Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
The Trouble with Baphomet
Ugh, “Baphomet.”
Back in the early days of the Witchcraft Revival, when images of the Horned were few and far between, it was felt by some—I was never one, for reasons I'll go into shortly—that, faute de mieux, Baphomet was somehow acceptable. When you need to drink, a cracked glass is better than no glass at all.
By “Baphomet” here what I mean is not the whatever-it-was that the Templars were accused of worshipping back in the 14th century, but the betitted goat-head with the oh-so-coy caduceus-between-the-legs that Eliphas Levi invented in the mid-19th.
(This iteration of the Big B. was most recently in the news as the image—sans tits—that the thoroughly secularist Temple of Satan tried to get installed in public places in protest of wall-of-separation issues. That they left the tits off, so as to avoid dealing with problematic gender issues, left a hereditary Satanist friend of mine—her father was abused by nuns as a boy—stuttering in fury. “No tits on that Baphomet!” she thundered. “That's blasphemy!” Satanist blasphemy. Now there's a concept for you.)
Me, I've never been a Baphomite, and for one very simple reason.
He's ugly.
Oh, I understand the symbolism, even the titties. I'm good with all of it.
But he's really, really ugly.
This for the one—if you buy the continuity—that even Thomas Aquinas admitted to be the most beautiful of angels.
Though indeed He takes many forms—sometimes even ugly ones—those of us who have followed His call, who have adored Him by flickering firelight, who have danced to His piping by moonlight, know Him for the fairest of all, most beautiful of gods.
So you can keep your Baphomets, thank you very much.
In the eyes of the lover, what is more beautiful than the face of the Beloved?
I don't want your ugly Baphomet;
just you keep your ugly Baphomet,
or I'll stab him with my athame:
he's not good enough for me.
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