_Baphomet_

The goat idol of the _Templars_ and the deity of the sorcerers'
Sabbat.  The name is composed of three abbreviations: Tem. ohp.
Ab., *Templi omnium hominum pacis abhas*, "the father of the
temple of universal peace among men."

Some authorities hold that Baphomet was a monstrous head, others
that it was a demon in the form of a goat.  An account of a
veritable Baphometic idol is as follows: 

[describing the Levi Baphomet, perhaps Levi's descript. -- tn]

	A pantheistic and magical figure of the Absolute.
	The torch placed between two horns, represents
	the equilibrating intelligence of the triad.  The
	goat's head, which is synthetic, and unites some
	characteristics of the dog, bull, and ass,
	represents the exclusive responsibility of matter
	and the expiation of bodily sins in the body.
	The hands are human, to exhibit the sanctity of
	labor; they make the sign of esotericism above and
	below, to impress mystery on initiates, and they
	point at two lunar crescents, the upper being white
	and the lower black, to explain the correspondences
	of good and evil, mercy and justice.  The lower part
	of the body is veiled, portraying the mysteries of
	universal generation, which is expressed solely by
	the symbol of the caduceus.  The belly of the goat
	is scaled, and should be colored green, the semi-
	circle above should be blue; the plumage, reaching
	to the breast, should be of various hues.  The goat
	has female breasts, and thus its only characteristics
	are those of maternity and toil, otherwise the signs
	of redemption.  On its forehead, between the horns
	and beneath the torch, is the sign of the microcosm,
	or the pentagram with one beam in the ascendant,
	symbol of human intelligence, which, placed thus
	below the torch, makes the flame of the latter an
	image of divine revelation.  This Pantheos should
	be seated on a cube, and its footstool should be a
	single ball, or a ball and a triangular stool."

In _Narratives of Sorcery and Magic_ (1851), Thomas Wright
stated:

	Another charge in the accusation of the Templars 
	seems to have been to a great degree proved by the
	deposition of witnesses; the idol or head which
	they are said to have worshipped, but the real
	character or meaning of which we are totally unable
	to explain.  Many Templars confessed to having seen
	this idol, but as they described it differently,
	we must suppose that it was not in all cases
	represented under the same form.  Some said it was
	a frightful head, with long beard and sparkling
	eyes; others said it was a man's skull; some
	described it as having three faces; some sait it
	was of wood, and others of metal; one witness
	described it as a painting (*tabula picta*)
	representing the image of a man (*imago hominis*)
	and said that when it was shown to him, he was
	ordered to 'adore Christ, his creator.'  According
	to another deposition, the idol had four feet, two
	before and two behind; the one belonging to the
	order at Paris, was said to be a silver head, with
	two faces and beard.  The novices of the order
	told always to regard this idol as their saviour.
	Deodatus Jaffet, a knight from the south of France,
	who had been received at Pedenat, deposed that the
	person who in his case performed the ceremonies of
	reception, showed him a head or idol, which
	appeared to have three faces, and said, 'You must
	adore this as your saviour, and the saviour of the
	order of the Temple' and htat he was made to worship
	the idol, saying, 'Blessed be he who shall save my
	soul.'  Cettus Ragonis, a knight received at Rome
	in a chamber of the palace of the Lateran, gave a
	somewhat similar account.  Many other witnesses
	spoke of having seen these heads, which, however,
	were, perhaps, not shown to everybody, for the
	greatest number of those who spoke on this subject,
	said that they had heard speak of the head, but that
	they had never seen it themselves; and many of them
	declared their disbelief in its existence.  A friar
	minor deposed in England that an English Templar
	had assured him that in that country the order had
	four principal idols, one at London, in the Sacristy
	of the Temple, another at Bristelham, a third at
	Brueria (Bruern in Lincolnshire), and a fourth
	beyond the Humber.

	Some of the knights from the south added another
	circumstance in their confessions relating to this
	head.  A templar of Florence, declared that, in
	the secret meetings of the chapters, one brother
	said to the others, showing them the idol, 'Adore
	this head.  This head is your God and your Mahomet.'
	Another, Gauserand de Montpesant, said that the idol
	was made in the figure of Baffomet (*in figuram
	Baffometi*); and another, Raymond Rubei, described
	it as a wooden head, on which was painted the figure
	of *Baphomet*, and he adds, 'that he worshipped it
	kissing its feet, and exclaiming *Xalla*,' which he
	describes as 'a word of the Saracens' (*verbum
	Saracenorum*).  This has been seized upon by some
	as proof that the Templars had secretly embraced
	Mahometanism, as *Baffomet* or *Baphomet* is
	evidently a corruption of Mahomet; but it must not
	be forgotten that the Christians of the West
	constantly used the word Mahomet in the mere
	signification of an idol, and that it was the desire
	of those who conducted the persecution against the
	Templars to show their intimate intercourse with
	the Saracens.  Others, especially Von Hammer, gave
	a Greek derivation of the word, and assumed it as a
	proof that gnosticism was the secret doctrine of the
	temple....

Some occultists have suggested that the Baphomet of the Templars
was really the god of the witches deriving from the nature god
Pan.  During the nineteenth century, the Austrian Orientalist
Baron Joseph von Hammer-Purghstall discovered an inscription on
a coffer in Burgundy which he claimed showed that Baphomet
derived from two Greek words meaning "Baptism of Metis" {Wisdom}";
the inscription exalted Metis or Baphomet as the true divinity.

When Karl Kellner and other early twentieth-century German
occultists founded the secret order _O.T.O._ (Ordo Templi Orientis
or Order of Templars in the East), they installed the British
occultist Aleister _Crowley_ as head of the British section, and
gave he gave himself the magical name of Baphomet.

---------------------------------------------------

Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, 2nd Ed., 
 edited and revised by Leslie Shepard, Gale Research
 Company, 1984; pp. 131-2.
______________________________________________________


"Bataille" and "Margiotta" claimed that the order of the Palladium
or Sovereign Council of Wisdom was constituted in France in 1737,
and this, they inferred, was one and the same as the legendary
Palladium of the Templars, better known by the name of _Baphomet_.

In 1801 one Isaac Long, a Jew, was said to have carried the
"original image" of Baphomet to Charleston in the United States,
and it is alleged that the lodge he founded then became the chief
in the Ancient and Accepted Scotch Rite.  He was succeeded in due
course by Albert Pike, who, it was alleged, extended the Scotch
Rite, and shared the Anti-Catholic Masonic chieftainship with the
Italian patriot Mazzini.  This new directory was established, it
was asserted, as the new Reformed Palladium Rite or the Reformed
Palladium.

Ibid, p. 330.
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