950 BC - 1300 AD
"The most magnificent thing you can do in your life is to sell your soul to me. I own everything. I own people's souls, their minds, and their hearts. I can open all the doors for you, with no exceptions.
What do you want to get? Money, power, authority, or fame? I give abundantly and quickly, a true and tangible giving that you can feel in your hand. I was created before time itself, and I will live until the end of time. They hide my name from you, deceiving you into thinking that I am evil. They want to keep the whole cake for themselves. But I will bake your own cake.
Say it with me and fear nothing, 'Baphomet' My great name is 'Baphomet' Perhaps you want to see me. You are not yet qualified for that, not because of any deficiency in you, my dear, but because your tender heart may crumble in the face of my greatness.
But I will show you an example, an example subject to the laws of your world, which I have never seen before, a world of such greatness.
Come with me, my dear. Come and do not be afraid. Come to this church. Extend your hand and open its door without trembling. I am waiting for you. Push the door with force and enter with whichever foot you choose. Ignore the naked men mating here and there, the blood on their lips and skins. Forget about all of that and move forward. Towards that big table over there. Have you seen me now? There I am, in the middle. Here I am 'Baphomet.'
I will tell you everything. It is in your right to know everything. Come with me to Jerusalem. Not the Jerusalem of today, but the Jerusalem of a thousand years ago.
A Jerusalem that is no longer holy, but has become rivers of red. The blood that flowed in it reached the hooves of the horses. The blood of Muslims, the blood of their knights, children, women, and elders.
Muslims are evil, as I will explain later, but that is not our discussion now. We will not talk about those red rivers that flowed through the streets of Jerusalem as if they added a new Euphrates to the map of the world, a red Euphrates. Looking at it, one would think that the earth got wounded and bled.
We will not talk about those women who were raped by the Crusaders with hands still wet with their blood. We will not talk about those young children whose little heads were crushed under the hooves of the horses. We will not talk about those pots in which the Crusaders boiled men, women, and children. I will not tell you about all of that.
Instead, I will tell you about the Jerusalem that came after the drying up of that blood from the land, where it dripped from the hearts of its Muslim inhabitants. The occupied Jerusalem. And I call it occupied because after that incident, the Crusaders occupied it for the first time, taking it from the Muslims, and in my opinion, it does not belong to either of them. It belongs to us. Who are we? That is what I have come to talk to you about.
Our conversation will begin with me, at the very beginning.
I was an Arabian seller of ancient artifacts in Jerusalem. Do not be surprised now and ask me about what you saw on the table in that church I brought you to earlier. It is not the time yet for that question.
I was an old man. Most of my teeth had fallen out, and in my beard, there were seven bent hairs. And here I am, sitting half-naked in one of the famous baths of Jerusalem, "Hammam Aladdin". In that era, the word "Hammam" referred to the luxurious Islamic building with its three halls, where people would go to bathe.
I was in the heating room, and the steam was warming my old body. My eyes did not stray from that muscular young man sitting near me, lost in his thoughts. I had been observing him for days, and now the opportunity had come to talk to him on a silver platter. The name of this young man is the name that started everything, his name is "Hugh Bayon," a knight from the Crusaders with Jewish origins. And I want you to remember his Jewish origins well.
"'Hugh Bayon'... Did your wife, "Catherine," know about the heinous things you did to Arab women?"
Hugh turned to me as if bitten by a snake and said:
"Wha... what are you saying? Who are you? And how do you know my wife's name?"
I said to him with a voice as sharp as a snake's bite:
"'Catherine Clare'... Your wife knows everything you've done. Every girl whose body you violated before tearing it apart with your sword. She knows that you are sick, Bayon. And it seems that I can hear her now telling your story to your conservative people."
Hugh looked at me with wide astonished eyes and said:
"What... no, how can you say that? Who are you, you senile old man?"
I looked into his widened eyes and said:
"I am your dirty work, Bayon. I am the black face that you hide behind the mask of chivalry and religiousness."
The hidden knight within Hugh woke up, and he grabbed me by the neck forcefully and said:
"Who are you, you despicable Arab? How dare you utter such filthy words? How do you know all this nonsense?"
Everyone in the hammam stopped relaxing and sat up straight, the visitors of Hammam Aladdin turned their attention to the mad knight, Hugh Bayon, as he screamed and grabbed and threatened the marble pillar next to him.
Hugh noticed them for a moment, then looked back at me, only to find an empty space adorned by a beautiful Islamic marble column. Hugh started looking around like a madman, searching for me, then he looked at the astonishment of the people and said:
"But... but he was here... that old man... the senile one... didn't any of you see him?"
On The Christian Festival "The Palm Sunday", or what they call it here " Alshaeanin", gathered the residents of Jerusalem, Christians carrying olive branches, and curious Muslims watching from all around, in the courtyard of the Dome of the Rock in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.
Then they proceeded in a grand procession to the adjacent Valley of "Al-Asbat", where they met another grand procession of religious men and monastery leaders, one of whom carried the Holy Cross. The two processions met and returned to the courtyard of the Dome of the Rock.
"Hugh Bayo"n was amidst all of this, and it seems he was taking a bath that day in Hammam Aladdin for this occasion.
The leading religious men, that carries the Holy Cross, was circumambulating the courtyard. It symbolized the holy cross encircling the Temple of Solomon.
I was there, standing with the curious onlookers. I approached Hugh calmly and said to him:
"These fools don't realize that they are circumambulating above a treasure, the treasure that who owned, owned the entire world. Whoever loses it, loses the whole world."
Hugh looked at me with astonishment, and then his astonishment turned into anger, and he said:
"Listen, you... If you stay in front of me for another moment, I will make you disappear from the face of the earth with my own hands."
"No, listen to me, Hugh. Today, after sunset, you will receive a message from your wife in "Champagne", France. She will tell you about visions she sees and the nightmares she experiences every night. And she will describe a man to you. If what I say doesn't happen, come to my shop in the market and kill me. But if it happened as I say, come to my shop as well, and I will tell you..."
"What will you tell me, you scum? What do you and my wife have to do with each other?"
Several bodies passed between me and Hugh, enough for me to disappear from his sight.
In the evening, Hugh received a message from his wife, informing him that she had been having disturbing visions every day. She saw an old man with broken teeth circumambulating the courtyard of the Holy Dome of the Rock, and in the center of the courtyard, she saw Hugh engaged in sexual activities with a beheaded dark-skinned girl, while his sword was next to her head.
"You, Are you a sorcerer?"
I looked at him from amidst the antiquities in my shop and said:
"I am an antique dealer, as you can see, sir."
"How did you know my wife's name, you damned one? And how did you know about her visions?"
"Did her visions bother you? Do you want her to see other girls and what you did to them?"
"How do you know all this? Who exactly are you?"
"Baphomet."
"What?"
I calmly walked towards one of the shelves and grabbed a large artifact representing a complete model of the sacred sanctuary. I placed the model on the main table and said to him:
"I can read your mind like an open book, Hugh Bayon. You are now thinking of finishing your affairs in Jerusalem and returning to Champagne. You are considering not participating in any future wars because the excitement you gained from the Crusade has already satisfied you."
"Who are you?"
"I am "Baphomet" the one who will make you the richest man in all of Europe, even in the entire world."
"What do you want from me? I am not the kind of person who believes in the tales of sorcerers."
"Of course... considering that you went to "Julian" the sorcerer in Clement."
Here, Hugh's eyes widened in astonishment and fear. I was telling him things no one on Earth should know of, and about secrets known only to himself.
His tone in our conversation shifted from hostile amazement to intrigued curiosity, and that's exactly what I wanted to achieve; for him to trust me.
When someone trusts you, they become like a chewed-up morsel between your teeth, and I had chewed up Hugh and molded him until he became like a ball I could throw wherever I pleased. And I threw him first to Champagne in France, where he would do as I wanted him to do there.
Hugh Bayon traveled to "Champagne" in France, and there he gathered eight men, some of them are his brothers and some are his cousins.
They were all of Jewish descent, from the same family. Together, they set out for Jerusalem and entered the presence of King Baldwin II, the Crusader King.
Hugh convinced the king that it was essential to form a special organization of knights to protect the Crusader pilgrims who were journeying to the Holy Sanctuary and being subjected to killings and ambushes by the vengeful Muslims.
King Baldwin was convinced, not knowing that Hugh was a great liar and that he was hiding the real truth. The Muslims were not killing anyone; the killers were the Bandits. And just as I had advised him to be, Hugh's performance in front of the king was astounding.
Thus, the Order of Knights, the "Knights Templar", was formed. They were given their own headquarters in a wing of the royal palace on the Temple Mount, and the 'Temple Mount' is a word that Jewish use to call 'The Noble Sanctuary', as the Jewish tradition holds that the holy sanctuary was built upon the ruins of Solomon's Temple.
So, the knights' wing was located right next to the 'Al-Aqsa Mosque', just as I wanted it to be.
Let me inform you of something before we continue with the story of the knights. I am a demon, as you have probably realized. And being a demon means that I flow through the veins of Adam's descendants.
Their thoughts come to me as if they were a book I can open to any page I desire. Not only that, but I can edit any page I wish and engage them in a discussion until I possess him.
It was very easy for Hugh to believe in my words, as it was very easy for King Baldwin to believe in Hugh's words, and very easy for those eight men to believe in the strange words spoken by Hugh.
All of this was easy because I am Baphomet, easy because I am the devil, easy because I twist around the thoughts of Adam's descendants just as a snake coils around its prey, and even more than that, my friend, even more than that.
History has not recorded a single case where the Templars protected any pilgrim or anyone else. They spent their early days in Jerusalem doing something unrelated to pilgrims, the cross, or the knights.
They spent their early days digging, digging beneath the very grounds of the holy sanctuary.
"You, old man, why didn't you get closer and take a look at the excavations yourself? Why do you stand on the edge of the courtyard like that?"
"Don't bother yourself with me, Keep doing what you're doing. And if you don't find what I promised you, then come and kill me."
"Oh, I will drink your blood, Baphomet. I'm starting to believe in the absurdity of it all."
I could never get close to that place. If I do get close to it, I would burn like how the demons burn. My old eyes narrowed and I remembered days, days of extreme bitterness...