The Phallus: Bringer of Joy

 Erich Neumann's The Origins and History of Consciousness

Phallicism is symbolic of a primitive stage in man’s consciousness of his masculinity. Only gradually does he come to realize his own value and his own world. The male begins by being the copulator, not the begetter; even when the phallus is worshipped by the female as the instrument of fertility, it is far more the opener of the womb—as in the case of certain primitives—than the giver of seed, the bringer of joy rather than of fruitfulness. (308-9)

Mythologically, the phallic-chthonic deities are companions of the Great Mother, not representatives of the specifically masculine. Psychologically this means that the phallic masculinity is still conditioned by the body and thus is under the rule of the Great Mother, whose instrument it remains. (309)

Androgynous and hermaphroditic figures of gods and priests, and cults emphasizing the original bisexuality of the uroboric Great Mother, characterize the transition from the feminine to the masculine. (308)