(This is a chapter excerpt from the book “Christ the Kabbalah: Spiritual Essays” and not a standalone piece. While this chapter touches on a number of themes and references subjects that will be explored more fully in other chapters, I hope these allusions serve not as distractions, but as invitations to dive deeper. My intention is to spark your curiosity, whetting your appetite for the broader narrative and the full context that will unfold when the complete book is released.)
“The goat on the frontispiece carries the sign of the pentagram on the forehead, with one point at the top, a symbol of light, his two hands forming the sign of the Hermetic Prophet, the one pointing up to the white moon of Chesed, the other pointing down to the black moon of Gevurah. This sign expresses the perfect harmony of Mercy with Justice.”— Eliphas Levi
“There is nothing more to controlling your demons than to do Good and fear nothing.” — Eliphas Levi
“When we love, we see the Infinite in the finite — the Creator in the created.” — Eliphas Levi
“I have been in prison, wrestling with the Baphomet — not unlike Israel wrestling with YHWH.” — Samael Aun Weor
Eliphas Levi (born Alphonse Louis Constant: 1810 - 1875) was a Catholic clergyman who became a ceremonial magician and a fiery socialist; immersed himself in Judaica, kabbalism, hermeticism, and related studies; rejected the anti-Catholicism of Freemasonry; attempted to define a dynamic Ecclesia Universalis for both Lodge and Temple; and reconciled with Catholicism at his quietus. Crudely appropriated by many as a kind of ‘proto-Crowley,’ his life’s trajectory is much more akin to Tomberg and his life’s work to that of a humanist Khunrath (who he directly references), Johannes Trithemius, or the eccentric Christian Kabbalist and fellow countryman, Guillame Postel (1510 - 1581) — whom I maintain embodies the same “frenzied spirit.” I believe Sophiologist Michael Martin rightly describes Levi as a “Catholic occultist.” Across his vast, dense, wild writings and oscillating criticisms (embracing Fathers, Doctors and Saints, levying {probably deserved} ecclesial polemics, drifting in and out of Gallican Evangelism), it seems like Levi is trying to reinvent the very religious traditions he walked away from. (His esoteric history of Christianity is flawed as it is fascinating.) Levi bears (unjustly) the infamy of the ‘Baphomet’ — first appropriated by A.E. Waite (1857 - 1942) for the ‘Devil’ image of his tarot deck, and, eventually, by satanists, anti-Christians and iconoclasts of all stripes (not unlike the appropriations of Peter’s Cross or the Pentalpha of Our Lady from Arthurian legends, explored in ‘Parzivalia & Theodyssey.’)
An array of formulations has been superimposed on the Sephiroth, or vice-versa: The Pythagorean or Platonic solids; the Pythagorean climes; John Dee’s Monas Hieroglyphica; Trithemiusian cryptographies and Hermetic cartomancies; Solomon’s Seal and the scriptomorphic mandala of the Song of Songs; St. Sandalphon’s life-flower sigil; and St. Metatron’s cube. Such interplay of symbolism is fascinating and can be rewarding (i.e., “All this Juice and all this Joy”), but if we are not careful, we can become lost in the weeds of symbolism and forget what Mysteries of Beauty those beautiful symbols signify.
What I propose is a superimposition upon the Sephirahs of Baphometic symbolism as it was originally proposed by Levi, but with a Christian expansion and reimagination paralleling his later re-Catholicization. Thus, it is a break with the Baphomet as the “Sabbatical Goat” of Levi. But to echo many spiritual alchemists (like Levi himself), a break with Nature — like the Resurrection Event itself — is needed to remake, revivify, and sustain Nature. As a revolutionary, I do not think Levi would protest. (I also humbly pray I am not hypocritically breaking my own maxim of not losing oneself in the weeds!)
Levi considered the Baphomet the harmonic embodiment of magnetico-spiritual “Astral Light” and a “Gnostic echo” of the “fiery body of the Holy Spirit.” The Baphomet serves as an iteration of Phos, the Man of Light, the “Cosmic Man” (one of his gematrical equivalents), Adam Kadmon, the Anthropos, the Sphinx, the Nehushtan, and the Apotropaica of the “Mystery of the Cathedrals.” In isopsephy and notarikon, the Nile transmogrified into blood by Moses (a prefigurement of Transubstantiation); the Gnostic Abraxas; and the Aeonic Mithras are all equivalent to 365, a reflection of the Solar Logos. The Aeonic Mithras — a Baphometic Archetype — is shown winged, encircled by a Zodiac (gematrically equivalent to “Holy Place,” “Christ’s Mind & Heart” and “Angel in Human Form”), cornered by Four Evangelions, cardiated with the Sacred Heart of a fiery Lion, entwined by a Serpent, and holding a fasces and Shepherd’s Staff. “Baphomet” is gematrically equivalent to “Goodspell” (i.e., Gospel), “I AM Blessed” (i.e., the Magnificat), “Alleluia,” and “Green Lion,” — a key alchemical figure (associated with the “Vitriol of Venus”) who devours a bleeding sun. (recapitulating Heliosophia and Christ/Hokhmah as the Sun and Lion of Judah.1) The Baphomet — in addition to the value of Christ/Hokhmah’s chaste Spiritual Bride, Mary Magdalene as the Magdalogos and the homonymic Mountains of Megiddo; the Holy Grail; and the Adam-Abel nexion — is also 3652. The Baphomet is a numerological distillation of the Liturgical Year –– as well as a “Sub-Trinity” of Truths that images the incorporation of (per Levi) the “Abrahamic, Greco-Roman and Eastern Religions.”
A great deal of the “darker variety” of Western Esotericists maintain that the Baphomet is “G*d in reverse,” a harkening back to the masturbatory mass murders of impalement of the ithyphallic Goat-Cult of Mendes, and we must traverse Hadean depths and wrest and reclaim the lost “Heavenly Light” from between the figure’s horns. Although facing our demons and integrating out shadows is paramount to spiritual progress —(I see Levi as a forerunner of Jungian shadow work)— this view does not appreciate the sophistication of Baphometic symbolism (or Egyptian mythogenesis, of which Levi himself is guilty.) And though Christ/Hokhmah promised that the Gates of Hell would not prevail against us (Math. 16:18), the concept of “Meeting the Reversed G*d” can lead to egoism, the occultic enticements of the Left Hand Path, a belief in the arbitrariness of Good and Evil, dystheism (a doubt in G*d’s omnibenevolence or the need for a benevolent G*d), or absurdist devolutions, like Sabbateanism or Frankism.3 Though we must wrest with dark Sanjuanist nights, it is Christ — the Hokhmah Most Holy — Who harrows the ultimate Night of Hell.
Some point to “Baphomet” as the Islamic apostasy of the Knights Templar in the diabolical worship of the mummified head and genitals of a “Mohammedan holy man” (my favorite humorous theory), or similar iterations which are legion (pun intended), labyrinthine, fascinating, and not the focus of this work. Here, however, Baphe (to dip) and Metis (skill or craft — an Oceanid, the “Sister” of “Prometheus-as-Forethought” and a mythological analog of Sophia), together mean Baptism — both into the Sacramental Life of Christ/Hokhmah and into an esoteric perennial wisdom tradition. Furthermore, Levi, his student (or Levi as his student) posits that BAPHOMET is a riddle (like the alchemical VITRIOL: Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem — “Visit the interior of the Earth and purifying you will find the Hidden Stone”), further occulted by its inversion: TEM OHP AB — TEMpli Omnium Honinum Pacis ABbas — “The FATHER of the Temple of Peace of All Men,” tying King Solomon’s Temple to the intimate ‘ABBA’ between Christ/Hokhmah and the Father/Keter. In this clever puzzle, Levi points to the Old and New Covenants, the Incarnational Closeness and Christ-Sophia Nexion, and reverses the “Reversed G*d.”4
The Light above the Baphomet’s head is both the Light of Christ/Hokhmah, Sophia, the Etheric Church, and the sanctified Human Soul, which cannot be hidden (Matt. 5:15.) as well as the Tongues of Fire of the Holy Ghost/Binah at Pentecost and the Polestar of the Stella Maris. The Star is emblematic of Christ/Hokhmah as Light of the World (John 8:12), the Magi (Matt. 2:1-12), the fivefold Wounds of Christ/Hokhmah (His “Vulnerary”), the fivefold “Beauties of Mary” (Virginity, Motherhood, Priestesshood, Prophecy, and Queenship), and the Pentagrammaton of JESUS.5 Horns, often seen diabolically, are a symbol of male sexual energy and harken back to Pan (gematrically equivalent to “I AM G*d”), a mythological analog of Christ/Hokhmah (and a character foil of Sophia); the Panspermia of Genesis and all Creation mythoses; the rewilding of the Authentic Man; as well as the Mosaic Horns of Light (Ex. 34:29) and ultimately Christ/Hokhmah as the Lamb, standing as if slain, with Seven Horns and Seven Eyes at the World’s Consummation (Rev. 5: 6.) Anthropomorphically, the torch and horns put the Baphomet squarely (or rather triangularly) in the Keter/Hokhmah/Binah intersphere (alchemically “circling the triangle”), and, hence, directly in the Mens Dei. The face is that of a goat because of Man’s original sin and potential for sin (per Levi) and encapsulates the Tragedy of Eden — (tragedy literally means ‘goat-song’) — but also the Hope of our First Parents, Adam and Eve: I.e., the Second Adam, Christ/Hokhmah (universally portrayed bearded.) Ultimately, it points to Christ/Hokhmah as the voluntary Scapegoat for the sins of Mankind.
Not only does the Baphomet differentially point to Chesed (Mercy) and Gevurah (Judgment), but he also points to Heaven and Hell; the Sephiroth and the Qliphoth; the Dark Night of the Soul and the Interior Castle; Kabbalah and Alchemy; exotericism and esotericism; the Hermetic ‘Above’ and the Sethic ‘Below’; up to the Hypertype and down to the Archetype, and himself embodies — as the suffusive Holy Ghost/Binah of “Astral Light” —the Pantheotype. Gevurah can be seen as the “Atlantean” or “Atlassian Potential” to bear the World’s Weight in a sacrificial spirit, and Chesed can be seen as the “Seraphic Potential” to spiritually rise above the Weight of Matter. His arms bear the alchemical Solve6 (gematrically equivalent to “I & My Father are One” {Jn. 10:30}) and Coagula (gematrically equivalent to “Fear Not,” {Isaiah 41:10}, “The Image of G*d” and “Theophania”), but also stand for the homonymic Salve and the Coagulation of the Precious Blood at Golgotha (Col. 1:20): Salvation through Christ/Hokhmah’s bloody Sacrifice is the greatest form of Alchemy and its “Great Work” is the purest form of Gold: The created, redeemed, sanctified and deified human Soul. The left arm as Hod can be seen as the “Martian Potential” of chivalrous knighthood and holy war (internally and externally — what the Knights Templar really were.) The right arm as Nezah can be seen as the “Promethean Potential” of rebellion against tyranny and the holy theft of Divine Fire (the opposite of selfism and simony.)
The Baphomet is feathered and winged as the kabbalistic angels, Sts. Michael, Metatron, Raziel, Tzaphkiel, Tzadkiel, Khamael, Raphael, Haniel and Sandalphon, as well as the Holy Ghost/Binah in the form of a Dove at Christ/Hokhmah’s Baptism (Matt. 3:13-17); the Figures of the Tetramorph; as well as the Mary/Sophia/Etheric Church given an Eagle’s egress (Rev. 12:14.) The Baphomet is additionally scaled, harkening Baptism: Christ/Hokhmah — Who hallows His followers as “Fishers of Men” (Matt. 4:19) — is represented by ICHTHYS/ICHTHUS (Jesus Christ {Hokhmah}, Son of G*d {Keter}, Savior), and is the Jonas-inverting Whale of Victory that swallows up Death (1 Cor. 15:54; Isaiah 25:8). (Ichthus/Ichthys is gematrically equivalent to “YHWH,” “Work of G*d,” “Infinite Father/Keter,” “Phoenix,”“1st Commandment” {Ex. 20; Matt. 22:38}, and “2nd Nature.” Obversely, Keter Elyon is equivalent to “Yah is Pisces.”)
Like the Domina Libertatis of the Dark Mother, the figure is bare-breasted (Isaiah 66:11): The nursing female breast is not only a symbol of the lifegiving sacrality of motherhood across cultures but also found throughout Kabbalism and Christian allegory. It is Marian, Sophianic, recapitulatory of the Mother Pelican, and appears in Rosicrucian motifs. (Levi was insistent that, in some real sense, the Divine Feminine, the Mother of G*d, and a further Emanation of the Holy Spirit/Binah were approaching,7 which could be immanentized by Christian kabbalism, natural magic and fraternal goodwill. So intense was this Marianic demi-goddessship of Love that Satan would be redeemed.) Between the breasts resides Tiferet, the sphere of Beauty, the Heart, which is the Eye of the Soul. Daath — the Knowledge of Love — bridges the gap between the heart (Tiferet) and mind (Keter/Hokhmah/Binah.) The Baphomet does not have an anguine phallus (as many persons proffer, Christian and Satanist alike): Rather, the Baphomet’s genitalia is ‘hypersexual’ in the sense of being beyond the merely yonic or phallic, heralding a higher, spiritual congress (Eph. 5:33). It is the lifegiving Caduceus against a Picene disc, alluding to Apollo, Hermes, Asclepius, Iris, the androgyne Tiresias, the Petrine Keyes, Eucharistic Elevation, and those who are “eunuchs for Christ/Hokhmah” (Math. 19:12.) Yesod — the Foundation — is both the “Regenerative Principle,” as well as the “Eliminational Principle,” a la the Solar Anus of Bataille and the Vegetable World of Blake. Christ is the glorious Hokhmah of the Father/Keter, Bringer of the Holy Ghost/Binah — but also the Holy Blood in the mud of unholy man — the Seed of Life in the Dunghill — the Cleanser of Lepers at the Dung-Gate.
The Baphomet is also kosher (and ultimately Communional.) For the Chosen People, G*d’s Word (the Torah) is Water (and Christ/Hokhmah is our Living Water {Jn. 37-39}). Fish must have fins that image the navigation of the Sophia of G*d’s Word —(I think the caduceus would suffice)— and scales to mirror a coat of protection given to those who carry out the Mitzvot (Lev. 11:9.) Additionally, land animals must have split hooves and chew cud — a sign of “duality” in both anatomy and digestion — imaging matter and energy, internality and externality, physicality and spirituality (Lev. 11:2.) In the Baphomet’s case, the hooves are obvious and exoteric, while the “cud” is implicit and esoteric: It is the spoken Tetragrammaton, the Bath-Kol, the Logos and the Holy Eucharist — the oral tradition that is Kabbalah, continuing to evolve into the New Covenant that is Christ/Hokhmah.
There is an additional polysemic parallel to the Baphomet’s symbolic tension, as it is homonymic with both the Islamic Bahamut, an Atlaslike fish, who, with a bull and angel, keeps the Homo Divinus Mundus from falling into Chaos, and Behemoth — the Jobic monster who personifies soul-consuming chaos (Jb. 40:15-24). As a Jungian integration of opposites, the Baphomet coalesces a Pauline “philosophic” hagio-structure and a Johannine “sophilial” mysticism, a Christ/Hokhmah reaching back to Hermes and Moses — Orpheus and Plato — and a promethean Lucifer saved through neo-Catholic Apokatastasis. For me, the Baphomet is a kind of dark touchstone to Flamel and Fulcanelli — Martinezism and Masonic memory palaces — Crusader grail-quests and Charles Martel — troubadour Cathars and Catholic saints alike: The strange steeple of a “Deep France,” the profundissima Gallia — a France profonde that calls on France profonde, to interpolate the Psalmist.
Strangely seraphic and satyrlike8, the Baphomet is the esoteric gargoyle who sits on the Cathedral-Pylon of the Malkhutian Sphere, or rather, the monumental grave of the Vetus et Mortuus Mundi — the old, dead world (of pre-Christianity, the Edenic and Angelic falls, the Fallen Temple, our former sinful selves, our Luciferic rot and Ahrimanic rust) — and asks questions about our internal dispositions and eternal destinies. Were you at the Stable? The Portico? Cana? The Cenacle? The Place of the Skull? The Empty Tomb? The Upper Room? Emmaus? Where do you place your Treasure? — What side will you take at Megiddo?
***
*1. The Lion consuming the bleeding Sun is another Kairotic Ouroboros of Christ/Hokhmah and alchemical representation of the Auto-Deihumanophagia.
*2. It is also gematrically equivalent to “Keeper of Time,” an appellation of the Kairotic angel St. Kafziel, “protector of the year” in Kabbalah and Esoteric Christianity; “Black Mirror” (1 Cor. 13:12); and “The Son of G*d is Killed,” — the phrase of the Sibylline Oracles — the deicidal mourning of the Golgotha Mystery that “unspoke” the Logos. It is also the age the Arch-Prophet Enoch died. (St. Metatron is varyingly the apotheosis or patron of St. Enoch, and the Baphomet can be seen as his Jungian ‘shadow- counterpart.’) There are 365 “negative” Mitzvot, reflecting the Baphomet’s dark nature, but also, as alluded to, the same number of heavens in some aforementioned Gnostic cosmologies.
*3. It is best to let “G*d meet the ‘Reversed G*d’”: See the Chapter APOLLYONYX.
*4. In terms of Old and New Covenants, the “Abba” of the TEMOHPAB could refer to his own “Christian name” in Abbot, before he co-judaized as a kabbalistic magician. BAsileus philosoPHorum METaloricum — “Basilieus (Monarch) of the Metallurgical Philosophers” is also another explanation. I contend that all proffered explanations, like Holy Scripture, are valid if they assent to the Truth (i.e., Christ/Hokhmah), not unlike the levels of PaRDeS — Peshat, Remez, Drush, Sod.
*5. Jesu Emmanuel Salvator Universalis Spiritualem — Jesus, G*d-with-Us, the Spiritual Savior of the Universe. For the entirety of Levi’s sophisticated sideral symbolism, consult his Dogme et Ritual de La Haute Magie, et al., regarding the ‘Tetragrammaton Pentalpha,’ which, even more succinctly than the Baphomet, synthesizes Kabbalism, Christianity, Goetheism and natural magic.
*6. “Solving” the Mystery of Salvation through the Answer of Christ/Hokhmah and “salving” the wounded Soul with His Love are also implicit in the SALVE. “Salve” itself is another Pentagrammaton in the Mystery Traditions: “Sancta Adoratio Luminis Veritatis Eterna” — “Holy Adoration of the Light of Eternal Truth.”
*7. This Furtherance of Kairos is not dissimilar to Joachim of Fiore’s “Third Testament.”
*8. At first glance, the Baphomet always reminds me of a downfacing dolphin. Mythologically, dolphins are associated with the deliverance of holy souls to the happy isles; scripturally, with Jonah in the OT; liturgically, in images of both the Entombment, Enshroudment and Resurrection of Christ/Hokhmah, and appears on tridents as a symbol of the Crucifixion
* This portmanteau of “Baphomet” and the great Angel “Metatron” comes from a dream I had while writing this essay. A dove flew over my head as I walked into a lush valley and came upon a verdant Sephirothic Tree of Roses harboring 16 rams —(St. Paul describes 16 characteristics of Love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8)—being protected by an enormous horned leonine angel — something akin to the Baphomet “made beautiful.” BAPHOMETATRON is gematrically equivalent to “Morning Star” and “Eye of G*d,” as well as “Pregnant Earth” (i.e., the lush valley itself {and the Sancta Anima}) and “Terra Luna” (recapitulating Terrasophia/Selenosophia.) In English Gematria, it equals the 888 of the Ogdoadic JESUS.
Finally, SIT TECUM B.EATUS A.MOR, P.AX, ET H.ONOR O.MNIPOTENTIS, M.AGNIFICAE ET AE.TERNATE T.RINITAS — “May the Blessed Love, Peace, and Honor of the Almighty, Magnificent, and Eternal Trinity be with you.”