Last weekend my wife and I went to the Fort Collins mineral and Gem show. My lovely wife loves gems and all things shiny and has rather expensive taste in jewelry, another reason I love her so. Her co-workers are “nuts” about the healing power of crystals. I don’t have much of a clue about gem stones, nor do I care that much other than to support my wife’s interest, so its off to the show. I love to poke fun at the spiritual aspects of crystals, gems, and other holistic new age balderdash. So while she is talking endlessly to venders about the intricacies of radiation and heat treatment of precious stones, I am browsing through the miracle of new age crystal therapy. My eye catches one box of stones simply due to the fact that they are so plain, brown, and smooth that I mistook them for candy; almost. Then I saw a pile of business cards next to the box with an image of a white ghost flying in front of the moon with a starless purple sky in the background.
Shiva Lingham.
This sounded vaguely familiar…. Lingham? Shiva? Isn’t that a type of bean? Shiva sounds like something I remember from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It looks like the egg from Alien. Hmmm, well they were only a dollar. I convinced my wife that she needed to buy a few for her nut-ball co-workers, oh and pick me up one as well. I also picked up the little card that comes with the stones.
The card says:
“Linghams are only found at the Narmanda River high in the Onkar Mandhata, one of India’s seven holy sites. The stones are ‘Crypto Crystalline Quartz’, said to contain the loftiest vibration of all stones on Earth. They emanate a vibration that will purify your home. The stone represents both the male energy of knowledge and the female energy of wisdom. No two stones are alike.”
I love that last phrase. You would think it would be far rarer to find two stones exactly the same. Naturally, since I am kind of geeky, and curious about such things as lofty vibrations and female energy I had to learn more. So, time to Google….
Shiva is one of the principal deities of Hinduism.
In the Trimurti system, Brahma is the creator, Vishnu is the maintainer or preserver, and Shiva is the destroyer or transformer.
The sanskrit word for the male sexual organ is lingham. If you have small children, so not google Lingham in their presence, especially if the safe search is off.
So this can go four ways in meaning.
Penis Destroyer.
Destroyer Penis.
Penis Transformer.
Transforming Penis.
This sounds like the new age version of drugs that I find in my Junk Mail filter.
How this is supposed to use its penis destroying power to purify my home I have no idea. My wife, however, who lives in a house full of teenage men of all ages, may disagree.
Cryptocrystalline Quartz is simply quartz that has a structure that is too fine to be transparent. These include:
Agate, Onyx, Heliotrope (Bloodstone), Chrysoprase, Carnelian, Jasper, Flint/Chert, Tiger’s Eye, and many others.
“Quartz is made up of the chemical compound silicon dioxide, also known as silica or silox (from the Latin “silex”), is the oxide of silicon, chemical formula SiO2, and has been known for its hardness since the 9th century[1]. Silica is most commonly found in nature as sand or quartz, as well as in the cell walls of diatoms. It is a principal component of most types of glass and substances such as concrete.”
So in the interest of keeping an open mind I am keeping my Shiva Lingham stone in my change pocket of my jeans. This is, ironically, a dollar bill’s length from my own lingham. Next week I will attribute any increase in purity of both my body and home.
I have nothing against new age claptrap, snake oil, and other falderal and honestly hope it does some purifying.
It this works in the slightest bit, I will buy a handful and put them in the litter box.
-PF
Prairie Flounder 
Very funny stuff.
I think the proper translation would be, “Shiva’s Penis” or perhaps “Penis of Shiva”.
IIRC, I believe Kali was the “Destroyer”, and Shiva was her consort (in some traditions, it’s the other way around) in one Hindu tradition. In another, he and Kali were different attributes of the same being (or something like that).
Confused? You should be. The people in India have had six or seven thousand years to make sure their religious beliefs are nearly impenetrable to outsiders without the use of potent pharmaceuticals.
As for me, I deliberately shut off the part of my brain that automatically asks questions and searches for patterns whenever I encounter this slok.
I hope you enjoy your new one-dollar penis.
(:Þ)
Bill’s just got lingham envy.
In reading the post below, I was reminded of this entry on your blog. It’s too fun not to share.
http://shredcitizen.com/2008/04/07/a-superbly-bizarre-day-in-japan/
I wonder why the West is so up-tight about celebrating reproduction. It seems that breasts are celebrated every day in the media, but the Phallus is virtually ignored. Breasts are used to sell every product known to man, but the power of the phallus is woefully missing from American ads.
My wife and I were discussing this yesterday. We were going to Dick’s Sporting Goods to get some shoes for my son. We were joking about some slogans that Dick’s Sporting Goods missed in their advertisements.
For example:
“Come to Dick’s we have balls!”
“For helmets, and gloves, no one has you covered like Dick’s!”
-pf