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About Baphometrics.Com

(And Me!)


Baphometrics.com is intended to be a repository for the results of my nearly decade-long research project on the structure and formation of the Baphometric Tree of Life, and a venue to present my ideas and conclusions and speculations derived from that study; about magick and mysticism, metaphysics and random musings, art, science, philosophy and the ultimate meaning of the universe - life and death, being and nothingness, and our place therein.

Or something to that effect, but hopefully not quite so pompous.

Really, I will be happy if it ends up being a good place to store my notes.

The workings and structure, and how that all came to be, of The Baphometric Tree itself will be described fully within The Tree, but basically I came up with the idea in a quick flash of inspiration, spent about an hour sketching it out, and then the following ten years exploring it. My intent has been at some point to write a book. The intent of this website is thus both to present things I have learned for your fun and edification, and to aid me in organizing a quite large amount of information in a cognizant way towards that aim.

The site is 100% handwritten and designed by me, including all the underlying code. I was going to use a template of some sort at first, but really - most of those kind of suck, and are only marginally customizable. So instead, I relearned HTML (the last time I made a website was a solid 27 years ago) and taught myself CSS and Javascript.

I am just that damned dedicated to this.

The other reason not to use a template or WordPress or any of that Corporate driven smack, is that Baphometrics.com is a hypersigil. Everything, both visible or not, or hidden in plain sight, contained within the Site is dedicated to this same fell purpose. All things are contained within The Tree.* Those whose eyes can see, and who can select with Wisdom and search with Understanding will achieve this Knowledge.


Why Baphometrics?

First... because it's a really great name. C'mon... Baphometrics... the metrics of Baphomet, but as a portmanteau. Genius!

More to the point though - the name is an apt application to this site. The symbol of Levi's Sabbatic Goat was intended to be a glyph of the totality of the Magickal Process, the Universal Agent, the Astral Light embodied, poised between that which is above and that which is below, the Divine Androgyne, the Great Work itself.

The Measure of All Things

The non-existent "God" of the falsely accused Templars, Pan triumphant, the Goat for Azazel spared the blood lust of a jealous God. The fire of Prometheus blazing above - to be given freely to anyone who asks. Baphomet is the symbol of knowledge shared freely. A chimera like the Universe itself.

Baphomet is the lightning flash of the Tree 528. The Aleph Bet of the eternal language. The Efflux of Wisdom which is the source without beginning, the Primordial Darkness, the Stone that Fell from heaven, Absolute Experience (in the sense used by Benjamin), the Fruit of The Tree of Life. Father and Mother and Son and Daughter. Pan Sophia. Baphomet is the Key. 528.

It is through these metrics of the Tree that Baphomet is revealed. Baphomet is the totality of the paths.

(... is the time, is the place, is the motion. Baphomet is the way we are feeling...)

With three Books was the Universe Created, with Number, with Letter and with Speech, and a story can be told many ways. Including, hopefully, as a website.


My Magickal History

I have been interested in the Occult and magick since a very young age - I blame Tolkien, and LeGuin and repeated viewing of Bakshi's Wizards when I was entirely too young to have seen that.

I grew up well before the advent of the Internets, so all I learned was gleaned from books, as no one in my family or circle of childhood acquaintances was particularly interested in the occult...books, books and more books. Books and bookstores, books and libraries (my beloved Mother was a librarian in my youth). Somewhere in the morass of Fantasy, Science Fiction, Greek Myths and yes, Dungeons and Dragons, I got my hands on some Robert Anton Wilson and met some Discordians... or maybe it was the other way around...

From there it was a quick jump and a leap to Aleister Crowley, a smattering of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky, and then an endless slew of Authors Innumberable who inspire, inflame, tantalize and titilate... but always lots and lots of RAW.

Despite at one point being a teenager, I never really had any draw to Lavey or Theistic Satanism, or any of that type of thing. I have the same feeling about that as I do about Universal Monsters... looks kind of cool, but man, the movies are terrible... I kept, and keep, my Luciferian tendencies (we are, after all Legion), strictly Promethean, as it was clear to me at a very young age that maybe the Powers That Be might not have my best interests at heart (Liberation Anti-Theology?). I didn't learn about Chaos Magick (or at least the non-Wilsonian/non-Burroughsian kind) per se until I was well into my 20's, and by then I had been BSing my Belief Systems on my own for years.

Being Jewish, I always regarded any sort of ethno (of any sort)-will to power-secret-bloodline-bullshit practitioners as the fucking Nazis they are, to be strictly avoided.

In the same vein, being Jewish in the very modern not-religious-at-all, raised in a manner that ranged from solidly agnostic to militantly atheistic, but still really really Jewish - while I always thought the Goetia/Solomonic Grimoires were cool looking, especially from a graphic design standpoint (the demonic sigils are a work of art), I always found the whole thing way too.... Christian. I mean I've read my share of the Gnostic Gospels, and Revelations is a trip, and Rosicrucians are fine and all that, but the Jesus thing doesn't agree with me. Nice story and all, and it seems to have some staying power, but not my cup of tea. (Dee is cool though. I dig Dee). [ed. note - please see Context for more, um... context]. To be honest, that is also my general critique of any Golden Dawn based system, and really anything that takes Satan as a entity of any sort rather than as a job description.

Currently my paradigm is hovering in the "the entire Universe is in essence a giant conglomeration of all things, participating in a never ending experience of itself - unitary and complex, and the only constant is endless flux; we and everything else are merely aspects of that totality conveniently referred to as a 'point of view', time and extension are completely relative giving rise to separation and objectiveness, unseparably conjoined by a competely atemporal and nonlocal subjectivity" sort of range. It is not materialistic, it is not idealistic, it is not dualistic. There is rhythm and there is silence and those are neither the song and yet all that the song is.

The Universe is unitary. A unitary experience of never ending change. There is always something new under the sun.

And thus, Magick is real. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.


Useful Site Specific Information

Some generalities that will be consistant throughout the site, in no particular order:

Apologia

All errors and omissions to be found in the site are purely mine. As are all mistaken interpretations of others conclusions or misapplication of their intent. I'm in theory only human damnit.

All the work contained herein is also mine. I do lean heavily on the scholarship of others, but do attempt to reformulate rather than regurgitate. I will make a concerted effort to properly credit all sources, either directly or by inclusion in the bibliography. Please note however, that this is not a rigorous research project or a peer reviewed paper. I read a lot of books and articles and I don't always take the greatest notes, so I am often reliant on memory. If you feel like I have slighted or failed to properly attribute either yourself or one of your literary heroes, first - don't take it personally... it was almost certainly accidental. In any such case, please feel free to contact me and I will take the utmost pains to correct any oversight.

I do have some very decided opinions about a number of things however... and have come to a number of conclusions that run counter to what seems to be the prevailing wisdom in some magical circles. I will of course take pains to provide my reasoning for these positions. Critique will be a focus of a lot of this work, mostly to show the evolution of my thought process and how I came to the conclusions I did. Shibboleths will be slain! Victory is for the Bold!

Any and all content in this site is subject to change at any point for any reason I might see fit. Nothing is certain. NOTHING I tell you! You have been warned.


Some General Policies

This Site will not be having any advertising. Because, fuck that. I don't have any plans on monetizing it really... I do want to write a book at some point, so maybe my devoted readership will want to buy that. I don't have any system of metrics past a visitor count, or any tracking anything or any cookies or anything like that - both out of preference, and also because I don't really know how to apply those, even if I cared about them.

If this seems to be working, both for readership and utility for myself, and I start spending too much time on it, to the detriment of my work, home life or sanity - maybe then I will ask for donations or something. I dunno. Anyways, that would be down the road.

There is also currently no method of user commentary. Maybe someday? Maybe? People seem to take the ability to comment as a challenge to be a contrary dick about things, so I might just skip it. There is only room for one contrary dick around here, and I aim to be that dick.


Dedication

This site is dedicated to my beautiful witch. Long May She Reign!