chrissydogz
just like the magician baphomet is often depicted doing the as above so below thing. is there a connection here?.
chrissydogz said:just like the magician baphomet is often depicted doing the as above so below thing. is there a connection here?.
that could be it too. and alot of people believe baphomet to be a pagan god just saying.Scion said:Well... a couple things that are going to seem snarky but are meant in good faith and then I have an answer for you.
Baphomet is not a pagan god. "Baphomet" is a corrupted name that turns up in the trials of Templars in the 14th century. The word is usually believed to be a misreading/transliteration of Muhammad. Later on during the French Occult Revival (that was the source of much Tarot mythology), the name "Baphomet" was slung around by occult scholars in various contexts, most famously by Levi in his illustration of the Sabbath goat. As Roppo points out, Pitois/Christian's completely fabricated initiation (another French Occult Revival invention) has more to do with it. Baphomet doesn't occur as a name in any extant mythography or literature before the 12th century. So not pagan or "authentic" in any occult sense. These days Baphomet is a kind of egregore, but that's a quirk of intellectual history, not tradition.
More to the point, the "As above, so Below" Mudra in Levi's illustration has everything to do with his synthesis of many threads of occult thought (most notably alchemy) and nothig to do with "Baphomet" which was never depicted or related to the Emereald tablet or its wisdom. The Magician's arms in the trump have everything to do with the alchemical aphorism, because that same aphorism is the source of Levi's image (hence the solve/coagulo on his goat's limbs.
So... to answer your question, the Magician's pose is based on a verse from the Emerald Table which was also the source of the Sabbath Goat by Levi but Baphomet doesn't really enter into it. Alchemy is also the source of the red/white , many of the ideograms, and some of the other tablaus of the RWS. But not Baphomet... he's just another fruit of the same tree.
S