Baphomet
Encyclopedia
Medieval Latin
Medieval Latin was the form of Latin used in the Middle Ages, primarily as a medium of scholarly exchange and as the liturgical language of the medieval Roman Catholic Church, but also as a language of science, literature, law, and administration. Despite the clerical origin of many of its authors,...
Baphometh, baffometi, Occitan Bafometz) is an imagined pagan deity (i.e., a product of Christian folklore concerning pagans), revived in the 19th century as a figure of occultism and Satanism
Satanism
Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...
. It appeared as a term for a pagan idol in trial transcripts of the Inquisition of the Knights Templar
Knights Templar
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...
in the early 14th century. The name first came into popular English-speaking consciousness in the 19th century, with debate and speculation on the reasons for the suppression of the Templars. Since 1855, the name Baphomet has been associated with a "Sabbatic Goat" image drawn by Eliphas Lévi
Eliphas Levi
Eliphas Lévi, born Alphonse Louis Constant , was a French occult author and purported magician."Eliphas Lévi," the name under which he published his books, was his attempt to translate or transliterate his given names "Alphonse Louis" into Hebrew although he was not Jewish.His second wife was...
.
History
The name Baphomet appears in July 1098 in a letter by the crusader Anselm of Ribemont:A chronicler of the First Crusade
First Crusade
The First Crusade was a military expedition by Western Christianity to regain the Holy Lands taken in the Muslim conquest of the Levant, ultimately resulting in the recapture of Jerusalem...
, Raymond of Aguilers
Raymond of Aguilers
Raymond of Aguilers was a chronicler of the First Crusade . He followed the Provençal army of crusaders, guided by count Raymond IV of Toulouse, to Jerusalem....
. The name Bafometz later appears around 1195 in the Occitan poem "Senhors, per los nostres peccatz" by the troubadour
Troubadour
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....
Gavaudan
Gavaudan
Gavaudan was a troubadour and hired soldier at the courts of both Raymond V and Raymond VI of Toulouse and later on in Castile. He was from Gévaudan, as his name implies...
. Around 1250 in a poem bewailing the defeat of the Seventh Crusade
Seventh Crusade
The Seventh Crusade was a crusade led by Louis IX of France from 1248 to 1254. Approximately 800,000 bezants were paid in ransom for King Louis who, along with thousands of his troops, was captured and defeated by the Egyptian army led by the Ayyubid Sultan Turanshah supported by the Bahariyya...
by Austorc d'Aorlhac
Austorc d'Aorlhac
Austorc d'Aorlhac or Aurilhac was an Auvergnat troubadour from whom only one sirvente survives. He was from Aurillac.Austorc's only piece, "Ai! Dieus! Per qu'as facha tan gran maleza", was composed after the defeat in 1250 of the Seventh Crusade under Louis IX of France...
refers to Bafomet. De Bafomet is also the title of one of four surviving chapters of an Occitan translation of Ramon Llull
Ramon Llull
Ramon Llull was a Majorcan writer and philosopher, logician and tertiary Franciscan. He wrote the first major work of Catalan literature. Recently-surfaced manuscripts show him to have anticipated by several centuries prominent work on elections theory...
's earliest known work, the Libre de la doctrina pueril, "book on the instruction of children".
When the medieval order of the Knights Templar
Knights Templar
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...
was suppressed by King Philip IV of France
Philip IV of France
Philip the Fair was, as Philip IV, King of France from 1285 until his death. He was the husband of Joan I of Navarre, by virtue of which he was, as Philip I, King of Navarre and Count of Champagne from 1284 to 1305.-Youth:A member of the House of Capet, Philip was born at the Palace of...
, on October 13, 1307, Philip had many French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
Templars simultaneously arrested, and then torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
d into confessions. Over 100 different charges had been leveled against the Templars. Most of them were dubious, as they were the same charges that were leveled against the Cathars and many of King Philip's enemies; he had earlier kidnapped Pope Boniface VIII
Pope Boniface VIII
Pope Boniface VIII , born Benedetto Gaetani, was Pope of the Catholic Church from 1294 to 1303. Today, Boniface VIII is probably best remembered for his feuds with Dante, who placed him in the Eighth circle of Hell in his Divina Commedia, among the Simonists.- Biography :Gaetani was born in 1235 in...
and charged him with near identical offenses of heresy, spitting and urinating on the cross, and sodomy
Sodomy
Sodomy is an anal or other copulation-like act, especially between male persons or between a man and animal, and one who practices sodomy is a "sodomite"...
. Yet Malcolm Barber
Malcolm Barber
Malcolm Charles Barber is a British scholar of medieval history, described as the world's leading living expert on the Knights Templar. He is considered to have written the two most comprehensive books on the subject, The Trial of the Templars and The New Knighthood: A History of the Order of the...
observes that historians "find it difficult to accept that an affair of such enormity rests upon total fabrication". The "Chinon Parchment
Chinon Parchment
The Chinon Parchment is a historical document, discovered in September 2001 by Barbara Frale, an Italian paleographer at the Vatican Secret Archives who claimed that in 1308, Pope Clement V secretly absolved the last Grand Master Jacques de Molay and the rest of the leadership of the Knights...
suggests that the Templars did indeed spit on the cross," says Sean Martin, and that these acts were intended to simulate the kind of humiliation and torture that a Crusader might be subjected to if captured by the Saracen
Saracen
Saracen was a term used by the ancient Romans to refer to a people who lived in desert areas in and around the Roman province of Arabia, and who were distinguished from Arabs. In Europe during the Middle Ages the term was expanded to include Arabs, and then all who professed the religion of Islam...
s, where they were taught how to commit apostasy
Apostasy
Apostasy , 'a defection or revolt', from ἀπό, apo, 'away, apart', στάσις, stasis, 'stand, 'standing') is the formal disaffiliation from or abandonment or renunciation of a religion by a person. One who commits apostasy is known as an apostate. These terms have a pejorative implication in everyday...
"with the mind only and not with the heart".
The name Baphomet comes up in several of these confessions. Peter Partner states in his 1987 book The Knights Templar and their Myth, "In the trial of the Templars one of their main charges was their supposed worship of a heathen idol-head known as a 'Baphomet' ." The description of the object changed from confession to confession. Some Templars denied any knowledge of it. Others, under torture, described it as being either a severed head, a cat, or a head with three faces. The Templars did possess several silver-gilt heads as reliquaries, including one marked capud m, another said to be St. Euphemia, and possibly the actual head of Hugh de Payns. The claims of an idol named Baphomet were unique to the Inquisition of the Templars. Karen Ralls, author of the Knights Templar Encyclopedia, argues that this is significant: "There is no mention of Baphomet either in the Templar Rule or in other medieval period Templar documents".
Modern scholars such as Peter Partner and Malcolm Barber agree that the name of Baphomet was an Old French
Old French
Old French was the Romance dialect continuum spoken in territories that span roughly the northern half of modern France and parts of modern Belgium and Switzerland from the 9th century to the 14th century...
corruption of the name Muhammad
Muhammad
Muhammad |ligature]] at U+FDF4 ;Arabic pronunciation varies regionally; the first vowel ranges from ~~; the second and the last vowel: ~~~. There are dialects which have no stress. In Egypt, it is pronounced not in religious contexts...
, with the interpretation being that some of the Templars, through their long military occupation of the Outremer
Outremer
Outremer, French for "overseas", was a general name given to the Crusader states established after the First Crusade: the County of Edessa, the Principality of Antioch, the County of Tripoli and especially the Kingdom of Jerusalem...
, had begun incorporating Islamic ideas into their belief system, and that this was seen and documented by the Inquisitors as heresy. Alain Demurger
Alain Demurger
Alain Demurger is a modern French historian, and a leading specialist of the history of the Knights Templar and the Crusades.Alain Demurger is honorary maître de conférences at the Université de Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne...
, however, rejects the idea that the Templars could have adopted the doctrines of their enemies. Helen Nicholson writes that the charges were essentially "manipulative"—the Templars "were accused of becoming fairy-tale Muslims." Medieval Christians falsely believed that Muslims were idolatrous
Idolatry
Idolatry is a pejorative term for the worship of an idol, a physical object such as a cult image, as a god, or practices believed to verge on worship, such as giving undue honour and regard to created forms other than God. In all the Abrahamic religions idolatry is strongly forbidden, although...
and worshipped Muhammad as a god, with mahomet becoming mammet in English, meaning an idol
Cult image
In the practice of religion, a cult image is a human-made object that is venerated for the deity, spirit or daemon that it embodies or represents...
or false god. This idol-worship is attributed to Muslims in several chansons de geste. For example, one finds the gods Bafum e Travagan
Termagant
In Medieval Europe, Termagant was the name given to a god that the Europeans believed Muslims worshipped.-Origin of the concept:European literature from the Middle Ages often referred to Muslims as pagans, with sobriquets such as the paynim foe...
in a Provençal poem on the life of St. Honorat
Honoratus
Saint Honoratus was Archbishop of Arles.There is some disagreement concerning his place of birth, and the date of his death is still disputed, being according to certain authors, January 14 or January 15. It is believed that he was born in the north of Gaul and that he belonged to an illustrious...
, completed in 1300. In the Chanson de Simon Pouille, written before 1235, a Saracen idol is called Bafumetz. Partner's book provides a quote from a poem written in a Provençal dialect by a troubadour
Troubadour
A troubadour was a composer and performer of Old Occitan lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages . Since the word "troubadour" is etymologically masculine, a female troubadour is usually called a trobairitz....
who is thought to have been a Templar. The poem is in reference to some battles in 1265 that were not going well for the Crusaders:
Alternative etymologies
Oxford English Dictionary
The Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
state that the origin of the name Baphomet was a probable Old French version of "Mahomet", alternative etymologies have also been proposed:
- In the 18th century, speculative theories arose that sought to tie the Knights Templar with the origins of FreemasonryFreemasonryFreemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
. Bookseller, Freemason and Illuminist Friedrich Nicolai (1733–1811), in Versuch über die Beschuldigungen welche dem Tempelherrenorden gemacht worden, und über dessen Geheimniß (1782), was the first to claim that the Templars were Gnostics, and that "Baphomet" was formed from the GreekGreek languageGreek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
words βαφη μητȢς, baphe metous, to mean Taufe der Weisheit, "Baptism of Wisdom". Nicolai "attached to it the idea of the image of the supreme God, in the state of quietude attributed to him by the Manichean Gnostics", says François Juste Marie RaynouardFrançois Juste Marie RaynouardFrançois Juste Marie Raynouard was a French dramatist and academic.He was born at Brignoles in Provence, trained for the bar, and practised at Draguignan. In 1791 he went to Paris as deputy to the Legislative Assembly, but after the fall of the Girondists, whom he followed, he went into hiding...
, and "supposed that the Templars had a secret doctrine and initiations of several grades" which "the Saracens had communicated ... to them." He further connected the figura Baffometi with the pentagramPentagramA pentagram is the shape of a five-pointed star drawn with five straight strokes...
of PythagorasPythagorasPythagoras of Samos was an Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician, and founder of the religious movement called Pythagoreanism. Most of the information about Pythagoras was written down centuries after he lived, so very little reliable information is known about him...
:
- Emile LittréÉmile LittréÉmile Maximilien Paul Littré was a French lexicographer and philosopher, best known for his Dictionnaire de la langue française, commonly called "The Littré".-Biography:Émile Littré was born in Paris...
(1801–1881) in Dictionnaire de la langue francaise asserted that the word was cabalistically formed by writing backward tem. o. h. p. ab an abbreviation of templi omnium hominum pacis abbas, 'abbot' or 'father of the temple of peace of all men.' His source is the "Abbé Constant", which is to say, Alphonse-Louis Constant, the real name of Eliphas LéviEliphas LeviEliphas Lévi, born Alphonse Louis Constant , was a French occult author and purported magician."Eliphas Lévi," the name under which he published his books, was his attempt to translate or transliterate his given names "Alphonse Louis" into Hebrew although he was not Jewish.His second wife was...
.
- Arkon Daraul proposed that "Baphomet" may derive from the ArabicArabic languageArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
word أبو فهمة Abu fihama(t), meaning "The Father of Understanding". "Arkon Daraul" is widely thought to be a pseudonym of Idries ShahIdries ShahIdries Shah , also known as Idris Shah, né Sayed Idries el-Hashimi , was an author and teacher in the Sufi tradition who wrote over three dozen critically acclaimed books on topics ranging from psychology and spirituality to travelogues and culture studies.Born in India, the descendant of a...
(1924–1996).
- Dr. Hugh J. SchonfieldHugh J. SchonfieldHugh Joseph Schonfield was a British Bible scholar specializing in the New Testament and the early development of the Christian religion and church. He was born in London, and educated there at St Paul's School and King's College, doing postgraduate religious studies in Glasgow, Doctor of Sacred...
(1901–1988), one of the scholars who worked on the Dead Sea ScrollsDead Sea scrollsThe Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts from the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical documents found between 1947 and 1956 on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name...
, argued in his book The Essene Odyssey that the word "Baphomet" was created with knowledge of the Atbash substitution cipher, which substitutes the first letter of the Hebrew alphabetHebrew alphabetThe Hebrew alphabet , known variously by scholars as the Jewish script, square script, block script, or more historically, the Assyrian script, is used in the writing of the Hebrew language, as well as other Jewish languages, most notably Yiddish, Ladino, and Judeo-Arabic. There have been two...
for the last, the second for the second last, and so on. "Baphomet" rendered in Hebrew is בפומת; interpreted using Atbash, it becomes שופיא, which can be interpreted as the Greek word "Sophia", or wisdom. This theory is an important part of the plot of The Da Vinci CodeThe Da Vinci CodeThe Da Vinci Code is a 2003 mystery-detective novel written by Dan Brown. It follows symbologist Robert Langdon and Sophie Neveu as they investigate a murder in Paris's Louvre Museum and discover a battle between the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility of Jesus having been married to...
. Professor Schonfield's theory however cannot be independently corroborated.
Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall
In 1818, the name Baphomet appeared in the essay by the Viennese Orientalist Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-PurgstallJoseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall
Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall was an Austrian orientalist.Born Joseph Hammer in Graz, Styria, he received his early education mainly in Vienna...
, Mysterium Baphometis revelatum, seu Fratres Militiæ Templi, qua Gnostici et quidem Ophiani, Apostasiæ, Idoloduliæ et Impuritatis convicti, per ipsa eorum Monumenta ("Discovery of the Mystery of Baphomet, by which the Knights Templars, like the Gnostics and Ophites
Ophites
The Ophites or Ophians were members of a Christian Gnostic sect depicted by Hippolytus of Rome in a lost work, the Syntagma....
, are convicted of Apostasy, of Idolatry and of moral Impurity, by their own Monuments"), which presented an elaborate pseudohistory
Pseudohistory
Pseudohistory is a pejorative term applied to a type of historical revisionism, often involving sensational claims whose acceptance would require rewriting a significant amount of commonly accepted history, and based on methods that depart from standard historiographical conventions.Cryptohistory...
constructed to discredit Templarist Masonry and, by extension, Freemasonry itself. Following Nicolai, he argued, using as archaeological evidence "Baphomets" faked by earlier scholars and literary evidence such as the Grail romances, that the Templars were Gnostics and the "Templars' head" was a Gnostic idol called Baphomet.
Hammer's essay did not pass unchallenged, and F.J.M. Raynouard published an "Etude sur 'Mysterium Baphometi revelatum'". Charles William King
Charles William King
Charles William King , was a British Victorian writer and collector of gems.- Early life :King was born at Newport, Monmouthshire, and entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1836. He graduated in 1840, and obtained a fellowship in 1842...
criticized that Hammer had been deceived by "the paraphernalia of ... Rosicrucian
Rosicrucian
Rosicrucianism is a philosophical secret society, said to have been founded in late medieval Germany by Christian Rosenkreuz. It holds a doctrine or theology "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past", which, "concealed from the average man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe...
or alchemical quacks," and Partner agreed that the images "may have been forgeries from the occultist workshops." At the very least, there was little evidence to tie them to the Knights Templar—in the 19th century some European museums acquired such pseudo-Egyptian objects, which were catalogued as "Baphomets" and credulously thought to have been idols of the Templars.
Eliphas Lévi
Eliphas Levi
Eliphas Lévi, born Alphonse Louis Constant , was a French occult author and purported magician."Eliphas Lévi," the name under which he published his books, was his attempt to translate or transliterate his given names "Alphonse Louis" into Hebrew although he was not Jewish.His second wife was...
published Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie
Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie
Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie is the title of Eliphas Levi's first published treatise on ritual magic, which appeared in 1855.Levi's Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie was translated into English by Arthur Edward Waite as Transcendental Magic, its Doctrine and Ritual...
("Dogmas and Rituals of High Magic"), in which he included an image he had drawn himself which he described as Baphomet and "The Sabbatic Goat", showing a winged humanoid goat with a pair of breasts and a torch on its head between its horns (illustration, top). This image has become the best-known representation of Baphomet. Lévi considered the Baphomet to be a depiction of the absolute in symbolic form and explicated in detail his symbolism in the drawing that served as the frontispiece:
Lévi's depiction is similar to that of the Devil
The Devil (Tarot card)
The Devil is the fifteenth trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks. It is used in game playing as well as in divination.- Symbolism :...
in early Tarot
Tarot
The tarot |trionfi]] and later as tarocchi, tarock, and others) is a pack of cards , used from the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play a group of card games such as Italian tarocchini and French tarot...
cards. Lévi, working with correspondences different from those later used by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers
Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers
Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers , born Samuel Liddell Mathers, was one of the most influential figures in modern Occultism...
, "equated the Devil Tarot key with Mercury
Mercury (mythology)
Mercury was a messenger who wore winged sandals, and a god of trade, the son of Maia Maiestas and Jupiter in Roman mythology. His name is related to the Latin word merx , mercari , and merces...
," giving "his figure Mercury's caduceus
Caduceus
The caduceus is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology. The same staff was also borne by heralds in general, for example by Iris, the messenger of Hera. It is a short staff entwined by two serpents, sometimes surmounted by wings...
, rising like a phallus from his groin." Lévi's depiction, for all its modern fame, does not match the historical descriptions from the Templar trials, although it may also have been partly inspired by grotesque
Grotesque
The word grotesque comes from the same Latin root as "Grotto", meaning a small cave or hollow. The original meaning was restricted to an extravagant style of Ancient Roman decorative art rediscovered and then copied in Rome at the end of the 15th century...
carvings on the Templar churches of Lanleff
Lanleff
Lanleff is a commune in the Côtes-d'Armor department in Bretagne in northwestern France.-Population:Inhabitants of Lanleff are called lanleffois.-External links:*...
in Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
and Saint-Merri
Saint-Merri
The Church of Saint-Merri is a small church in Paris, located on the busy street Rue Saint Martin, on the Right Bank....
in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, which depict squatting bearded men with bat wings, female breasts, horns and the shaggy hindquarters of a beast, as well as Viollet-le-Duc
Eugène Viollet-le-Duc
Eugène Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc was a French architect and theorist, famous for his interpretive "restorations" of medieval buildings. Born in Paris, he was a major Gothic Revival architect.-Early years:...
's vivid gargoyles that were added to Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris
Notre Dame de Paris , also known as Notre Dame Cathedral, is a Gothic, Roman Catholic cathedral on the eastern half of the Île de la Cité in the fourth arrondissement of Paris, France. It is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris: that is, it is the church that contains the cathedra of...
about the same time as Lévi's illustration.
Goat of Mendes
Lévi's now-familiar image of a "Sabbatic Goat" shows parallels with works by the Spanish artist Francisco GoyaFrancisco Goya
Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker regarded both as the last of the Old Masters and the first of the moderns. Goya was a court painter to the Spanish Crown, and through his works was both a commentator on and chronicler of his era...
, who more than once painted a "Witch's Sabbath"; in the version ca. 1821-23, El gran cabrón now at the Prado, a group of seated women offer their dead infant children to a seated goat. In Margaret Murray
Margaret Murray
Margaret Alice Murray was a prominent British Egyptologist and anthropologist. Primarily known for her work in Egyptology, which was "the core of her academic career," she is also known for her propagation of the Witch-cult hypothesis, the theory that the witch trials in the Early Modern period of...
's survey of The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, the devil was said to appear as "a great Black Goat with a Candle between his Horns".
Mendes
Mendes , the Greek name of the Ancient Egyptian city of Djedet, also known in Ancient Egypt as Per-Banebdjedet and Anpet, is known today as Tell El-Ruba ....
", presumably following Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
' account that the god of Mendes—the Greek name for Djedet, Egypt—was depicted with a goat's face and legs. Herodotus relates how all male goats were held in great reverence by the Mendesians, and how in his time a woman publicly copulated with a goat. E. A. Wallis Budge
E. A. Wallis Budge
Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge was an English Egyptologist, Orientalist, and philologist who worked for the British Museum and published numerous works on the ancient Near East.-Earlier life:...
writes,
Historically, the deity that was venerated at Egyptian Mendes was a ram deity Banebdjed (literally Ba
Egyptian soul
The ancient Egyptians believed that a human soul was made up of five parts: the Ren, the Ba, the Ka, the Sheut, and the Ib. In addition to these components of the soul there was the human body...
of the lord of djed
Djed
The djed symbol is a pillar-like ancient Egyptian symbol representing stability. It has been interpreted as the backbone of the Egyptian god Osiris, especially in the form Banebdjedet . Djedu is the Egyptian name for Busiris, a centre of the cult of Osiris...
, and titled "the Lord of Mendes"), who was the soul of Osiris
Osiris
Osiris is an Egyptian god, usually identified as the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead. He is classically depicted as a green-skinned man with a pharaoh's beard, partially mummy-wrapped at the legs, wearing a distinctive crown with two large ostrich feathers at either side, and...
. Lévi combined the images of the Tarot of Marseilles
Tarot of Marseilles
The Tarot of Marseilles , also widely known by the French designation Tarot de Marseille, is one of the standard patterns for the design of tarot cards...
Devil card and refigured the ram Banebdjed as a he-goat, further imagined by him as "copulator in Anep and inseminator in the district of Mendes".
Aleister Crowley
Thelema
Thelema is a religious philosophy that was established, defined and developed by the early 20th century British writer and ceremonial magician, Aleister Crowley. He believed himself to be the prophet of a new age, the Æon of Horus, based upon a religious experience that he had in Egypt in 1904...
, the mystical system established by Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
in the early twentieth century. Baphomet features in the Creed of the Gnostic Catholic Church recited by the congregation in The Gnostic Mass, in the sentence: "And I believe in the Serpent and the Lion, Mystery of Mystery, in His name BAPHOMET."
In Magick (Book 4)
Magick (Book 4)
Magick, Liber ABA, Book 4 is widely considered to be the magnum opus of 20th century occultist Aleister Crowley, the founder of Thelema...
, Crowley asserted that Baphomet was a divine androgyne and "the hieroglyph of arcane perfection":
For Crowley, Baphomet is further a representative of the spiritual nature of the spermatozoa while also being symbolic of the "magical child" produced as a result of sex magic
Sex magic
Sex magic is a term for various types of sexual activity used in magical, ritualistic or otherwise religious and spiritual pursuits. One practice of sex magic is using the energy of sexual arousal or orgasm with visualization of a desired result...
. As such, Baphomet represents the Union of Opposites, especially as mystically personified in Chaos
Chaos (cosmogony)
Chaos refers to the formless or void state preceding the creation of the universe or cosmos in the Greek creation myths, more specifically the initial "gap" created by the original separation of heaven and earth....
and Babalon
Babalon
Babalon—also known as The Scarlet Woman, The Great Mother, or the Mother of Abominations—is a goddess found in the mystical system of Thelema, which was established in 1904 with English author and occultist Aleister Crowley's writing of The Book of the Law...
combined and biologically manifested with the sperm and egg
Ovum
An ovum is a haploid female reproductive cell or gamete. Both animals and embryophytes have ova. The term ovule is used for the young ovum of an animal, as well as the plant structure that carries the female gametophyte and egg cell and develops into a seed after fertilization...
united in the zygote
Zygote
A zygote , or zygocyte, is the initial cell formed when two gamete cells are joined by means of sexual reproduction. In multicellular organisms, it is the earliest developmental stage of the embryo...
.
Crowley proposed that Baphomet was derived from "Father Mithras". In his Confessions he describes the circumstances that led to this etymology:
As a demon
The Devil (Tarot card)
The Devil is the fifteenth trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks. It is used in game playing as well as in divination.- Symbolism :...
in the Rider-Waite design. The concept of a downward-pointing pentagram
Pentagram
A pentagram is the shape of a five-pointed star drawn with five straight strokes...
on its forehead was enlarged upon by Lévi in his discussion (without illustration) of the Goat of Mendes arranged within such a pentagram, which he contrasted with the microcosmic man
Macrocosm and microcosm
Macrocosm and microcosm is an ancient Greek Neo-Platonic schema of seeing the same patterns reproduced in all levels of the cosmos, from the largest scale all the way down to the smallest scale...
arranged within a similar but upright pentagram. The actual image of a goat in a downward-pointing pentagram first appeared in the 1897 book La Clef de la Magie Noire by Stanislas de Guaita
Stanislas de Guaita
Stanislas de Guaita was a French poet based in Paris, an expert on esotericism and European mysticism, and an active member of the Rosicrucian Order. He was very celebrated and successful in his time. He was an expert on magic and occultism. He had many disputes with other people who were involved...
, later adopted as the official symbol—called the Sigil of Baphomet
Sigil of Baphomet
The Sigil of Baphomet is the official insignium of the Church of Satan. It is also a symbol that is used by several other organizations, usually those associated with Satanism and the Left-Hand Path....
—of the Church of Satan
Church of Satan
The Church of Satan is an organization dedicated to the acceptance of the carnal self, as articulated in The Satanic Bible, written in 1969 by Anton Szandor LaVey.- History :...
, and continues to be used among Satanists.
Baphomet, as Lévi's illustration suggests, has occasionally been portrayed as a synonym of Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
or a demon
Demon
call - 1347 531 7769 for more infoIn Ancient Near Eastern religions as well as in the Abrahamic traditions, including ancient and medieval Christian demonology, a demon is considered an "unclean spirit" which may cause demonic possession, to be addressed with an act of exorcism...
, a member of the hierarchy of Hell. Baphomet appears in that guise as a character in James Blish
James Blish
James Benjamin Blish was an American author of fantasy and science fiction. Blish also wrote literary criticism of science fiction using the pen-name William Atheling, Jr.-Biography:...
's The Day After Judgment
The Day After Judgment
The Day After Judgment Is the second of a pair of short novels by James Blish. The first is the novel Black Easter. They have more recently been published as a single book called The Devil's Day.-Plot introduction:...
. Christian evangelist Jack Chick
Jack Chick
Jack Thomas Chick is an American publisher, writer, and comic book artist of fundamentalist Christian tracts and comic books...
claims that Baphomet is a demon worshipped by Freemasons
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
, a claim that apparently originated with the Taxil hoax
Taxil hoax
The Taxil hoax was an 1890s hoax of exposure by Léo Taxil intended to mock not only Freemasonry, but also the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to it.-Taxil and Freemasonry:...
. Léo Taxil
Léo Taxil
Léo Taxil, originally Marie Joseph Gabriel Antoine Jogand-Pagès , was a French writer and journalist who became known for his strong anti-Catholic and anti-clerical views....
's elaborate hoax employed a version of Lévi's Baphomet on the cover of Les Mystères de la franc-maçonnerie dévoilés, his lurid paperback "exposé" of Freemasonry, which in 1897 he revealed as a hoax satirizing ultra-Catholic anti-Masonic propaganda.
See also
- History of the Knights TemplarHistory of the Knights TemplarThe history of the Knights Templar incorporates about two centuries during the Middle Ages, from the Order's founding in the early 12th century, to when it was disbanded in the early 14th century.-Rise:...
- Knights Templar legendsKnights Templar legendsThe secrecy around the powerful medieval Order of the Knights Templar, and the speed with which they disappeared over the space of a few years, has led to Knights Templar legends. These range from rumors about their association with the Holy Grail and the Ark of the Covenant, to questions about...
- MahoundMahoundMahound or Mahoun is a variant form of the name Muhammad, often found in Medieval and later European literature. This version of the name, or variants of it, came to be strongly associated with anti-Muslim attitudes in Western Christendom...
- Medieval Christian views on Muhammad