Asherah Poles to Church Steeples


Perhaps it is fortunate that we do not know the origin of many things and statements we take for granted. Therefore, whether the erected column is a fence post, our god or a symbol of power may depend upon our attitude. However, seeing the spread of the use of the column as an "artistic enhancement" to churches it is tempting to ask: "Knowest thou what thou doest?"

Joseph Campbell, in Myths to Live by, shows that symbols of tribalism or religion have real power over others. Perhaps like voodoo its power depends upon what we believe.

Human sexuality has always been associated with "collecting lambs" or creating rain because the two were accidentially associated enough times. The prophet or prophetess with the best luck was freed from productive work and took on the role of what has been called "the world's oldest profession" -- prophesying or the uncovered effort Paul condemned in First Corinthians 11:5 (outside of the assembly" as he claimed (11:17f) that "your assemblies do more harm than good."

In the beginning a real person who had invented something -- often musical instruments, swords or methods of "calling down the gods" -- became "gods" after their death. By singing their songs or using their weapons one gained control over the physical and spiritual world. Nothing was more powerful in getting good crops or more lambs than a sexual form of worship.

The images or idols were created in their own human form and they usually had a hidden or mysterious meaning -- a coded message. In the following sequence one can see how the well-endowed "person" was incarnated as a pole or column.

For instance, Asherah is pictured in human form with lots of signs of fertility and sexuality:

When the Israelite women baked cakes for the Queen of Heaven (mother of the gods) the image was easier to produce in bread dough:


As the cross began as a literal tree or pole but later became an artistic expression, Asherah was stylized as a pole in the form of an obelisk, column or even church steeple. As the symbol of sun-worship or of Baal the pole represented the sexual union which created all of earth's fertility.

The word "image" is translated from different Hebrew words. The word, matzebah, means "standing images" or obelisks (1 Kings 14:23; 2 Kings 18:4, etc). The obelisk only had power through symbolic magic if it was standing upright or fully erected. The matzebah pointed upward to the hammanim or "sun image" which were dedicated to the sun or obelisks (Isaiah 17:8; 27:9).

According to Hislop, in Babylon, the golden image of the Sun was exhibited for the worship of the people. The Paeonians of Thrace were sun-worshippers; and in their worship they adored an image of the sun in the form of a disk at the top of a long pole. Hislop identifies with the quotation above from 2 Chronicles.

Because the sun was really the god and the standing, erect column was pointed at "him," this was symbolic of man's power over the sun god represented as sexual power. Therefore, when Israel pointed their power poles upward it was an affront to the one True God and he demanded that they "shall not stand up", but must be cast down


The column, such as the two erected before the temple by Solomon, was entwined with vines and overflowing at the end with pomegranates which were the ultimate symbol of sexual power. It was therefore representative of the tree -- the same kind they used on Jesus as the ultimate "masculine journey" as the clergy believed.

"Eugene Monick has authored a book in the same Jungian series that The Sacred Prostitute can be found in, called Phallos: Sacred Image of the Masculine. We will spare our readers any direct quotations from the book, which also contains exceedingly explicit illustrations. In his introduction, Monick acknowledges that "phallos, for me, is an existential god-image." (p. 11)

Indeed, it is not a flaccid organ that one finds in numerous, cross-cultural pagan statues and idols. The Romans, for example, worshipped a phallic deity, Priapus. Christianity is credited worldwide for abolishing the fertility cults and destroying phallic columns and pillars, which were part of the pagan fertility rites. The Christian missionaries recognized such objects as a part of the worship system which the Bible forbids, and which the Hebrews were commanded to eradicate in Canaan. These religious practices are described in the Bible as abhorrent, and those who practiced them worthy of death:

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Again, thou shalt say to the children of Israel, Whosoever he be of the children of Israel, or of the strangers that sojourn in Israel, that giveth any of his seed unto Molech; he shall surely be put to death: the people of the land shall stone him with stones. And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech, to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name. And if the people of the land do any ways hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not: Then I will set my face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go a-whoring after him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people. And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a-whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people. Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the Lord your God. And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them: I am the Lord which sanctify you... A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them. (Lev. 20:1-8, 27)

The next old woodcut shows the Israelites worshiping a four-fold image two of which are crowned with the sun.

And they brake down the altars of Baalim in his presence; and the images (Obilisks LIV) , that were on high above them, he cut down; and the groves (Asherim NAS, RSV), and the carved images, and the molten images, he brake in pieces, and made dust of them, and strowed it upon the graves of them that had sacrificed unto them. 2 Chronicles 34:4

The groves were:

Asherah (h842) ash-ay-raw'; from 833; happy; Asherah (or Astarte) a Phoenician goddess; also an image of the same: - grove. Comp. 6253

Ashthoreth (h6253) ash-to'-reth; prob. for 6251; Ashtoreth, the Phoenician goddess of love (and increase): - Ashtoreth.

The images were were condemned because they were an attempt to literally assualt God with the "works of men's hands."

Chamman (h2553) kham-mawn'; from 2535; a sun-pillar: - idol, image.


When the Israelites mixed heathen worship into their religion in the days of Ezekiel, they erected an "image of jealousy in the entry" of the temple.


This was undoubtedly an image of the phallus because Israel was consumed with phallic cults. The artistic element among the Jews had decorated the temple--


The men believed that God was lost and they therefore turned to ancient rituals which began in Babylonia to try to call him into their presence:

Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lords house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz. Ezekiel 8:14




The word for branch is derived from


Ishtar is another name associated with the wife and or "mother of the god." The lamenting for Tammuz was the women's effort to call the dead god into their midst to play the flute and smell the incense. The men were holding a "sun rise service" to Ishtar or "Easter."

To understand the "gates of hell" which would not over come the church Click Here.

Another name was Inanna who cheated Ea (the patron god of music) out of the ME or the magical power of the kingship, the eldership, the musical mistresses and the kisser of the phallus.

Inside St. Peter's the four-fold Asherah poles are crowned with the sun image in the form of the sunburst and repeated in the "wafer" of the communion. To the left another sun-image appears.

The four-fold images of jealousy with the Babylonian (and Aztec) sun god.

In about 40 A.D., Caligula brought an obelisk from Heliopolis, Egypt and erected it where St. Peter's in Rome now stands. This was from Bethshemesh of which Jeremiah wrote:


"Byblus, which claimed to be the oldest city of the Phoenicians, was famous at least in the millennium before Christ, for its magnificent temple of Astarte. It was on a height, not far from the sea, and travelers still find there a massive piece of masonry which seems to have been the pedestal of a column. We know, in fact, that the chief object of veneration, the emblem of the goddess, in the great open court of the temple, was a phallic stone: a tall cone or obelisk. Astarte was, very frankly, the goddess of love, and her sanctuary was an unblushing garden of love. But with Astarte was associated a handsome young male god, Adonis ("the Lord"). How could people be satisfied with a goddess of love without a lover?" Joseph McCabe (1925)

See Heredotus on Tyre temples and pillars

While God "unerected it" the Catholic church now owns it at the focus of 248 Doric style columns. The pattern for these phallic symbols was borrowed from that of all pagan temples. In the pagan temple at Hierapolis an inscription dedicating the columns reads: "I, Dionysus, dedicated these phalli to Hera, my step-mother."

"At the top of many church towers, a spire often points to the sky! Several writers link, and perhaps not without some justification, the steeples and spires with the ancient obelisk. "There is evidence", says one, "to show that the spires of our churches owe there existence to the uprights or obelisks outside the temples of former ages." Another says: "There are still in existence today remarkable specimens of original phallic symbols...steeples on the churches...and obelisks...all show the influence of our phallus-worshipping ancestors." (Woodrow, Babylon Mystery Religion -- Ancient and Modern., p. 46)

"Image of the Vatican Phrygianum from a bronze sesterce Matri Deum Salutari: "to the Mother of the Gods, Healer and Protector"

The "Mother of the gods" insists that all male worshipers have to sacrifice their masculinity in order to serve her. You can see in the above illustration that she is intimately connected to the non-functional standing columns or Asherah poles. Her 'hat' is a tower.

Joseph McCabe denied inspiration but his accounts show how the resurrection of Jesus was replaced with honoring the phallic gods:

"This was in March, 385 A.D., the beginning of spring in Rome, and when the priests of Cybele, "the mother of the gods," celebrated their "holy week." It had begun with a procession, on March 17 when priests and devotees carried reeds: as they carry palms in a Catholic church on the first day of Holy Week in our time. Five days later- Sunday to Friday is five days-there was a second solemn procession. The priests bore a sacred emblem through the streets to the temple on the Palatine Hill; and the emblem was the figure of a beautiful young god, pale in death, bound to a small pine tree, which was crowned with violets. Attis was dead, and the procession went its way with ceremonial sadness.

"The next day was the "Day of Blood." Attis had bled, and his priests and worshipers must bleed. In the full ritual of the cult of Attis and Cybele, in the east, the priests tore from their bodies the organs of manhood and held aloft their great sacrifice to the mother and divine lover. Rome did not permit this; but priests and worshipers gashed themselves and made the blood flow; and drums thundered, and howls of lamentation rose, and the eunuch priests rent their flowing robes. Attis was dead: the beautiful Attis.

"And on the next day he rose from the dead. It was the Hilaria ("Day of Hilarity"), a very popular Roman festival, when all things were lawful, because your heart rejoiced to know that Attis had come to life again. Two days later was the part of the festival at which Augustine assisted. The priests took the black stone (phallic stone) with a silver head, which represented Cybele, for a ceremonious bath in the Almo; and they return through Rome, with horns blowing and drums throbbing, frantic with rejoicing, while the two great hedges of Roman spectators supported them with an orgy of sexual songs and jokes and embraces. The spirit of love was born again. Joseph McCabe (1925)

A Greek image of Cybele with her tympanum, measuring out the heartbeat of life.Cybele, bearer of corn, inventor of law, founder of cities, by whose gifts it is man's good fortune to know the Gods.

"Jerome, who spent a large part of his life in Palestine, in speaking of the east-the whole region of Palestine and Mesopotamia-said that the "most beautiful youth" is Tammuz. The goddess whom he calls "Venus," in Roman fashion, is really the Babylonian Ishtar, the Astarte of the Phoenicians and the Hebrews. Attis, to whom I have referred above, was the slain and resurrected god of the Phrygians:

"the Lord," as he was known over all that part of the earth, whether priests called him Tammuz or Attis. "Lord" is in Palestinian language "Adon." Even the Bible some times gives Adonai (really Adoni-"my lord") as a name for God; and the Greeks took it for a proper name and created the beautiful young god "Adonis," the lover of Venus, who died and rose again every year.

Rome now has the Egyptian idol crowned with Mary and a cross at the 'business end' of the phallus.

In the illustration below the "mother" figure is crowned to be a real idol and image as well as a column:

"The Queen of Heaven, Mother of All the Gods, Creatrix of the Universe, was worshipped and celebrated for tens of thousands of years as the primary deity. Sex (and music) was a joy and a celebration in antiquity and people loved life, taking great enjoyment from nature and from sexuality."

"And the temple of Artemis Ephesia was one of the Seven Wonders of the World and the city under her protection. Ephesus is the sacred place of Ephesia. When Paul visited Ephesus to preach Christianity in the first century AD, he was confronted by the Artemis' cult who had no plans to abandon their goddess."

Diana of Ephesus is quite similar to Semiramis or the first deified queen of the city and tower of Babel. Here headdress is, in some views, a small tower of Babel.

In the last century slavery or other forms of servitude allowed dominant males to erect symbols of their phallic pride and power. In this they 'triumphed over' the slaves, sharecroppers and even their rival as "Alpha Male" down the road. While they functionally held up the largely non-functional porch, they were secular Asherah poles. This show of phallic power now adorns a church and its symbolism seems to spread around the country as power poles. However, they are idols because they take the eyes of people off Jesus.

Well, what do you think?

What Does God Think of This Idolatry?

Those who have erected images of jealousy need to obey God who said:


I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you. Lev. 26:30 (NIV)

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