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This paper explores the function of the maternal phallus in the construction of human subjectivity, confronting omnipotence and castration as the two terms punctuating the subject’s journey from primary to secondary process. The rape of the maternal phallus is posited as a foundational psychic event eliciting the advent of repression via the introduction of the term of castration. This paradigm is examined across a variety of metapsychological and mythological references and an array of clinical situations including fetishism, psychosis and hysteria.