The Worship of the Generative Powers

Thomas Wright

This work first appeared as the second half of the 1865 printing of A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus. Wright's extended essay on Phallic worship is distinguished by much better scholarship and writing than some of the other works of this genre. Along with the usual suspects (ancient and modern phallic objects, fertility rituals and so on) Wright devotes the longest section of this text to exploring what would become known as the 'Witch Cult'. Wright lays out a compelling case for the survival of ancient fertility rituals in the otherwise puzzling accounts of the Witches' Sabbath. Thomas Wright's The Worship of the Generative Powers During the Middle Ages of Western Europe is a work of broad scope, and goes beyond its title to embrace the study of certain abnormal practices incidental to membership in secret orders and societies, including the worship of the female as well as the male generative powers. Of all the rites which belonged to ancient polytheism, none were more furiously inveighed against by the zealous propagators of the Christian faith than the obscene ceremonies performed in the worship of Priapus, the god of procreation. Even the form itself, under which the god was represented, appeared to them a mockery of all piety and devotion.

Table of contents

• Antiquity
• Middle Ages And Renaissance
• Shelah-Na-Gigs
• Priapus Worship
• Phallic Amulets
• The 'Fig'
• Sexual Demons
• Phallic Festivals
• May-Day
• Midsummer Night
• Plants And Flowers
• Other Festivals
• Mediaeval Secret Societies
• The Knights Templar
• The Witches' Sabbath
• Inniskea