James George Roche Forlong (November 1824 – 1904) was a Major General

Major General

Major general or major-general is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. A major general is a high-ranking officer, normally subordinate to the rank of lieutenant general and senior to the ranks of brigadier and brigadier general...

 of the Indian Army

Indian Army

The Indian Army is the land based branch and the largest component of the Indian Armed Forces. With about 1,100,000 soldiers in active service and about 1,150,000 reserve troops, the Indian Army is the world's largest standing volunteer army...

 who trained as an engineer

Engineer

An engineer is a professional practitioner of engineering, concerned with applying scientific knowledge, mathematics and ingenuity to develop solutions for technical problems. Engineers design materials, structures, machines and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality,...

. He joined the Indian Army in 1843 later filling various posts including that of Secretary and Chief Engineer to the government of Oudh. Exposure to Indian religions while doing missionary work led him to abandon his Christian faith, and into some very heterodox ideas about religious origins, including those of the ancient Hebrews

Hebrews

Hebrews is an ethnonym used in the Hebrew Bible...

. These found expression in his massive work of comparative religion

Comparative religion

Comparative religion is a field of religious studies that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's religions...

, Rivers of Life, with its markedly sexual, some would say blasphemous, interpretation of religious rites

Ritual

A ritual is a set of actions, performed mainly for their symbolic value. It may be prescribed by a religion or by the traditions of a community. The term usually excludes actions which are arbitrarily chosen by the performers....

 and symbolism

Religious symbolism

Religious symbolism is the use of symbols, including archetypes, acts, artwork, events, or natural phenomena, by a religion. Religions view religious texts, rituals, and works of art as symbols of compelling ideas or ideals...

. He was an Honorary Associate of the Rationalist Press Association, to which he left a sum of money in his will. He died in 1904.

Rivers of Life

"...the shower of phallicism that burst upon the reading public in the shape of General Forlong's Rivers of Life".

The book is in two large volumes together with a huge coloured Chronological Chart of the Religions of the World representing different currents:-

Tree Worship

Tree worship

Tree worship refers to the tendency of many societies throughout history to worship or otherwise mythologize trees. Trees have played an important role in many of the world's mythologies and religions, and have been given deep and sacred meanings throughout the ages...

Phallic Worship

Serpent Worship

Fire Worship

Fire worship

Worship or deification of fire is known from various religions. Fire has been an important part of human culture since the Lower Paleolithic...

Sun Worship

Ancestor Worship

All of these originated very early in mankind’s history, and form streams flowing down the millennia and separating and commingling into the major religions.

Some Themes

Like Payne-Knight

Richard Payne Knight

Richard Payne Knight was a classical scholar and connoisseur best known for his theories of picturesque beauty and for his interest in ancient phallic imagery.-Biography:...

, D’Hancarville

Pierre-François Hugues D'Hancarville

Pierre-François Hugues d'Hancarville was a French pseudo-aristocrat . Son of a bankrupt cloth merchant of Nancy, Hancarville was born Pierre-François Hugues, adding the title ‘Baron’ and the aristocratic surname Hancarville himself...

 and Hargrave Jennings

Hargrave Jennings

Hargrave Jennings was a British Freemason, Rosicrucian, author on occultism and esotericism, and amateur student of comparative religion.-Phallism and Phallicism:...

 he is of the phallicist school of religious anthropology. Phallic worship had two wings, the right hand, or lingam

Lingam

The Lingam is a representation of the Hindu deity Shiva used for worship in temples....

 and the left had path

Left-Hand Path and Right-Hand Path

The terms Left-Hand Path and Right-Hand Path are a dichotomy between two opposing philosophies found in the Western Esoteric Tradition, which itself covers various groups involved in the occult and ceremonial magic. In some definitions, the Left-Hand Path is equated with malicious Black Magic and...

 of the yoni

Yoni

Yoni is the Sanskrit word for the vagina. Its counterpart is the lingam as interpreted by some, the phallus.It is also the divine passage, womb or sacred temple...

 worshippers,

The Garden of Eden

Garden of Eden

The Garden of Eden is in the Bible's Book of Genesis as being the place where the first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, lived after they were created by God. Literally, the Bible speaks about a garden in Eden...

 story was simply that of human generation. Eve

Eve

Eve is the first woman created by God in the Book of Genesis.Eve may also refer to:-People:*Eve , a common given name and surname*Eve , American recording artist and actress-Places:...

 bruised the serpent’s head and he bruised what is euphemistically called her heel.

The Ark of the Covenant

Ark of the Covenant

The Ark of the Covenant , also known as the Ark of the Testimony, is a chest described in Book of Exodus as solely containing the Tablets of Stone on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed...

 represented a female sex organ or yoni, and the two stones it contained signified testicles.

The early Jews practiced a most crude and extreme form of phallic worship. Elohim

Elohim

Elohim is a grammatically singular or plural noun for "god" or "gods" in both modern and ancient Hebrew language. When used with singular verbs and adjectives elohim is usually singular, "god" or especially, the God. When used with plural verbs and adjectives elohim is usually plural, "gods" or...

 was the same as Baal

Baal

Baʿal is a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning "master" or "lord" that is used for various gods who were patrons of cities in the Levant and Asia Minor, cognate to Akkadian Bēlu...

 and their worship was lingamist, the Yahweh

Yahweh

Yahweh is the name of God in the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jews and Christians.The word Yahweh is a modern scholarly convention for the Hebrew , transcribed into Roman letters as YHWH and known as the Tetragrammaton, for which the original pronunciation is unknown...

 worshipping revolt against it (spearheaded by the prophets) was a pro-yoni movement, like Indian Shaktism

Shaktism

Shaktism is a denomination of Hinduism that focuses worship upon Shakti or Devi – the Hindu Divine Mother – as the absolute, ultimate Godhead...

.

Christian churches are constructed on phallic principles.

All these ideas are backed up which great erudition and parallels from antiquity, India and the far east.

Quotes

The numerous tales of holy trees groves and gardens repeated everywhere and in every possible form justify me in my belief that Tree Worship was first known and after it came Lingam or Phallic, with of course the female form A-dama.

He [the Serpent] is the special Phallic symbol which veils the actual God and therefore do we find him the constant early attendant upon Priapus

Priapus

In Greek mythology, Priapus or Priapos , was a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia. Priapus is marked by his absurdly oversized, permanent erection, which gave rise to the medical term priapism...

or Lingam, which I regard as the second religion of the world.

Phallic Worship, the second if not the first of man’s faiths.

External Links

The Chart

Forlong Dux