The Templars and the Baphomet

According to the accusations made against the Templars by the king of France, Philip the Fair and his ministers, the Templars, though ostensibly Christians, were in fact guilty of secretly worshipping an idol. In every province the Templars had idols, namely, heads, of which some had three faces, some one, and some had a human skull. This was supposed to be regarded as a saviour by the Templars, and as something that made the trees grow and the land germinate. Many Templars in France were induced, after their arrests on 13 October 1307, to confess to worshipping or having seen a head during the Order's chapter meetings. Descriptions of it varied. Most described it as frightening. Some seemed to describe a real embalmed, severed head with a straggly black beard. It was sometimes said to be encased at the neck in a gold reliquary with three or four legs. Other variants were black or gold or red, and some were said to be horned.

The only head actually found in the Paris Temple was the skull fragments in the head-shaped reliquary labeled Caput LVIIIm. The Templars on Cyprus also said they possessed the head of Saint Euphemia. Most other Templars, though, especially outside France where torture was not rigorously pressed, said they knew nothing of any heretical head and had never engaged in anything but Christian worship. (Merely possessing and venerating the head of a saint would not have been deemed heretical in that time. Holy Relics were an accepted part of worship, and the Church actively encouraged belief in their spiritual powers.

Severed heads appear in myths and legends, including some with Celtic origins. Peredur in a Welsh legend associated with the Mabinogion, is the inspiration of Perceval in the Holy Grail romance of the Chretien de Troyes. Peredur encounters a severed head on a platter in place of the Grail. In another British legend the head of the God/King/Giant Bran the Blessed was attributed with magical powers, and was buried in Tower Green near the Tower of London, facing towards the Continent and acting as a protection against invasion.

When the Templars were put on trial in England, a former Templar called John de Donyngton gave evidence. By then he had become a Franciscan Friar. He claimed that he had heard of four heads in the Templars' possession, in London, Bisham Abbey, Bruer and another somewhere in the North. None of these were found. However a medieval panel showing a bearded head, hidden in medieval times was discovered (in the mid twentieth century) in Templecombe, Somerset, an enigmatic object hinting that there may have been some substance to the accusation of revering a beaded head after all. The Panel dates from the late thirteenth century and was probably concealed by the Templars prior to their arrest.

Above: The panel discovered in Templecombe, with its bearded head..

The name 'Baphomet' was sometimes associated with the idol allegedly worshipped by the Templars. The name was not mentioned in all of the trials and did not appear in the official list of accusations, or in the Papal Bulls condemning the Order. It is possible that Templars in Carcassonne, undergoing torture by the Inquisition, simply made up the name for something to tell their interrogators. Templars there identified the bearded head or skull idol as Baphomet.

The name seems to defy interpretation or explanation, though there have been attempts to link it to John the Baptist, and to Muhammad (or Mahomet), the Prophet of Islam. The worship of an idol would be inimical to Islam, so the idea that there can be any connection between the alleged Templar heresy and Muhammad seems a non-starter. (There remains the possibility, though, that the Order's enemies invented the name Baphomet deliberately to evoke the name of Muhammad and imply apostasy on the part of the Knights Templar.

It was observed by Dr Hugh Schonfield that the word 'Baphomet' appears to converts to 'Sophia' when an ancient form of encryption known as the Abtbash Cipher is applied to it, Sophia being Greek for 'Wisdom'. Sophia was also conceived of as a feminine embodiment of divine wisdom, regarded in Gnosticism as one of the Aeons. How the Templars might have known of this ancient code is unexplained. It seems possible the correlation of the words is a coincidence.

The nineteenth century Orientalist Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall seized upon the obscure name of Baphomet (despite it apparently only receiving mention at the Templars' trials in Carcassonne). He identified it as the Templars mystical focus. He saw the head as a Gnostic symbol, possibly of Egyptian origin, and interpreted the name as Baphe Metis- 'Baptism into Wisdom'. However Hammer-Purgstall regarded the wisdom in question as unchristian and profane. Descriptions of the form of Baphomet (or rather of the Templars' alleged idol) had varied during the Templar trials but none closely resembled the goat-headed and hoofed creature of popular imagination. This haunting but fanciful vision, with its black angel's wings, first appeared as an illustration in an occult work of 1854 by Eliphas Levi. He claimed it to be based on a Gargoyle from a Templar Church at Saint Bris le Vineux. Leo Taxil, in his defamatory hoax, portrayed the Freemasons as worshippers of this demonic Baphomet. Since that time Baphomet has taken on a life of its own, becoming among other things a symbol of Satanism.