THE ANDROGY, THE PERFECTION OF BAPHOMET by Nilufar Mali

Throughout the history of Western occultism, the mysterious Baphomet's name is often invoked and depicted.
Although it became a commonly known name only in the twentieth century, evidence of Baphomet is found in documents dating back to the 11th century. Today, the symbol is associated with something related to occultism, ritual magic, witchcraft, and esotericism.
The name of Baphomet, as depicted in the famous illustration by Eliphas Levi, has also been associated over time, by some, with the figure of an evil being, by others, with that of the Sumerian-Babylonian good God Enki, protector of humanity and the whose symbol was a goat, rival of the Jewish God Yahweh considered the cruel Gnostic demiurge. In fact, the horns are said to be masking the rays of Enki's face, designed to conceal him from the Catholic Church.

ORIGINS OF THE NAME

There are several theories as to the origins of the name of Baphomet. The most common explanation is that it is a distortion from the old French of the name of Muhammad (which was Latinized to "Mahomet") - the Prophet of Islam. During the Crusades, the Templars remained for prolonged periods of time, in the countries of the Middle East, where they came into contact with the teachings of Arab mysticism. Contact with Eastern civilizations allowed them to bring back to Europe the fundamental principles of what would become Western occultism, including Gnosticism, alchemy, Kabbalah and Hermeticism. The Templars 'friendship with the Muslims' led the Church to accuse them of worshiping an idol called Baphomet, so there are some plausible links between Baphomet and Muhammad. However, there are other theories as to the origins of the name. Eliphas Levi, a French occultist who drew the famous Baphomet painting, argued that the name derived from a kabbalistic coding: “The name of the Baphomet of the Templars, which should be pronounced kabbalistically in reverse, is composed of three abbreviations: Tem .; OHP .; AB .; Templi omnium hominum patti, Abbas, “the father of the temple of peace for all men”. Arkon Daraul, an author and teacher of Sufi tradition and magic argued that Baphomet derives from the Arabic word Abu fihama, which means "The Father of Understanding". Dr. Hugh Schonfield, whose work on the Dead Sea Scrolls is well known, has developed one of the most interesting theories. Schonfield, who studied a Hebrew code called the Atbash cipher, which was used in the translation of some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, stated that when the cipher is applied to the word Baphomet, it is translated into the Greek word "Sophia", which means: "knowledge ”And is also synonymous with“ goddess ”.

ORIGINS OF THE FIGURE
The modern representation of Baphomet seems to draw inspiration from various ancient sources, but above all from pagan divinities. Baphomet has traits in common with all the other gods, including those of Egypt, Northern Europe and India. In fact, the mythologies of a large number of ancient civilizations speak of a kind of horned deity. In Jungian theory, Baphomet is a continuation of the horned god archetype, a concept of divinity that is universally present in the individual psyche. The question then arises whether: Cernunnos, Pan, Hathor, the Devil (as illustrated by Christianity) and Baphomet could have a common origin. Some of their attributes are strikingly similar. The ancient Celtic god Cernunnos is traditionally depicted with horns spiked on his head, seated in the "lotus position", similar to Levi's portrait of Baphomet. Although the story of Cernunnos is shrouded in mystery, he is identified as a god of fertility and nature. In Britain, a Cerennunos-looking god was named Herne. The horned god possesses some of the characteristics of the satyr like Baphomet, along with an emphasis on the phallus. Pan was a prominent deity in Greece.
The god of nature was often depicted with horns on his head and the lower body of a goat. Not unlike Cerenunnos, Pan is a phallic deity. Its animal characteristics are a concretization of the carnal and procreative impulses of men. Pope Sylvester II and the devil (1460). In Christianity, the devil has similar characteristics to the pagan gods described above as they are the main inspiration for these representations. The attributes embodied by these gods became the representation of what is considered evil by the Church.
The Devil Card of the Tarot of Marseille (15th century). This card depicts the devil, with his wings, horns, breasts and hand posture. He was undoubtedly a great source of inspiration in Levi's depiction of Baphomet. Robin Good-Fellow (or Puck) is a mythological fable in which there is a personification of the earth spirits. Goya 1821 painting "The Big Goat" or "The Witches' Sabbath". The painting depicts a coven of witches gathered around Satan, the latter being depicted as a half man and half goat in the figure. A Baphomet-like figure in Notre-Dame-de-Paris Cathedral, originally built by the Knights Templar.

THE BAPHOMET OF ELIPHAS LEVI
This depiction of Eliphas Levi's Baphomet from his book Dogmes Rituels et de la Haute Magie (Dogmas and Rituals of Magic) has become the "official" visual representation of Baphomet. In 1861, the French occultist Eliphas Levi included in his book Dogmes Rituels et de la Haute Magie (Dogmas and Rituals of Magic), a drawing that would become the most famous representation of Baphomet: a winged humanoid goat with a pair of breasts and a torch on the head between the horns. The figure bears numerous similarities to the deities mentioned above. It also includes several other esoteric symbols relating to the esoteric concepts embodied by Baphomet himself. In the preface of his book, Levi stated: "The goat on the title page bears the sign of the pentagram on its forehead, with a point upwards, a symbol of light, its two hands forming the sign of hermeticism, the one facing upwards towards the white moon of Chesed, the the other down towards the black one of Geburah. This sign expresses the perfect harmony of mercy with justice.
One of his arms is feminine, the other is masculine like those of Khunrath's androgyne, attributes that we had to combine with those of our goat because it is one and the same symbol. The flame of brilliant intelligence between the horns is the magical light of universal equilibrium, the image of the soul elevated above matter, as the flame, although linked to matter, shines above it. The hideous head of the beast expresses the horror of the sinner, who acting materially, is the only responsible who will have to bear the punishment, because the soul is numb according to its nature and can only suffer when it materializes. The upright rod in place of the genitals symbolizes eternal life, the body covered with scales the water, the semicircle above the atmosphere.
Humanity is represented by the two breasts and the androgynous arms of this sphinx of the occult sciences. In Levi's depiction, Baphomet embodies the culmination of the alchemical process - the joining of opposing forces to create astral light - the basis of magic and, ultimately, enlightenment. A close look at the details of the image reveals that each symbol is inevitably balanced with its opposite. Baphomet himself is an androgynous character in that he possesses the characteristics of both sexes: female breasts and a rod representing the erect phallus.
The concept of androgenity is of great importance in occult philosophy as it represents the highest level of initiation in the pursuit of union with god. Baphomet's phallus is actually the Caduceus of Hermes - a rod entwined by two snakes. This ancient symbol has represented Hermetism for centuries. The Caduceus esoterically represents the activation of the chakras, from the base of the spine to the pineal gland, using serpentine power (hence, serpents) or Astral Light. The caduceus as a symbol of the activation of the chakras. Science is real only for those who admit and understand philosophy and religion, its process will be successful only for the Adept who has achieved full control of the will, thus becoming king of the elementary world: this is the force described in the Symbol. of Hermes, on the emerald tablet, is the universal, spiritual magical power, the fire, the motive force, is the Od, according to the Hebrews, and the astral light, according to the others. In it we find the secret, vital and philosophical fire, of which all the hermetic philosophers speak of it referring to him as the most important secret: the Universal Seed, the secret they have kept, and which they represented only under the figure of the Caduceus of Hermes .
Baphomet is therefore a symbol of the Great alchemical Work in which separate and opposing forces come together in perfect balance to generate astral light. This alchemical process is represented in Levi's image by the terms “Solve and Coagula” on the arms of Baphomet. While they combine to obtain opposite results, Dissolve (i.e. transform the solid into a liquid) and Coagulate (transform the liquid into a solid) are two necessary steps in the alchemical process - which aims to transform the stone into gold or, in esoteric terms, a profane man. in an enlightened man. The two writings are on the arms pointing in opposite directions, once again underlining their opposite nature. The hands of Baphomet form the "sign of hermeticism" - which is a visual representation of the hermetic axiom "as above, so below".
 This maxim summarizes the set of teachings and objectives of Hermeticism, where the microcosm (man) is like the macrocosm (the universe). Therefore, understanding one makes the other understand. This Law of Correspondence arises from the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, where it was written: "Everything below corresponds to what is above, and everything above has a correspondence to what is in low, to perform the miracles of the One. "
The mastery of this life force, the Astral Life, is what modern occultists call "Magic". The magician's card in the tarot, while showing the hermetic axiom "As below, so above" “The practice of magic - white or black - depends on the adept's ability to control the universal force of life - what Eliphas Levi calls the great magical agent or the astral light. The manipulation of this fluid essence produces transcendental phenomena. Mendes' famous Hermaphrodite Goat is a composite creature formulated to symbolize this astral light. It is identical to Baphomet, the mystical Pantheos of those disciples of ceremonial magic, the Templars, who probably obtained it from the Arabs themselves.
The hands of the Baphomet point to opposite moons, which Levi calls the Chesed and the Geburah - two opposite concepts taken from Hebrew Kabbalah. In the kabbalistic tree of life, Chesed is associated with "kindness to others", while Geburah refers to the "moderation of one's desire to give goodness to others, when the recipient of that good is judged unworthy and suspected of misusing it" . These two concepts are opposites and, like everything else in life, a balance must be found between the two. The most recognizable feature of the Baphomet is, of course, the goat's head.
This monstrous head represents the animal in man and his sinful nature, his selfish tendencies and his low instincts. In contrast to the spiritual nature of man (symbolized by the "divine light" on his head), this animal side is viewed regardless as a necessary part of man's dualistic nature, where the animal and the spiritual must unite in harmony. It is also possible to argue that the overall grotesque aspect of Baphomet can serve to drive away and repel the profane who are not initiated into the esoteric meaning of the symbol.
Baphomet is a symbolic composite creation of alchemical realization through the joining of opposing forces. Occultists believe that, through the mastery of the life force, one is able to produce magical and spiritual enlightenment. Eliphas Levi's depiction of Baphomet includes several symbols that allude to the elevation of kundalini - the serpentine potency - which leads to the activation of the pineal gland, also known as the "third eye".
Thus, from an esoteric point of view, Baphomet represents this occult process. However, over time the symbol has come to mean much more than its esoteric meaning.
Through controversy, Baphomet has become, depending on the point of view, a representation of all that is good in occultism or all that is bad in the same. It is, in fact, the last "scapegoat", the face of witchcraft, black magic and Satanism. The fact that the symbol is quite monstrous and grotesque has probably helped to raise the symbol further to its current level of infamy, no symbol has ever shocked religions so much, and attracted those who rebelled against them around.
The image of Baphomet is now used as a symbol for anything related to occultism and ritualism. In the mass media bought by multinationals, which have ties to secret societies, the figure of Baphomet appears in the strangest places, in front of an audience too young to understand the occult reference. In Egyptian mythology, Toth Hermes was a mediating power between good and evil, making sure neither had a decisive victory over the other.
Baphomet represents the fulfillment of this cosmic task on a very small scale, within oneself. Once the perfect balance is achieved on a personal level, the initiate into occultism can point one hand towards the sky and one hand towards the earth and utter this hermetic axiom that reverberates through millennia: "As above, so below" .

BAPHOMET AS A SYMBOL OF DUALISM AND ANDROGINITY.
Androgyny is that process of reintegration represented by the attainment of the initial state of the person who, having been emanated in the image and likeness of the emanating being, necessarily possesses all the requisites of the emanating being and therefore also androgyny, the conjunction, that is , between male and female energy. Since the company was established in primordial times, importance was given, and it could not be otherwise, to the law of force, albeit cloaked in a spirit of protection on the part of men towards women. Man, by birth, physically stronger than woman, coined the rules, at least initially, to favor himself. Some consequences of those choices still remain today.
On the other hand, nature, when the molecule that gave the shape to man was created, created that molecule with both sexes. But before man came into being, this molecule split. The meeting of the two parts of the molecule, the male and the female, gave life to man, to the person. Even nature, material nature, indicates to us, through mitosis and meiosis, that the path that man takes today, that is, the path of sexual reproduction (meiosis), is perhaps not the only path that, in the course of of the years, and when I refer to the course of past years I also mean the period in which perhaps the earth did not even exist, it is not the only road traveled. In nature there is also asexual reproduction (mitosis).
The Androgyne, from the Greek ἀνδρόγυνος, composed of ἀνήρ - ἀνδρός (anèr -andròs: man) and γυνή– γυναικός (gyné - gynaikòs: woman), in most systems, is a symbol of the supreme identity, of the level of being unmanifest, the source of every manifestation, represented by the most mysterious and dynamic of numbers, origin of numbering, divisibility and multiplicability: zero (sum of the two aspects of the Unity: + 1-1) 2.
The etymological Greekism brings to mind the Symposium, perhaps the most famous of Plato's Dialogues, among whose participants, the flower of the Athenian intellectuals who, feasting, discuss about Love in the most elegant oratory art, Aristophanes proposes the Myth of the Androgyne, that is, an individual endowed with the traits of both sexes, in search of his own half. Aristophanes says: “Then there were three genders among men and not two like now, the male and the female. There was a third, which had both the characters of the others. [...] The reason there were three genders is this, that the male had its origin from the Sun, the female from the Earth and the gender that had the characters of both from the Moon, since the Moon has the characters of both the Sun and the Earth ”. And again: “Zeus had an idea. 'I believe - he said - that we have a means to ensure that the human species survive and at the same time give up its arrogance: we must make them weaker. Now I will cut each of them in two, so that each of the two parts will be weaker.
We will also have another advantage, that their number will be greater [...] '”. On the existence of three kinds it is possible to refer to the foundation of the Logoic Trinities, in triple manifestation, belonging to the esoteric tradition of all times: Supreme Will that pushes the masculine (spirit; generator) and the feminine (nourishing matter) towards Creation, intelligently organized (the fruit, the union).
In Hinduism, the androgyne is conceived as Shiva and his consort Parvati, merged into a single being. In Shaivism, during the war between gods and demons for the drink of immortality, Shiva fell in love with Mohini, the androgynous arch seductress, who was none other than Vishnu-Hari in disguise. However, Shiva, not at all discouraged, embraced him so violently that the two became one being. In the hermetic wisdom tradition the Rebis (from res bina, the double thing) is a famous figure reported, among many others, by the German alchemist Basil Valentine, in his treatise on Nitrogen, which represents an androgynous with a male head and a female head, bearing square, compass and surrounded by Sun, Moon and flaming five-pointed star, the alchemical symbol of mercury. In the Greek pantheon, Dionysus, often represented in the dual gender of man and woman, was assigned epithets such as the Erect, the Hybrid, the Man-Woman. The pictorial work of Leonardo da Vinci, with his Saint John the Baptist with soft and gentle shapes, indicating the vertical path and above all his Mona Lisa, a shapeless female with large hands, carrying two different paths behind him, considered an androgynous woman by the National Committee for the Enhancement of Historical, Cultural and Environmental Heritage, hides hidden meanings. The father of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, in one of his essays entitled A childhood memory of Leonardo da Vinci, highlighted how "in the works of the artist's maturity (Leonardo da Vinci, Ed.) The androgynous figures are for the most part young good-looking, with a feminine delicacy, with effeminate forms, they do not lower their eyes but look in a mysteriously triumphant way, as if they knew of a great victorious happiness of which it is obligatory to keep silent. The familiar bewitching smile makes one suspect a love secret ”.
The reader can guess whether it is an immanent or a transcendent love. In terms of psychology and psychoanalysis, the analysis of the symbolic, figurative and archetypal phenomenon of the androgyne did not escape the scrutiny of the famous Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) who, through the elaboration of his methodology defined " analytical psychology ", introduced the concept of the unconscious pre-existing to consciousness, archetypes (collective and immutable primordial images) and psychological types, that is psychological types that characterize individuals according to their character and ability to adapt, not free from influences produced by his studies many years on the paranormal, on Buddhist and Hindu symbologies linked to the knowledge of Mandalas, on hermetic alchemy, up to the mantic arts (Book of Changes).
Another contemporary American psychologist and academic, Sandra Bem (1944-2014), has provided a contribution to a modern study of the phenomenon of androgyny, noting, through her research, the presence of androgynous individuals who claim their gender identity. , experiencing male and female experiences, placing themselves halfway between the two sexual dimensions. The somewhat revolutionary aspect of his studies lies in having invented a test, the Bem Sex Role Inventory, with which it seems possible to measure the degree of androgyny present in each one, through the analysis of as many as 20 male traits (such as aggression and virility) and 20 other feminine ones (such as love for children and the ability to express emotions more easily), as well as 20 neutral ones (such as happiness), that is, usually present in both genders and whose prevalence would connote the androgyny of the tested subject. In terms of modern fiction, some works of the 20th century propose stories of androgynous literary characters that arouse strong passions, as in the novel Sarrasine (1830) by the French writer, playwright and essayist Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), in which the young artist protagonist falls in love with an opera singer, actually a castrated man with feminine features, who makes fun of her feelings. In the imaginary biography of Orlando, the 1928 novel of the same name by the famous British writer and activist Virginia Woolf (1882-1941), the protagonist, a young English nobleman, androgynous and refractory to patriarchal society, after vicissitudes lasting four centuries, wakes up a woman, finding finally peace, love and fulfillment as a writer. In the famous novelThe Portrait of Dorian Gray (1890) by the versatile and controversial Irish writer Oscar Wilde (1854-1900), the youth and beauty of the protagonist, made disturbing by his persistence over time thanks to a demonic pact, dazzles men and women. Among the American Indians of the past, male marriages originated from a shamanic vocation, whose powerful energies almost physically transformed one of the two companions into a woman. According to the current common and figurative meaning, not strictly belonging to the biological and sexual orientation fields, it is androgynous who has physical appearance and behavior with characteristics typical of both sexes, who has an uncertain appearance between male and female, who presents characteristics of the male and female sex or the coexistence, in a person or in a work of art, of psychological and external aspects typical of both sexes.
The inner and experiential androgyne of the world of forms, in its noble and elevated function, is nothing but the prodrome, the reflection of the aspiration to the realization of the primordial, original androgyne, the Pythagorean Circle, the anthropomorphic representation of the present Cosmic Egg. in every cosmogony, the virtue of the golden age to be regained, the Divine Adam, Shiva embraced the Eternal Feminine Shakti, divine initial state that must be conquered anew.
Waiting for the advent of the Divine Androgyne in an immeasurably distant future, that the androgyny of outer and inner life may bring wisdom, understanding, tolerance, peace, harmony, a profound spirit of cooperation and solidarity, so that men and women may tend the hand, with love, to overcome, together, the long period of transition towards times of celebration of the Unity of Life!

THE LUCIFERIAN DUALITY OF BAPHOMET.
The wise scholar Hamar'at offers us a somewhat insightful theory: "what is above must equal what is below". The two scientific facts report that matter cannot be completely destroyed but only changed. Here we understand that duality does not exist, only to move and oppose to constantly remain in balance. Black adepts must first seek this inner balance and, in turn, also control our focus of energy into a direct goal. The second point to understanding the balance between myth, spirituality and mind is that, regardless of the action, there is an opposite reaction. This once again presents a focus on the understanding that duality does not exist; there is balance of force that exists in the universe. The union is that between the instincts and our deep instincts which are always infallible, The world has been made big by unbridled passions. When basic reason and logic are used to direct the deep instincts; this is what we call "DAEMON" or "TRUE WILL"; Magic arises from this union and should be cultivated. Containment of deep instincts and drives should be applied when considering that the results could be unnecessary destruction within the legal process. Igniting the passions and rejoicing in that instinct is the most intelligent of all our aspects of consciousness.
 (Cit. Necrominon: Egyptian Sethanic Magick_Dragon of the Two Flames: Demonic Magick and the Gods of Canaan_MICHAEL W. FORD.)