Solving Eliphas Levi's Puzzle of Baphomet

[Corbin]

Puzzle? Do you mean what its image represents? Like the "riddle of the sphynx"?

I've made no dedicated study of the particular image but symbolically it suggests to me the gnostic, hermetic or mystic Hermaphrodite? A representative of the meeting and alignment of opposites, the "whole" entity or "divine marriage"?

The *Psychological individuated person? The Lucifarian "bringer of light"?

*In that Jung repackaged hermetic thought.

[Shireside]

Whether intentional on the part of the image's creator or not, Baphomet appears to me to be a map of the entity or idea of Lucifer. The representation makes literal many concepts wrapped up in the Morning Star, inclusive even of His 'Witchfather' aspect.

[Lord_of_Nightmares]

A pantheistic and magical figure of the Absolute. The torch placed between the two horns represents the equilibrating intelligence of the triad. The goat's head, which is synthetic, and unites some characteristics of the dog, bull, and ass, represents the exclusive responsibility of matter and the expiation of bodily sins in the body. The hands are human, to exhibit the sanctity of labour ; they make the sign of esotericism above and below, to impress mystery on initiates, and they point at two lunar crescents, the upper being white and the lower black, to explain the correspondences of good and evil, mercy and justice. The lower part of the body is veiled, portraying the mysteries of universal generation, which is expressed solely by the symbol of the caduceus. The belly of the goat is scaled, and should be coloured green ; the semi-circle above should be blue ; the plumage, reaching to the breast, should be of various hues. The goat has female breasts, and thus its only human characteristics are those of maternity and toil, otherwise the signs of redemption. On its forehead, between the horns and beneath the torch, is the sign of the microcosm, or the pentagram with one beam in the ascendant, symbol of human intelligence, which, placed thus below the torch, makes the flame of the latter an image of divine revelation. This Pantheos should be seated on a cube, and its footstool should be a single ball, or a ball and a triangular stool. In our design we have given the former only to avoid complicating the figure.
—Eliphas Levi, Transcendental magic, its doctrine and ritual

[Corbin]

https://hermetic.com/osiris/levibaphomet

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... Baphomet is a representation of the Astral Light, the medium of all magic, and gaining power over it is the goal of the Great Work:

“The Great Work is, before all things, the creation of man by himself, that is to say, the full and entire conquest of his faculties and his future; it is especially the perfect emancipation of his will, assuring him… full power over the Universal Magical Agent ...

[Corbin]

I discovered that in the craft, riddles, mysteries and puzzles are very useful and beneficial, approachable to the broadest sweep of people, yet the vague cryptic statements people attach when "solving" such esoterica, less so. Tacere?

So I guess congratulations?

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What question is worth more then it’s answer?

Beneath the twisting tower a mystery flows,
disguised fragile by a ring of flowery prose,
an outward breath to an inward beat,
biding its time buried in riddle,
hidden hollow beneath rhymer’s feet.

But hollow beneath; or eternally fed?
that secret within words unsaid,
in lands unseen and songs unsung,
tears of the world from sonnet’s sweep,
pooled black it shines in the deep.

But shines without or glimmers within?
What side does the mirror reflect?
The echo, the voice, the doer, the done?
Ambiguously exposed,
obscurely expressed,
an answer for all or for none.

[Kassandra]

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To me, is sounds like you didn't really need "Baphomet" to arrive at the insights you describe. Sounds more like you needed to believe you did.

Just my impression.




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[planewalker]

Sometimes the question is more important than the answer and the journey greater than the destination.