The Baphomet

  

The Baphomet

   This post is without doubt going to prove to be somewhat difficult to write- far too many people have been brainwashed by religion, the media, and especially Hollywood, into thinking that the Baphomet is in fact the mythological bogeyman of Christianity known as ‘the Devil’ and to explain what it truly represents will as usual be met with the cries and accusations of heresy, Satanism, and other nonsensical blatherings that so many retreat into when faced with facts that challenge their beliefs.

''I am who you say I am
Yet you know me not''

D W Storer

   It’s a curious thing, for the Devil wasn’t originally seen by the church as an evil figure but as a dark angel that worked as ‘God’s Gaoler’, yet it evolved within the social politics of the medieval mind into a creature of ultimate darkness that hated humanity pretty much around the same time as the witchcraft trials began to gain momentum in the 14^th and 15^th centuries. Works such as Kramer’s Malleus Maleficarum added to the hysteria that began with outbreaks of plague across Europe as scapegoats were sought- to wit, witches and a greater source of evil were used by those who could not explain why such things occurred and needed to find a way to hold on to their power.

   

     Such thoughts even helped lay the foundations of the fall of the Templars arranged by King Philip IV of France, who was heavily in debt to them, with the collusion of Pope Clement V who was related to him.  The arrest warrant started with the phrase: "Dieu n'est pas content, nous avons des ennemis de la foi dans le Royaume" or "God is not pleased. We have enemies of the faith in the kingdom"   which led to the mass arrests of members of the order on October 13, 1307 ,and the eventual execution of so many of them on charges of heresy and apostasy, financial fraud, and even sodomy.

     What was it then that the Templars were supposedly worshipping? The accusations included idolatry, and descriptions of their idol ranged from the mummified head of John the Baptist to the Goat of Mendes -  the indictment (acte d'accusation) published by the court of Rome set forth ... "that in all the provinces they had idols, that is to say, heads, some of which had three faces, others but one; sometimes, it was a human skull ... That in their assemblies, and especially in their grand chapters, they worshipped the idol as a god, as their saviour, saying that this head could save them, that it bestowed on the order all its wealth, made the trees flower, and the plants of the earth to sprout forth.  The medieval mind, with such events taking place, needed no urging to further develop the character into the ‘Devil’ we know of today.

   Nowadays most people associate the image of the Baphomet with the one created as an illustration by Eliphas Levi in his books ‘ Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie’ (Dogma and Rituals of High Magic)  which he published as two volumes (Dogme 1854, Rituel 1856), in which he included a sketch drawn by himself and  described it as the Baphomet and "The Sabbatic Goat",  yet it greatly differs from the historical descriptions from the Templar trials. It is possible that he, himself, was inspired by grotesque carvings on the Templar churches of Lanleff in Brittany and Saint-Merri in Paris, which depict squatting bearded men with bat wings, female breasts, horns and the shaggy hindquarters of a beast. Levi is known to have believed that the usual figures depicting the ‘Devil’, especially those used in the witchcraft trials of old were more half remembered items of pagan religions than the enemy of mankind and so this coloured his works accordingly. 

    Lévi called his image "The Goat of Mendes", possibly following Herodotus' account that the god of Mendes, which was the Greek name for Djedet, in Egypt, had a goat's face and legs. Herodotus relates how all male goats were believed to be holy by the Mendesians who worshipped the god Pan and his living image on earth which is often referred to as the  Mendean Ram, or Ram of Mendes .

   Representation of carvings found on Templar churches depicting the Baphomet

    Some years before Levi had begun his works the name Baphomet appeared in an essay composed by the Viennese Orientalist Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall, which he titled  ‘Idoloduliæ et Impuritatis convicti, per ipsa eorum Monumenta’ or The Discovery of the Mystery of Baphomet, by which the Knights Templars, like the Gnostics and Ophites, are convicted of Apostasy, of Idolatry and of moral Impurity, by their own Monuments. Here he presented his views with the intention of discrediting Templarist Masonry and Freemasonry. In it he argued, using as archaeological evidence of "Baphomets" mentioned by earlier scholars, and parts of the Grail romances by authors such as  Von Eschenbach and Chrétien de Troyes, that the Templars were Gnostics and the "Templars' head" was a Gnostic idol.

     The content of this essay consists mainly of his opinions on images described as ‘Baphomets’ that he had located found in various museums and collections of antiquities. Carved from stone, they were portraying hermaphrodites with either two heads or two faces that although having beards had breasts also. It appears that the majority of them had serpents, the sun and moon, included along with various, and often unknown, emblems as well as inscriptions that he attributes to both the Sophia ‘Mete’ and  the ‘Achamot Prunikos’ of the Ophites as described by  Hippolytus of Rome which was represented half man, half woman, as the symbol of wisdom, unnatural voluptuousness and the principle of sensuality  which he claimed signified the baptism of Metis, or the Gnostic baptism, which was an enlightening of the mind, albeit this was interpreted by the Ophites as a fleshly union instead.

The Goat of Mendes , as portrayed in the Hammer film adaptation of
Dennis Wheatley’s ‘ The Devil Rides out ‘

    For Aleister Crowley Levi’s Baphomet was an important figure within his Thelemic cosmos and he asserted that the Baphomet was a divine androgyne and ‘the hieroglyph of arcane perfection’ – in essence that which reflects, or ‘As above so below’. Featured heavily within the Creed of the Gnostic Catholic Church, the congregation recites in The Gnostic Mass, ‘And I believe in the Serpent and the Lion, Mystery of Mysteries, in His name BAPHOMET’

    Crowley went further in clarifying his tenets by stating that ‘The Devil does not exist. It is a false name invented by the Black Brothers to imply a Unity in their ignorant muddle of dispersions. A devil who had unity would be a God... 'The Devil' is, historically, the God of any people that one personally dislikes... This serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade 'Know Thyself!' and taught Initiation. He is 'The Devil' of The Book of Thoth, and His emblem is BAPHOMET, the Androgyne who is the hieroglyph of arcane perfection... He is therefore Life, and Love. But moreover his letter is Ayin, the Eye, so that he is Light; and his Zodiacal image is Capricornus, that leaping goat whose attribute is Liberty’

     At the end of it all you can either adapt your own beliefs or hide behind them depending on how you feel on such matters. For myself I believe the Baphomet to be an allegorical depiction of some Higher Consciousness that exists possibly with the hope that humanity may actually learn to rely less on modern technology and more on instinct and the pursuit of a higher level of awareness. There is a phrase that doubtless Crowley took from those famous inscriptions carved upon the walls of the Delphic Temple – ‘Gnothi seauton’ , he included it in the above passage, which translated from the Greek is generally taken to be ‘ Know thyself- then follow the God’ . Gnosis, self- knowledge and the union with the God, what more could we aim for? 

   Look to yourself, look above, look below, look at everything, for everything has a reason to ‘be’ as much as everything has a reason not to ‘be’ and in learning why perhaps, with time and effort,  you will discover your own place and why you yourself are here.

D W Storer 2018 / 2019