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The Baphomet and Its Origins (History)
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Hatty
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The dying god, with human and divine characteristics, appears in kabbalistic writings as well as belief in the transmigration of souls but I'm not convinced about the importance of preserving the body, through mummification or any other means, sounds to me like a 'modern' explanation; to go forwards to thirteenth century France, accusations of heresy against the Knights Templar, many of whom were Cathars, rather eeriely echo these birth/death/rebirth beliefs (seasonal cycle originally perhaps?)

Following similar accusations, the Templars were arrested and tried for heresy in 1307. The Templars were charged of worshipping an idol named Baphomet, along with accusations similar to those assailed against witches... Baphomet was merely a continuation of the ancient dying-god of the mysteries, Baal of the Phoenicans, or Pan of the Greeks, and god of the Underworld, who equated with the planet Venus, whose original Latin name was Lucifer.

[Lucifer is light-bearer. Also known as Satan of course, dark and light. The Kabbala seems to concern itself a lot with duality, the wrathful and the loving god, good and evil, etc.]

Though the order was disbanded, and its leader Jacques de Molay executed, legend has it that a number of knights escaped to Scotland, where they became protectors of a bloodline affiliated to the Merovingians, the Stuarts, supposed descendants of King Arthur.

This is entering the realms of fantasy, as if King Arthur actually existed, but then it's no stranger than claiming descent from the House of David for example (did David exist?). Apparently the Jewish leader of Languedoc or Septimania, Makhir, was descended from King David though his name was Christianised to Theodoric.
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Oakey Dokey



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The cult of the severed head and its many incarnations. Your task should you accept it is to try and nail down the correct origin of this item/idol and its significance to early Saxon Britain. Including the Royal Society formation, Sir Francis Bacon, piracy and the Temple of Solomon along the journey. Try to find cross references to the distinct sects and most of all IGNORE the direction it takes towards Islam and the prophet (it's a dead end---mudslinging).

This is in regards to Arthurian legend, the Grail and the British Isles' rise to power in general. There is a tale to tell, folks.
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Bronwyn



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It may be blasphemy to attribute any Knights of Templar relationship to Baphomet. Testimony that is gained from torture is not a valid source AND was recanted upon the well-fired stake. The mystery of ritual is more for show than true belief.
I agree that Islam "says" that idolatry is not permitted and would seem to be a dead end route to follow. No need to converse on what apparently is permitted.
I'd like to pursue this topic more.
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Mick Harper
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Testimony that is gained from torture is not a valid source AND was recanted upon the well-fired stake.

Don't agree. Testimony is testimony. Then you decide it's veracity...and being tortured doesn't make the statement untrue, just one more thing that has to be taken into account.

And nor would I specially trust recantations when the threat of all further punishment has been removed.

Templar trials, like the contemporaneous Inquisition of Cathars, rather ring true in my opinion. And specifically I find the Baphomet references far too common and far too of-a-pattern to be other than true, nearly true or an agreed lie to cover an even more heinous "crime".
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Ray



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Try to find cross references to the distinct sects and most of all IGNORE the direction it takes towards Islam and the prophet (it's a dead end---mudslinging).

Not Islam, but what Islam and Christianity are derived from. And I'm not talking about Judaism. You can guide this debate along the roads of your choice but I'd like to put in a word before you get going.

All religions derive essentially from a common source - I use the word essentially in the fullest possible sense. They appear to be different only because each one came about as the result of local cultural biases fastening on whichever aspects of the whole could most easily be bent to conform with the local pattern of thought.

Once adopted the fragments are formalised through the addition of ritual and dogma. Knowledge and understanding are thus replaced with belief, which is soon set in stone. Religions, then, are essentially fossils.

Nevertheless, when time place and people are suitably aligned, a religion can sometimes serve as a temporary vehicle or repository for what, for want of a better term, I'll call the living thread. This was true of Islam in its early stages, but is certainly not true of it today. Conversely the Christian World during the Middle Ages was a very poor vehicle, but shows some potential for development today.

The Crusades came about through a certain awareness of the situation then current. You could say that the battles for Jerusalem were both a cover for and a metaphor of the real agenda, which was embodied by the formation of the Templar movement. The Crusades were nothing less than a quest for knowledge.

Unfortunately a lot of what they gained was acquired from a corrupted source, so their learning stopped short of knowing how to successfully graft a living shoot onto near-moribund wood. As a result most, although not all, of what they brought back was to remain fringe material. This includes the Arthurian legend - but not the name, which, as you will know, derives from Arth Vawr, Great Bear - and the Baphomet.

Unlike the Crusaders I have next to no knowledge of Arabic, so I'm forced to turn to other sources for what comes next.

Western scholars are now of the opinion that Baphomet has no connection with Mahomet but could be a corruption of the Arabic abufihamat, father of understanding, from the root FHM. This root encompasses a range of meanings, including head of knowledge (referring to the transmuted consciousness), knowledge, black and coalman.

So Baphomet represents the completed man. The black head, or Turks head, which appears in heraldry and inn signs, is a Crusader symbol of their understanding of the encoded meaning.

The head was sometimes said to be made of brass. The Arabic root for brass is SFR, connected with the word for yellowness. It so happens that Head of Brass is also a rhyming homonym for sar-i-tilai, or golden head - a term used to denote a person whose 'inner consciousness' has been 'transmuted into gold'.
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Jaimi



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In keeping with Ray's observations about the completed Man, it has been claimed that the true meaning of Baphomet reinforces the Gnostic beliefs of the Templars.

Baphomet can be seen to represent the union of opposites as symbolised by the two serpents in the circle becoming one (the ouroburos) - the Union of Chaos and Bablon. A Gnostic creed I've seen states:

"I believe in one secret and ineffable LORD; and in one Star in the company of Stars of whose fire we are created, and to which we shall return; and in one Father of Life, Mystery of Mystery, in His name CHAOS, the sole viceregent of the Sun upon Earth; and in one Air the nourisher of all that breathes.
And I believe in one Earth, the Mother of us all, and in one Womb wherein all men are begotten, and wherein they shall rest, Mystery of Mystery, in Her name BABALON.
And I believe in the Serpent and the Lion, Mystery of Mystery, in His name BAPHOMET."

This is also the androgynous hermaphrodite of the philosophers, the enlightened one of his own "union", born of himself.

This illustrates "YHVH" - the union of Yod the Father and Heh the Mother in Vav the Son gives rise to Heh the Daughter. The union of CHAOS and BABALON in BAPHOMET gives rise to the CHURCH of Light.

Sophia (wisdom) is the the female counterpart to the Father of Wisdom. Baphomet is suggested as meaning "Baptism of Wisdom". Behemoth means Baptism of the Mother, and it has been suggested that Baphomet may be a corruption/form of "Behemoth."

Wolfram says the the Grail is a Stone of some kind. The Grail is the Stone of the Philosophers, which Wolfram understood. The Knights of the Grail stay at Mont Salvat/ Montsegur/Munsalvaesche. They are sustained by the Stone "Lapsit exillis". This is probably a corruption of lapis ex caelis 'stone from the heavens.' It might also be a corruption of lapsit ex caelis -- 'it fell from the heavens'; or of lapis lapsus ex caelus -- 'a stone fallen from heaven'; or, finally, of lapis elixir Philosopher's Stone of alchemy. The whole of Wolfram's poem is laden with alchemical symbolism.

This article below (quite long but worth it!) shows the links with Jerusalem, Joseph of Arimethea and the Arthurian legend - and is pretty much in keeping with what Christian Gnostics teach today. And it's useful, even if you don't go along with the Hathor/Arthur argument.

www.antiqillum.com/texts/bg/Rose_Croix/RC003.htm

There's a whole connection with Baphomet and Moses that is worth looking into also.
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Bronwyn



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I'm still having issues with idolatry versus symbolism in the Templars. Fraternal orders have ritual initiations and they are meant to be mysterious. Baphomet symbolizes the dogma and ideals. I doubt the figure itself was the object of allegiance. One pledges one's self to the group.

Although some accounts give the idol a goat's body as previously mentioned and others are vague, others described the head in detail. It possessed horns and between the two horns was a torch which represented the intelligence of the triad. Still below the torch, on the forehead, is the sign of the microcosm, or the pentagram with one beam in ascendant symbolizing human intelligence. The situating of the pentagram below the torch was to signify that human intelligence is the image of the divine intellect.
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Oakey Dokey



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So far so good, I've even seen quite a bit I've only just touched on myself.

What we can say for sure is that the Baphomet is important to Templars and Masons. We have many leads to its origins, some based on wording and some on legend and myth and some based on religion. But as with all things they cannot all be correct.

The head has even been suggested to be the remains of John the Baptist. And as some will know he is supposedly where Christianity started not Jesus. But that's another story.

So can we trace the story further back than the birth of Christ? I think so. As some of the posts are indicating, it's as old as the hills, or at least Babylon. But let's now go forward in time and try to see just how much importance is put on this figure.

Let's start by examining the difference and branching of the two distinct groups within all lodges and ask why such a closed club meant to be the preserve of stone workers (a union of sorts) became a brotherhood of the initiated. Or is this smoke and mirrors for what really is underneath it all?

Why did lodges take on 'accepted' members instead of sticking with purely 'operative'? And is the argument that the craft was so valuable and travel so dangerous at the time of the 'free stone workers' union that they needed ritual and secretness, a valid one? For those who aren't 'up' on Mason history and background it is invaluable for them to see these details.

We then move on to the rituals themselves and their possible links with religions--but that's after the groundwork.

Good luck
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Jaq White



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Oakey wrote

Let's start by examining the difference and branching of the two distinct groups within all lodges and ask why such a closed club meant to be the preserve of stone workers (a union of sorts) became a brotherhood of the initiated. Or is this smoke and mirrors for what really is underneath it all. Why did lodges take on 'accepted' members instead of sticking with purely 'operative'?
And the argument that the craft was so valuable and travel so dangerous at the time of the 'free stone workers' union that they needed ritual and secretness, a valid one
?

Ron Hutton has written a lot about the setting up of the original lodges "on-site" and the eventual introduction of non-skilled masons and off-site lodges but I want to use that in conjunction with my other sources. Hutton has also surprised Wiccans with how he has traced their occult origins to Freemasonry. However, if you read "The Murdered Magicians" by Peter Partner (Spiderman reject obviously..no wonder he has an axe to grind..) then it's a very different story and romantic idealists dreamed up all these connections...as did a man named Hammer who sounds suspiciously like a soulmate of one of the regulars from GHMB.....
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Jenny


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Oakey, are you sure that "Baphomet" is not "Mahommet"? Whoever mentioned the stone from heaven, might you be talking about the "Black Stone" which resides at the temple of Mecca? The prophet Mohammed had an extraordinary kindness for widows and their children. Does this ring any bells for you?
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Ishmael


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Oakey, are you sure that "Baphomet" is not "Mahommet"?

If there is a connection here, I would be more inclined to think that it is Mahommet who is Baphomet -- not the other way around. Mohommet is a literary device created to transmit Baphomet.
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Oakey Dokey



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That would be and is my take on the matter. The Baphomet goes back to Babylon and perhaps further, whereas Islam (and supposedly Christianity) forbid idolatry but the Inquisition used this example to get rid of the rich and powerful Templars. They also used a Baphomet in ritual and this ultimately led to their successful persecution at the hands of the Church.

What I should add however is that the Crusades probably were the starting point for the knowledge infusion the Christian west needed to kick off the later Renaissance.

You see, the Islamic nations used the Word of God alone to keep obedience whereas the western Church up till the Crusades relied entirely on the populaces's ignorance (and keeping them that way). FEAR GODS WRATH, SINNER. Islam had all the institutions of learning and all the great repositories of knowledge, they did not have a problem with science or learning.

If anything, the western conquest of the Middle East was probably the very thing that bypassed the western Church's power and had a lot to do with its backlash against the Templars.

After all how can the church of God be wrong? Maybe because they had lost some of the vital information needed to complete the full understanding and meaning of their rituals. And why would Christian crusaders suddenly defy a Church they were sent to uphold? They found something, you think?

The Baphomet has to be the key. But why would a Babylonian mystical priesthood be restarted upon arrival in the Holy Land of the secret societies of the west?
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Bronwyn



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I've been reading an interesting book about the possible location of the Ark of the Covenant. There's a nice background chapter relating to Egyptian mystical powers etc and reference to Thoth, a deity of wisdom and knowledge. Is there a link to Baphomet?
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Oakey Dokey



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There is a link. Thoth had a magical box of power and knowledge also and, if anything, as Moses was supposedly taught in Egypt (suspected) that the Ark of the Covenant was merely an icon/device from Egypt priesthood.

It's also worthy of note that the Templar priesthood were referred to as Magi or magicians. Something quite prevalent in Babylon and later Egyptian mystic traditions.

But even this is not the starting point. The story arrives in Egypt, it does not start there. There is a vast paper trail leading down time to current day Americas and England/Scotland via France and, earlier, the Spanish peninsula.

But to understand why and where something is going, it's helpful to know the beginnings. I'm hoping a culmination of the knowledge within this board may strike light upon this answer.
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Bronwyn



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What is the hoopla about Kaballah (or however it's spelled)? Being a WASP by region, I've never heard of it. What is it?
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