Baphomet: Was a Diabolical Demon Actually Worshipped by these Knights Templars?

Baphomet perhaps most identified as the identity of the deity supposedly devoted by the Knights Templar. In 14th century, during the Inquest of the Templars, the knights were mistakenly accused of devotion to this figure. The prominent icon of the Baphomet, explicitly as the goat-headed icon, however, only comes out much later on. The icon hurriedly became the sign of the occult, particularly as the illustration of the Devil and the evil.

The History of Baphomet being a Goat-Headed Statue

It was then in 1854 that the Baphomet becomes the goat-headed statue that we are known today. He was known as Eliphas Levi, the French ritual magician that re-imagined Baphomet being the statue he named as ‘Sabbatic Goat’. Eliphas Levi’s Baphomet was intended to represent the unification of opposite forces. For example, the figure is one hermaphrodite, having both the female and the male physical parts. Furthermore, Eliphas Levi’s Baphomet was proposed to serve as the collective symbol for all the magical images from the early animistic or polytheistic traditions that endured the widening of Christianity. For example, the caprine factors were inspired by the Banebdjedet, the prehistoric Egyptian goat-headed divinity, together with Pan, the Greek deity.

Eliphas Levi’s Baphomet was accepted by the eminent occultist, Aleister Crowley. Aleister Crowley associated Baphomet to Satan, and connected this icon with an idea of censored knowledge and secret devotion. Therefore, in opposition to the customary Christian thoughts, Crowley disagreed that Satan was actually not the mankind’s enemy, but its ally.