The name Baphomet comes up in several of these dubious confessions. Two Templars burned at the stake illustration from a 15th–century French manuscript Jules Michelet, History of France (1860), page 375. 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.' '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. The indictment ( acte d'accusation) published by the court of Rome set forth. Similarly, Michael Haag suggests that the simulated worship of Baphomet did indeed form part of a Templar initiation rite: 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'. Yet Malcolm Barber observes that historians 'find it difficult to accept that an affair of such enormity rests upon total fabrication'. Most of them were dubious, as they were the same charges that were leveled against the Cathars and many of King Philip's enemies he had earlier kidnapped Pope Boniface VIII and charged him with nearly identical offenses. Over 100 different charges had been leveled against the Templars, including heresy, homosexual relations, spitting and urinating on the cross, and sodomy. The name Baphomet appeared in trial transcripts for the Inquisition of the Knights Templar that same year. King Philip IV of France had many French Templars simultaneously arrested, and then tortured into confessions in October 1307. īaphomet was allegedly worshipped as a deity by the medieval order of the Knights Templar. 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. Around 1250, a Provençal poem by Austorc d'Aorlhac bewailing the defeat of the Seventh Crusade again uses the name Bafomet for Muhammad. The name Bafometz later appeared around 1195 in the Provençal poems Senhors, per los nostres peccatz by the troubadour Gavaudan. Raymond of Aguilers, a chronicler of the First Crusade, reports that the troubadours used the term Bafomet for Muhammad, and Bafumaria for a mosque. Īs 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. 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. The name Baphomet appeared in July 1098 in a letter about the siege of Antioch by the French Crusader Anselm of Ribemont: History įurther information: Christianity in the Middle Ages and Medieval Inquisition

Lévi's intention was to symbolize his concept of balance, with Baphomet representing the goal of perfect social order. 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. 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. 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. The name Baphomet appeared in trial transcripts for the Inquisition of the Knights Templar starting in 1307. The arms bear the Latin words SOLVE (dissolve) and COAGULA (coagulate).īaphomet is a deity allegedly worshipped by the Knights Templar that subsequently became incorporated into various occult and Western esoteric traditions. An 1856 depiction of the Sabbatic Goat from Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie by Éliphas Lévi. Not to be confused with Bahamut or Behemoth.

Demon skull sketch