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Posts tagged ‘eighteenth-century’

1. A Phallic Knight – III

   In the previous post in this series I outlined the publishing of Richard Payne Knight’s A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus and the ensuing scandal. For this post I’m going to look at some of Knight’s other works -and his later life – post-Discourse. My aim here is to highlight the wide range of Knight’s interests and show how he continued to express, in various ways, his antipathy to Christianity. I’ll get around to examining some of the background politics and social context in the next post. Continue reading »

   

   October 9th 2016

   Posted by Phil Hine in History, Occult, Pagan

   Tags: eighteenth-century, Richard Payne Knight

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2. A Phallic Knight – II

   As I hope the treatise may be forgotten I shall not name the author, but observe, that all the ordure and filfth, all the antique pictures, and all the representations of the generative organs, in their most odious and degrading profusion, have been raked together, and copulated (for no other idea seems to be in the mind of the author) and copulated, I say, with a new species of blasphemy. Such are, what we would call, the records of the stews and bordellos of Grecian and Roman antiquity, exhibited for the recreation of antiquaries, and the obscene revellings of Greek Scholars in their private studies. Surely this is to dwell mentally in lust and darkness in the loathsome and polluted chamber at Capreae.”
   Thomas James Mathias

   Given that I’m going to give a lecture on Richard Payne Knight for the London Fortean Society in October, I thought I’d better get on with the series of posts on Knight I started last June. Continue reading »

   

   August 30th 2016

   Posted by Phil Hine in Gender, History, Occult, Pagan

   Tags: eighteenth-century, Phallicism, Richard Payne Knight

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3. Shamanism and gender variance: the eighteenth century – two sexes, three genders?

   “Among the women I saw some men dressed like women, with whom they go about regularly, never joining the men. The commander called them amaricados, perhaps because the Yumas call effeminate men maricas. I asked who these men were, and they replied that they were not men like the rest, and for this reason they went around covered in this way. From this I inferred that they must be hermaphrodites but from what I learned later I understood that they were sodomites, dedicated to nefarious practices. …I conclude that in this matter of incontinence there will be much to do when the Holy Faith and the Christian religion are established among them.”Fray Pedro Font, Font’s Complete Diary of the Second Anza Expedition 1775-1776

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   April 7th 2012

   Posted by Phil Hine in Gender, History, Occult, Pagan, Queer

   Tags: colonialism, eighteenth-century, shamanism

   1 comment »

4. Shamanism and gender variance: the eighteenth century – “torrid zones”

   “On my visit this Morning to Tynah and his Wife, I found with her a person, who altho I was certain was a Man, had great marks of effeminacy about him and created in me certain notions which I wished to find out if there were any foundations for. On asking Iddeah who he was, she without any hesitation told me he was a friend of hers, and a class of people common in Otaheite called Mahoo. That the Men had frequent connections with him and that he lived, observed the same ceremonies, and eat as the Women did. The Effeminacy of this persons speech induced me to think that he had suffered castration, and that other unnatural and shocking things were done by him, and particularly as I had myself some Idea that it was common in this sea. I was however mistaken in all my conjectures except that things equally disgusting were committed.”
   William Bligh, The Log of the Bounty, 1789

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   October 7th 2011

   Posted by Phil Hine in Gender, History, Occult, Pagan, Queer

   Tags: colonialism, eighteenth-century, shamanism

   2 comments »

5. Pan: “disreputable objects of pagan licentiousness”

   “Shocking things go on here. You wouldn’t believe it! Licentiousness! Orgies! …. Even bingo. Oh yes.”
   Lurcio (Frankie Howerd), Up Pompeii

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   September 5th 2011

   Posted by Phil Hine in History, Pagan, Queer

   Tags: eighteenth-century, Pan, Richard Payne Knight

   3 comments »

6. Ganapati variations: an eighteenth-century interpretation

   “But the obvious forms and ceremonies of a religion are not always to be understood in their obvious sense; but are to be considered as symbolical representations of some hidden meaning, which may be extremely wise and just, though the symbols themselves, to those who know not their true significance may appear in the highest degree absurd and extravagant.”
   Richard Payne Knight, A Discourse on the worship of Priapus

   In the midst of Richard Payne Knight’s A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus, and its connection with the mystic Theology of the Ancients (first published in 1786) there is an early European analysis of Ganesa: Continue reading »

   

   February 12th 2011

   Posted by Phil Hine in History, Occult, tantra

   Tags: eighteenth-century, Ganesa, Orientalist, Richard Payne Knight

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