Book Review: Baphomet Revealed
I was excited when I picked up Baphomet Revealed: Mysteries and Magic of the Sacred Icon by fringe historian Heather Lynn, PhD, hoping to gain a different perspective on the occult icon of Baphomet. It didn’t take very long for my enthusiasm to turn to disappointment, however, as the book is heavy on conjecture and light on substance.
In some places, Lynn struggles with the basic facts of the Baphomet myth. She relies on the work of Austrian Orientalist Joseph Von Hammer-Purgstall to connect Baphomet and the Templars with Gnosticism, one of the themes of her book. The problem is that Hammer-Purgstall’s work is a well-known forgery created to support the political agenda of his powerful mentor, Prince Metternich of Austria. That Hammer-Purgstall’s work is fabricated is confirmed by respected Templar historians Malcolm Barber, Barbara Frale, and Peter Partner—in works included in Lynn’s bibliography. Lynn also disputes another well-known fact, that the name Baphomet originally referred to Mohammed (see pages 32-41); once again, a casual reading of many of the sources in her bibliography would confirm this.
In other places it appears that Lynn simply has a poor grasp of the subjects that she writes about, a failing most on display in her chapter about Aleister Crowley and Baphomet. Here Lynn focuses too much on Crowley’s notoriety and not enough on his magical philosophy. The importance of The Book of the Law is completely understated. There is no mention of “Liber A’Ash,” the received document in which Baphomet converses with Crowley, and Baphomet’s role and symbology in the Gnostic Mass, where Crowley defines Baphomet in the context of Thelema, is completely glossed over. Indeed, sex magick, an essential element of Crowley’s magical practice, is a subject so seemingly foreign to the author that she puts it in quotation marks. The only quote Lynn can muster to elaborate on Crowley’s conception of Baphomet is the “Devil=Hadit=Baphomet”[1] quote from Magick in Theory and Practice, which is difficult to understand without some knowledge of Thelemic philosophy and for which she provides little explanation. As if to underscore her ignorance, she mistakenly cites this quote as originating in The Equinox, Vol. I, No.8.
While Lynn’s work covers all of the major milestones in the history of Baphomet, her documentation of these elements is often inadequate and misleading, and it is buried under mounds of speculation that often doesn’t seem to go anywhere. Her final chapter is so nebulous that it barely mentions anything substantive about Baphomet at all, and her conclusion seems to be that Baphomet is a mysterious, complex, non-dualistic figure that transforms those who interact with it—essentially stating the obvious. There are no true mysteries of Baphomet revealed here.
[1] Crowley, Liber ABA, 277, footnote.