FAQ: Who's Baphomet?

OR

FAQ: Who's Baphomet? Is Baphomet a demon, pagan God, or symbolism for duality?

Short Answer: The answer will depend on whomever you are asking in the 21st century.

Long Answer: I have occasionally been asked variations of the question(s) about Baphomet over the years. The history connected to this question is complicated—so to start let me go over a bit of the history.

Originally, “Baphomet” was a term or name used to describe the alleged pagan idol/deity that the Knights Templar were accused of worshipping in the early 14th century.

[I’ll return to the charges against the Templars (“The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon”) involving Baphomet.]

Since the 19th century, the name Baphomet has been associated with an image drawn by Eliphas Levi, in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie ("Dogma and Rituals of High Magic"). Levi’s drawing is the most famous image of Baphomet.

The 19th century image created by Eliphas Levi. The arms bear the Latin words SOLVE (separate) and COAGULA (join together). This image is public domain.

Indeed, Levi’s Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, 1897, has become a standard reference for modern occultism.

Levi referred to his drawing in *Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie* as "The Goat of Mendes." This same drawing by Levi is also known as the Sabbatic Goat and Baphomet.

Is Baphomet an image symbolizing duality?

Yes, many occultists will answer that Levi’s Baphomet does symbolize for duality. One of it’s meanings in the figure’s hand positions is “as above so below,” The enigmatic figure is a composite creature representing the reconciliation of opposites. It is a composite creature made up of both human and animal parts. As fertility image, it has both male and female attributes. Though female breasts are evident, there is an erect penis, visually stylized as the caduceus. Thus, Levi’s drawing depicts a hermaphroditic humanoid with a goat‘s head, feathered wings,  and goatish hairy legs with hooves.  A light crowns the figure between its horns. An upright pentangle sits upon its brow.   The image is one that mainly deals with the Note that. Female breasts are evident, as is an erect penis, stylized as the caduceus.

Montague Summers claimed the word “Baphomet” came from the Greek baphe and metis meaning “absorption into wisdom.”  Other occultists state the name “Baphomet” referred to the “Baptism of Wisdom”-- bafe (baphe = baptism) and metis (metis = wisdom)—which related to either a pagan mystery tradition or a gnostic dualistic tradition.

Certainly, Levi’s 19th century image could tie into either of those concepts.

Is Baphomet a “pagan God”?

In Jungian theory involving archetypal images, Baphomet can be seen as one manifestation of the Horned God archetype.

Levi’s  drawing is also known by the name The Sabbatic Goat.  That title tied the goat-headed image into the ancient God of the Witches’ Sabbat.

Yes, some Neo-Pagan Witches and Wiccans view  Levi’s  drawing of the Sabbatic Goat, as another representation of the Horned God, Lord of the forest, plains, and fields to whom the witches of old danced in circle honoring him for fertility purposes. Thus he is an ancient Pagan God--akin to the Great God Pan of Arcadia, the Latin Faunus, and the Grecco-Egyptian ram headed Ammon-Zeus.

There is a fairly well known Neo-Pagan Horned God Chant: “Pan, Woden, Baphomet, Cernunnos, Osiris!”

According to Raymond Buckland in The Witch Book: The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, Wicca, and Neo-paganism, 2002, “Some  individual Witches acknowledge it as a representation of a Wiccan fertility deity, while others abhor it.” (p 38) Well, the image in Levi’s drawing has always attracted controversy.

Is Baphomet a demon?

Certain Fundamentalist Christians—especially those who were eager to believe the 1980’s “satanic panic” crap--will most likely answer that Levi’s drawing is either a representation of “Satan” or is a representation of an “evil demon”.   

Some Ceremonial Magicians may classify Levi’s as a “demon.”

These answers give insight into what different folks now think about the image in Levi’s drawing--but none of these really answer who  or what Baphomet is—or what this term most likely meant BEFORE the 19th century.

Baphomet is a term originally used to describe the alleged pagan idol/deity that the Christian Knights Templar in the Holy Land were accused of worshipping in the early 14th century. Gerald Gardner in  Witchcraft Today put forward his theory that the Knights Templar might have been practicing some version the Old Religion.  Gardner does not claim that Levi’s drawing of Baphomet is what the Templers worshiped. He does discuss what might have been part of the Templar’s secret initiation, and whether the idol was a skull or head made of wood.

Peter Partner’s 1987 book, The Knights Templar and their Myth wrote: "In the trial of the Templars one of their main charges was their supposed worship of a heathen idol-head known as a 'Baphomet' ('Baphomet' = Mahomet). “

Partner and other modern scholars including Malcolm Barber--as well as the Oxford English Dictionary --agree that the name of Baphomet was a corruption the Old French "Mahomet" which was a deformation of the name of “Muhammad (Mohammed)”-- the “Praised One.”

Yes, that is Muhammad who is the prophet of the religion of Islam.

Other versions of the name Baphomet include Baphometh, Baffometi, Bafometz, and Baffomet.

The spelling, “Baphometh,” appeared in July 1098 in a letter by the crusader Anselm of Ribemont:

English: As the next day dawned, they called loudly upon Baphometh; and we prayed silently in our hearts to God, then we attacked and forced all of them outside the city walls.

Latin: Sequenti die aurora apparente, altis vocibus Baphometh invocaverunt; et nos Deum nostrum in cordibus nostris deprecantes, impetum facientes in eos, de muris civitatis omnes expulimus.

There were rumors about the Templars' secret initiation ceremony. Inquisitors believed that the Knights Templar had begun incorporating Islamic ideas into their belief system, a heretical practice.

Accusations that the Templars were worshipping "Baphomet" meant—to Catholic Europeans--that the Templars had abandoned Christianity and were secretly worshiping foreign gods and idols. These Soldiers of Christ were secretly Muslims.

It is worth noting that only 12 of the 231 Templar Knights examined under torture admitted to knowing anything about a statue, idol, or head/skull. According to some of the documented evidence acquired by torture:

Gauserand de Montpesant, a knight of Provence, said that their superior showed him an idol made in the form of Baffomet; another, named Raymond Rubei, described it as a wooden head, on which the figure of Baphomet was painted, and adds, "that he worshipped it by kissing its feet, and exclaiming, 'Yalla,' which was," he says, "verbum Saracenorum," a word taken from the Saracens. A templar of Florence declared that, in the secret chapters of the order, one brother said to the other, showing the idol, “Adore this head—this head is your god and your Mahomet.”

Copyright August 2017 Myth Woodling

Sources:

Raymond Buckland in The Witch Book: The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, Wicca, and Neo-paganism, 2002.

FAQ
"Yet Another Wicca..." home page