Baphomet is a symbol connected to secret beliefs and mystical traditions in Western culture. The name appeared in the 1300s during the trials of the Knights Templar, a religious group accused of worshiping Baphomet as a demonic statue. In the 1800s, occultists revisited the topic as debates about the Templars' past continued.
The modern image of Baphomet was created by Éliphas Lévi in his 1856 book Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie. His drawing, called the Sabbatic Goat, shows a winged creature with both human and goat features, blending male and female traits. This design represents the idea of perfect balance between opposites. Today, Baphomet is often used as a symbol in occultism to show the unity of opposing ideas, hidden knowledge, and the concept of the universe as a whole.
History
In July 1098, during the siege of Antioch by the French Crusader Anselm of Ribemont, the name "Baphomet" appeared in a letter. It described an event: "The next day, as dawn appeared, the people of Antioch called loudly to Baphomet. We prayed silently in our hearts to God, then attacked and forced all of them outside the city walls."
Raymond of Aguilers, a chronicler of the First Crusade, wrote that troubadours used the term "Bafomet" to refer to Muhammad and "Bafumaria" for a mosque. Around 1195, the name "Bafometz" appeared in a Provençal poem by Gavaudan. About 1250, another Provençal poem by Austorc d'Aorlhac, which mourned the defeat of the Seventh Crusade, again used "Bafomet" for Muhammad. "De Bafomet" was also the title of one of four surviving chapters in an Occitan translation of Ramon Llull’s earliest known work, the Libre de la doctrina pueril.
Baphomet was allegedly worshipped as a deity by the medieval Knights Templar. In October 1307, King Philip IV of France arrested and tortured many French Templars to extract confessions. The name "Baphomet" appeared in trial transcripts from the Inquisition of the Knights Templar that year. Over 100 charges were made against the Templars, including heresy, homosexual relations, spitting and urinating on the cross, and sodomy. Most charges were questionable, as they mirrored accusations against the Cathars and King Philip’s enemies. However, historian Malcolm Barber noted that scholars find it hard to believe such a significant event was entirely fabricated. The "Chinon Parchment" suggests the Templars may have spat on the cross, an act possibly meant to mimic the humiliation a Crusader might face if captured by Saracens. Michael Haag suggested that the simulated worship of Baphomet may have been part of a Templar initiation rite.
The name "Baphomet" appears in several confessions from the trial. Peter Partner wrote in his 1987 book The Knights Templar and their Myth that one major charge against the Templars was their supposed worship of a heathen idol called "Baphomet" (a corruption of "Mohammed"). Descriptions of the object varied: some Templars denied knowing it, while others described it as a severed head, a cat, or a head with three faces. The Templars owned several silver-gilt heads as reliquaries, including one marked "capud lviii" and another said to be St. Euphemia. Claims about Baphomet were unique to the Inquisition of the Templars. Karen Ralls, author of The Knights Templar Encyclopedia, argues that no evidence of Baphomet appears in Templar Rule or other medieval Templar documents.
The name "Baphomet" entered popular English usage in the 19th century during debates about the suppression of the Templars. Modern scholars agree that "Baphomet" was an Old French corruption of "Mohammed." Some Templars, due to their long military presence in the Outremer, may have adopted Islamic ideas, which the Inquisitors viewed as heresy. Alain Demurger, however, rejects the idea that the Templars adopted their enemies’ doctrines. Helen Nicholson states the charges were "manipulative," with the Templars accused of becoming "fairy-tale Muslims." Medieval Christians believed Muslims worshipped Muhammad as a god, with "mahomet" becoming "mammet" in English, meaning an idol or false god. This idol-worship is mentioned in medieval texts like the Chanson de Simon Pouille, where a Saracen idol is called "Bafumetz."
Alternative etymologies
Modern scholars and the Oxford English Dictionary suggest that the name "Baphomet" likely comes from an Old French version of "Mahomet." However, other theories about its origin have also been proposed.
In the 18th century, some people suggested that the Knights Templar were connected to the beginnings of Freemasonry. A man named Christoph Friedrich Nicolai, who was a bookseller, Freemason, and member of a secret society called the Illuminati, wrote in 1782 that the Templars might have been followers of a religious group called the Gnostics. He claimed that "Baphomet" was made from Greek words meaning "Baptism of Wisdom." Nicolai also believed that the name represented an image of a supreme god, as described by a group called the Manichaean Gnostics. He thought the Templars had a secret religious system and rituals, which they may have learned from the Saracens. Nicolai linked the symbol "Baphomet" to a shape called the Pythagorean pentacle.
Émile Littré, a French dictionary writer, said the word "Baphomet" might have been formed using a secret method called cabalism. He suggested it was created by writing the letters "tem. o. h. p. ab" backward, which he claimed stood for "abbot of the temple of peace of all men." Littré's source was a man named Alphonse-Louis Constant, who later used the name Eliphas Lévi.
Hugh J. Schonfield, a scholar who studied ancient texts like the Dead Sea Scrolls, wrote in his book The Essene Odyssey that the word "Baphomet" might have been created using a code called the Atbash cipher. This code replaces the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet with the last, the second with the second last, and so on. When "Baphomet" is written in Hebrew, it becomes "Shofya," which is similar to the Greek word "Sophia," meaning "wisdom." This idea appears in the novel The Da Vinci Code, but a French historian named Thierry Murcia later questioned the accuracy of Schonfield's calculations.
Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall
In 1818, the name and idea of Baphomet were discussed in an essay by Joseph Freiherr von Hammer-Purgstall, a scholar from Vienna who studied Eastern cultures. The essay was titled Mysterium Baphometis revelatum, seu Fratres Militiæ Templi, qua Gnostici et quidem Ophiani, Apostasiæ, Idoloduliæ et Impuritatis convicti, per ipsa eorum Monumenta (translated as "Discovery of the Mystery of Baphomet, by which the Knights Templars, like the Gnostics and Ophites, are convicted of Apostasy, Idolatry, and Moral Impurity, by their own Monuments").
The essay aimed to challenge the beliefs of Templarist Masonry and, by extension, Freemasonry in general, by connecting them to Gnosticism, a religious movement from ancient times. Hammer-Purgstall used fake artifacts created by earlier scholars and stories from medieval tales, such as the Grail romances, to argue that the Knights Templars worshipped a Gnostic idol called Baphomet.
One source from 1851, Encyclopedia Americana, mentioned "Baphomet." However, Hammer-Purgstall's essay faced criticism. F. J. M. Raynouard wrote a study in Journal des savants the following year to challenge his claims. Charles William King argued that Hammer-Purgstall had been misled by "the paraphernalia of … Rosicrucian or alchemical quacks," and Peter Partner agreed that the images "may have been forgeries from the occultist workshops." At the time, there was little proof linking these items to the Knights Templar. In the 19th century, some European museums acquired objects that looked like ancient Egyptian artifacts and mistakenly labeled them as "Baphomets," believing they were idols used by the Templars.
Éliphas Lévi
In the late 1800s, the name Baphomet became more closely linked with the occult. Éliphas Lévi wrote a book called Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (Dogma and Rituals of High Magic) in two parts (1854 and 1856). In this book, he included a drawing he made himself, which he called Baphomet and "The Sabbatic Goat." The image shows a winged humanoid goat with two breasts, a torch on its head between its horns. This picture is now the most well-known image of Baphomet. Lévi believed the Baphomet represented the absolute in symbolic form and explained the meaning of the symbols in his drawing.
Lévi’s image of Baphomet resembles the image of The Devil in early Tarot cards. Lévi connected the Devil card to Mercury, giving the figure Mercury’s caduceus, which looks like a staff with two snakes. The word "caduceus" comes from Greek and means "herald’s wand." It was also a symbol used by diplomats and was linked to trade, speech, alchemy, and deception. The word "caduceus" is from the Greek karukeion, which comes from kērux, meaning "herald."
Lévi believed that the medieval idea of witches worshipping the devil was a continuation of older pagan traditions. Records from medieval witchcraft mention a goat with a candle between its horns, and other details are described in Dogme et Rituel.
Lévi’s image of Baphomet may have been inspired by strange carvings on churches in Lanleff, Brittany, and Saint-Merri, Paris. These carvings show squat, bearded men with bat wings, female breasts, horns, and the shaggy body of an animal.
Lévi’s references to the School of Alexandria and the Templars relate to debates about the origins of true Christianity. These debates included ideas from Romantic socialism, which some saw as connected to ancient mystics like the Gnostics and Templars. Lévi supported these ideas since the 1840s and believed socialists and Romantic writers, like Alphonse de Lamartine, were heirs to this tradition. His ideas about Baphomet mirror historical views of socialism, as seen in works like Histoire des Montagnards by his friend Alphonse Esquiros. Lévi described Baphomet as a symbol of a revolutionary tradition that would lead to the "emancipation of humanity" and a perfect society.
In Lévi’s writings, Baphomet also represents occult forces explained by his theory of the Astral Light. He developed this idea in the context of "spiritualist magnetism," a theory that linked magnetism to religion. Some socialists believed magnetism could unite religion and science. Lévi argued against Catholic writers like Jules-Eudes de Mirville and Roger Gougenot des Mousseaux, who claimed magnetism was caused by demons.
The name "Mendes" comes from the ancient Egyptian city of Djedet. Lévi connected his image of Baphomet to "The Goat of Mendes," possibly following Herodotus’s description of a god with a goat’s face and legs. Herodotus wrote that the people of Mendes revered male goats and that a woman once publicly had a relationship with a goat. The main gods of Mendes were Banebdjedet, a ram-headed deity linked to Osiris, and Hatmehit, a fish goddess. In Upper Egypt, the equivalent god was Khnum, often shown with ram horns. These horns symbolized fertility, rebirth, and resurrection. Khnum was first drawn with spiral horns, based on an extinct sheep, but later images showed horns similar to those of Ammon.
E. A. Wallis Budge wrote:
The connection between Baphomet and the pagan god Pan was also noted by Aleister Crowley and Anton LaVey.
Aleister Crowley
The Baphomet of Lévi became an important symbol in Thelema, a mystical belief system and religion created by Aleister Crowley in the early 1900s. Baphomet is mentioned in the Creed of the Gnostic Catholic Church, which is recited by members during a religious ceremony called the Gnostic Mass. The Creed includes the line: "And I believe in the Serpent and the Lion, Mystery of Mysteries, in His name BAPHOMET."
In his book Magick (Book 4), Crowley described Baphomet as a divine being with both male and female traits, calling it "the hieroglyph of arcane perfection." This symbol represents the idea that "what occurs above so reflects below, or As above so below."
For Crowley, Baphomet also represented the spiritual aspect of the Spermatozoon, which is a male reproductive cell. It also symbolized the "magical child" created through a practice called sex magic. In this way, Baphomet stands for the union of opposites, such as Chaos and Babalon, which are spiritual forces, and the biological joining of sperm and egg in a zygote, the earliest stage of life.
Crowley suggested that the name Baphomet came from "Father Mithras." He explained this connection in his book Confessions.
Modern interpretations and usage
Lévi's Baphomet is the inspiration for the image of the Devil in the Rider–Waite tarot design. Lévi described a goat known as the Goat of Mendes, placed inside a downward-pointing pentagram on its forehead. He compared this to a human figure placed inside an upright pentagram. The first image of a goat inside a downward-pointing pentagram appeared in the 1897 book La Clef de la Magie Noire by Stanislas de Guaita. This image later became the official symbol, called the Sigil of Baphomet, used by the Church of Satan and continues to be used by some Satanists.
According to Lévi's writings, Baphomet has sometimes been shown as a name for Satan or a demon, part of the hierarchy of Hell. Baphomet appears in this role as a character in James Blish's The Day After Judgment. Christian evangelist Jack T. Chick claimed Baphomet is a demon worshipped by Freemasons, a claim linked to the Taxil hoax. Lévi's Baphomet was featured on the cover of Les Mystères de la franc-maçonnerie dévoilés, a book by Léo Taxil, which was later revealed as a fake meant to mock the Catholic Church and anti-Masonic propaganda.
In 2014, The Satanic Temple created an 8.5 ft (2.6 m) statue of Baphomet to be displayed next to a monument of the Ten Commandments at the Oklahoma State Capitol, citing "respect for diversity and religious minorities" as the reason. The Oklahoma Supreme Court later ruled that religious displays on public land were not allowed. The Baphomet statue was shown in Detroit on July 25, 2015, as a symbol of the modern Satanist movement. The statue was later moved to Little Rock, Arkansas, for a demonstration on August 16, 2018, near another Ten Commandments monument.
In Sartor Resartus (1833–34) by Thomas Carlyle, the main character describes a spiritual rebirth as a "Baphometic Fire-baptism." In Clive Barker's novel Cabal (1988) and its film adaptation Nightbreed (1990), Baphomet is shown as the god worshipped by the Night Breed creatures.
Baphomet appears as a recurring enemy in the German novel series Geisterjäger John Sinclair, where he is the leader of Vincent van Akkeren and a group of renegade Knights Templar. In horror novels by Jason Dark, Baphomet is one of three evil beings that make up the unholy trinity of Lucifer, along with Asmodis and Beelzebub.
In the 2016 audio drama Robin of Sherwood: The Knights Of The Apocalypse (based on the TV show Robin of Sherwood), Robin and his friends face the Knights of the Apocalypse, a group that worships Baphomet. These knights are shown as a splinter group from the Knights Templar.
In the 2018 horror film Antrum, Baphomet is shown as an iron device used by cannibals as a brazen bull.