But Azazel, whom the Church dogma persists in associating with Satan, is nothing of the kind. Azazel is a mystery, as explained elsewhere, and it is so expressed by Maimonides:
There is an impenetrable mystery in the narrative concerning Azazel.[862]
And so there is, as Lanci, a librarian to the Vatican, whom we have quoted before, and one who ought to know, says:
This venerable divine name (nome divino e venerabile) has become through the pen of biblical scholars, a devil, a wilderness, a mountain, and a he-goat.[863]
Therefore it seems foolish to derive the name, as Spencer does, from Azal (separated) and El (God), hence “one separated from God”—the Devil. In the Zohar, Azazel is rather the “sacrificial victim” than the “formal adversary of Jehovah,” as Spencer would have it.[864]
The amount of malicious fancy and fiction bestowed on this “Host” by various fanatical writers is quite extraordinary. Azazel and his “Host” are simply the Hebrew “Prometheus,” and ought to be viewed from the same standpoint. The Zohar shows the Ischins chained to the mountain in the desert. This is allegorical, and simply alludes to these “Spirits” as being chained to the Earth during the Cycle of Incarnation. Azazel, or Azazyel, is one of the chiefs of the “transgressing” Angels in the Book of Enoch, who descending upon Ardis, the top of Mount Armon, bound themselves by swearing loyalty to each other. It is said that Azazyel taught men to make swords, knives, shields, to fabricate mirrors (?), to make one see what is behind him—viz., “magic mirrors.” Amazarak taught all the sorcerers and dividers of roots; Amers taught the solution of Magic; Barkayal, Astrology; Akibeel, the meaning of portents and signs; Tamiel, Astronomy; and Asaradel taught the motion of the Moon.[865] “These seven were the first instructors of the fourth man” (i.e., of the Fourth Race). But why should allegory be always understood as meaning just what its dead-letter expresses?
It is the symbolical representation of the great struggle between Divine Wisdom, Nous, and its Earthly Reflection, Psyche, or between Spirit and Soul, in Heaven and on Earth. In Heaven—because the Divine Monad had voluntarily exiled itself therefrom, to descend, for incarnating purposes, to a lower plane and thus transform the animal of clay into an immortal God. For, as Éliphas Lévi tells us:
The Angels aspire to become Men; for the perfect Man, the Man-God, is above even Angels.
On Earth—because no sooner had Spirit descended than it was strangled in the coils of Matter.
Strange to say, the Occult Teaching reverses the characters; it is the anthropomorphous Archangel in the case of the Christians, and the man-like God with the Hindûs, which represent Matter in this case; and the Dragon, or Serpent, Spirit. Occult symbolism furnishes the key to the mystery; theological symbolism conceals it still more. For the former explains many a saying in the Bible and even in the New Testament which has hitherto remained incomprehensible; while the latter, owing to its dogma of Satan and his rebellion, has belittled the character and nature of its would-be infinite, absolutely perfect God, and created the greatest evil and curse on Earth—belief in a personal Devil. This mystery is now partially revealed. The key to its metaphysical interpretation has now been restored, while the key to its theological interpretation shows the Gods and Archangels standing as symbols for the dead-letter or dogmatic religions, as arrayed against the pure truths of Spirit, naked and unadorned with fancy.