Baphomet possession obsession

Posted by Lila Lärchenfeld in Occult  |  February 27th 2010  |  About poster:

A while ago some friends and I, after an evening of lazy meandering conversations ended up discussing some of the topics on this blog, like possession and Baphomet and that set me off musing on past possessions.

For a while in the early 1990s I became quite obsessed with Baphomet. For several months a friend of mine and I did nightly rites and possessions. We would take it in turns who would become possessed by Baphomet and it turned into an excellent hobby/pastime and we did some amazing rituals. Both of us egged each other on and both of us were keen to continue these nightly rites as it was an exciting process with Baphomet narratives developing and unfolding. We invested a lot of time and magical ‘energy’ into these rituals, and I ended up feeling that I had a unique and intense connection to Baphomet that nobody else quite had access to.

My partner eventually kindly pointed out to me that I was getting obsessed with Baphomet, which was something that mightily pissed me off as obsession is a lot less glamorous than being the (or make that THE) High-priestess of Baphomet.

I ended up thinking that I KNEW Baphomet and when in a group situation/group ritual I started judging other people’s possessions, evaluating them on some internal scale where ‘real’ Baphometdom was at one end and what I conceived as other people’s own personal projections and perceptions (which in my eye made possession less valid, less real, less powerful) on the other end of the scale. In hindsight I believe that a lot of ego was involved here, a lot of ‘I know who Baphomet is and others don’t’ unless their possession somehow resonated with my perception of B.

It all blew up in my face with a Baphomet ritual in Berlin, part of a ‘cross-order’ meeting with people from various magical orders.

It was a South American member of the IOT who was ‘ridden’ by Baphomet, a very intense, very in your face, very animalistic Baphomet. He was foaming at the mouth, stomping around, reeking, sweating, screaming, proclaiming.

The entire congregation was naked and followed Baphomet in awe, and as I felt so very close to B. I put myself very close in his vicinity, following his moves, encouraging him, urging him on, revelling.

B. in the end ‘used’ me/ my vaginal fluids as a sacrament, dipping into me again and again to anoint the other celebrants in the room.

This quite took my breath away, but not in a good way. Everything had been building up intensely, it was a huge rush – yet I had not expected to be physically involved or invaded. I felt taken aback, caught unawares, shocked, wanted to retreat from the situation, wanted it to stop but at the same time thought, ‘I’m a chaos magician, I should be very much okay with this, and this after all is Baphomet!’ Simultaneously I felt quite powerless because how do you make known to a raving possessed deity that you don’t want to be touched in a certain way and that you might have personal limitations?

For some time afterwards I did not discuss this event with anybody. I did feel that my person had been invaded yet my expectations of myself stood in the way of voicing my unease. I felt conflicted – on one hand I thought I should be feeling honoured to ‘be the sacrament’ (and after all I did perceive myself as having this special relationship with Baphomet) yet emotionally I was not okay with this act of invasion which felt rough and raw and too close for comfort. I also felt quite embarrassed that I wasn’t okay with this event (and as a chaos magician I should be able to handle anything!)

And somehow I felt that I might have ‘encouraged’ Baphomet and brought the situation onto myself so I had no grounds for complaint, no reason to feel unhappy, there was an element of telling myself I had acted stupidly and put myself down along the lines of ‘if you can’t handle it you shouldn’t have urged him on, shouldn’t have stood so close!’

It probably would have been helpful if there had been people safe-guarding the space and the ritual to make sure that the participants (the possessed as well as the celebrants) were okay but that was not something that ever happened at rituals during that time.

Having said all this I don’t want readers to get the idea that I think of myself as a victim of ritual abuse.

The whole experience was not pleasant and it did leave me feeling raw and conflicted. But it was also something that started off a process of re-evaluating my obsession with Baphomet, my tendency to think that I KNEW this deity and had certain ‘rights’ in regards to judging other people’s possessions and knowledge re: B.’s definition/personality.

Tags: Baphomet, Possession  |  Comments feed