Beelzebub (Gr. Βεελζεβούλ., Heb. ba’al z’bub). Described as “Monarch of Hell” (The Secret Doctrine, Vol. 2., 389 fn.) in Demonology. This god is defined as “lord of the flies” in the text of the Torah: 2 Kings 1: 2-3, 6, and 16; and in the Christian canon: Matthew 10:24-26, Matthew 12:22-28, Mark 3:21-26, and Luke 11:14-20, where Iesous heals. Beelzebub is called “lord of the flies” by the Israelites, who hated the worship of Ba’al.

“The disfigured Baal of the Temples, and more correctly Beel-Zebul. Beel-Zebub means — literally “god of flies”; the derisory epithet used by the Jews, and the incorrect and confused rendering of the “god of the sacred scarabæi”, the divinities watching the mummies, and symbols of transformation, regeneration and immortality. Beel-Zeboul means properly the “God of the Dwelling”: and is spoken of in this sense in Matthew x. 25. As Apollo, originally not a Greek but a Phenician god, was the healing god, Paiàn, or physician, as well as the god of oracles, he became gradually transformed as such into the “Lord of Dwelling”, a household deity, and thus was called Beel-Zeboul. He was also, in a sense, a psychopompic god, taking care of the souls as did Anubis. Beelzebub was always the oracle god, and was only confused and identified with Apollo latter on.” (H.P. Blavatsky, The Theosophical Glossary: Beel-Zebub, 1892)

Baphomet (Lat. Baphometh). The Hermetic-Kabbalist symbol of Mendes, the goat. Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall had written a pseudo-historical book, Mysterium Baphometis revelatum in 1818 to discredit Templarist Masonry and Freemasonry, but in this work, Helena Blavatsky notes, it claims the etymology of Baphomet is from the Greek, βαφὴ bafh and mhtiz μήτεος mhtiz. Aleister Crowley suggests the same in Magick: Liber ABA, Book Four, Parts I-IV. Aleister Crowley considered Baphomet to be “Mithras.” Baphomet, Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall reveals, is a term, that refers to the Βαφη Μητεος, “baptism of Metis, baptism of fire.” The “baptism of fire” signifies purificatory initiation, rather than hell-fire.

Eliphas Lévi explained it otherwise:

“The name of the Templar Baphomet, which should be spelt kabalistically backwards, is composed of three abbreviations: Tem. ohp. AB., Templi omnium hominum pacts abbas, “the father of the temple of peace of all men.” (Eliphas Levi, Dogmes et Rituels de la Haute Magie)

Dr. Hugh Schonfield, a Dead-Sea scroll researcher argued, that when applying the Atbash cipher used to translate the Dead-Sea Scrolls, the name Baphomet became the Greek word σοφία “Sophia.” In A History of Secret Societies, Arkon Daraul proposed, that Baphomet may derive from the Arabic word أبو فهمة Abu fihama(t), meaning “The Father of Understanding.”

The symbol used with Baphomet is the pentalpha, or pentagram. Eliphas Lévi’s Dogme et Rituel de la haute magie (trans. by A. E. Waite) explains the symbol thus:

“The Pentagram, which in Gnostic schools is called the Blazing Star, is the sign of intellectual omnipotence and autocracy. It is the Star of the Magi; it is the sign of the Word made flesh; and, according to the direction of its points, this absolute magical symbol represents order or confusion, the Divine Lamb of Ormuz and St. John, or the accursed goat of Mendes. It is initiation or profanation; it is Lucifer or Vesper, the star of morning or evening. It is Mary or Lilith, victory or death, day or night. The Pentagram with two points in the ascendant represents Satan as the goat of the Sabbath; when one point is in the ascendant, it is the sign of the Saviour. By placing it in such a manner that two of its points are in the ascendant and one is below, we may see the horns, ears and beard of the hierarchic Goat of Mendes, when it becomes the sign of infernal evocations.”

The Baphomet, or Kabbalistic talisman as Mithras, or as a reference to the baptism of fire is revealing. The fire is the electric-fire, that enlightens the mind. The wisdom, which one is being initiated into is that of the nature-god, PAN (the ALL) i.e., the Kosmos, the androgynous DEITY.

The phallic symbolism imagined by certain schools and cults is simply an inversion of its nature as (or transformation into) a creative potency (as in human procreation). This does not require any further elaboration except, that it’s used in certain rites of ceremonial magic. Hence, the staff (penis surrounded by the double snakes) at the groin of the Baphomet. It transforms, inverses, perverts, or rather conveys the genesis of cosmos into and through sexual allegories, and gives a basis for physical sex magic and tantra.

This can be found in almost every creation story found throughout the ancient world, whether as lewd in the exoteric account of Japanese mythology or in others. We find in the first stages of creation, the act of two deities: the Deep, “the Sea of the Virgin-goddesses,” which becomes penetrated, and fecundated with the seed of all life by the creative potency — the FORCE, thrilling CHAOTIC MATTER into generation.

It is this usual amorous jargon built on phallic and yonic symbolism and allusion, harkening back, it is suggested, to an infantilism and fascination of the human species in its youth with the sexual organs. It even surrounds the beliefs in vitalization via external consumption of semen, and the belief in producing magic BABES through coordinated magical sex rituals, or orgy. The Jews, Greek, and Vedic traditions all utilize the same jargon. The phallic and yonic symbolism is anthropological and was applied to the meta-physical potencies and origin of the gods (theogony. “birth of the gods”). Whence, all the famed-gods, whores and Casanovas of the heavens in mythological fable.

PAN, a primordial deity is higher and older than the later Olympian Zeus, however both are made as high gods in one myth, and in another, libertines. PAN, having become a rustic daimon of the forests with goat-shagging nymphs ‘round him has become conflated with Mendes. Baphomet was not the god of the Knights Templars, but anti-mason conspiracists also believe that the pose of the Washington D.C. statue of first U.S. President, George Washington (the American Cincinnatus), is that of Baphomet. The statue of George Washington is not the statue of Baphomet, who predates Eliphas Lévi’s illustration of Baphomet.

The famous illustration of the Baphomet is a symbolic illustration developed over time, and an amalgamation of (1) the horned-god archetype of the Celtic Cernunnos; (2) the Brit Herne, and (3) The Devil Card from the Tarot of Marseilles (15th century). The name Baphomet dates to records as far back as the 11th century, and its famous illustration is due to Eliphas Lévi’s “Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie,” 1897.