Baphomet's Fools

There are some humans who are technically nut jobs .....

King Charles In Red

.... but who somehow are not identified as such and walk the earth, and post their strange ideas on the Internet .... they are called conspiracists and they come in all shapes and colours. So for example some of them think that the British Royal Family are shape shifting lizards, along with other world heads.

OK, so King Charles has a portrait painted which has a lot of red on it .... cue some controversy in the art world. Who cares? There would have been criticism from 'Art Critics' whatever way the painting had been done.

King Charles Upside Down

But then some half wit on the web, decides to mirror the picture, join the two and the turn it upside down .... and with a bit of a cut and paste job (to lose some of the borders cos it doesn't work otherwise), lo and behold discovers 'Baphomet' in the image!! Now who would really bother to do this .... a nut case that's who.

Can't really see it? ... neither could I until I cut the borders to enhance the effect (I guess you have to have a certain mindset to go through all this palaver and then squint to find what you were looking for .... tip: the horns start at the hands) ...... So here's the 'enhanced' version doing the rounds on the Internet and Social Media  .......

Baphomet (KC version)

....... of course it went viral .... and poor Charlie is now in there in stupid conspiracy land, alongside such luminaries as the Clinton's who are the subjects of two baseless claims. Oh and you can do this with many other images and get some weird alternate images to appear, if your looking for them.

Of course there is bit more to Baphomet than simply being 'satanic'. Baphomet is actually a symbol in various occult and mystical traditions, as a figure representing both Duality and Balance, for instance the balance between opposites such as Light and Darkness, and Male and Female, and although its often linked to occultism and Satanism, it also has deeper mystical meanings connected to the human experience, philosophy, and the eternal search for truth .... the name Baphomet was first mentioned in the Knights Templar trials of AD 1307. Its only since 1856, that the name Baphomet has been associated with the "Sabbatic Goat" image that was drawn by French magician/occultist Éliphas Lévi, there was no such connection to that type of figure for Baphomet prior to then.

The Chicago chapter of the Temple of Satan once put up a statue in the government building entitled Satans Gift - "Knowledge Is The Greatest Gift" .... in a reference to Baphomet (they don't actually worship Satan, but rather the idea of Satan as a metaphorical icon for the values of the Enlightenment). In 2015, the Satanic Temple unveiled a one-ton bronze-coated rendering of Baphomet, with two little children at his side.

It claimed that the first election of Donald Trump boosted membership of the Temple of Satan, so no doubt they are looking forward to another membership surge.