The Pentagram: Liberty, Lucifer, and Baphomet
Here’s something to think about: why did Eliphas Levi put the pentagram of the elements on the forehead of his icon of Baphomet? Levi didn’t get the idea from the images known to have influenced him—the androgynes of Khunrath, de Nuysement, and Hammer-Purgstall. Many authors (myself included) connect the pentagram with the brow chakra and the third eye. However, Levi knew nothing about the chakra system; the Eastern chakra system did not appear in Western culture until the late 1880s,[1] over a decade after Levi died. The pentagram of the elements could have easily been placed elsewhere in the image, such as on the breast of Baphomet. So why the forehead?
I speculate that Levi may have been inspired by the Spirit of Liberty, a statue mounted upon the July Column in the Place de le Bastille in Paris.[2] The Spirit of Liberty is a golden statue of a naked, winged young man perched on one leg as if he is about to take flight. He holds a flaming torch in his right hand and a broken chain in his left. Most importantly, the Spirit of Liberty is crowned with a five-pointed star.
We can find references to the Spirit of Liberty in The Emancipation of Woman (c.1846) by Flora Tristan, a feminist and socialist activist who was a good friend of Levi. Tristan had a significant influence on Levi’s socialist political beliefs, and Levi was her mentor in spiritual matters. When Tristan died in 1844, Levi edited and published her last book; some historians believe that Levi himself authored a significant part of the work. In any case, Levi would have been familiar with the passage in The Emancipation of Woman that associates the Spirit of Liberty with Lucifer:
“Lucifer, the angel of genius and science who was relegated to hell's throne by medieval superstition, but now, freed by human conscience, mounts triumphantly up to heaven, with a star on his forehead, holding in his right hand an unquenchable torch.”[3]
Tristan also alludes to the Place de la Bastille and the July Column:
“Thus, in our times, at the place where despotism once located its dungeons, we raised a pillar to liberty, and, on the top of this pillar shines the angel of light, the young and glorious Lucifer!”[4]
Tristan’s concept of Lucifer comes directly from Levi. It is clearly expressed in The Bible of Liberty (1841), a tract advocating Christian socialism that landed Levi in prison. Levi’s Bible casts Satan and Lucifer as opposing forces and identifies Lucifer with liberty:
The spirit of evil is not Lucifer, the glorious rebel; it is Satan, the angel of domination and slavery.
It is Satan who tempts the world, and is Lucifer who saves it by raising it up against Satan!
Satan is the father of law; Lucifer is the father of grace.
Despotism is death; liberty is life.
Despotism is the flesh; liberty is the spirit.
Despotism is hell; liberty is heaven.[5]
For Levi, Lucifer had both political and esoteric interpretations. In The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic, Lucifer (the light-bringer) was one of names that Levi associated with the astral light, the invisible spiritual substance that permeates everything in the universe and serves as the medium for magic.[6] In the introduction to Ritual, Levi recounts a Gnostic gospel that states that when God said, “Let there be light,” Lucifer came into being, which Levi characterizes as an intelligence of liberty and freedom.[7] Levi also connected Lucifer with the pentagram and the morning star. [8]
One notable difference between the pentagrams of the Spirit of Liberty and Baphomet is that the star on Liberty’s forehead is inverted while Baphomet’s pentagram is upright. Don’t blame sculptor Augustin Dumont, who completed work on the Spirit of Liberty over two decades before Levi decided that upright and inverted pentagrams had different meanings. To Levi, the pentagram with one point upwards was “a symbol of the light”[9] (Lucifer) while the inverted pentagram with two points up represented Satan.[10] Thus, in the description of the Baphomet image found in Doctrine and Ritual, the upright pentagram on his forehead “stops one from taking him for a fabulous image of Satan”[11] because the upright pentagram is associated with Lucifer.
In Baphomet: History, Ritual, and Magic of the World’s Most Famous Occult Icon, I discuss the connection between the androgynous Baphomet and Levi’s conception of a socialist utopia as an androgyne: “The use of the androgyne as the basis for the Baphomet figure is thus an expression of [Alphonse Louis] Constant’s utopian socialism that became integrated into Levi’s occult philosophy.”[12] With this in mind, it is certainly possible that the pentagram and the torch of the Spirit of Liberty (a.k.a. Lucifer) were also political symbols that were integrated into the icon of Baphomet.
There’s one more interesting connection between the Spirit of Liberty and Baphomet: Mercury. Dumont’s Spirit of Liberty was known to have been influenced by a sculpture of Mercury by the 16th century Italian sculptor Giambologna, and the image of a naked man perched on one foot as if to take flight is a primary characteristic of statues and images of the god Mercury. I have already discussed the connection between Baphomet and Mercury in a previous blog post.[13] Levi attributed the planet Mercury to the Devil trump, and this attribution may have influenced the placement of the caduceus in his Baphomet image. Of course, it’s only a coincidence, but sometimes coincidences can be interesting and informative.
[1] https://www.theosophical.org/publications/quest-magazine/the-rainbow-body-how-the-western-chakra-system-came-to-be
[2] The Place de la Bastille is a public square built upon the site of the former Bastille prison; the famous storming of the Bastille was the event that instigated the French Revolution. The July Column commemorates the Revolution of 1830, also known as the July Revolution, which deposed Charles X and installed Louis-Phillippe as the King of France. In a more general context, noted on the official website of the monument, the Column commemorates the defense of freedom by the citizens of France.
[3] Flora Tristan, The Emancipation of Woman, trans. Kirk Watson (Kindle edition, 2013), 21.
[4] Tristan, The Emancipation of Woman, 21.
[5] Constant, The Bible of Liberty (Daath Gnosis, 2012), 36.
[6] Levi, The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic, trans. Mark Anthony Mikituk (TarcherPerigee, 2017), 58, 249.
[7] Levi, The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic, 195-197.
[8] Levi, The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic, 249.
[9] Levi, The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic, 317.
[10] Levi, The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic, 247.
[11] Levi, The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic, 318.
[12] Michael Osiris Snuffin, Baphomet: History, Ritual, and Magic of the World’s Most Famous Occult Icon (Llewellyn, 2025), 43.
[13] https://www.michaelosirissnuffin.com/blog/baphomet-and-the-planet-mercury