TikTok Is Looking to Baphomet for Inspiration, and Some Folks Are Scared

We all grew up with that one "edgy" kid who'd intentionally crap on everything good and fun in life because that's what got them attention. When they weren't begging their mom to drive them to Hot Topic, they were penning crummy poetry. When their self-loathing wasn't enough, some of them probably turned to "the dark arts." So it's interesting that Baphomet, a symbol of the occult, would trend up on the least "edgy" social media platform of them all: TikTok.

If you aren't sure who Baphomet is, here's a quick crash course. Apparently, specific members of the Knights Templar got to worshipping this animal-headed entity that's supposed to represent the duality of humanity — the push and pull of good and evil. In an attempt to probably reconcile their natural human desires and some of the messed up things that they've done during The Crusades, instead of the "idealistic" nature Christianity at the time preached, they created their own religion of sorts to address this duality.

To worship Baphomet is to embrace "binary elements representing the symbolization of the equilibrium of opposites." Looking at the above photo of this entity, that's easily seen: he's part land animal, part air animal, part man, and part woman. There's a sun and a moon in the drawing, along with inscriptions on each arm that translate to "dissolve" and "coagulate." The more you look at the image, the more you see the image represents the synchronicity of conflict.

Well, as you could imagine, kingdoms and churches weren't exactly what you'd call tolerant of differing opinions or ideals back then, so when King Philip IV of France suppressed a Knights Templar rebellion, they decided to make up a bunch of charges against the soldiers and try to vilify them in the eyes of the public. They were tortured, executed, and forced to confess to a number of crimes and beliefs — many of them false.

However, the name that kept coming up in their torture sessions was "Baphomet" — it was an animal-headed entity that the men had worshipped as members of the Templar Knights. While the Church at the time had conflated "Baphomet" with "Muhammad", saying that the Knights had betrayed their good Christian faith and were adopting the beliefs of the enemy, it's hard to imagine that any Templar would convert to Islam in any capacity.

This is mostly due to the fact that they warred with Philistines and were their sworn enemies, so it's a bit of a stretch to assume that they would up and adopt the belief system of the people they were trying to dominate at every turn.

TikTokers are using the time warp feature in order to make themselves look like Baphomet, and the trend is freaking a lot of people out, given the occultist origins of the goat-headed deity. 

For many, their Baphomet fascination began with "spooky season." It seems like people using the imagery began in the lead-up to Halloween, and now everyone's jumping on the time warp Baphomet bandwagon.

Of course, there are tons of TikTokers who shudder at the idea of even alluding to any type of occult or Satanic imagery in their videos.

But I'd argue that participating in mirthless dance routines and regurgitating the same tired nonsense as everyone else on the platform under the guise of "self love" is just as bad.