An Abominated Idol
"Public indignation was aroused by...charges of ...worshipping the devil in the form of an idol called Baphomet." Baphomet was "the Templar symbol of Gnostic rites based on phallic worship and the power of directed will. The androgynous figure with a goat's beard and cloven hooves is linked to the horned god of antiquity, the goat of Mendes."
- Peter Tompkins, The Magic of Obelisks
"Some confessed that they had also worshipped an idol in the form of a cat, witch was red, or gray, or black, or mottled. Sometimes the idol worship required kissing the cat below the tail. Sometimes the cat was greased with the fat from roasted babies. The Templars were forced to eat food that contained the ashes of dead Templars, a form of witchcraft that passed on the courage of the fallen knights."
- John J. Robinson, Dungeon, Fire and Sword (1991)
In the list of charges drawn up by the Inquisition against the Templars on 12 August 1308, there appears the following:
"Item, that in each province the order had idols, namely heads, of which some had three races and some one, and others had a human skull.
Item, that they adored these idols or that idol, and especially in their great chapters and assemblies.
Item, that they venerated (them).
Item, that (they venerated them) as God.
Item, that (they venerated them) as their Savior....
Item, that they said that the head could save them.
Item, that [it could] make riches.
Item, that it made the trees flower.
Item, that [it made] the land germinate.
Item, that they surrounded or touched each head of the aforesaid idols with small cords, which they wore around themselves next to the shirt or the flesh.
Item, that in his reception, the aforesaid small cords or some lengths of them were given to each of the brethren.
Item, that they did this in veneration of an idol.
Item, that they (the receptors) enjoined them (the postulants) on oath not to reveal the aforesaid to anyone."
- The Articles of the Accusations
An Eastern Origin?
"...They bestowed worship in their chapter on a heathen idol, variously described as to its physical characteristics, but known as a 'Baphomet', which etymologically was the same word [in Old French] as 'Mohammed'. [Once or twice the form Mahomet is actually used by witnesses in the trial.] Like so many persecuted heretical groups of the past, they were said to hold their chapters only secretly and at night."
"It was impossible for the Templars to have 'picked up in the East' the practice of worshipping an idol bearing the name of the Prophet Mohammed, since no such idol existed anywhere in the Levant, even among breakaway sects such as the Ismailis or the Druse. The idea that Muslims were idolaters was itself a part of another system of 'smears', the pejorative representation of the oriental world by western Christians."
- Peter Partner, The Murdered Magicians
"Probably relying upon contemporary Eastern sources, Western scholars have recently supposed that 'Bafomet' has no connection with Mohammed, but could well be a corruption of the Arabic abufihamet (pronounced in the Moorish Spanish something like bufihimat). The word means 'father of understanding.' In Arabic, 'father' is taken to mean 'source, chief seat of,' and so on. In Sufi terminology, ras el-fahmat (head of knowledge) means the mentation of man after undergoing refinement - the transmuted consciousness."
- Idries Shah, The Sufis
Sufi martyr Husayn ibn Mansur al-Hallaj died in 922CE. He was "a pantheist, an alleged miracle worker, and a most definitely unorthodox Muslim, Hallaj was imprisoned and tried for blasphemy for his public descriptions of his mystical union with God. Finally convicted after a nine year inquiry, Hallaj was maimed, crucified, beheaded, and his torso was cremated. Some of the stories surrounding his death include an account of the Caliph's Queen Mother having Hallaj's head preserved as a relic (Singh, 1970). Various Sufi sects have rituals commemorating Hallaj's death, and Shah claimed that Hallaj was the model for the 'Hiram Abiff' character in the Master Mason initiation ritual."
Hallaj "according to the medieval Islamic poet and historian Farid al-Din Attar, turns out to have been known by several titles beginning with abu-....Could the charge that the Templars 'worshipped a head called Baphomet' not have had some factual basis, namely the commemoration of a decapitated Sufi martyr whose head became a relic and who had been given the sobriquet abufihamet? The only problem here is that despite all the other abu- titles belonging to Hallaj, there is no known documentation linking him to abufihamet."
- Frater Baraka, IV, "Baphomet: A 'Mystery' Solved At Last?"
A Gnostic Origin?
"Another theory suggests that Baphomet is a compound of the words 'baphe' (baptism) and 'metis' (wisdom) ...Both theories imply the Templars were worshipping, or at least privy to, a secret knowledge. Several commentators believed this points to the Templars having been gnostics ('gnosis' meaning knowing)."
- Encounters magazine, issue 11: 45