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To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.satanism,alt.politics.satanism,talk.religion.misc,alt.christnet.demonology
From: satanservice.org@boboroshi (SOD of the CoE)
Subject: Baphomet Demystified (was Baphomet or Satan?)
Date: Sun, 18 Jul 2004 09:52:25 GMT

Hail Satan

50040717 viii om

shadowbadger2000@yahoo.com (Stone Wolf):
# Actually, the Sigil of Baphomet historically originated 
# with the Templars. 

lol! "Sigil of Baphomet" most properly refers to the pentagram

construct employed by Bessy and thereafter utilized by LaVey
in rite and on stationary. this should be in a FAQ somewhere.

# When the Templars were persecuted, some of them made claims
# that the order worshipped a mysterious entity or idol called 
# Baphomet.

condemnation-scheme materials. consult contemporary or better
sources and you'll see it's a Mohammedan slander ("Mahomet").
the reason the devastation of the Templars happened was very
generally their financial position and the desires of the King
and Pope of the time period to do away with them (compare the
'Burning Times' motivation to remove specific 'witches' (very
generally Christians) from their landholdings and societal 
positions).

# They were imprisoned and since they were presumably not in contact
# with each other, their stories couldn't have been collaborated between
# each other, yet, several of them did talk about the same entity,
# Baphomet. 

sources? who talked? what were their words? the most imaginative
sources talk about a head of some old man in a box. unreliable 
slander without compelling veracity.

# That's one of the mysteries surrounding the Templars. 
# Where exactly did they come up with the Baphomet? 

they didn't. it was a reference to the Final Prophet of Muslims.
later writers fabricated 'Baphomet' as a kind of weird god or
demon. Levi made a cute drawing identifying it with terrestrial
concerns and syncretism and 'decoded' it backwards from something
very humorously Roman Catholic. 

Crowley attached the name to a monster identified by 
alchemists as Mercury as part of his self-ID. 

then LaVey called the Sigil he found 'The Baphomet'. it's a
tangled history, but most FAQs on CoSatanism should have it,
especially Herbert Paulis' (if it doesn't, this is a glaring
oversight).

# What was it's significance? What did it mean?

there's the real query for you. I'll take each of the three
we're talking about and expose the dearth of my study on 
the subject, hopefully corrected by my betters:

	without addressing the issue (philosophic) of what
	the exact relation is between symbols and meaning,
	the significances which may be ascribed are:

	a) Levi's Baphomet was a rough draft for his
	   Devil Tarot card, from what I can tell;
	   it's the Lord of this World, identifying
	   the unified and dual modalities of the
	   cosmos in star-god terms consonant with
	   his predominantly Christian mindset (for
	   more creative information see Pike's
	   "Morals and Dogma" and of course Levi's
	   "Transcendental Magic" -- I know I've
	   collected the proper quotations on the
	   term online somewhere but can't really
	   be bothered to look it up right now :>).

	b) Crowley's Baphomet was a composite of a
	   Rooster (long known as a Solar entity,
	   probably its connection to Gold), a human
	   being (the Hermes-Thoth of Mercurial fame),
	   and a tentacled monster with Planets in its
	   grasp (some indication of its cosmic power
	   and ability to shift between or amongst the
	   states and spheres of pre-Copernican cosmic
	   shells? maybe some communicator of the state
	   change that transubstantiative technology
	   assigns to Quicksilver -- for more on this
	   figure try an alchemy forum and consider
	   why Crowley was obsessed with Patmos John).

	c) LaVey's Baphomet was a found object of very
	   simple design; its components are a point-down 
	   unicursal pentagram, whose meaning is given 
	   by stargod enthusiasts and their inversos as 
	   the victory of the concrete over the spiritual, 
	   triumph of the demonic over the angelic, etc.; 
	   the Goathead is typically ascribed to 'Azazel',
	   which see, and the Scapegoat of Jews which
	   sets into motion the martyrdom of neuvo-
	   religious, plus there are comparisons made
	   between the 'sheep' of Christian churches
	   and the 'goats' of Satanist grottos; the
	   Hebrew letters at the five points are those
	   implying the name 'Leviathan', a monstrosity
	   from Jewish scripture (artist may have been 
	   Oswald Wirth, but I don't remember a firm 
	   identification: cf. MAquino's or someone 
	   else's analysis which is archived in Google
	   or at luckymojo.com)

why any of these might be 'Satanic' is anyone's guess,
but the fact that the name of the figure is controversial
and identifying in at least two instances (Crowley, LaVey)
is an indication of the intention of those employing it.

# The Church, in it's 'infinite' wisdom immediately assumed 
# the Baphomet was a demon, 

and your source for this is? the god Allah is considered
by Christians a demon, the angel Gabriel as identified by 
the Muslims is considered by Christians to be a demon, 
and the man Muhammad is considered to have been misled by
demons (or, if charitable, "djinns"). worshipping him 
would even go beyond this to great heaps of folly, his 
head doubly so. the usual spitting upon the Cross as 
described for the Templar membership might be consonant 
with Muslim allegiances (because they don't believe in
his deific status or survival of death, so the Cross is
considered blaphemous -- cf. "Tawhid" and the horrific
blasphemy of 'Shirk', the former of whch is part of
the name of the group harrying the US Troops in Iraq).

# or an allusion to the devil. 

monstrosities, especially those which are theriomorphic,
are typical depictions for demons and devils of all kinds,
including the Christian or Muslim Bogeys.

# There ya go. Baphomet de-mystified. Kinda.

badly so. study up.

attributions removed:
#>#>#> Do "Satanists" consider "Baphomet" to be "Satan"?

the qualifiers are confusing. some Satanists like what they
call 'The Baphomet' or 'Baphomet'. some consider the latter
a goddess, some a sigil, some another mask of the Great Beast.

the primary problems with the question include:

	a) the presupposition (false) that all Satanists
	   consider symbolism and terminology the same way.

	b) the presupposition (false) that all Satanists
	   regard Satan in the same way.

	c) the presupposition (false) that all 'Satanists'
	   self-identify the same way or can be easily
	   or concisely grouped by a tentative "Satanists"
	   (for this would include external-identifiers
	   and therefore include the condemnation schemes
	   of the Religions of the Book Smear Campaign).

blessed beast!

boboroshi at-sign satanservice.org: Satanic Outreach Director
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