The next time someone gives you the finger... ...don't get mad. Think about this instead:

The Dactyls-Fingers-were born from the fingerprints of the Goddess Rhea: five males from the print of her right hand, five females from the print of her left. Mano pantea, the Hand of the All-Goddess, was a sacred fetish of which many examples have been found in Pompeii and Herculaneum. It always showed the thumb and first two fingers raised and the last two fingers folded down. Middle finger, index finger, and thumb involved pagan trinity of Father-Mother-Son, such as Jupiter-Juno-Mars, or Osiris-Isis-Horus. The same kind of trinity, consisting of God, Mary, and Jesus used to be worshipped by eastern Christians-which may explain why they adopted the mano pantea and called it the "hand of blessing." The gesture was and still often is displayed by priests as a way of benediction and blessing.

In the mano pantea, the thumb was the child, or child-soul (such as in fables like Tom Thumb and Hop-O-My-Thumb). The index finger was the Mother, the one who pointed, controlled, cast spells. The Egyptians believed this finger to guide, show, beckon, call for attention, bless, and curse. The Arabs believed it to represent the Goddess Fatima. The Jewish patriarchs fettered this powerful female finger by casting the right index finger with the wedding ring, and orthodox Jewish women wear their wedding ring on the right index finger to this day. Christians, however, copied the wedding ring custom from the pagans, who believed that a mystic "love vein" ran directly from the fourth finger of the left hand to the heart, and therefore should be bound in marriage.

The middle finger was the Father, a phallic symbol for thousands of years, up to and including the present. Arabs used to cut open a vein of the middle finger with a stone when making a pledge of faith, invoking a curse of castration if the pledge be broken. Roman male prostitutes used to signal customers by thrusting their middle finger into the hair on their head. Like all phallic symbols, the middle finger was associated with the devil by Christian authorities, who called it the digitus infamus, or "vile finger." When torturers asked accused witches which finger they raised to take the devil's oath, the only "right" answer they would accept was the middle finger, for reasons plainly associated with its sexual meanings.

Oddly enough, the classic "devil sign" wasn't the middle finger at all, but an imitation of his horned head, which was done by pinning down the middle and fourth fingers with the thumb and extending the index and middle fingers. On the well-known magic principle that an evil sign was a prophylactic against evil, in Italy and the Balkans this gesture was used to defend against the evil eye. This seems to have originated from Kali Ma, who showed it as a mudra in her manifestation as "Mother of the World."

The most revered mudra was the one meaning "infinity" or "perfection" and was most generally associated with the yoni: thumb and forefinger pressed together at the tips and the other three fingers extended-what we most often use today as the OK sign. The thumb and forefinger form the yonic symbol, while the three extended fingers perhaps refer to the Triple Goddess. Tantric yogis made this sign in token of contemplative ecstasy.

So, the next time someone shows you a phallic "vile finger," instead of getting angry, try turning the negative implications into positive ones. Show them a yonic-Triple Goddess sign of contemplative ecstasy in return. That'll impress them for sure.

Resource: The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, Barbara G. Walker (Ed), Edison, New Jersey: Castle Books (1996).

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