Send in the drag queens: The triumph of politicized occultism
Who is this creature reading to kids at the public library story hour? What does it represent?
It’s apparent this horned monster is not the goofy clown parents hire to make balloon animals for their kid’s birthday party.
It’s not a circus clown like Emmett Kelly, famous for his “Weary Willie” sad sack persona derived from the hobos of the Great Depression; or Glen Little, whose perennial smile graced the Ringling Brothers circus for twenty years;” and it’s not Oleg Popov, whose clown car and pratfalls made audiences laugh.
No, there is no innocent clowning around by this indeterminate creature with the flame tipped horns. It represents something far more sinister than even the creepy clowns of yesteryear who went about trying to scare the living daylights out of Halloween partiers.
The weird-looking creature reading to the innocent little kids is costumed to resemble Baphomet, who is pictured below.
Most readers will be familiar with the bronze statue of Baphomet intended to be erected in Oklahoma in 2014. The statue of the goatish creature includes a child on each side of it. The two children are gazing up at Baphomet’s face adoringly, much as paintings of Christ portray little ones gazing at the one who said, “Let the little children come unto me and forbid them not.”
Grabbing opportunities for establishing intimacy with children is a very clever move on the part of the Baphomet cult. Reading a story book to little ones establishes a tender closeness that formerly belonged almost exclusively to family members — mom, dad, grandma and grandpop. Now an indeterminate, alien and satanic-looking creature stands in for trusted and known family. The being is trans-human, crowned with scary flame tipped horns; horns that are an ancient symbol of the strength, aggressiveness, power and dignity of a dark divinity.
The naive parents who are taking their children to the shrines of Baphomet and to the public library might want to know a bit more about the history of the idol whose followers and representatives claim to possess ancient and dark secret knowledge not found in library books.
But first, they have to move beyond the deliberately obfuscatory statements of Baphomet priests such as Lucien Greaves, who stated grandiloquently: "Good people of Arkansas and supporters of religious liberty, I present to you Baphomet: symbol of pluralism, legal equality, tolerance, free inquiry, freedom of conscience and reconciliation."
He further explained, “…The meaning of that monument is…the importance of embracing blasphemy, and standing up for what is just in the face of extreme opposition. It’s not a crazy idea that’s what Satan could come to mean in the cultural conversation.”
Right. The faithful who objected to Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ” and Chris Ofili's elephant dung decorated “The Holy Virgin Mary” are familiar with the mocking casuistry of those who deliberately troll to offend and then blame the offended for being offended.
The fact is that the Baphomet idol imitated by the creature reading to kids has a very dark religious history and an equally ominous political philosophy behind it.
The graven image of Baphomet was originally drawn by a Frenchman by the name of Alphonse Louis Constant, who later changed his name, using the nom de plume Eliphas Levi for his writings.
As Julian Strube points out in his scholarly work, “The Baphomet of Eliphas Levi: Its Meaning and Historical Context,” Levi intended the Baphomet to be the embodiment of what he considered a final synthesis of science, religion, philosophy and politics. He believed he had decrypted the ancient tradition of “true” religion, one that would be the basis of the creation of the Kingdom of God on earth.
Strube writes that Levi categorized his insights into supposedly secret and ancient verities unknown to the unwashed masses as “true Catholicism;” and, at times more or less explicitly, with “true socialism.”
Levi’s Baphomet has to be seen “as an iconic and symbolic representation of this ‘true’ doctrine;” doctrine that was to be tied to radical socialism from nineteenth century on; including the corporate socialism of fascism and the communist vision of state control; the establishment of a perfect social order.
“Explaining the meaning of the pentagram that adorns the Baphomet’s head, Lévi declared that ‘every new cult is just a new route to lead humanity to the one religion, that of the sacred and the radiant pentagram, the sole eternal Catholicism.’”
Levi’s synthesis would bring forth union not only of all religions but also of man and woman: “The two sexes will be one, according to the word of Christ; the great androgyne will be created, humanity will be woman and man.”
The Baphomet, whom Levi referred to as “the great androgyne,” represents a fusion of the sexes. The idol is androgynous, having a male body with breasts.
It is a symbol of the eradication of humanity’s binary distinctions.
By the late twentieth century, there were forerunners of the universal androgyne, including Genesis P-Orridge, a musician who created the term “occulture.” He took the elimination of the human binary so seriously that he and his wife Jacqueline Mary Breyer, also known as “Lady Jaye” “together…embarked on the Pandrogeny Project, an attempt to unite as a “pandrogyne,” or single entity, through the use of surgical body modification to physically resemble one another.”
P-Orridge and Lady Jaye thus became forerunners of the current trans movement. Androgyny is a feature of the sexually ambiguous Baphomet. It is also a doctrine of the elite who follow the tenets of the new religion based on the elimination of distinctions, including the binary nature of humanity. Such are among the gnostic elite who see ancient truths behind extant religions and political systems to the one universal humankind and the one universal kingdom on earth.
Strube summarizes: “…the Baphomet is first and foremost an embodiment of the one and only true tradition whose ultimate goal is the establishment of a perfect social order. [It] is the “key to a tradition of superior, secret, ancient knowledge; [the] pantheistic and magical figure of the absolute.”
Levi’s discovery of “the sole eternal Catholicism” — that is, a “revelation primitive” — that was behind all religions and thus a “universal religion of humanity” finds its symbolic expression in the Baphomet. It is an idol representing the gnostic beliefs of those who wish to establish a utopian world order. The new “Catholicism,” or universality of belief and governance, is to be established by an enlightened elite who have access to a superior “science” at the root of their political activism.
Levi believed there would be an enlightened hommes d’élite who would be “responsible for the administration of ‘the interests and goods of the universal family.’”
In short, the perfect socialist order is to be realized by an elite; the first step being a desire to create one’s self in one’s own image--a “‘Luciferian aspiration’ towards liberty and knowledge.”
For true believers in the potent symbolism of Baphomet, the world is not unified and humanity is not one because there are distinctions. If oneness is desired, if true equality is desired, the elite must lead in getting rid of distinctions. The new elites’ attachment to gender ideology stems from the desire to make no distinctions. Breaking all binaries, including the human binary, is critical to monistic thinking of the trans movement.
Of course, the triumph of a Universal Oneness means getting rid of Christianity, which is full of distinctions, including opposition to androgyny. Christians still believe in the distinction between man and woman and the distinction between good and evil.
It is important to note the representatives of the drag queen phenomenon, even when the drag queen does not overtly resemble the Baphomet, are symbols of sexual indeterminacy and the rejection of the binary nature of humanity. They are neither man nor woman. In fact, some feminists have pointed out the drag queens are mockingly wearing “woman face” much as some used to wear black face.
What the Baphomet idol and its representatives implicitly represent are the beliefs of those who make and erect them. As all devotees of idols do, a claim is staked when their shrine appears — just as Baal and Asherah worshipers staked out claims in ancient Canaan. The reason the Canaanites put their idols’ shrines on high hills was because the idols were seen as asserting authority over the territory they viewed. The shrines were closest to the “sky seat” of the gods; that is, closest to where the real power was. It’s noteworthy that when the Devil tempted Jesus, he took him to high places, including the highest point of the Jewish Temple, thus seeking to assert satanic authority even over the Son of God.
In brief, the makers, followers and representatives of the Baphomet and the beliefs it represents are making a territorial claim, be it a public library or a state building. There is no “pluralism” intended. What is intended is the complete replacement of the Judeo/Christian ethic and influence, as it is regarded as privileged and resistant to the Universal. Just as significantly, the Baphomet ideology seeks a replacement of nations with a universal world order run by socialist/communist ideology.
The longing of some theologians and philosophers to discern a universal principle synthesizing all religions may also help to explain the Pachamama incident that so roiled orthodox Catholics; and it even helps to explain the roiling controversies surrounding theologians who put forth ideas about the “God behind God” or the “God behind Christ.”
The contemporary scene is filled with people who believe they have seen behind the veil to apprehend an ancient, universal and unifying reality behind religions and political systems; it is filled with believers in a radical socialism seen as ushering in a perfect society.
It is probable the vast majority of parents of the children attending the worship of Baphomet are largely unaware of the political/religious overtones of the drag queen cult that is the spearhead of a movement believing in the inevitable syncretistic progress of history — one in which ultimately all will become the Universal One, with individual identities completely absorbed into the All.
But there are those who see the Baphomet idol and ideology for what they are and what they promote. After all, history has seen the equivalent of Baphomet many times.
Be it Nebuchadnezzar’s ninety-foot-high statue of the god Nabu before whom all, including Shadrack, Meshack and Abednego were to bow down; be it a statue of Jove (Greek name for Jove was Zeus) erected in the Jewish temple during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes IV; be it the goddess of Reason placed in the middle of Notre Dame during the French Revolution; the goal is the same. The erection of an idol in places deemed to be rival seats of power is designed to declare there is a god who is an alternative to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and to the Son of Man who forbids the worship of images.
In our own times, William Butler Yeats saw the equivalent of the Baphomet clearly in his poem “The Second Coming,” in which he wrote of the arrival of a rough beast whose hour had come last to devour the child of Bethlehem. For what is closer to innocence than the little children in the library where wisdom is supposed to be found; small kids who do not yet recognize an evil beast when they see it? They are still inclined to sit down with the one who seeks to devour them.
St. John the Beloved also saw the equivalent of Baphomet and knew whence it derived its power. “Then I saw a beast with ten horns and seven heads rising out of the sea. There were ten royal crowns on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. The beast I saw was like a leopard, with the feet of a bear and the mouth of a lion. And the dragon [Satan] gave the beast his power and throne and great authority.”
The Baphomet and the ideology behind it are not esoteric and inconsequential phenomena. The cult’s beliefs are wending their way throughout Western society and damaging children (and adults) permanently — spiritually, emotionally and physically.
Because of what is symbolically and truly represented, the drag queen phenomenon, the idol Baphomet and the belief system they represent must be utterly rejected by Christians and all who adhere to monotheism.
The Baphomet (and the ideology it represents) must be seen for what it really is — a god that imitates and attempts to replace Judaism’s and Christianity’s God by a politicized occultism claiming secret knowledge that will effectuate by force a universal and perfect earthly kingdom that rules over all.
Fay Voshell holds a M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary, which awarded her the prize for excellence in systematic theology. A regular contributor to American Thinker as well as to the Christian Post, her thoughts also have appeared in many online magazines. She may be reached at [email protected].