Self-mutilation and Sacred Prostitution
May 1st 2007 22:04
"Thus a long list may be made out of female deities who show the general characteristics of Phrygian Cybele: the Lydian Mother, Cybebe or Cybele; Rhea of Crete; Hecate of Samothrace and Lagina; Bendis of Thrace and Lemnos; Cappadocian Mâ; Britomartis, or Dictynna, of Crete, who is Aphaea at Aegina; the Syrian goddess of Hierapolis; several forms of Artemis,--of the Tauric Chersonese, of Brauron, of Laodicea of Ephesus, Artemis-Aphrodite of Persia." The quote is from Florence Mary Bennett's Religious Cults associated with the Amazons, a book which I reviewed elsewhere.
The list is a a partial list of the mother goddesses whose worship involved a special cult of service, often violent. It usually invloved self-mutilation of some kind and may have invloved even human sacrifice in some cases. The mutilated priests often lived a life as temple devotees adn lived a life of wretchedness. Curiously enough for female goddesses, their priests tended to be generally male. Females were occasionally used.
In the case of males. the priests were often castrated and lived a life of sexual purity as eunuchs. In the case of females. the priests were obliged to undertake sacred prostitution. This double polarity has always fascinated me and I must say, i haven't been impressed so far by the various attempts at explanation that I've read.
The most famous of these mothers was of course Cybele. whose order of priests included the galli, the corybantes and the dactyls. Each of them were distinct.
The attendants of Rhea were called curetes and those of Bendis, fanatici. The Persian goddes mentioned here is Anahita who had her own followers. There were a couple of other goddesses, not mentioned in the above quote, like Kotys of Thrace who worshippers were called baptes. The Syrian Goddess is Atargatis and I have written about Lucian's famous account of her, elsewhere.
There were other kinds of mothers and other kinds of worship but the violent nature of these cults is special. Bennett even imagines Amazons to be nothing more than one such cult.
I am not a neo-goddess freak, just somebody who loves the romance of the ancient world and one of the more exotic aspects of that vanished world are these mother-goddess cults. Curiously, I am not aware of any male gods who inspired this kind of self-mutilation or prostitution.
Is it then part of wanting to be female? In a world which lacked sex transplant operations was self-castration the only remedy to transcend your gender? But ancient world possessed enormity of eunuchs, seraglios full of them. Not all of them were castrated in a fit of religious dementia. The mutilation went further; Bendis inspired people to cut their arms or breasts off. Also, it doesn't explain sacred prostitution and I think the Goddess who inspired men to saw off their genitals is the same one who inspired women to sell their bodies to strangers. I think both are related.
One can only wonder about the relgious sentiment that made people commit such actions in public processions.
The list is a a partial list of the mother goddesses whose worship involved a special cult of service, often violent. It usually invloved self-mutilation of some kind and may have invloved even human sacrifice in some cases. The mutilated priests often lived a life as temple devotees adn lived a life of wretchedness. Curiously enough for female goddesses, their priests tended to be generally male. Females were occasionally used.
In the case of males. the priests were often castrated and lived a life of sexual purity as eunuchs. In the case of females. the priests were obliged to undertake sacred prostitution. This double polarity has always fascinated me and I must say, i haven't been impressed so far by the various attempts at explanation that I've read.
The most famous of these mothers was of course Cybele. whose order of priests included the galli, the corybantes and the dactyls. Each of them were distinct.
The attendants of Rhea were called curetes and those of Bendis, fanatici. The Persian goddes mentioned here is Anahita who had her own followers. There were a couple of other goddesses, not mentioned in the above quote, like Kotys of Thrace who worshippers were called baptes. The Syrian Goddess is Atargatis and I have written about Lucian's famous account of her, elsewhere.
There were other kinds of mothers and other kinds of worship but the violent nature of these cults is special. Bennett even imagines Amazons to be nothing more than one such cult.
I am not a neo-goddess freak, just somebody who loves the romance of the ancient world and one of the more exotic aspects of that vanished world are these mother-goddess cults. Curiously, I am not aware of any male gods who inspired this kind of self-mutilation or prostitution.
Is it then part of wanting to be female? In a world which lacked sex transplant operations was self-castration the only remedy to transcend your gender? But ancient world possessed enormity of eunuchs, seraglios full of them. Not all of them were castrated in a fit of religious dementia. The mutilation went further; Bendis inspired people to cut their arms or breasts off. Also, it doesn't explain sacred prostitution and I think the Goddess who inspired men to saw off their genitals is the same one who inspired women to sell their bodies to strangers. I think both are related.
One can only wonder about the relgious sentiment that made people commit such actions in public processions.
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