#wicdiv speculation

Wicdiv ramblings:

There’s a sort of poetic justice to the opposition that’s being set up between Baphomet and Baal, that it’s right somehow that Baal should be the one to confront Baphomet, given that both names have been associated with Satan. Baal Hadad specifically isn’t taken to be Satan, but there are so many Ba'als (partly because Baal was a title meaning something like “Lord”), and many of them in a biblical context, so it’s inevitable that at least some of them would come to mean Satan (Jezebel’s god is a Baal). Ba'al Zebub is where we get Beelzebub, who was taken to be Satan by later Christian writers. Crowley makes Baal one of the 7 demon princes of hell is in goetia (Crowley makes use of Baphomet, too). They even clash symbol-wise: both have a goat/ram’s head in their symbol. So the semantic associations are there, but in this context, both of them are “fakes” - neither of them are the “real” Satan: Lucifer was. Perhaps they’ll kill each other, each dying by the other’s hand.

But it’s also right that Ba'al should fight him, given that Baal Hadad is the equivalent of Zeus, Jupiter, etc., of so many thunder gods who lead their pantheons (and yet another god who has had their position usurped by Ananke). In this context, too, it is perhaps fitting that he should die: it is his duty to fight Baphomet to establish the legitimacy of his rule. But it is a rule he cannot have, because Ananke has denied it him.