the priests in
oriental costume paraded Rome in religious ceremony.

On one occasion, namely, "the day of blood" in the Spring, the chief
ceremony was held. This, among other things, consisted in fastening an
effigy of the god to a pine tree, which was brought to the temple of the
Goddess Cybele. A most spectacular dance about the effigy then occurred
in which the priests slashed themselves with knives, the blood being
offered as sacrifice. As the excitement increased the sexual nature of
the ceremony became evident. To quote from Frazer: "For man after man,
his veins throbbing with the music, his eyes fascinated by the sight of
streaming blood, flung his garments from him, leaped forth with a shout,
and seizing one of the swords which stood ready for the service,
castrated himself on the spot. Then he ran through the city holding the
bloody parts in his hands and threw them into one of the houses which he
passed in his mad career."

We see that this act directly corresponds with the part played by the
female. The female prostituted herself, and the male presented his
generative powers to the deity. Both the sacred prostitutes and
emasculated priests were held in religious veneration.

The above references are sufficient to show that a simple form of sex
worship has been quite generally found. It becomes apparent as we
proceed that the worship of sex not only plays a part, but a very
prominent part, in the developing mind of man. In the frank and open
form of this worship it is quite clear that we are dealing with a very
simple type of mind. These primitive people exhibit many of the
qualities of the child. They are quite without sex consciousness. Their
motives are at once both simple and direct, and they are doubtless
sincere. Much misunderstanding has arisen by judging such primitive
people by the standards of our present day civilization. Sex worship,
while it held sway was probably quite as seriously entertained as many
other beliefs; it only became degraded during a decadent age, when
civilization had advanced beyond such simple conceptions of a deity, but
had not evolved a satisfactory substitute.

CHAPTER II

SYMBOLISM

As civilization advanced, the deification of sex was no longer frank and
open. It came to be carried on by means of symbolism. This symbolism was
an effort on the part of its originators to express the worship of the
generative attributes under disguise, often understood only by th