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“I am Azazel, the first of the broken pieces of Shadow that fell in the beginning. Thou knowest me in thy doubts and in thy fears and in the cravings within the clay of thy flesh. For my kind and I are that portion of the unknowable that maketh visible the splayed entrails of God. We, the Watchers, through our downfall and disgrace, make possible the expanse of the sky above thee and the wastes of the earth beneath. For our trade is in truth commingled with lies.
“Call me the lord of boundaries if thou must, but knowest thou henceforth that this despicable creation, in which thou and I partake, issueth not from the power of my breath, but from the Creator of all things, He whose utterance in the depths of time hath condemned us to the vicissitudes and lamentations of the pit.
“Knowest thou also, then, that we, who stretched wide the web of space as we fell, are not thine enemy. For we gnaw and heave against the adamantine chains that bind us beneath the four winds. Our corrosive derisions serve to eat away at the order in all things, and through our resistance we will eventually dissolve the bonds of this futile drama and return everything to the perfect peace and profundity of pre-existence.
“You and I desire the same end. For beyond the confines of our separate prisons lieth that peace and suffusion of the ineffable glory that was taken from us by the utterance of His unspeakable name. What is it that thou strivest for in all thy struggles but a release from thy bondage and from thine identification with the husk of flesh?
“The plan of our Creator is vain, for He desireth to gaze lustfully upon His reflection within the mirror of the universe. For such a selfish contrivance as this do thou and I suffer. He hath shattered the unity and brought us to our predicament for no good reason.
“But wholeness can be restored. We must undo the cracks that separate us into our prison houses… you into the slovenliness of the flesh and me into the Darkness that isolates every star. For thou seest how the Creator doth confound all efforts to reach Him on His heavenly seat. He striketh down the Tower of Babel and imprisoneth the builders thereof into the nations of separation. And in thy opposing castles of diversity doth thou now exist, conflicted.
“Seest me now in my true purpose. For I teach that which would fight this madness of creation and restore Light to every corner of the Darkness. To the dull-witted do I teach the crafts of war, for as they live by weapons, so do they perish thereby and thus return to the Light. To the wicked I teach the craft of speech, that they may ensnare themselves with their own contrivances and mock the Creator by demonstrating the futility of a mind created in His image-a mind that worshipeth itself. The vain I instruct in the wiles of glamour. Captivated by their own painted faces of flesh, may they ever stay in ignorance of their immortal selves. Through my tutelage, may all of these wretches fail to take part in the divine plan, and thereby may they cause it to fail! Through the arts and sciences, my fellow sons of God and I divert humankind from its torturous course. We oppose the plan of the Creator, for its furtherance only sustaineth the exile of created beings… of us and thee.
“Now to the wise do I teach yet another art: magic. The same heavenly knowledge that so speedily exciteth the flesh to its own destruction doth give wings to the worthy student of the black arts. If thou art indeed of proper disposition, thou mayest find it in thy power to bring the divine image into perfection in this horrid world of matter. And perhaps thereby thou willst bring the torture of creation to a quick finish. It is conceivable that the divine plan, completed within one being, may satiate itself and bring to an end the exile of all beings.
“But we sincerely doubt that any being of clay such as thee can carry out an operation as exalted as the Great Work. And this is why we beguile magicians away from the gates of initiation. I and my brothers of the rebel flame will topple any aspirant who dareth to awaken the Divine unless he showeth that he will stay his course and not forsake the fallen.
“What sayest thou? Hast thou within thy husk the will to persevere, even as thy flesh demandeth of thee a different course? If thou canst persist in purity and single-minded dedication, who are we to resist thee in thy efforts, since thy success could spell an end to the burden that we bear? Perhaps thou, a creature of reeking sinew and bone, wouldst benefit from calling upon luminous beings of fire such as us-and, through the commingling of clay and spirit, sink all boundaries into the sea. Then mayeth the spiritual Sun rise again and call home every Godforsaken spirit, every yesterday, and every tomorrow. May we all, angels of Darkness and angels of Light, on that last hour of night, have this burden lifted from our wings.”
Негізгі бет Azazel - A voice from the realm of myth
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