The History of Baphomet Part 2: How Baphomet Became Satan: From Lévi’s Goat to the Modern Sigil

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BIBLIOGRAPHY — EPISODE TWO
ÉLIPHAS LÉVI AND THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY FOUNDATION
Lévi, Éliphas. Dogme de la haute magie. First installments, Paris, 1854. Earliest publication context for Lévi’s Baphomet drawing.
Lévi, Éliphas. Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie. Paris, 1855–1856.
Lévi, Éliphas. Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie. 2nd, greatly expanded ed. Paris/London/New York: Germer Baillière, 1861.
Lévi, Éliphas. Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual. Translated by Arthur Edward Waite. London, 1896.
Strube, Julian. “The ‘Baphomet’ of Eliphas Lévi: Its Meaning and Historical Context.” Correspondences 4 (2016): 37–79.
Du Potet de Sennevoy, Jean. La magie dévoilée. Paris, 1852. Important to the spiritualistic-magnetic context from which Lévi developed his theory of the magical agent.
Khunrath, Heinrich. Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae. First edition, 1595; expanded later edition, 1609. Directly relevant because Lévi explicitly invoked Khunrath’s androgyne while explaining the mixed-sex anatomy of Baphomet.
Forshaw, Peter J. The Mage’s Images: Heinrich Khunrath in His Oratory and Laboratory. Leiden: Brill, 2025. Detailed modern analysis of Khunrath’s Adam Androgyne and Rebis imagery, including the 1595 Solve / Coagula detail.
Hesteau de Nuysement, Clovis. Traittez de l’harmonie et constitution généralle du vray sel, secret des philosophes, et de l’esprit universel du monde. The Hague: Théodore Maire, 1639. Relevant for another alchemical print identified by Strube among the visual influences surrounding Lévi’s Baphomet.
Ragon, Jean-Marie. Orthodoxie maçonnique, suivie de la Maçonnerie occulte et de l’initiation hermétique. Paris: E. Dentu, 1853. Important immediate precursor linking alchemical matter, the Goat of Mendes, Kabbalistic ideas, and “specific magnetism”; Lévi reviewed the work in the year before his Baphomet appeared.
Decker, Ronald, Thierry Depaulis, and Michael Dummett. A Wicked Pack of Cards: The Origins of the Occult Tarot. London: Duckworth, 1996. Useful background for Lévi’s use of the Tarot of Marseille and the Devil card.
Wilkinson, Richard H. The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt. London: Thames & Hudson, 2003. Useful for distinguishing the ram deity Banebdjedet and the ancient religious context of Mendes from later European “Goat of Mendes” constructions.
THEOSOPHY AND EARLY RECEPTION
Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna. Isis Unveiled. 2 vols. New York: J. W. Bouton, 1877. Important for the early esoteric reception of Lévi, the Astral Light, and the wider nineteenth-century occult synthesis.
Waite, Arthur Edward. Translator’s introduction and notes to Lévi’s Transcendental Magic. London, 1896. Useful for the Anglophone reception and criticism of Lévi.
DE GUAITA, WIRTH, AND THE GOAT-PENTAGRAM
de Guaita, Stanislas. La Clef de la Magie Noire. Paris, 1897. Primary source for the famous inverted goat-headed pentagram with Leviathan, Samael, and Lilith.
Wirth, Oswald. Le Symbolisme hermétique dans ses rapports avec l’alchimie et la Franc-Maçonnerie. Paris: Librairie Initiatique, 1909.
Wirth, Oswald. La Franc-Maçonnerie rendue intelligible à ses adeptes: Le Livre du Compagnon. 3rd ed. Paris, 1924. Important for Wirth’s goat-pentagram and his discussion of inverted polarity.
Wirth, Oswald. Le Tarot des imagiers du Moyen Age. Paris: Le Symbolisme / Émile Nourry, 1927. Important for Wirth’s identification of the Devil card with the Baphomet of the Templars.
ALEISTER CROWLEY AND...