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" of Sorcery and "(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".T.O. (Ordo Templi Orientis
or Order of Templars in the East), they installed the British
occultist Aleister "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 "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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