deemed so sacred that on it the oath of secrecy and fidelity
was administered to the aspirants in the Pythagorean rites.[131]

Among the Scandinavians, as among the Jewish Cabalists, the Supreme God
who was made known in their mysteries had twelve names, of which the
principal and most sacred one was _Alfader_, the Universal Father.

Among the Druids, the sacred name of God was _Hu_[132]--a name which,
although it is supposed, by Bryant, to have been intended by them for
Noah, will be recognized as one of the modifications of the Hebrew
tetragrammaton. It is, in fact, the masculine pronoun in Hebrew, and may
be considered as the symbolization of the male or generative principle in
nature--a sort of modification of the system of Phallic worship.

This sacred name among the Druids reminds me of what is the latest, and
undoubtedly the most philosophical, speculation on the true meaning, as
well as pronunciation, of the ineffable tetragrammaton. It is from the
ingenious mind of the celebrated Lanci; and I have already, in another
work, given it to the public as I received it from his pupil, and my
friend, Mr. Gliddon, the distinguished archaeologist. But the results are
too curious to be omitted whenever the tetragrammaton is discussed.

Elsewhere I have very fully alluded to the prevailing sentiment among the
ancients, that the Supreme Deity was bisexual, or hermaphrodite, including
in the essence of his being the male and female principles, the generative
and prolific powers of nature. This was the universal doctrine in all the
ancient religions, and was very naturally developed in the symbol of the
_phallus_ and _cteis_ among the Greeks, and in the corresponding one of
the _lingam_ and _yoni_ among the Orientalists; from which symbols the
masonic _point within a circle_ is a legitimate derivation. They all
taught that God, the Creator, was both male and female.

Now, this theory is undoubtedly unobjectionable on the score of orthodoxy,
if we view it in the spiritual sense, in which its first propounders must
necessarily have intended it to be presented to the mind, and not in the
gross, sensual meaning in which it was subsequently received. For, taking
the word _sex_, not in its ordinary and colloquial signification, as
denoting the indication of a particular physical organization, but in that
purely philosophical one which alone can be used in such a connection, and
which simply signifies the mere manifestation of a p