condition of society under which gynaecocracy, or the social and
political pre-eminence of women, prevailed, was the importance
attached to the female principle in the Deity in all ancient
mythologies.

According to the testimony of various writers, Om, although
comprehending both elements of the Deity, was nevertheless female
in signification. Sir William Jones observes that Om means
oracle--matrix or womb.[27] Upon this subject Godfrey Higgins,
quoting from Drummond, remarks:

[27] See Anacalypsis, book iii., ch. ii.


"The word Om or Am in the Hebrew not only signifies might,
strength, power, firmness, solidity, truth, but it means also
Mother, as in Genesis ii., 24, and Love, whence the Latin Amo,
Mamma. If the word be taken to mean strength, then Amon will
mean (the first syllable being in regimine) the temple of the
strength of the generative or creative power, or the temple of
the mighty procreative power. If the word Am means Mother, then
a still more recondite idea will be implied, viz.: the mother
generative power, or the maternal generative power: perhaps the
Urania of Persia or the Venus Aphrodite of Crete and Greece, or
the Jupiter Genetrix of the masculine and feminine gender, or the
Brahme Mai of India, or the Alma Venus of Lucretius. And the
City of On or Heliopolis will be the City of the sun, or City of
the procreative powers of nature of which the sun was always an
emblem."