“There is a part of Chaos which is of more direct relevance to the magician. This is the spirit of the life energy of our planet. All living beings have some extra quality in them which separates them from inorganic matter. The ancient shamans mainly sought to represent this force by the Horned God. In more modern times this force has reasserted itself in our awareness under the symbol of Baphomet.
Baphomet is the psychic field generated by the totality of living beings on this planet. Since the Shamanic aeon, it has been variously represented as Pan, Pangenitor, Pamphage, All- Begettor, All-Destroyer, as Shiva-Kali — creative phallus and abominable mother and destroyer — as Abraxas — polymorphic god who is both good and evil — as the animal headed Devil of sex and death, as the evil Archon set over this world, as Ishtar or Astaroth — goddess of love and war — as the Anima Mundi or World soul, or simply as “Goddess.” Other representations include the Eagle, or Baron Samedi, or Thanateros, or Cernunnos — the horned god of the Celts.
The appellation “Baphomet” is obscure, but probably arises from the Greek Baph-metis, union with wisdom. Gods with Baphometic names and images reoccur throughout Gnostic teachings. No image can fully represent the totality of what this force is, but it is conventionally shown as an hermaphrodite god-goddess in the form of a horned human that includes various mammalian and reptilian characteristics. It should also resume protozoan, insectivorous, and floral symbolism for it is the animating spirit of everything from a bacterium to a tiger. If we succeed in creating machine consciousness, it will have to include mechanical elements as well. Between its horns a torch is usually positioned, for spirit is most easily visualized as light. The image should also include necrotic elements for it also encompasses death. Life and death are a single phenomenon through which the life force continually reincarnates. A denial of death is also a denial of life. The cellular mechanisms which allow life also make death inevitable, essential, and desirable. All religions which deny death are basically anti-life. Have no fear — you have been, and will be, millions of things; all you will suffer is amnesia. The sexual aspects of the god-goddess Baphomet are always emphasized, for sex creates life, and the sexuality is a measure of the life force or vitality, no matter how it is expressed.
The spirit of the life force is the spirit of the dual ecstacy, procreation and reabsorption, sex and death. Beautiful and terrible God of the hovering hawk, God of the thrusting sapling, God of conjoined lovers, God of the worm-filled carcass, God of the starting hare, God of the wild hunt carousing the forest in mad exhilaration.“
– Peter J. Carroll
Liber Null & Psychonaut: An Introduction to Chaos Magic
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