Narcissus

Narcissus was a Thespian boy whose beauty was so extraordinary that every man and woman around him instantly fell in love.  His mother, in order to protect him from his own vanity diligently kept him from his own reflection.

Eventually, for one reason or another, depending on the particular version of the myth, Narcissus sees his reflection in a lake.  So enamored by his own beauty, he reached for his reflection and slipped into the water, drowning to his demise.  The gods, in honor of his beauty, created the narcissus flower whose petals point towards its own reflection in the water.  While there are the obvious lessons of the consequences of vanity and narcissism, there is greater, secret and esoteric lesson in seeing the one true Beloved in one’s own self.  The drowning in the water is an ancient precursor to baptism, not only because of the aquatic nature of the action, but also because of the reflective nature of its revelation, the sacrificial nature of an older self and a resurrection in a new form.  In Christian baptism, those are the themes that are expressed and the same themes are found here.  Thus one of the scripted rites is a initiatory ritual of baptism.

Narcissus is the god of self-love.  While that is an important and virtuous quality to attain, there is a deeper current that requires that experience of gnosis, the knowledge that who one turly is, is an image of the Divine.  He is the answer to all of the Phallic Gods.  What makes these acts of Cock worship sacred?  Because we see them reflected back to us through the myths, the stories and the practices.