The Sigil of Baphomet

The Sigil of Baphomet is the official emblem of the Church of Satan, consisting of an inverted pentagram enclosing a stylized goat’s head, set within two circles that bear the Hebrew word LEVIATHAN spelled out in individual letters at the five points of the star. It is among the most visually charged symbols in modern occultism and one of the most frequently misunderstood: its specific form as a Church of Satan emblem is a twentieth-century design with a clear documented history, not an ancient symbol of devil worship.

Understanding the sigil accurately requires separating the figure of Baphomet (which has its own complex medieval and modern history) from the specific symbol designed for LaVeyan Satanism, and both of those from the broader inverted pentagram, which has multiple historical uses.

History and origins

The name Baphomet entered recorded history through the trials of the Knights Templar in 1307 and 1314. Under torture, some Templars confessed to worshipping an idol with this name, descriptions of which varied widely: a head, a goat, a cat, or an androgynous figure. Historians regard these confessions as primarily the products of torture and political pressure, and there is no credible evidence that the Templars practiced any such cult. Nevertheless, the name Baphomet lodged in European occult imagination.

The iconic image of Baphomet as a winged, androgynous, goat-headed figure seated in a ritual posture with one hand pointing up and one down, with a torch between the horns and a caduceus as a phallus, was created by the French occultist Eliphas Levi for his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1854 to 1856). Levi described his creation as the “Sabbatic Goat” or “Baphomet of Mendes,” explicitly stating that it was a symbolic composite he had designed to represent the equilibrium of opposing principles. It was not a historical idol.

Anton LaVey founded the Church of Satan in San Francisco in 1966. The Sigil of Baphomet, incorporating Levi’s goat imagery into an inverted pentagram design with Kabbalistic lettering, was formalized as the church’s symbol and appeared in The Satanic Bible (1969). The Church of Satan has held trademark on this specific design configuration.

The Satanic Temple, a separate and more recent organization founded in 2013, uses the Baphomet figure in different ways, primarily as a political and artistic symbol in advocacy for religious freedom and the separation of church and state.

In practice

The Sigil of Baphomet functions within LaVeyan Satanism as a comprehensive statement of the tradition’s philosophical position: the individual as their own highest authority, the material world as real and primary, and the carnal and rational nature of the human being as worthy of celebration rather than suppression. The inverted pentagram places material concerns at the apex, inverting the spiritual hierarchy of conventional religion.

For practitioners outside the Church of Satan who encounter this symbol, it is worth understanding it on its own terms: as a coherent modern philosophical symbol rather than as evidence of ancient conspiracy or literal devil worship. The figure of Baphomet and the inverted pentagram have both accumulated cultural weight that the sigil deliberately invokes. Engaging with it as a working symbol is a commitment to the specific philosophical tradition it represents.

In myth and popular culture

The name Baphomet entered the European imagination through the 1307 Templar trials, and its narrative life since has been shaped more by political accusation, literary imagination, and occult symbolism than by any continuous religious tradition. The Knights Templar, a medieval military religious order, were suppressed by Philip IV of France in part through accusations of heretical practices including idol worship. The name “Baphomet” appeared in some confessions extracted under torture, but historians regard these as unreliable products of a politically motivated persecution rather than evidence of actual Templar religious practice.

Eliphas Levi’s 1854 drawing of the Sabbatic Goat is the decisive moment in the Baphomet figure’s modern history. Levi was a French occultist with a background in Catholic seminary training, and his figure was a deliberate symbolic synthesis rather than a depiction of any actual religious object. He described it explicitly as representing the equilibrium of opposites: male and female, spiritual and material, light and dark. The figure’s torchlit head, combined arms (one pointing up and one down), androgynous body, and caduceus symbol were all intentional symbolic choices with specific Hermetic meanings. Levi’s Baphomet was never intended to be an object of worship.

Anton LaVey’s decision to combine Levi’s imagery with an inverted pentagram and Kabbalistic lettering for the Church of Satan emblem was a deliberate act of cultural provocation as much as it was a philosophical statement. LaVey was a showman as well as a philosopher, and the Sigil of Baphomet served his organization’s need for a striking, transgressive identity symbol.

The Satanic Temple’s prominent use of a bronze Baphomet statue in legal challenges over religious displays in public spaces has brought the figure to wide public attention since 2013, introducing many people to the organization’s civil liberties agenda through the distinctive visual.

Myths and facts

The Sigil of Baphomet is one of the most consistently misunderstood symbols in modern occult culture.

• A common belief holds that the Sigil of Baphomet is an ancient symbol of devil worship with a long continuous history. The specific sigil as used by the Church of Satan is a twentieth-century design; the Baphomet figure on which it draws was created by Eliphas Levi in 1854; and the name Baphomet’s medieval history is rooted in politically motivated accusation rather than any actual religious tradition.
• Many people assume that anyone who displays the Sigil of Baphomet is a member of the Church of Satan or worships the devil. Both the Church of Satan and the Satanic Temple are non-theistic organizations; they regard Satan as a symbol, not a literal deity, and do not worship any supernatural being.
• The belief that Baphomet was the secret god of the Knights Templar is a popular narrative with very poor historical support. The Templar confessions describing Baphomet worship were obtained under torture during a politically motivated persecution and are not considered reliable historical evidence by scholars.
• It is sometimes said that the inverted pentagram has always meant Satanism. The inverted pentagram has multiple historical uses; its specific association with Satanism derives primarily from the Church of Satan’s adoption of it in the twentieth century rather than from an unbroken ancient tradition.
• Many people confuse the Church of Satan and the Satanic Temple as the same organization. They are distinct, have different founders, different philosophies, and sometimes openly disagree with each other; conflating them misrepresents both.