I offer these musings as a beginning, that hopefully will be enlarged upon  by
 others, perhaps as part of the Men's Mysteries someday. My thoughts were
 guided to this subject by some curious coincidences of subject in letters  from
 two letter friends of mine, on the difficulty of creating a meaningful Men's
 Mysteries Ceremony and the skitishness of men when it came to seriously
 discussing sex and men's feelings about their sexuality. Then I was sent a
 particularly beautiful drawing of the Horned God. Musing on my friends'
 perceptions of the problem and meditating on the image of the God led to the
 thoughts that I present to for your consideration.

 If men are leery about discussing their feelings about their sexuality and sex
 in a serious manner, that hides, in turn , the more delicate subject of men's
 feelings about the phallus. These feelings are a core part of our concepts
 about manhood. Our feelings about the phallus divides the boy from the man. It
 is not by accident that the first initiation into the rites of passage into
 manhood would come at the beginning of puberty. With it came new rules of
 behavior, new responsibilities, and new privileges.

 Nor is it accidental that the earliest images of the God often showed Him with
 a large erect phallus. His strength and virility were just as important as the
 fertility of the Goddess. The phallus was a sacred symbol of the God and of
 manhood as well. For ancient man, virility was a matter of survival, not
 merely of ego and pride. The lack of descendents meant the end of the people,
 hence death. Having descendents formed the basis of the family, the clan, and
 the tribe, still later, of the kingdom, the country, and the empire. The
 number of descendents gave man power within the tribe, as size of the tribe
 might give it power over other smaller tribes. The number of descendents
 determined how much food could be gathered, hunted, and raised, thereby
 creating the basis for wealth and prosperity. It also determined how much
 safety and comfort a man had if he lived to old age. Having descendents gave a
 form of immortality through kin and rememberence.

 So the phallus, and virility, became one measure of a man's importance as a
 man. Regardless of how much we men would like to think that we have advanced
 beyond ancient man, the unmentioned phallus still remains a core part of each
 man's feelings of worthiness as a man. It still remains a source of feelings
 of pleasure, strength, and pride.

 But if the phallus is a powerful symbol of the God and manhood, there is it's
 uncomfortable aspect as well. It's power is a wild power that can strip a man
 of reason and wisdom, lay waste to his control and defences, drain him of his
 strength and energy and leave him vulnerable to deep emotional hurt and pain.
 Any inability in making use of the phallus is perceived as a weakness, and
 that can put his very manhood in question leaving him fearful of his failure
 being discovered.
 
It was this fear that was accented and used by priests, of some of the
 patriachial religions, when they chose to emasculate the God and make the
 phallus and desire filthy and sinful. Thus they could use shame and guilt to
 gain power over men to control them. Suddenly what had been a pleasure became
 shameful, something to be resisted, repressed, and rigidly controlled. Every
 passion, any spontaneous emotion or action became suspect, evil, and
 dangerous. Anything wild and free had to be controlled, ordered, changed, or
 destroyed, including woman and nature. Only if something were changed by man,
 or made into a product, could it be deemed to be useful, or to even have
 value.

 The most basic purpose of a Men's Mysteries Ceremony is to initiate and
 empower men from the inside. The rules of magic and life are much the same,
 both have tests and lessons to be learned. If men can face what they fear, or
 what they are embarrassed by, then they can be empowered, gaining both
 internal strength and pride. Rather than facing each new stage of manhood
 isolated and fearful, each younger man could be initiated and advised by an
 older man, who was about to leave the same stage that the younger man was
 about to enter.

 All men are a mixture of bravery and cowardness, strength and weakness,
 intelligence and stupidity, wisdom and foolishness. Learning this from each
 other, we can get a more realistic view of the possibilities of manhood in
 it's endless variety. Thus we could establish a sense of brotherhood and
 become each other's bedrock of support. Then, manhood would become less
 stressful and more enjoyable.

 The Sacred Phallus would become just one of the many core issues that we men
 could explore, a beginning.

 Blessed Be,

 Christopher Blackwell
 Summer Solstice 1997