Feature Writer: Encyclopedia Satanica

Feature Title: I am Baphomet

Link: hymn-to-baphomet

I am Baphomet

I am Baphomet
Rex Mundi
Lord of Perversion
Child of Earth
Sacred Abomination
Secret warrior
Survivor of the great purge
Baptized in wisdom
Wounded in the service of Earth from which I sprang
and to which I was not allowed to fall.
I am the sacrifice that Death refused
I am the one who must live on wounded
When the gods were driven from the circle of Midgard
When the Sidhe closed their doors and withdrew
When the warriors of old fell and were slain
I hid and survived alone.

I am Baphomet
Secret warrior
I am no soldier, girt with sword and shield
for all those were slain by the White Spears
But I am born of this world, this earth,
the realm of flesh and shit and humus
my hooves are rooted in this place
and I chose to stay and fight
a one–deity war against the invaders.
I am the peasant who mines the bridge
I am the hunchbacked servant who puts ergot in the bread
I am the witch filling an ox heart with thorns
I am the fair girl who sees the cruel lord
knows he must die for her people to be free
knows her slim hands and warm cunt are no match
goes apart to a lonely place
feeds herself with poison, day by day,
year by year until her fluids reek of it
then goes to his bed and slays him with her love
Will she be welcomed back to the village afterwards?

I am Baphomet
Lord of Perversions
What they throw away I save
What they devalue I hold holy
What they tread underfoot I raise up
What they cast off as ugly decorates my holy raiment
What they fear becomes my weapon
I am both man and woman
I am filled with lust for both man and woman
I am only as cruel as your own repressed desires
and only as hard on you as you are on yourself
I will prey on your mind, legions of sterility!
Here I stand with horns and hooves and hair
and I cannot be made pure and heavenly.
Here I stand with goat’s beard and woman’s breasts
and I cannot be made simply man or woman
Here I stand with hard cock and wet cunt
and I cannot be made into a safely sexless androgyne
Here I stand with whips in my hand
–those whom I love I chastise with many rods–
and I cannot be made to kneel and serve
Here I stand, Mr. Falwell, Mr. Robertson–
are you ready for me?
Pray to me for the perversion of your enemies
for I shall turn them upside down
and dangle them in the filth of their own making.

“Tell me who’s your bogeyman, that’s who I will be
you don’t have to like me for who I am
but we’ll see what you’re made of
by what you make of me.”
(Ani DiFranco)

I am Baphomet
Child of Earth
Your body is my chalice, let me drink of you.
I hold nothing more valuable
than flesh and shit and humus
I hold nothing holier
than earthly desires.
When the Mother was silenced
I alone heard her cries
When the Great God Pan was declared dead
I alone lived on
When the Most Sacred and Holy Mystery
was stripped and driven through the marketplace
I alone was secret and apart
And when the earth was poisoned and tainted
So was I.
I am innocence destroyed
I am the memory that can never be banished
that which will never quite be made clean again
but cannot be made to die
And this, too, is sacred.

I am Baphomet
Sacred Abomination
Lover of the Whore of Babalon
Among the straight I am the queer
Among the queer I am the freak
I am Lord of the disenfranchised, the shabby, the outcast
I am leader of the desperate
I am friend of those who cannot fit in.
I am Giver of Assurance
I am Giver of Ecstasy
I am strength through stealth.
I am the one who stole the white one’s finest warrior monks
and turned them to my worship
and if that weapon broke in my hand
At least it was lost to him.

I am Baphomet
Rex Mundi
Crowned King of this world by my own hands
because there was no one left to crown me
Crowned King of the Age of Darkest Repression
because there was no one left to take it on
Crowned King of the tainted world of filth
because I was the only one left who valued it.
I have stayed with this world through all its pain and torment
I have suffered with this world
I have changed with this world
I have lived in human time
day by day, year by year,
I have learned my enemy’s ways
and I can help you through his maze.
I am he who manipulates their hierarchy and laughs to himself
and I am also he who takes a shit on the boss’s desk.
I am the underground force
that is always with you.
My wild woods were cut down
and I learned to move through steel and concrete.
My roots were soiled
and I survived.
I was cut off from the life force
and I did not die
and I did not forget.
And on that day that I work for
and fear
And on that day when the doors open
and the old gods reclaim once again their land
their earth from which we all sprang
will they recognize their child?
Will my scars be honored
or feared?
Will I be revered
or asked to step aside?

I am Baphomet
Baphe Metis
Baptized in wisdom
I have much to teach.
All lonely places are sacred to me.
Whenever it comes to pass that you look about you
and find all your kin and kind are destroyed
and yet you will not give up
Then I am with you.
Whenever it comes to pass that you look about you
at those who are supposed to be your kin
and they are deciding you do not fit in enough
for them to risk themselves for you
Then I am with you.
Let my wisdom be the staff in your hand.

I am Baphomet
And you have much to learn.