Satan sigil7/6/2023 “There has been a perceptual shift in which people are able to embrace images that may have previously seemed untouchable and blasphemous. “People do not automatically think of Satanism as this murderous force anymore,” Greaves said. Greaves and sculptor Mark Porter intentionally designed its calm and stoic facial expression to reflect the Temple’s non-violent mission and political status. Unlike these artistic renderings, the Baphomet statue’s demeanor is not inherently sinister - an aesthetic departure from the iconography of the Church of Satan, which is unaffiliated with the Temple. Baphomet was a symbol of gender nonconformity, sexual alterity, and religious deviance well into the 20th century, becoming solidly associated with modern Satanism after the Church of Satan created its sigil in the 1960s. Scholars and archaeologists believe its name to be a bastardization of Mohammed (i.e., Mahomet) that appeared in trial transcripts. While the statue is based on a drawing by 19th-century cult historian Éliphas Lévi, Baphomet’s folk history dates further back to the Crusades, when members of the Knights Templar were charged with heresy for allegedly cohabitating with Muslims. (The statue is currently housed in the Temple’s headquarters in Salem, Massachusetts.)Īn illustration of Baphomet by Eliphas Lévi (image courtesy Wikimedia Commons) In an open letter posted on his Patreon, Greaves critiqued the false equivalence between Confederate monuments and the Baphomet statue, arguing that Satanists pose no real threat to religious freedom, and that Baphomet does not even currently stand on public property. These attempted takedowns betray long-held Republican beliefs in freedom of religion and respect of private property, leading Temple co-founder Lucien Greaves to denounce their legal and spiritual corruption. When the Black Lives Matter protests started bringing down Confederate memorials in June, far-right publications and organizations like The Washington Times and Turning Point USA called for the destruction of the Satanic Temple’s bronze statue of Baphomet, its patron deity with the head of a goat and angel wings. With the rise of QAnon in Trump’s America, however, Satanism has received renewed interest across the conservative media spectrum. “Satanic Panic” never really ended it just fell out of fashion in mainstream media. The Satanic Temple’s bronze statue of Baphomet (image courtesy the Satanic Temple)
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |