Fertility Cults and the Making of Sexual Magic

Throughout the course of human existence, mankind has sought nature's highly ordered patterns of operation to account for similar patterns found within. Nature's predictable cycling of birth, thriving, yielding forth seed, and dying closely mimics the human cycles of birth, growth, procreation, and death. For some, this connection to nature's fertility often functions as a reference point for understanding the origins of our own need for order. However, for others, this connection takes on a deeper significance complete with a plethora of new responsibilities. This latter group of individuals understands the connections we share to be proof of an interdependence with nature that invites us to ensure the continuance of nature's fertility by initiating our own. This paper will explore the mystical process of earth regeneration through human copulation: a process driven by the sexual rituals of fertility cults.

Fertility Cults
Fertility cults are magical, "religious cults devoted to the enhancement of the fertility of persons, plants, or animals by means of rituals" (Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 1997, p.504). Members of fertility cults acknowledge the obvious parallels between man and earth and attempt to invoke the systemic reproduction of the vegetation cycle by engaging in their own reproductive acts. These cults were most common among ancient agricultural societies who depended on the fertility of the earth for their livelihoods (J. Chance, personal communication, Fall 2006). Cult members, who consider themselves to be integral parts of the natural system, are responsible for encouraging the continued momentum of nature's processes by "playing their roles." Because these sexual rituals are done to secure a bountiful harvest or to ensure the successful rotation of the seasons, failure honor them could result in terrible consequences like famine or unending seasons. Today, these old fertility rituals still rely upon the connections between human sexuality and nature to induce earthly fertility.

The Controversy: Fertility cults and rituals have always presented a problem for the Christian church. According to Hyde and DeLamater (2006), when Christianity first began to assert its stronghold on mankind, "Hebrew leaders saw in the fertility cult, a threat to their religion" and as a result, many sexual practices were forbidden because they challenged biblical principles of order (p. 513). Circumventing the Christian God in order to invoke a process that was deemed to be under this God's complete control was considered an intolerable sin. Here, man's connection to nature gave him no ownership or influence over its processes. A second criticism of fertility cults comes from anthropologist James Frazer who argues that those who engage in these cults operate at the lowest levels of intellectual providence. He insists that though many religions used magic as a stepping stone, they were eventually able to move to higher levels of civilization (Frazer, 1996). Even today, those who believe in the mystical influence of human sex on the natural environment would not be considered rational, mainstream thinkers.

James Frazer on Creating Sexual Magic
The connections between human sexuality, magic, and the earth's fertility are given a scholarly definition in Frazer's, The Golden Bough. He believes that primordial, uncivilized man based his theories of "like yields like" on what he specifically calls imitative or homeopathic magic. This form of magic, he asserts, "commits the mistake of assuming that things which resemble each other are the same" (Frazer, 1996, p.14). Therefore, according to the laws of homeopathic magic, fertilizing the human womb with male ejaculate is the magical equivalent of sowing a seed into fertile ground because both acts should induce a similar regeneration of life (Frazer, 1996).

Homeopathic logic wholly attributes nature's predictable cycling to the ritual intervention of "pious" human beings. The returning and flourishing of vegetation each season is understood to symbolize nature's approval of these sexual acts of preparation (Frazer, 1996). Because the copulative and reproductive acts of humans easily mirror the fertilization and the bringing forth of seed in the personified world of vegetation, it is not odd that parallels would be drawn between the two.

Operant Conditioning:Homeopathic logic encourages a form of operant conditioning whereby human beings receive positive rewards and reinforcement (nature's flourishing) by way of an operant (sexual behaviors). Cults are compelled to engage in ritual processes year after year to seek these rewards. However, in this case, the operant does not truly cause the positive rewards. Rewards will be experienced with or without that particular operant because it is logically impossible for Spring not to eventually arrive, or for rain not to eventually fall, after ritual sex. Yet, because these fertility cult members still perceive that they are experiencing positive rewards from a particular behavior, they operate under a form of operant conditioning that encourages them to repeat this behavior.

Cultural Examples of Ancient and Modern Fertility Cults and Practices
Frazer's book provides excellent examples of mankind's desire to assist in accomplishing the naturally predestined through fertility cults and rituals. Frazer examines one fertility cult group from the Leti and Sarmata Islands. He says of these islanders, "the heathen population regard the sun as the male by whom the earth or female is fertilized," and each year, "Mr. Sun comes down . . . to fertilize the earth . . . On this occasion, men and women alike indulge in saturnalia" (p.164). Today, there are many modern remnants of these sex, fertility, and magic rituals. In Europe, "maypole" celebrations where participants dance around a symbolic phallus (pole) to welcome the summer have all but replaced fertility orgies (Wellwarth, 2001). In Japan, a large, wooden phallus is carried to a "female" shrine to ensure bountiful harvests and renewal each year (Murphy, 2007). Belief in the efficacy of these fertility rituals is only possible with a belief in homeopathic magic.

Personal Reflections
As one who finds complete reverence in nature, I love how cults "set the mood" for nature by engaging in acts of copulation at the exact time and place of the desired earthly fertile emergence! While Frazer criticized those who see logic in fertility rituals, I believe that the similarities we share with nature, no matter how crude or rudimentary, are actually intricate and quite complex. When nature responds to our interventions by "yielding forth seed," it encourages our sense of importance in the world. Though I do not find nature's likeness to us to be a mandate to intervene and propel it on its course, I do believe that it can be a powerful device for helping us understand our deeper emotional and sexual selves. Nature's essential components of order, equilibrium, and reciprocity are tenets that would benefit any human union. We are in fact components of nature and cannot deny the fact that human nature is still indeed, nature.

References

Frazer, James. (1996). The Golden Bough. London: Penguin Books.

Murphy, Declan. (2007). Destinations...Japan Travel Guide. Hounen Matsuri, Tagata Jinja. Retrieved March 14^th from the World Wide Web: www.yamasa.org.

Random House Unabridged Dictionary, (1997). "Fertility Cult." New York: Random House, Inc.

Wellwarth, George. (2001).The Maypole in the Strand: Sir Arthur Wing Pinero and Henry Arthur Jones, a Study. New York: Vantage Press.

[1] Leti and Samarta Islands are located off of the northern coast of Australia.