Bestiality or Zoosexuality in Sacred Culture: Magical-Ritual Symbolization of Body-Spirit Dualism (Part 2)

(Note: This is Part 2 of a 3-Part series: See Part one: Bestiality or Zoosexuality in Sacred Culture: Paleolithic Cult Origins of Animal Form Portraiture of Deity)

There appears to have been a substitution of Mother, as model of the material in dualistic mystical thought, with Animal. This symbolic substitution was accompanied, in the Paleolithic animal fertility cult, by the substitution of mother-son incestuous ritual with shaman-animal zoosexual ritual.

Symbolic substitution of Mother with Animal in the fertility cult religious-mystical thought system underlies the survival into historic times of animal form representations of deity and magical-ritual zoosexuality or bestiality in fertility religion.

The "Master of Animals," in incestuous ritual magical union with The Mother, was also conceived of as being in body-spirit dualistic union with the "beasts" he mastered magically by creative-artistic work in cave temples. The Paleolithic "Master of Animals," symbolized his body-spirit metaphysical dualistic union with the Animal in his self-portraiture as half-animal, half-man in the Paleolithic cave paintings.

The extensive evidence of the practice of zoosexual magical ritual  in the mother goddess fertility cult in ancient times (Leviticus 18: 22) merely reflects the practice in the Paleolithic animal fertility cult of its origins. The "Master of Animals" who sought magical mastery of specific animal species sealed his "mastery" of the species in magical ritual zoosexual ceremony. Thus, the Baal deity of Canaanite religion was known in historic times as "Master and Husband of Beasts," and devotees followed the pattern laid down by the mythical "husband" of beasts in zoosexual ritual orgies alongside incestuous ritual orgies.

The spiritual-sexual union of "master" of an animal species with the animal species he mastered developed in to the worship of animals as "familiars" of  deity. It may, understandably, be difficult in modern times to fully appreciate the popularity and widespread nature of the "animistic" beliefs which informed the wild proliferation of animal familiars of  the gods.

Juvenal would ridicule the Egyptians for their reprehensible habit of animal worship, but the Egyptian world of animals was a thin facade behind which lurked myriads of "spirit husbands" which mortals had to reckon with in daily life. In Egyptian thought, particular gods, spirits and daemons (both good and evil) possessed particular species of animals. The black pig, for instance, was associated with the evil god Seth, but the pig could also be a form of the good deity Osiris. The Ox was taken to be an incarnation of Isis but it could also be possessed by an evil spirit which made it gore its owner. Serpents and crocodiles could, in certain circumstances, be friendly and in others be malevolent: it all depended on the nature of the spirit which possessed the animal at the relevant moment in time.

The identification of the cow with mother goddesses, especially in Ancient Egypt,  is consistent with psychoanalytic theory's symbolic association of large animals with the gravid  mother. Thus, the sacred cow was identified with Isis, Nepthys, Hathor and Nut in Ancient Egypt. Isis, in fusion with Taweret, was identified with the female hippopotamus as  goddess of maternity.

The preoccupation of Ancient Egyptian  religion with animals as material or physical form representation of the gods, confirms the identification of animal familiars of "spirits" with The Mother in religious thought, for The Mother was to the Ancients the  ideal model of the material principle in body-spirit dualistic thought. The animal, thus, becomes a substitute for Mother in the unabashedly incestuous sexual reproductive myths of origins.

The identification of Animal with Mother is also evident in the chaos-egg myths of ancient cultures. The masculine primal deities (that is, deities associated with cosmic origins) of Ancient Egypt were all described as "hidden" deities, usually "hidden in the egg" (the egg being a womb symbol). The souls of the deities Ra, Ptah, Khnum and Osiris are all "hidden" in their origins in the egg. Likewise, the deities Amun, Sokar and Neith. The chaos-egg myth, in its association with primal deities, is obviously symbolic representation of  the womb and birth in mystical-religious thought.

The inextricable ties of Ancient Egyptian religion with animals emphasizes the origins of Ancient Egyptian religion in the Paleolithic animal fertility cult. Almost every animal the Egyptians knew had a "spirit husband" associated with it. Even the ichneumon fly and dung beetle were held in religious reverence! The conviction of the Ancient Egyptians that the gods preferred to manifest to humans as animals can be explained only by assumption of an animal fertility cult origin for the religions of the Ancient Egyptians.

Series concludes in Part 3, Bestiality or Zoosexuality in Sacred Culture: The Mother Goddess as Wild Beast.

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Further Reading:

Zoosexuality in Culture: Historical and Cultural Perspectives. Books LLC

JohnThomas Didymus is the author of "Confessions of God: The Gospel According to St. JohnThomas Didymus."(Read a Free Three Chapters Excerpt Here)

JohnThomas Didymus

Transmodernist writer and thinker. Author of "Confessions of God: The Gospel According to St. JohnThomas Didymus"

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