THE ARCANE ARCHIVE
	a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining to occult, mystical, and spiritual subjects.

To: alt.magick,alt.magick.tyagi,alt.satanism
From: boboroshi@satanservice.org (CoE SOD)
Subject: Re: The Baphomet Sigil
Date: Tue, 22 Feb 2000 20:22:56 GMT

50000222 IVom

Tani Jantsang:
>>>  It is a well known Templar sigil and in the book Doc
>>>first saw it in, it was called a Templar sigi

from what I can tell this is a fiction perpetuated by those who have
some vested interest (in bringing condemnation of Templars, in being
the source of some mysterious intrigue, or in promoting the Church
of Satan's connection to well-known martyrs -- akin to how modern
Wiccans try to connect themselves to Inquisitory "witches").

rmerciless@aol.commit2hell (RMerciless):
>>Does anyone on this news group have an actual copy of the books by Oswald Wirth
>>or by Maurice Bessy from which the sigil wais taken?
>>I would be most interested to see what they said about it exactly.

boboroshi@satanservice.org (CoE SOD):
>Bessy's book (I have a copy) doesn't say anything about it inside,
>from what I remember. I'll look again sometime soon.... 

I was wrong, it DOES have something inside, but it doesn't relate to
masonry much. here's the text from inside Bessy's book:

	_624-625._ Pentagrams are the result of obscure
	numerological speculations. The five-pointed
	star, for example, seems to be characteristic
	of the Christian era, while the cross is the
	symbol (amongst others) of the figure five:
	four arms and the centre. By a strange
	coincidence, the Holy Spirit, the United States,
	the U.S.S.R. and Islam use the fivepointed [sic]
	star as their emblem. (The opposition of good
	and evil is indicated through the inverted
	triangles.)
	----------------------------------------------------
	"A Pictorial History of Magic and the Supernatural",
	 by Maurice Bessy, Spring Books, 1974 (previous
	 editions 1970, English 1964, French? 1961); p. 198.
	____________________________________________________

you also mentioned Agrippa. I happen to have his "Three Books
of Occult Philosophy" edited by Donald Tyson, as well as the
"Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy" attributed to Agrippa, and
when I looked through the first I found the *Levi* Baphomet
picture (p. 117), a pentagram (p. 331), two pentagrams on the
hands of a drawn human figure (p. 346), one Leonardo/Durer 
human inside a pentacle (p. 347), a copy of *Barrett's* drawing of
a point-down pentagram inside a seal, with "te tra gram me ton"
written in its points (no goat, no hebrew around the points),
(p. 482), and on p. 564, a down-point pentacle with 5 *greek* 
letters inscribed on the external ring BETWEEN the points (as 
compared to the hebrew AT the points as on Bessy's book), 
with the editor's note:

	In the latin *Opera* this Greek word is rendered
	[what looks like upsilon gamma iota phi alpha;
	in Greek], which is how it appears on the seal
	itself. The fourth character appears to be a
	contraction of [epsilon iota], made necessary
	because the word has six letters while the
	pentagram has only five points.
	------------------------------------------------
	"Three Occult Books of Philosophy", Henry
	 Agrippa von Nettesheim, ed./ann. Donald
	 Tyson, Llewellyn Publications, 1977;
	 p. 565, note 2. (Agrippa first published
	 this work in 1532).
	_______________________________________________

the greek word is supposed to mean "health".

in the notes there are mentions of Baphomet. to wit:

	2. *old Church-men* -- The Knights Templars [sic],
	whose secret order was founded by the
	Burgundian Huges de Payns, and the French
	knight Godeffroi de St. Omer, for the purpose
	of guarding pilgrims on the road to the Holy
	Land. Baldwin I, King of Jerusalem, gave them
	a portion of his palace next to the mosque
	that was reputed to hae been part of the
	temple of Solomon. The Order quickly grew in
	wealth and influence. By the middle of the
	12th century it had groups all over Europe.
	Because of its unique position it was able to
	amass an immense fortune trading between East
	and West. This attracted the avarice of
	Philip IV of France, and when his supporter
	Pope Clement V gained the papacy, the
	Templars were denounced as heretics. A man
	named Esquian de horian was brought forward
	to reveal the horrible secrets of the Order,
	which supposedly included spitting and
	trampling on the cross, eating roast babies
	(an old favorite with denouncers), and
	worshiping a graven image named Baphomet.
	God was renounced thrice with the words
	*Je reney Deu*. No doubt some part of the
	stories was true. A strange cross fertili-
	zation had taken place between East and
	West in the sealed vaults of the Templars,
	resulting in the resurrection of some
	modified form of gnosticism. One theory is
	that God was renounced in a mystery play,
	in which the initiate played a sinner soon
	to be converted to Christianity. But the
	real motives for the persecution were fear
	and greed. Public proceedings were begun
	at Paris in the spring of 1316. Philip
	seized the treasure of the French Templars
	and became as a result fabulously rich.
	The Order was suppressed everywhere, though
	not with the same severity as in France,
	and ceased to exist, at least officially.
	--------------------------------------------
	Ibid., p. 115, note 2.
	______________________

and

	According to Lewis Spence, it was revealed
	in 1818 that in the imperial museum of
	Vienna had been discovered several heads
	of Baphomet, the god of the Knights Templars [sic]:
	"These heads represent the divinity of the
	gnostics, named *Mete*, or Wisdom. For long
	time there was preserved at Marseilles one of
	these gilded heads, seized in a retreat of the
	Templars when the latter were pursued by the
	law." (Spence 1920, 203).
	---------------------------------------------------
	Ibid., p. 237, note 22.
	_______________________

and

	...The pentagrams around the hands are pointing
	downward, which in the occultism of the 19th
	century is a symbol of Satanism; however,
	Agrippa would not have made this distinction
	between the upright and inverted pentagram....
	-----------------------------------------------
	Ibid., p. 352, note 5.
	______________________

when did these "19th century occultists" distinguish the
point-down pentagram (or pentacle) as a "symbol of
Satanism"? any idea who it was (i.e. cite some text or
an author at least) or in what work?

the spurious "Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy" has no
pentegrams or pentacles or mentions of Baphomet that I
can find. any other works by Agrippa that you meant?

blessed beast!

boboroshi
Satanic Outreach Director
Church of Euthanasia
-- 
mailto:nagasiva@luckymojo.com ; http://www.luckymojo.com/nagasiva.html
mailto:boboroshi@satanservice.org ; http://www.satanservice.org/ 
emailed replies may be posted; cc replies if response desired

Path: typhoon.sonic.net!newsfeed.skycache.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!newspeer.monmouth.com!nntp2.deja.com!nnrp1.deja.com!not-for-mail
From: doctorlao@hotmail.com
Newsgroups: alt.satanism
Subject: Re: The Baphomet
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 01:33:40 GMT
Organization: Deja.com - Before you buy.
Lines: 32
Message-ID: <88vddl$t5t$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: 199.174.199.226
X-Article-Creation-Date: Wed Feb 23 01:33:40 2000 GMT
X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/4.7 [en] (Win98; U)
X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 x34.deja.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 199.174.199.226
X-MyDeja-Info: XMYDJUIDdoctorlao
Xref: typhoon.sonic.net alt.satanism:140505

RMerciless wrote:

>>Dr. Lao still has his copy of the Bessy book.

>...and then Dr. Lao ran off on a tangent about medallions.
>Damn those distracting Fookies!

>Uhm, perhaps Dr. Lao can crack the old Bessy book of his
>and tell us what, if anything, Bessy says about the Sigil,
>it's source or it's origins.

Ouch! A thousand pardons. Dr. Lao thought that information regarding the
origins of the Baphomet in the early Church of Satan would be of
interest. He forgot that it was common knowledge on this newsgroup. He
forgets a lot these days, including where he left his glasses.

The Bessy book reveals nothing about the Baphomet and very little about
anything else for that matter. It was one of those coffee table occult
books so popular around that time. As Dr. Lao understands it, the
Baphomet on the cover of Bessy book was the first to appear in exactly
that configuration. From that was born the CoS version. That isn't to
say that it didn't appear earlier in other forms including words within
the circle like "SAMAEL" and LILITH."

Dr. Lao

The Circus of Dr. Lao
http://www.angelfire.com/co/doctorlao/index.html


Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

Path: typhoon.sonic.net!newsfeed.skycache.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news.algonet.se!newsfeed1.telenordia.se!algonet!newsfeed1.nokia.com!news1.nokia.com!news2.nokia.com.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: "Marko Ronkainen" 
Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc,alt.mythology,alt.satanism
References: <38ae54db@news.nwlink.com>  <88p1v3$gio@bolt.sonic.net>  <38B0BEBD.2356FAAB@socket.net> <88r5oi$s8f$1@nnrp1.deja.com>
Subject: Re: The Baphomet
Lines: 33
X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 4.72.3612.1700
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V4.72.3612.1700
Message-ID: 
Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 14:16:50 GMT
NNTP-Posting-Host: 131.228.50.25
X-Complaints-To: newsmaster@nokia.com
X-Trace: news2.nokia.com 951315410 131.228.50.25 (Wed, 23 Feb 2000 16:16:50 EET)
NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 23 Feb 2000 16:16:50 EET
Organization: Nokia
Xref: typhoon.sonic.net talk.religion.misc:309337 alt.mythology:57264 alt.satanism:140541


SVsite wrote in message <88r5oi$s8f$1@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>For the record - AGAIN? - the Baphomet, Hebrew letters, goat head and
>pentacle, was designed as described in poem form "BAPHOMET" on VAd's
>website.  I also have a MINTED COIN of this, quite old.  It's about the
>size of a dime.  Like the cross, the sigil itself can't be
>copyrighted.  It is a well known Templar sigil and in the book Doc
>first saw it in, it was called a Templar sigil.  But tho it was the
>pentacle, goat and Hebrew letters, the DESIGN was different.  THIS is
>what's important - THE DESIGN.

Let's get one thing straight, the Knights Templar never used "baphomet"
as a sigil, not the goat's head in a pentagram, and not the Eliphas Levi
drawing. Their sigil was two knights riding on a single horse with the
words "SIGILLVM MILITVM XRISTI". The connection of Baphomet and
the Templars remains to be proven, it was a plot used by the Pope and
the king of France among other things that they were accused of, they
claimed that the Templars worshipped "Baphomet", and idol with the
head of a bearded man. This was never proven to be true.
The drawing of Eliphas Levi is entitled "The Goat of the Withches'
Sabbath" or something similar, it has been called the Goat of Mendez
according to the (false) claim that the ancient Egyptian city of Mendes
worshipped a goat (they actually worshipped the ram-headed god Khnum).
The CoS sigil was probably inspired by the Levi drawing, I've also heard
claims that it was copied from a cover of some book. I've also heard that
they have copyrighted the entire sigil, the goat's head, the pentagram,
the Hebrew letters that spell Leviathan and the words "The Church of
Satan", and that the copyright only applies when all these are used
together.

- Marko