Glossary - exWitch Australia (formerly 'Born Again Pagan')

BAPHOMET

Eliphas Levi's androgenous goat-like version of Baphomet

The deity which, by tradition, was secretly worshipped by the Knights Templar, whose chivalrous order fell into disgrace on charges of heresy during the fourteenth century.

The romantic image of Baphomet was embellished by the 19th century German antiquarian, Josef von Harnmer-Purgstall, in a publication entitled Myslerium Baphomelis Revelalum which drew the deity as a bearded, androgynous figure. A similar image appears in the form of a carving in the church of St. Merri in France.

Whether Baphomet is modelled on such ancient concepts as the androgynous image of Artemis of Ephesus is unclear.

In October 1307 Philip IV of France ac-cused the Order of Knights Templar of heresy and homosexual vice.

Whether the accusations were true is uncertain, though the French king's greed for the Order's enormous wealth and the fact that the knights' confessions were extorted by torture and threats have made many historians suspicious.

One of the accusations was that the Templars worshipped an idol named Bap-hornet. This was a head, sometimes said to be a human skull, sometimes a stuffed human head, sometimes a head with three faces. The knights were accused of believing that the head was the source of their riches and also the source of fertility: it made the trees blossom and the earth produce crops.

Cults of the head as the seat of life and fertility, evidenced by its ability to grow a crop of hair, are known from many parts of the world but very few of the Templars confessed to worshipping the head. Of 231 knights examined by the pope's Commissioners, only 12 admitted knowing anything about the head, as against 183 who confessed that they had renounced Christ and 180 who confessed to defiling the cross in various ways.

The name Baphomet itself is a puzzle. It is usually explained as a corruption of Mahomet, which was spelled Bafomet in Provence (France), the centre of the Cathar heresy with which some authorities believe the knights were infected.

Alternatively, Montague Summers, the learned though unduly credulous historian of witchcraft and Satanism, suggested that the name was a combination of two Greek words (baphe and metis) and meant 'absorption into wisdom'; the wisdom being the know-ledge of the god who had really created the world and man, and of whom Christ was an evil enemy.

The name is also ascribed to the androgynous, winged, Sabbatic Goat depicted sitting astride the world in the 1896 portrait created by Eliphas Levi who used the imagery of the Devil card in the Tarot pack to elaborate a mixture of traditional and modern occult symbolism into a demonic god.

Details include a flaming torch located between the horns, aPentagram above the eyes, the breasts of a woman, a reptilian belly surmounted by snakes and goat-like hoofs. The picture (which is reproduced above right) as an illustration to his book The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic.

Levi called it the Baphomet of Mendes, combining in one image the idol of the Templars, the Tarot card called the Devil, the Satan of the medieval witches' sabbath who appeared as a goat, and the divine he-goat worshipped in classical times at Mendes in Egypt and said to copulate with its female devotees, as the Devil supposedly did with witches.

Levi called the drawing 'a pantheistic and magical figure of the Absolute', a diagram of the god who is the sum total of everything in the universe. The figure contains symbols of the four elements, the head standing for fire, the wings for air, the scales for water, the legs for earth.

The torch is a symbol of divine revelation, thePentagram of human intelligence, the white and black crescent moons of good and evil, the caduceus of the union of the sexes, the breasts and hands of maternity and toil, two of the penalties for the sin of Adam and Eve but also, according to Levi, 'the signs of redemption'.

Baphomet was adopted as the tutelary deity of the occult organization founded by Aleister Crowley, Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), and is represented during rites by the Grand Commander following a convention adopted by Crowley as first chief of the OTO.

While Baphomet has long been the object of veneration among several other occult and magical fraternities, though is virtually unknown in Neo-Pagan practice.

PLEASE NOTE:
One of the major problems with 'defining' Paganism and/or its beliefs and practices is that it is an 'organic' movement, in that it is undergoing constant change and re-evaluation from within, and as such any 'one-size-fits-all' approach to understanding Paganism will be found wanting.

Due to the very 'organic' nature of Paganism, and the many differing Paths and Traditions within it, in many cases no one definition may be universally accepted by all Pagans. Therefore, where such cases of possible conflicting and/or contradictory meanings of certain terms occur I have endevoured to give not only the generally accepted meaning, but also any major 'variations' in belief and/or practice.

Christians who believe this difference in meaning of certain key terms, beliefs and practices to be unique to Paganism need to remember that such conflicts also arise within the Body of Christ - the Church. Take for instance the differing practices amongst Christians concerning Baptism and the different attitudes towards women in the clergy.

- Jean-Luc