Baphomet

Baphomet is a deity allegedly worshipped by the Knights Templar that subsequently became incorporated into various occult and Western esoteric traditions. The name Baphomet appeared in trial transcripts for the Inquisition of the Knights Templar starting in 1307. 

It first came into popular English usage in the 19th century during debate and speculation on the reasons for the suppression of the Templar order. Baphomet is a symbol of balance in various occult and mystical traditions, the origin of which some occultists have attempted to link with the Gnostics and Templars, although occasionally purported to be a deity or a demon. Since 1856 the name Baphomet has been associated with the "Sabbatic Goat" image drawn by Éliphas Lévi, composed of binary elements representing the "symbolization of the equilibrium of opposites": half-human and half-animal, male and female, good and evil, etc. Lévi's intention was to symbolize his concept of balance, with Baphomet representing the goal of perfect social order. 

The name Baphomet appeared in July 1098 in a letter about the siege of Antioch by the crusader Anselm of Ribemont:

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.

As the next day dawned, they (i.e. the inhabitants of Antioch) 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.

Raymond of Aguilers, a chronicler of the First Crusade, reports that the troubadours used the term Bafomet for Muhammad and Bafumaria for a mosque. The name Bafometz later appeared around 1195 in the Occitan poems Senhors, per los nostres peccatz by the troubadour Gavaudan. Around 1250 a poem bewailing the defeat of the Seventh Crusade by Austorc d'Aorlhac again uses Bafomet for Muhammad. De Bafomet is also the title of one of four surviving chapters of an Occitan translation of Ramon Llull's earliest known work, the Libre de la doctrina pueril.

Baphomet was allegedly worshipped as a deity by the medieval order of the Knights Templar. King Philip IV of France had many French Templars simultaneously arrested, and then tortured into confessions in October 1307. The name Baphomet appeared in trial transcripts for the Inquisition of the Knights Templar that same year. Over 100 different charges had been levelled against the Templars, including heresy, homosexual relations, spitting and urinating on the cross, and sodomy. Most of them were dubious, as they were the same charges that were levelled against the Cathars and many of King Philip's enemies; he had earlier kidnapped Pope Boniface VIII and charged him with nearly identical offences. Yet Malcolm Barber observes that historians "find it difficult to accept that an affair of such enormity rests upon total fabrication". The "Chinon Parchment 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 Saracens, where they were taught how to commit apostasy "with the mind only and not with the heart". Similarly, Michael Haag suggests that the simulated worship of Baphomet did indeed form part of a Templar initiation rite.

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."

— Jules Michelet, "History of France"

Two Templars burned at the stake (from a French 15th-century manuscript)

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' ('Baphomet' = Mahomet)." 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 lviiim, another said to be St. Euphemia, and possibly the actual head of Hugues de Payens. The claims of an idol named Baphomet were unique to the Inquisition of the Templars. Karen Ralls, the author of the Knights Templar Encyclopedia, argues that it is significant that "no specific evidence (of Baphomet) appears in either the Templar Rule or in other medieval period Templar documents."

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 added, "that he worshipped it by kissing its feet, and exclaiming, 'Yalla', which was", he says, "verbum Saracenorum", a word is 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."

— Thomas Wright, "The Worship of the Generative Powers"

Drawings of upright and inverted pentagrams representing Spirit over matter (holiness) and matter over Spirit (evil), respectively, from La Clef de la magie noire (1897) by French occultist Stanislas de Guaita.2)Note the names Adam, Eve, Samael, and Lilith.

The name Baphomet came into popular English usage in the 19th century during debate and speculation on the reasons for the suppression of the Templars. Modern scholars agree that the name of Baphomet was an Old French corruption of the name "Mohammed", with the interpretation being that some of the Templars, through their long military occupation of the Outremer, had begun incorporating Islamic ideas into their belief system and that this was seen and documented by the Inquisitors as heresy. Alain Demurger, 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 believed that Muslims were idolatrous and worshipped Muhammad as a god, with Mahomet becoming mammet in English, meaning an idol or false god (see also Medieval Christian views on Muhammad). This idol-worship is attributed to Muslims in several chansons de geste. For example, one finds the gods Bafum e Travagan in a Provençal poem on the life of St. Honorat, completed in 1300. In the Chanson de Simon Pouille, written before 1235, a Saracen idol is called Bafumetz.

According to Marillac the Baphomet head appears on the facade of an old carved window tympanum at Bailly de la saulce-sur-yonne commanderie des chevaliers du Temple, then after the baillage de l’ordre souverain de Malte. in which it cannot be found on the net. (See https://www.lesaulce.fr/)

1. Baphomet could be Mahomet French for Mohammad changed the M by B and added the letter "p"

2. Baphomet could be the head of John the Baptizer

REM: Do not subscribe to any of these enunciated.

The book was purchased on 93/04/24 and listed under SUNS 930424SSI45

The author gives some esoteric or occult definitions of the Baphomet using the cabala, the arc of the covenant, the fundamental stone, yin yan, and the 4 elements plus hot, dry, cold, and humid.

Stone in the Convento de Cristo in Tomar (Portugal), (16th century); is a possible symbol for the Baphomet.

The Convent of Christ (Portuguese: Convento de Cristo/Mosteiro de Cristo) is a former Catholic convent in Tomar, Portugal. Originally a 12th-century Templar stronghold, when the order was dissolved in the 14th century, the Portuguese branch was turned into the Knights of the Order of Christ, which later supported Portugal's maritime discoveries of the 15th century. The convent and castle complex is a historical and cultural monument and was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1983.