There are many holidays we celebrate across the world, and especially here in America that very few people truly understand.
Today, January 1st is one of those holidays many people think is just about partying and bringing in the New Year with some new resolutions that they never keep.
But in reality, this day has a deeper meaning you are probably unaware of…
The name of the month January, is derived from the two-faced god with the Latin name of Janus.
The reason he has two faces, is because one face looks back into the past, and the other face forward to the future.
This is essentially what happens on New Years Eve when you countdown to midnight which is the ending of one year, and the beginning of a brand new year filled with new hopes and dreams.
A time to put an end to the past year which is now old, and begin fresh with a new year.
To the ancient pagans and Greeks, he was their custodian of the key to the Temple of Wisdom.
Plutarch had written; “For this Janus, in the most remote antiquity, whether a demi-god or a king, being remarkable for his political abilities, and his cultivation of society, reclaimed men from their rude and savage manners; he is therefore represented with two faces, as having altered the former state of the world, and given quite a new turn to life.”
The Greek historian and geographer, Strabo, had said that the original worship of Janus had come from the priesthood of the Curetes of Crete who were accustomed to celebrate annually the rites of Juno and Latona, on Solmissus. (1)
The Roman advocate, rhetorician, and Christian apologist, Minucius Felix had said Saturn fled from Crete to Italy and was received hospitably by Janus. Out of gratitude, since he was a Greek of culture, he taught the rude and uncivilized Italians many things, among them, to write, to coin money, and to make tools.(2)
The ancient Romans had adopted him as their god of time, doorways, new beginnings, coinage, war and peace. The double face of Janus was often placed on Roman coins.
During the time of war, the Gates of Janus would be left open, and when a war was about to commence, lavish wartime ceremonies were performed throughout the Roman Empire.
It was during the time of Pax Romona (Peace of Rome), when Augustus Caesar had officially “closed the gates of Janus,” instituting a time of peace which ended 200 years of constant war.
The Pax Romana started after Octavian (Augustus) beat Marc Anthony in the Battle of Actium. He became princeps, or “first citizen”.
Lacking a good precedent of successful one-man rule, Augustus created a junta of the greatest military magnates and stood as the front man. By binding together these leading magnates in a coalition, he eliminated the prospect of civil war.
The Pax Romana was not immediate despite the end of the civil wars, because fighting continued in Spain and in the Alps. Nevertheless, Augustus closed the Gates of Janus (the Roman ceremony to mark world Peace) three times,[2] first in 29 BC and again in 25 BC.
The third closure is undocumented, but Inez Scott Ryberg (1949) and Gaius Stern (2006) have persuasively dated the third closure to 13 BC with the Ara Pacis ceremony.
At the time of the Ludi Saeculares in 17 BC the concept of Peace was publicized, and in 13 BC was proclaimed when Augustus and Agrippa jointly returned from pacifying the provinces.
The Ara Pacis ceremony was no doubt part of this announcement. Augustus faced a problem making peace an acceptable mode of life for the Romans, who had been at war with one power or another continuously for 200 years. Romans regarded peace not as an absence of war, but the rare situation that existed when all opponents had been beaten down and lost the ability to resist.
Augustus’ challenge was to persuade Romans that the prosperity they could achieve in the absence of warfare was better for the Empire than the potential wealth and honor acquired when fighting a risky war.
Augustus succeeded by means of skillful propaganda. Subsequent emperors followed his lead, sometimes producing lavish ceremonies to close the Gates of Janus, issuing coins with Pax on the reverse, and patronizing literature extolling the benefits of the Pax Romana.(Wikipedia)
For these changes, he would be deemed by the priesthood of the Curetes as the successor to his father Julius Caesar who was known as “Divus Iulius” (Latin for “Julius is God”) ,and he would be given the title of Divi Filius (Latin for the “Son of a God”).
He would be known as the Savior to the Romans, and over time, savior to much of the world.
This was after he had conquered Egypt and thus “began the rule” of the Romans.
It was in 8 B.C. when Augustus had instituted a “new Roman calendar” adding “two new months.”
One for the month of July which is the birthday of his father Julius, and another month called August which would be honored as the birth month of Augustus. In addition to these changes with new times, dates and the end of the old age, came the beginning of a New Age called the 6th Age in which we are currently in the year 2014 of this same age.
Saint Bede, the Father of English History and Doctor of the Church had written in his Biographical Writings and Letters;
“In the forty-second year of Augustus Caesar, in the twenty-seventh from the death of Antony and Cleopatra, when Egypt became a Roman Province, in the third year of the 193rd Olympiad, and in the 752nd from the building of the city, in the year when all the commotions of nations were stilled throughout the whole world, and by the appointment of God, Caesar had established real and durable tranquility, Jesus Christ consecrated by his advent of the 6th age of the world.”
33rd Degree Freemason, Manly P. Hall had said Janus would later become Saint Peter who is often depicted holding keys, which symbolize the keys to heaven.
To mark the beginning of this age, we know St Peter was crucified upside down.
“So long as the root of wickedness is hidden, it is strong. But when it is recognized, it is dissolved. When it is revealed, it perishes…. It is powerful because we have not recognized it.” – The Gospel of Phillip (Gnostic Text)
One of Phillip K. Dick’s most famous Gnostic theories was that of the Black Iron Prison (BIP), which he described as an invisible complex life form (organism) that was a criminal virus and self-perpetuating.
Its human representatives were the fake people and inauthentic human beings who were its unwitting slaves. They were the army for the Roman Empire, which he claimed never ended, they just went underground.
Think of the Black Iron Prison as a synonymous term to the Matrix to describe our world and the hidden realities which govern it as it exists today. Dick shares through his novels and his own personal story about being a prisoner trapped within it.
According to Dick, those people who do not believe in this world are the victims of its illusions and the people who believe in it are its victims.
Both are slaves but neither is free.
Both must endure its suffering without hope of release or reprieve, because there is no escape from this world.
We are all trapped – unable to break free from the hidden chains of our own enslavement because we have been conditioned to believe we live in freedom.
Dick writes, “We are in a kind of prison but do not know it. The Black Iron Prison is a vast complex life form (organism) which protects itself by inducing a negative hallucination of it.”
He says, “The criminal virus controls by occluding (putting us in a sort of half sleep)…. The occlusion is self-perpetuating; it makes us unaware of it.”
As if this “living organism” is a immortal in that it perpetually self-generates until we manage to break its spell.
Dick writes, “the very occlusion itself prevents us from assessing, overcoming or ever being aware of the occlusion.”
This self generating organism has the ability to insert itself into our thoughts without us ever knowing it is there. A type of mind virus or parasite creating thought-disorder.
Dick says, “There is some kind of ubiquitous thinking dysfunction which goes unnoticed especially by the persons themselves, and this is the horrifying part of it: somehow the self-monitoring circuit in the person is fooled by the very dysfunction it is supposed to monitor.”
When we have fallen under its spell or its control, we are completely unaware and appear to be normal, but we often have the sense that we are no longer ourselves.
It’s as if we have been highjacked by something alien to ourselves as it exploits the hidden aspects that control our reality such as the neuro circuits of our brain, our gastrointestinal tracts, and our central nervous systems.
All the while, we are asleep to the fact that this organism that constitutes that Black Iron Prison has commandeered our very bodies and brains by exploiting the unconscious systems of our minds making us all its unwitting slaves.
It’s goal is to use us humans as its host to not only harvest our energy and our thoughts, which this living organism feeds upon, but to use its victims to control the planet making us a type of android or zombie slave for its cause.
Dick says that it warps us into micro-extensions of itself. This is why it and its slaves are so dangerous.
He writes; “This is the dread thing it does: extending its android thinking more and more extensively. It exerts a dreadful and subtle power, and more and more people fall into its field, by means of which it grows.”
In fact, Dick claims there is collusion between us and the Black Iron Prison and “we’re sources of psychic/psychological energy to it: we help power it.”
It is interesting that he describes that the more people who fall under its field, it makes humans a micro-extensions of itself by which it gains power and grows larger.
There are some key traits and human characteristics that he points out are signs that a person is no longer themselves and has fallen under the control of this organism that becomes a defacto prison guard for our souls.
For Dick, “Android or robot like thinking,” i.e., group-think or sheeple like behavior (with no creativity),” is one of the main qualities proving that the immune system and mind has been officially highjacked making us its slave.
He had said, “This is a sinister life form indeed. First it takes power over us, reducing us to slaves, and then it causes us to forget our former state, and be unable to see or to think straight, and not to know we can’t see or think straight, and finally it becomes invisible to us by reason of what it has done to us. We cannot even monitor our own deformity, our own impairment.”
Dick continues, “It is as if the immune system has failed to detect an invader, a pathogen (shades of William Burroughs: a criminal virus!). Yes, the human brain has been invaded, and once invaded, is occluded to the invasion and the damage resulting from the invasion; it has now become an instrument for the pathogen: it winds up serving as its slave, and thus the ‘heavy metal speck’ [i.e., the BIP] is replicated (spread through linear and lateral time, and through space).”
He says, “We may not be what we seem even to ourselves.
“A usurper is on the throne.”
A spiritual coup d’état upon its unwitting victim and even nations who become its unwitting puppets.
Dick rants;
“We’re a fucking goddam “Biosphere” ruled by an entity who—like a hypnotist—can make us not only quack like a duck on que, but imagine, to boot, that we wanted to quack.”
He describes the mind that has been captured as having a mental illness that is dead and becomes fossilized:
“This section died. It became fossilized, and merely repeats itself. This is scary; it is like mental illness: ‘one day nothing new ever entered his mind—and the last thought just recirculated endlessly.’ Thus death rules here…The BIP is the form of this death, its embodiment—of what is wrong, here.”
THE BLACK IRON POLICE STATE – THE SYSTEM
According to Dick, the Black Iron Prison was not just a living parasitical organism that could commandeer our minds and bodies to make us its puppets, it also had also managed to weave its filamental web into a totalitarian world government ruled by an elite consisting of powerful corporations and individuals who have enslaved most of humanity for thousands of years.
The Black Iron Prison was first coined by Dick in his 1974 essay “The Android and the Human” and was developed further in his novel VALIS (1981).
In 1974, he wrote about how our lives were controlled by technology:
“You know what I mean when I say that we have become slaves to machines? We look at them as our masters, but they are more than that: they are our gods.”
In Dick’s novel VALIS, the protagonist experiences a series of events that lead him to believe that he has been trapped in an alternate reality created by an entity known as VALIS (Vast Active Living Intelligence System).
He later learns from VALIS itself that his perceptions are accurate — that he has indeed been imprisoned inside what appears to be our own universe but is actually a simulation created by a higher intelligence for unknown purposes.
VALIS told him that the world was in fact a kind of prison for humanity, with its population divided into four classes: slaves (who work), soldiers (who protect), priests (who control) and rulers (who decide).
The rulers live in opulence while everyone else lives in squalor. They send out light signals to keep their subjects docile so they won’t revolt against their oppression.
It is referred to as “the Empire”, with its emblem being an eagle holding lightning bolts in its claws.
He says that humans are unable to comprehend the universe because they are trapped inside their own minds, which he calls “a kind of straitjacket or force field.”
In his novel VALIS, where Phil’s alter ego Horselover Fat (known as Phil) has an encounter with God who shows him visions from his own past life.
These visions show Phil how his present life and reality are actually an illusion created by an evil demiurge that wants to keep humans enslaved by their own ignorance and fear.
This demiurge creates a world that appears real but isn’t real at all – it’s just another form of control over us.
Philip K. Dick wrote;
“Once, in a cheap science fiction novel, Fat had come across a perfect description of the Black Iron Prison, but set in the far future.
So if you superimposed the past (ancient Rome) over the present (California in the twentieth century) and superimposed the far future world of The Android Cried Me a River over that, you got the Empire, as the supra- or trans-temporal constant.
Everyone who had ever lived was literally surrounded by the iron walls of the prison; they were all inside it and none of them knew it.”
In an interview with Laura Huxley in 1974 he said: “The Empire (Roman) never ended”; we are living in a kind of continuation of the worst of the Roman Empire, a Black Iron Prison.
In other interviews, he described an oppressive society where people were controlled by machines. He believed that technological advances had created huge corporations which were run for profit rather than for people’s benefit. This made it difficult for ordinary people to make their voices heard when things went wrong.
The History of the Black Iron Prison
The Black Iron Prison is a concept that has been around for quite some time and has been used by many different people throughout history to describe different aspects of the human condition.
For example, there is the ancient concept of the archons, who are deities or evil spirits in Gnosticism, who rule the material world. They are called “archons” because they have dominion over us. They rule over us, they control our lives, they keep us ignorant, and they prevent access to the divine knowledge that is within all of us.
The term archon is derived from the ancient Greek ἄρχων (arkhōn), a ruler, leader, chief (cf. Latin rēx “king”). The word was used to refer to political leaders or governors in general in Ancient Greece.
Like Dick, the Gnostics believed that we could escape from their prison by overcoming these archons through secret knowledge or Gnosis revealed by Jesus Christ or other enlightened beings.
In the New Testament, God’s enemies, who are called principalities and powers when the Apostle Paul in his epistles uses “archon” in a transcendental context (Ephesians 2:2 and Colossians 2:15 are two examples).
Paul alludes to the Black Iron Prison when he describes his world as one filled with suffering and pain, saying that we are all “in bondage to decay.” (Romans 8:19) and that we are “prisoners of hope” (Romans 8:24).
In Buddhism there is a similar idea known as samsara, or reincarnation. The Buddha taught that we are trapped in an endless cycle of suffering because we cling to false ideas about reality.
George Gurdjieff once said, “Before you can escape from prison, you must first realize that you are in prison”.
In modern times, we have the infamous radio show host Alex Jones with his “Prison Planet” and the war for your mind, Info Wars.
How do we escape the Black Iron Prison?
According to Phillip K. Dick, “To see it is to see the ailment, the complex which warps all other thoughts to it.”
He claims that when “we begin to see what formerly was concealed to us, or from us, and the shock is great, since we have, all our lives, been trading (doing business) with evil.”
Dick believed that lies and anything fake or false was how this living organism was using its slaves – inauthentic humans to carry out its mission in creating fictitious realities to keep us distracted from the true evil that lurks beneath our skin and all around us.
Dick wrote; “the bombardment of pseudorealities begins to produce inauthentic humans very quickly [in his words ‘spurious humans’]. He says, “it has grown vine-like into our information media; it is an information life form.”
He continues, “Fake realities will produce fake humans. Or, fake humans will produce fake realities and then sell them to other humans, turning them, eventually, into forgeries of themselves.”
He compares this to the figure of Satan, who is “the liar.”
Dick believed that an authentic human, “cannot be compelled to be what they are not.” He elaborates, “The power of spurious realities battering at us today—these deliberately manufactured fakes never penetrate to the heart of true human beings.”
Did Phillip K. Dick Escape the Black Iron Prison?
For Phillip K. Dick, the Black Iron Prison is eternal and ubiquitous. It has been around for thousands of years, and it will be around for thousands more.
It is the controlling force behind all governments, religions, and systems of authority on Earth. The Black Iron Prison is a system designed to keep us from knowing our true nature as divine beings who can create our own reality through thought.
The reason why we don’t know about this system is that it operates on an unconscious level — it’s designed to work below our conscious perception so that we don’t notice it operating in our lives.
One of its prisoners was Phillip K. Dick.
A man whose mind will be forever known as one of the best science fiction writers who ever lived.
However, while in prison, his body in chains suffered from his eternal incarceration with a dangerous drug addiction, depression, and schizophrenia. After several neurological problems during the 1970s that resulted in brief hospitalizations, Dick began experiencing extreme paranoia and hallucinations.
He suffered from a heart attack in 1976, which led him to believe that his life would soon end; as such, he instructed his wife not to revive him after death if there were any problems with resuscitation attempts on him later down the line.
In 1982, Dick was found unconscious on the floor of his Santa Ana, California home, having suffered a stroke. On February 25, 1982, he suffered another stroke in the hospital, which led to brain death.
At only age 53 on March 2, 1982, Philip’s family pulled the plug on the Black Iron Prison and disconnected him from life support.
He died four months before the release of Blade Runner, the film based on his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.
In the end, Dick decided to make his final escape from the Empire or did he?
Was it Dick who pulled the plug on his brain via stroke or the very Black Iron Prison sending one last shock to take him out for his METH addiction that plagued him all his life.
A kind of crypto death penalty for transgressions against the unseen.
I will leave you with one of his prophetic quotes to ponder if he was a genius, Gnostic, madman, or all of the above.
“There will come a time when it isn’t ‘They’re spying on me through my phone’ anymore.
Eventually, it will be ‘My phone is spying on me.” (Philip K. Dick)
In typical Dicktopian prophetic fashion, he was right…
One thing is for sure, the Black Iron Prison certainly likes its Gnostic prophets.
No matter how mad the unauthentic world may think they are.
BOOKS BY PHILIP K. DICK
Solar Lottery, 1955.
A Handful of Darkness (short stories), 1955.
The World Jones Made, 1956.
The Man Who Japed, 1956.
Eye in the Sky, 1957.
The Cosmic Puppets, 1957.
The Variable Man (5 short novels), 1957.
Time Out of Joint, 1959.
Dr. Futurity, 1960.
Vulcan’s Hammer, 1960.
The Man in the High Castle, 1962.
The Game-Players of Titan, 1963.
Martian Time-Slip, 1964.
The Simulacra, 1964.
Clans of the Alplhane Moon, 1964.
The Penultimate Truth, 1964.
The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, 1965.
Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got A long after the Bomb, 1965.
Now Wait for Last Year, 1966.
The Crack in Space, 1966.
The Unteleported Man, 1966.
Counter-Clock World, 1967.
The Zap Gun, 1967.
The Ganymede Takeover (with Ray Nelson), 1967.
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, 1968.
The Preserving Machine (short stories), 1969.
Galactic Pot-Healer, 1969.
Ubik, 1969.
Our Friends from Frolix 8, 1970.
A Maze of Death, 1971.
We Can Build You, 1972.
The Book of Philip K. Dick (short stories), 1973.
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said, 1974.
Confessions of a Crap Artist, 1975.
A Scanner Darkly, forthcoming.
Deus Irae (with Roger Zelazny), forthcoming.
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
“The most primitive and fundamental of all symbols is the dot.” — Manly P. Hall; Lectures on Ancient Philosophy
The ancient symbol known as the dot in the circle, circled dot, circle with a point, or a circumpunct, is one of the oldest symbols known to humans.
According to Gnostics, it is the most primal aspect of God. To Greek philosophers and the Pythagoreans, the circumpunct represents God, or the Monad – the point of the beginning of creation, and eternity.
It is the sun of astrologers and astronomers; the alchemical gold of the alchemist, and the Keter of the Kabbalah.
33rd Freemason, and one of Masonry’s foremost scholars, Manly P. Hall had written about the circumpunct in the Lectures on Ancient Philosophy view;
“The keys to all knowledge are contained in the dot, the line, and the circle. The dot is universal consciousness, the line is universal intelligence, and the circle is universal force – the threefold, unknowable Cause of all knowable existence (the three hypostases of Atma).
In man the spirit is represented by the dot and conscious activity or intelligence by the line. Conscious activity is the key to intelligence, because consciousness belongs to the sphere of the dot and activity to the sphere of the circle.
The center and the circumference are thus blended in the connecting line – conscious activity or intelligence. The circle is the symbol of body and body is the limit of the radius of the activity of mind power pouring out of the substance of consciousness.”
The circle around the dot is the universe or world in which we live.
A blank canvas to draw from the circle that we wish to create.
A place to also retreat back from the world when things in life get too chaotic. Erase our problems in ‘order’ to have a clean slate.
In a sense, to redeem our souls.
As you can see, the circumpunct is a symbol that can help evolve our souls to become truly illuminated. An enlightened soul who is “I AM.”
In order to know the meaning of this symbol, you first must understand how the world in which we live operates.
The modern man-made world is ruled by chaos which confuses people and often leads their souls astray.
Man-u-fact-ured chaos.
This is why the motto of the 33rd degree of Freemasonry is ORDO AB CHAO.
A Latin term meaning “Order from (out of) Chaos.”
To find order, we must first look within our own selves. You do not find true order within by searching without in books or buying the latest online course from some self-proclaimed enlightened guru who claims they have all the answers.
The whole goal of going within is to find your true soul. To find your true self. To “KNOW THYSELF.”
To KNOW THYSELF, we must go WITHIN THYSELF.
To accomplish this, we must silence the outside world and any chaotic thinking by going within and finding the center of space that is within each one of us.
In a sense, meditate.
We must often leave the web of the man-made reality of confusion in order to move into the circumpunct where we find clarity and retain our true selves.
The knowing of who you are, who you were, and where you are heading.
The symbol to your own individual Gnosis, knowledge, the past, and our mission as an evolving soul in life is contained in the dot within the circle. Our mission is to go there.
To be one with the one. To be you.
The symbol of the circumpunct is the ancient symbol that helps us realize this truth. If you concentrate on the circumpunct, you can visualize your soul as the dot within the world of which we live.
Think and meditate on the symbol of the circumpunct. This is how knowing the meaning of symbols can help you learn, grow and evolve.
Today you will find the symbol of the circumpunct all over the world. It is featured in the best-selling book by Dan Brown, The Lost Symbol. It’s also the symbol for the consumer shopping giant, Target.
Below are many more quotes by Manly P. Hall that I believe are perfect, and I think you might agree. They are taken from his book, Lectures on Ancient Philosophy.
“The dot, being most proximate to perfection, is the simplest, and therefore the least imperfect of all symbols.
The dot, moving away from self, projects the line; the line becomes the radius of an imaginary circle, and this circle is the circumference of the powers of the central dot.
Hypothetically, every sun has a periphery where its rays end, every human life a periphery where its influence ceases, every human mind a periphery beyond which it cannot function, and every human heart a periphery beyond which it cannot feel. Somewhere there is a limit to the scope of awareness. The circle is the symbol of this limit. It is the symbol of the vanishing point of central energy. The dot symbolizes the cause; the line, the means; and the circle, the end.
Motion away from self brings a decrease in consciousness and power; motion toward self brings a corresponding increase in consciousness and power. The farther the light ray travels from its source the weaker the ray.
The dot, the line, and the circle are the supreme and primary symbols. The dot is spirit and its symbol in the Chaldaic Hebrew – the Yod – is actually a seed or spermatozoon, a little comma with a twisting tail representing the germ of the not-self. In its first manifestation the dot elongates to form the line.
The line is a string of dots made up of germ lives – the monadic lives of Leibnitz. From the seed growing in the earth comes the sprig – the line. The line, therefore, is the symbol of the dot in growth or motion.
The sun is a great dot, a monad of life, and each of its rays a line – its own active principle in manifestation.
The key thought is: The line is the motion of the dot.
The dot, or Sacred Island, is the beginning of existence, whether that of a universe or a man.
The dot is the germ raised upon the surface of infinite duration. The potentialities signified by the blank paper are manifested as active potencies through the dot. Thus the limitless Absolute is manifested in a limited way.
After the dot is placed on the paper it can be rubbed out and the white paper restored to its virgin state.
Thus the white paper represents eternity, and the dot, time; and when the dot is erased time is dissolved back into eternity, for time is dependent upon eternity.
Therefore in ancient philosophy there are two symbols: the NOTHING and the ONE – the white paper and the dot. Creation traces its origin from the dot – the Primitive Sea, the Egg laid by the White Swan in the field of SPACE.
The dot is the first illusion of the Self, the first limitation of SPACE, even as Spirit is the first limitation of Self. The dot is life localized as a center of power; the blank paper is life unlimited.
According to philosophy, the dot must sometime be erased, because nothing but the blank paper is eternal.”
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
In our modern era, no other occult symbol or drawing has caused so much controversy and misunderstanding as the mysterious goat-headed half-human hybrid known as Baphomet.
Laboring away in his studies in the suburbs of Paris, Eliphas Levi published his famous book on the occult sciences in 1854 called Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (Dogma and Ritual of High Magic). In this book, Levi revealed the secrets of a mysterious figure called “Baphomet”.
Some people believe that Baphomet is an image of Satan or the Devil. While others claim that it is simply a symbol of man’s animal and spiritual nature in which it contains the secret to enlightenment.
But what did Eliphas Levi truly mean when he created this mysterious figure?
In modern times, the image of Baphomet is one of the most famous esoteric images.
It is used by several occult organizations, but very little is known about its true context and its meaning remains largely obscure. Much of the confusion about its meaning can be related to the various interpretations and even propaganda published over the last two centuries by authors and esotericists.
Eliphas Levi was a French occultist and author. He was born under the legal name, Alphonse Louis Constant in Paris, France on October 28, 1810. As a young man he studied law at the Sorbonne University and served as an officer in the French army during the 1830s.
Levi was exposed to Freemasonry during this time and later became a Freemason himself. He also became interested in Spiritualism, joining the “Society of Psychical Research” in London, England in 1875.
Because of his associations and writings, he was eventually imprisoned for several months. After his release, he then devoted himself to magical and mystical studies, which culminated in the publication of his Magnus opus, Dogma and Ritual of High Magic.
To understand the original meaning of Baphomet, one has to examine this book. You will find that he explains in detail the true meaning of various dark esoteric enigmas such as Black Magic and what he thinks of the Devil and Satan in order to educate people about its dangers.
But Levi’s main focus in this book was by conveying what he called the tradition of “true religion” which he believed would be the final “synthesis of religion, science, and politics.”
The merging together of these various philosophies that have been opposing forces in society for many centuries up until modern times. As it relates to Baphomet, they are also inherent within humankind what is called “spiritualistic magnetism,” and mastering the balance of opposing forces.
That said, Baphomet was the symbolization of the equilibrium of energies within and outside the human body and mind.
One center of these opposing magnetizing forces comes from what Levi calls the “soul of the earth”, which could be equated with what religionists tell us literally is the Devil. The other force is a higher force associated with the “astral light.”
Man or women only become masters of themselves and their environment when they can properly harness and balance these energies. In other words, by being able to balance these forces, they become adepts in communion with the true creator or God.
I will go more in-depth on Levis teachings of magnetism, but first, it is important that I address the accusations made against Levi for being a Satanist and the figure of Baphomet representing Satan or the Devil.
Levi makes it clear in his book how he feels about the ideas of Satan, the Devil, and Lucifer.
He regarded the belief in Satan as nothing but “superstition.” (pg. 179) To Levi, this notion of Satan was not representative of dark forces, or Baphomet but human error (sin) and perversities. He wrote;
“Satan, as a superior personality and as force, does not exist. Satan is the personification of all errors, all perversities, and consequently also of all weaknesses.” (pg. 174)
In Levi’s opinion, the Devil was nothing but the malicious intentions of black magicians and their misled followers. Levi explains;
“The devil, in black magic, is the great magical agent employed for evil by a perverted will.” (pg. 175)
To Eliphas Levi, the practice of magic – either white or black – depends upon the ability of the adept to control the universal life force – that which again, he calls the great magical agent or astral light.”
Manly P. Hall wrote in his book, Dionysian Mysteries and Masonry that the image of Baphomet is NOT a Christian Devil but a symbol of the ancient alchemists representing Nature and natures God being a combination and balance of the forces, light and darkness;
“The Goat of Mendes or BAPHOMET whom the Templars were accused of worshipping is a Goat Headed deity, being formed of both male and female principles, with a Caduceus of Mercury in oplace of its Phallus.
One arm points up and one down , with the Latin ‘ Solve et Coagula’ written on them (meaning: ‘flow and ebb’)
This is NOT the image of a Christian Devil but a symbol of the ancient Alchemists representing Nature and natures God being a Combination & Balance of Male and Female forces, light and darkness, moisture and dryness.
The very principle of Hermes Trismegitus: As Above So Below” is what is symbolized by BAPHOMET…”
The name Baphomet is derived from Greek βαϕή baphe, βάπτω (“I dip”) “immersion” + Μῆτις, Metis “wisdom,” “skill,” or “craft.”
The meaning of Baphomet is “baptism” or initiation into wisdom.
In Latin, the phrase, TEM OHP AB (Temple omnium hominum abba), which is simply Latin for “father of the temple, universal peace of men.” TEM OHP AB spelled backwards is where we get the word “Baphomet.”
“The Baphomets of the Templars, whose names should be spelt kabbalistically backward, is composed of three abbreviations—TEM OHP AB, Temple omnium hominum pads abbas, the father of the temple, universal peace of men. According to some, it was a monstrous head, according to others, a goat-shaped demon.
A sculptured casket unearthed in the ruins of an ancient commanday of the Templars was observed by antiquaries to be a baphometic figure, conformable in its attributes to our goat of Mendes and the androgyne of Khunrath. It is bearded, but with the entire body of a woman; in one hand it holds the sun, in the other the moon, joined to it by chains.
This virile head is a beautiful allegory which attributes to thought alone, the first and creative cause. The head here represents mind, and the female body matter. The stars, bound to the human form and directed by that nature of which intelligence is the head, have also a sublime significance.
The terrible Baphomet is, in fact, like all monstrous enigmas of ancient science, nothing more than an innocent and even pious hieroglyph.
Let us declare emphatically to combat the remnants of manichaeanism; that Satan, as a superior personality and power, has no existence.
THE DEVIL IN BLACK MAGIC IS THE GREAT MAGIC AGENT EMPLOYED FOR EVIL PURPOSES BY A PERVERSE WILL.”
In Dogma and Ritual of High Magic, Levi also clarifies that Lucifer is not Satan. He associates the fallen angel of the Bible with the concept of the Astral Light as it relates to his theory on magnetism. (pg. 178)
He explains that Lucifer and Satan came to symbolize the two opposing tendencies in human nature, which did not exist as independent forces but as positive or negative instrumentations of the Astral Light. (pg. 180)
Lucifer was depicted as the force of liberty and progress, while Satan stood for perversion and anarchy—this is the main reason why it is mistaken to identify the Baphomet with the inverted pentagram described in Rituel. (pg. 181)
Levi also addresses Baphomet and its association with the Knight Templar, who he maintained were Gnostics. They were the “torchbearers of the secret tradition of true Christianity, the “champions of humanity.” He said, “Thus the Templars became the torchbearers of the secret tradition of true Christianity, the “champions of humanity.” (pg. 28)
In “The Classics of the Kabbalah,” he claims that the true meaning of the Temple was “a social utopia and a symbol for the perfect government, based on an egalitarian hierarchy of intelligence and merit.” (pg. 29)
Levi clearly states who the enemies are of this revolutionary Gnosis of enlightenment. He believed that it would bring about the age of reason and the second coming of Christ. Levi wrote;
“the so-called orthodox sectarians who obstinately deny progress” and “claim authorities that they do not understand”:
“The ecclesiastical hierarchy is only temporary and must end when the time of the virility of humanity has come, the age of force and reason” which will bring “the second coming of Christ,” the explanation of all symbolical figures, and the erection of the Temple.” (pg. 30)
This is when Levi says, “Then the universal religion will finally be realized”:
But this purified religion will not be invented, it exists and it has always existed in humanity; but it had to be concealed by the sages, because the vulgar have been incapable of comprehending it. It is the tradition of all the great sanctuaries of antiquity, it is the philosophy of nature, it is God living in humanity and in the world, it is being demonstrated by being, it is reason proven by harmony, it is the analogy of the contraries, it is faith based on science and science elevated by faith.” (pg. 31)
Author, lawyer, and 33rd Degree Scottish Rite Freemason, Albert Pike quoted Éliphas Lévi extensively in his own Masonic magnus opus, Morlas and Dogma. On the subject of Baphomet, Pike wrote;
“Hierogliphically to express this law of prudence, they gave their mercury, personified in Egypt as Hermanubis, a dog’s head; and to their Sulpher, represented by the Baphomet of the Temple, that goat’s head which brought into such disrepute the occult Mediaeval associations.”
Pike says,
“The Gnostics held that it composed the igneous body of the Holy Spirit; and it was adored in the secret rites of the Sabbat or the Temple, under the hieroglyphic figure of Baphomet or the hermaphroditic goat of Mendes.” [Pike, op. cit., p. 734, teaching of the 28th Degree]
If one is to truly study Levi’s writings and not the opinions of others, one will understand that his intentions were to teach this ancient mystery tradition and clarify various magical teachings. One of the most important in what he describes as the “Great Work” is the eternal law of the opposing forces of nature in which the initiate is to strive to find an equilibrium between the two.
Levi wrote;
“This force was known to the ancients: it consists of a universal agent whose supreme law is equilibrium, and whose direction is concerned immediately with the great arcanum of transcendental magic. … This agent, which barely manifests itself under the trial and error of the disciples of Mesmer, is exactly what the adepts of the Middle Ages called the first matter of the great work.
The Gnostics represented it as the fiery body of the Holy Spirit, and it was the object of adoration in the secret rites of the Sabbath or the Temple, under the hieroglyphic figure of Baphomet or the Androgynous Goat of Mendes.” (pg. 13)
It is important that you understand that Eliphas Levi believed that the doctrines of the Church have been both corrupted and lost.
In the preface of his book, he explains the iconography of the various aspects and symbology that can be found in the figure of Baphomet. Levi wrote;
“The goat on the frontispiece carries the sign of the pentagram on the forehead, with one point at the top, a symbol of light, his two hands forming the sign of Hermeticism, the one pointing up to the white moon of Chesed, the other pointing down to the black one of Geburah.
This sign expresses the perfect harmony of mercy with justice.
His one arm is female, the other male like the ones of the androgyne of Khunrath, the attributes of which we had to unite with those of our goat because he is one and the same symbol.
The flame of intelligence shining between his horns is the magic light of the universal balance, the image of the soul elevated above matter, as the flame, whilst being tied to matter, shines above it.
The ugly beast’s head expresses the horror of the sinner, whose materially acting, solely responsible part has to bear the punishment exclusively; because the soul is insensitive according to its nature and can only suffer when it materializes.
The rod standing instead of genitals symbolizes eternal life, the body covered with scales the water, the semi-circle above it the atmosphere, the feathers following above the volatile. Humanity is represented by the two breasts and the androgyne arms of this sphinx of the occult sciences.” [3. Eliphas Levi, Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie]
The first connection of Baphpmet to modern Satanism arrives when the Brittish occultist and spy, Aleister Crowley adopted the symbol for the religion he invented called Thelema and his so-called Gnostic Mass. In addition, Satanic organizations like the Church of Satan and Satanic Temple have reappropriated and corrupted Baphomet for their own use and marketing purposes.
For example, Anton Szandor LaVey’s Church of Satan adopted the symbol in 1966. The Church of Satan’s current High Priest, Peter H. Gilmore even claims it was his organization that made the “Sigil of Baphomet” to be associated with Satanism and popular among Satanists.
In researching Eliphas Levi’s books, it appears that his main objective was to bring back what he called the “traditional and original Christian religion”, which he associated with the Ancient Gnostics and the Knight Templar who he said were the official “torchbearers” of this secret Gnosis. It is important that you understand this history because among the Freemasons, Templars, and other occultists, Baphomet was not associated with Satanism until our modern era.
How did this happen?
You will find that a common theme in Satanism is to sometimes alter or corrupt Christian symbols and other art and create what they for example Peter Gilmore of the Church of Satan says in his own words, “blasphemous parodies.” For example, the upside down cross and also the original pentagram on Baphomet’s head by Levi they invert to create what is called the “inverted pentagram,” which “changes its original meaning.”
“Examine the literature and imagery predating the founding of the Church of Satan in 1966: Satanism is usually denoted by inverted crosses or crucifixes and blasphemous parodies of Christian art. There are also images of goats and devils, and demons—along with their sigils from grimoires—all used to represent the “satanic.” However, the complete graphic which we now call the “Sigil of Baphomet” only became associated as the foremost symbol of Satanism in the public and media consciousness after the founding of the Church of Satan and Dr. LaVey’s use of it.
From its inception, the Church of Satan has been constantly spotlighted in print, film, and television media all over the globe, so this was to be expected. The word “Baphomet” dates back to records of Templar trials, and there are ongoing discussions concerning its derivation and meaning. However, there is no clear evidence that the symbol which we in the Church of Satan call “Baphomet” is similarly derived; the evidence, if any, has not yet been released in any public forum.”
Then you have other organizations like the Satanic Temple who not only use the Satanic version of Baphomet for their own marketing purposes, they create statues and controversy all around the world with their devilish antics. Further muddying the truth and cementing in people’s minds that the symbol of Baphomet is purely Satanic.
As I have explained and from Eliphas Levi’s own writings, you can clearly see that his intentions were not to represent Baphomet with the Devil or Satanism.
It was simply a drawing representing human nature, balance, and equilibrium of the astral light.
He believed that it was by the manipulation of this fluidic essence, that the phenomena of transcendental magic were produced, which were the secrets of magnetism.
This was the supreme arcanum of human existence.
To master it was to become a co-creator with God.
For Eliphas Levi, Baphomet is the iconic representation of the “true religion”, which were the revolutionary doctrines of Gnosis going back to the “Gnostics.” A time where he believed there was a battle between the “true” and “false” religion in which the false doctrines had usurped the true doctrines of the Gnostics.
Levi wrote in “The Kabbalistic Origins of Christianity” that the Kabbalah was the core doctrine of real Christianity, which contained the true teachings of the “universal tradition” that opposed the corrupted doctrine of the established Churches.
During the time of Saint Paul, there was a schism among the Gnostics between the traditional religion and the new initiated by St. Paul’s burning of the books of Hermes and Pythagoras. For Levi, this was needed in order to forge a new synthesis “in the name of the original and traditional dogma against the despotic and ignorant interpretations of the degenerated priesthood.”
By doing so, Paul walked in the steps of the “pacifistic revolutionary” Jesus Christ, who he believed to be a successor to Osiris, Orpheus, Moses “and all great men of enlightenment.”
This traditional religion and honoring the chain of wise initiates was broken when the philosophical battle took place between Paul and John. Lévi sided with the teaching of Saint John who he said was initiated by Jesus and wrote his Apocalypse in the “hieroglyphic language” handed down to him.
A meaning which was lost by “the official Roman Church.”
This paved the way for “Catholic absolutism” with the followers of the Church being misled to attack the Gnostics: “From the burning of books they came to the burning of their authors.”
Meanwhile, Levi said that true Christianity, the original Gnosis of the Ancients was preserved by various secret sects such as the Templars and Freemasons.
He believed that the ultimate goal of preserving these teachings was for “the realization of the divine ideal in humanity.”
For Levi, he was a warrior for God whose sole task was to bring Light to the only true Tradition with the ultimate goal of establishing a perfect social order ruled by the wise.
– Moe Bedard
SOURCES:
Eliphas Levi – Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (Dogma and Ritual of High Magic)
Many P. Hall – Dionysian Mysteries and Masonry
Éliphas Lévi and Arthur Edward Waite – The mysteries of magic: a digest of the writings of Eliphas Lévi
Albert Pike – Morals and Dogma
Church of Satan – The History of the Origin of the Sigil of Baphomet and its Use in the Church of Satan
Eliphas Levi – The Kabbalistic Origins of Christianity
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
Many scholars from different religious persuasions have believed that the Antichrist will likely be a unique individual who appears during the end times. The French mystic and Traditionalist thinker, René Guénon also believed that the Antichrist would likely be a specific person.
In The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, Guénon says the modern world is a realm of pure materialism because of the “Western deviation” from eternal truth. This resulted in the “reign of quantity”. This was not just about economics and politics, it was also a spiritual war.
He wrote of the current age – “the word ‘Satanic’ can indeed be properly applied”.
Guénon, uses the word satanic to represent the negation and reversal of order and denial of traditional truth. He says the spirit of negation is the spirit of lying that is often disguised by the unexpected, in order to avoid being recognized, and in even in order to pass itself off as the very opposite of what it is. The adversary naturally will try to pass himself off as an angel of light.
For Guénon, the Antichrist would be who he called an imposter who comes at an opportune time when everything traditional is inverted (upside down), which brings about his coming – the Great Parody. His rule will bring about the end of the reign of quantity, and he will claim it will be the Golden Age.
A counterfiet messiah that promises the people heaven on earth. But it’s a lie in the form of a pseudo traditional restoration and counter initiation.
According to Guénon, the counter-initiation is the expression of the counter-tradition in the social order, which is precisely the reign of the Antichrist. This will be the time we have a reintroduction of quality, but of quality inverted with respect to its normal and legitimate significance.
Guénon says the Antichrist will be a person who will be at the head of the thing as the incarnation of what it will represent. He will establish a new visible counter hierarchy, the summit of which will be occupied by this being. He wil be less an individual than a symbol, a synthesis of all the inversion of tradition that has led upto his time.
We could interpret this event that Guénon describes as the Last Great Illusion to end all illusions for the people. As if the Antichrist will be a natural outgrowth of modern society at the agreed upon End Time, but he is also chosen or annointed to assume his role as the defacto leader of the last act.
Guénon said the Antichrist will also have specific physical traits and deformities showing inwardly that he is the closest to hell – bearing the mark of the devil. He will have neither a predecessor nor successor. (326)
In The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, Guénon wrote;
“He [the Antichrist] will be an ‘imposter’ (this is the meaning of the word dajjāl by which he is usually designated in Arabic) since his reign will be nothing other than the ‘Great Parody’ in its completest form, the ‘satanic’ imitation and caricature of everything that is truly traditional and spiritual.
His time will certainly no longer be the ‘reign of quantity’, which was itself only the end-point of the ‘anti-tradition’; it will on the contrary be marked, under the pretext of a false ‘spiritual restoration’, by a sort of reintroduction of quality in all things, but of quality inverted with respect to its normal and legitimate significance.
After the ‘egalitarianism’ of our times there will again be a visibly established hierarchy, but an inverted hierarchy, indeed a real ‘counter-hierarchy’, the summit of which will be occupied by the being who will in reality be situated nearer than any other being to the very bottom of the ‘pit of hell’.” (pg. 271)
René Guénon wrote in The Reign of Quantity that the rule of the Antichrist marks the end times where the modern world and evil will vanish. But this does not mean it is the end of humanity.
Like a bad dream, it is simply the end of an illusion. Guénon had wrote;
“….the end now under consideration is undeniably of considerably greater importance than many others, for it is the end of a whole Manvantara, and so of the temporal existence of what may rightly be called a humanity, but this, it must be said once more, in no way implies the end of the terrestrial world itself, because, through the “reinstatement” that takes place at the final instant, this end will immediately become the beginning of another Manvantara…..it can be said in all truth that “the end of a humanity” never is and never can be anything but the end of an illusion.
Evil is effaced in the presence of the total order into which it is finally merged, and this seemingly excuses all crimes as mere negativities, as simply limitations, like contingent existence itself.
The evil vanishes completely because it was inreality only an illusion [a mere phantasy, like a bad dream] inherent in separativity.” (335-336)
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
Today on Gnostic Warrior Radio, I have the pleasure of interviewing journalist, speaker, Freemason, and author of Written In Stone: Decoding The Secret Masonic Religion Hidden In Gothic Cathedrals And World Architecture, Richard Cassaro.
Richard and I talk about the secrets of Freemasonry, such as where the craft is today and where it may be heading. We also touch on the triptych, the secrets hidden in stone, and the future world that we are all building together. This is a conversation with a true Free Builder who is helping better future with his words, works, and websites.
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
think is just about partying and bringing in the New Year with some new resolutions that they never keep.
“Divus Iulius” (Latin for “Julius is God”) , and he would be given the title of Divi Filius (Latin for the “Son of a God”).
