Baphomet: From Medieval Name to Modern Image

This article follows the making of Baphomet across several very different historical moments - from medieval forms of the name associated with Muhammad, through the records of the proceedings against the Order of the Temple, to nineteenth-century attempts to reconstruct a secret cult and the influential image created by Éliphas Lévi. Rather than treating Baphomet as a single ancient figure whose meaning changed over time, the study asks how a word, an accusation, a supposed object of worship, a modern drawing, and later Satanic symbolism gradually came to share one history. The article draws on medieval texts, the Carcassonne interrogation records of 1307, the work of Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall, Éliphas Lévi's Dogme et rituel de la haute magie, and later stages of the image's reception. Particular attention is given to the distinction between accusation and historical practice, between the various forms Bafomet, Bafumet, Baffomet and Baphomet, and between medieval evidence and later visual reconstruction. The result is not a search for the "true Baphomet," but a history of how the modern Baphomet acquired an ancient past.