Templar legends say they revered a mysterious head — sometimes identified as John’s, sometimes as Baphomet.
- John’s beheading: the prophet who prepares the way for the Christ is silenced by worldly power.
- In some esoteric readings, the severed head is the caput mortuum — the “dead head” of alchemy, the vessel that holds the secret fire after death.
- It could also be the emblem of the Voice that still speaks after the body falls — gnosis surviving persecution.