly
prohibited the taly, enjoining all female converts to
substitute in its place either a cross or a medal of the
Virgin. The Indian women, strongly attached to their ancient
customs, refused obedience. The missionaries, apprehensive
of losing the fruits of their zealous labours, and seeing
the number of their neophytes daily diminishing, entered
into a compromise by adopting a mezzo-termine with the
females in question, and it was agreed that a cross should
be engraved upon the taly, an arrangement by which the
symbol of Christian salvation was coupled with that of the
male and female pudenda.
Sonnerat, Voyage aux Indes Orientales et à la Chine, as
quoted in John Davenport, Aphrodisiacs and Anti-Aphrodisiacs
yoni, n. [< Skr] The female genitalia, especially when
considered as symbolizing the female religious principle; a
stylized representation thereof, used in the worship of a
Hindu goddess or Shakti. Cf. lingam, pulleiar.
"When your Jahveh is forgotten, men will yet serve me, if
but in secrecy. Creeds pass, my friend, just as that little
Hoprig said. And it is true, too, that the prelate remains
always, as my technical opponent. But the lingham and the
yoni do not pass, they do not change, they keep their strong
control of all that lives: and these serve me alone."
James Branch Cabell, The High Place: A Comedy of Disenchantment
$ and ¢ are among the great phallic symbols, according to a
friend of mine. Have you ever noticed that the numeral 1 is
a lingam, and the nought -- 0 -- is a yoni? This should help
us to understand the mysteries of finance; also, the
relations of Astarte and Mammon.
Clark Ashton Smith, letter to Benjamin De Casseres (22 May 1926)
"Behold the hidden God," Lola said as the Hermit, Death, and
Sun cards danced into strange, intricate patterns, chanting
"Yod Nun Resh Yod. I.N.R.I. Isis Naturæ Regina Ineffabilis.
Creatrix, Fellatrix: Venus Venerandum. Leo Sirtalis.
Perditrix naviam, perditrix urbium, perditrix eorem, nupta
bellum. Garterius, Pantius, Pussius, Cuntius. Yoni soit qui
mal y pense. Eat it with catsup."
Robert Anton Wilson, Masks of the Illuminati
yonic, adj. Of, pertaining to, or resembling the yoni (q.v.).
"Ah, Mallare, I am bored with your madness. Your erotic
decorations begin to weary me. The valley into which you
have tumbled is a yonic pit. The mind you have released
creates no more than a burlesque bed for harlotries."
Ben Hecht, The Kingdom of Evil: A Continuation of the
Journal of Fantazius Mallare
Or, pausing in Mylitta's vales
At yonic altars carved to sin,
Purchase the ancient carnal kiss
Forewritten on the lips of clay: --
Know surely that ye shall return
Into the shadow-land ye left,
And draw again your languored breath
Where breathe the poppies of the dusk.
Clark Ashton Smith, "Ye Shall Return"
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"