Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb And
Speaker 1: this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind focusing on mythical creatures, ideas
Speaker 1: and monsters. In time, it's almost impossible to have not
Speaker 1: seen the so called goat of Mendes or Baphomet or Baphomet,
Speaker 1: whether on a T shirt for a metal band or
Speaker 1: in movies such as the Night Hammer film The Devil
Speaker 1: Rides Out. The most well known image of this monstrous
Speaker 1: humanoid is the eighteen fifty six drawing in French occultist
Speaker 1: Elaphus Levey's book Dogma and Ritual of High Magic. We
Speaker 1: see a creature with the head and legs of a goat,
Speaker 1: the torso of a woman, the wings of a bird,
Speaker 1: and a lit torch emerging between his horns. It bears
Speaker 1: a pentagram on its forehead and additional symbols illustrate its
Speaker 1: body and environment. As with many examples of divine imagery,
Speaker 1: the image of Baha May is highly symbolic and has
Speaker 1: been incorporated into various occult traditions, subcultures, and new religious movements.
Speaker 1: It is also highly suggestive of various traditions of hornet
Speaker 1: gods in human history, such as pan in Greek tradition.
Speaker 1: We don't have time to follow all of these threads
Speaker 1: regarding the entity, but two major historical notes are of
Speaker 1: special interest. The first concerns the trial of the Knights Templars,
Speaker 1: and the other concerns the writings of Herodotus on the
Speaker 1: religion of ancient Egypt. First, the Templars the Poor Knights
Speaker 1: of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon was the
Speaker 1: religious military order of the Catholic Church during the Crusades,
Speaker 1: which ran ten They were intended to serve as protectors
Speaker 1: for pilgrims on their way to the Whole Lands, but
Speaker 1: a sort of power creep occurred. They were given free
Speaker 1: reign to move across borders, made exempt from taxes, and
Speaker 1: ended up playing key military roles in various battles of
Speaker 1: the Crusades. But even the non warriors of this order
Speaker 1: became important, managing the movement of funds across vast distances
Speaker 1: of the Crusades and setting up a kind of proto
Speaker 1: banking system. They became powerful, and so they made powerful enemies.
Speaker 1: As the Crusades failed, the Templars were blamed. Finally Fillip
Speaker 1: the fourth of France, with the aid of Pope Clement
Speaker 1: the Fifth, then based in France, the order was suppressed
Speaker 1: and falsely accused on charges of blasphemy and heresy, among
Speaker 1: other things. The charges included the notion that they worshiped
Speaker 1: a severed head called bapho May. Some of the templars
Speaker 1: were burned at the stake, fifty six in total, I believe,
Speaker 1: including Grandmaster Jacques de Malay, and others were absorbed into
Speaker 1: different militaries, etcetera. The name bappo May, sometimes pronounced Bafflement,
Speaker 1: is generally understood to be a French corruption of the
Speaker 1: name Muhammad. The monstrous templar god. Baphi May is a
Speaker 1: product of trumped up charges that the Templars had converted
Speaker 1: to the Islamic faith of their enemies, and the French
Speaker 1: impapal accusers here invoke a fanciful and grotesque degradation of
Speaker 1: Islam and a corruption of Islamic ideas. To make the
Speaker 1: case to be clear, nowhere in Islamic tradition does one
Speaker 1: find such a creature as this. As for the goat
Speaker 1: of Mendis, this is the name given by Alaphus Leavey,
Speaker 1: most likely referring to the writings of fifth century Greek
Speaker 1: historian Herodotus, who wrote of supposed goat like deities and
Speaker 1: reverence for actual goats in the region of Mendis, the
Speaker 1: Greek name for the ancient Egyptian city Jeget, which is
Speaker 1: now known as Tell El Ruba. Their ancient practices did
Speaker 1: concern a hornet god, but it is often referred to
Speaker 1: as a ram rather than a goat. The deity bey
Speaker 1: neb Digit. To quote S. Birch's translation of Herodotus, Now,
Speaker 1: the reason why those Egyptians whom I have mentioned do
Speaker 1: not sacrifice goats, female or male, is this The Mendesians
Speaker 1: count Pan to be one of the eight gods. Now,
Speaker 1: those eight gods, they say, came into being before the
Speaker 1: twelve gods, and the painters and image makers represent impainting
Speaker 1: and sculpture the figure of Pan, just as the Hellenists
Speaker 1: do with goat's face and legs, not supposing him to
Speaker 1: be really like this, but to resemble the other gods.
Speaker 1: The cause, however, why they represent him in this form,
Speaker 1: I prefer not to say. The Mendesians then reverence all
Speaker 1: goats and the males more than the females, and the
Speaker 1: goatherds too have greater honor than either herdsmen. But of
Speaker 1: the goats, one especially is reverenced, and when he dies
Speaker 1: there is great mourning in the Mendesian district, and both
Speaker 1: the goat and pan are called in the Egyptian tongue Mendies.
Speaker 1: As Geraldine Pinch explains in her book Egyptian Mythology, the
Speaker 1: word for ram bah and the word for soul or
Speaker 1: manifestation sounded much the same in Egyptian, so they were
Speaker 1: often regarded as manifestations of other deities such as Osiris,
Speaker 1: though ben Ebjujet is also sometimes treated as an independent
Speaker 1: deity as opposed to a manifestation. And just as goats
Speaker 1: will be goats, rams will be rams, and their association
Speaker 1: with virility seems to have colored traditions of an Ebjdette,
Speaker 1: just as they colored traditions of Pan and others. Pinch
Speaker 1: writes quote the sexual aspect of the cult at Mendi's
Speaker 1: made it particularly disliked by early Christians. Ben Jiujette's form
Speaker 1: as a ram or goat headed man was reinterpreted as
Speaker 1: a devil figure who entered Western tradition as the horned
Speaker 1: King of the Witches. It is curious that Baffa May,
Speaker 1: the goat of Mendez, has become so closely associated with Satanism,
Speaker 1: a d it dy that never quite existed, for theology
Speaker 1: that likewise never quite existed either, but that hasn't stopped
Speaker 1: the entity from taking on various meanings for assorted ideologies, subcultures,
Speaker 1: and creative visions. Tune in for additional episodes of The
Speaker 1: Monster Fact each week. As always, you can email us
Speaker 1: at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.
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