In Geof Gray-Cobb’s book The Miracle of New Avatar Power, the Angel Arzel plays a prominent role. He is the first that is called on in every ritual, and acts as the gatekeeper of the system.
In Damon Brand’s book The 72 Angels of Magick, he is treated as a part of the Angel of Secrets, Raziel.
Some believe that he is the Enochian Angel ARZL.
In the Bible ARZ is translated as “cedar”. The Psalm that is commonly assigned to Arzel is
Ps 80:11
“The mountains were covered with the shadow of it, and the mighty cedars with the boughs thereof.”
There are 3 more Psalms in which the cedar is mentioned, but only in 80:11 the letters ARZI are immediately followed by AL.
Ps 29:5
“The voice of the LORD breaketh the cedars; yea, the LORD breaketh in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.”
Ps 92:13
“The righteous shall flourish like the palm-tree; he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.”
Ps 104:16
“The trees of the LORD have their fill, the cedars of Lebanon which He hath planted.”
In Persian there is the word ARZ
which means “presenting itself / appearing / representing / a petition”. Considering his role in Gray-Cobb’s book, I think this seems like a very plausible root for the Name of this Angel. It certainly makes more sense than “cedar”.
Here is a Seal for Arzel, based on the Malachim alphabet. Feel free to use it when calling him who appears and represents when you are making a petition.
I have written somewhere else before how this incantation might be corrupted Persian. Recently I discovered the word “Zaza” in Hebrew and in Sumerian (with different meanings). The following two interpretations may make sense.
Sumerian:
ZAZA (bow down)
ZA (man, close)
AS (one)
NA (man)
SA (equal)
TAH (add, increase)
AN (heaven)
DA (side)
ZAZA ZA AS NA SA TAH NA AN DA ZAZA AS
Bow down man (this) one rises to be a man equal to the heavens, bow down one.
Hebrew:
ZAZA (ZZA) Brightness, fullness (this is said to be derived of ZIZ “beast of the field” in Psalm 80:14 and which also has the meaning of “abundance” which is how it is used in Isaiah 66:11 “That ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breast of her consolations; that ye may drink deeply with delight of the abundance of her glory.”)
AZ (Ayin Zayn) Strength
AZ (Aleph Zayn) Therefor
NASA (NShA) to lift up (used extensively in the Bible both figuratively and literally, for instance in Psalm 94:2 “Lift up Thyself, Thou judge of the earth, render to the proud their recompense.”)
TAN (TaN) sea monster, dragon
ANAD (AYIN NUN DALET) to bind, lace fast (used in the sense of tying something to you, as in Job 31:36 “Surely I would carry it upon my shoulder; I would bind it unto me as a crown.”
ZAZA AZ ZAZA AZ NASA TAN ANAD ZAZA AZ
The beasts of the field are strong and abundant, rise up therefor dragon, bind to me your brightness and strength.
Imagine you are a medieval occultist. You know the Malachim alphabet and you want to create a beautiful Seal for Lucifer.
You take the Lahmed and mirror it.
You take the Kaf and stretch it out a bit.
You take the Peh and the Resh.
LCFR
Now you merge these letters by placing them on top of each other.
The symbol:
The Gematria for this is 330, which according to Crowley gives three words:
boundary / terminus / crosspath
revolution / hurricane / tempest
error / fault
Interesting. Right?
In an invocation you can speak the vowels that are missing from the Name. U/V, I and E/A. In Hebrew these can be Vav, Yod and Aleph. This would give a Gematria of 17. There are a couple of interesting entries for 17 in Crowley’s Sepher Sephiroth. Not all of them support my idea here, but the word “circle” (Chet Vav Gihmel) does.
In Latin, VIA is way / road of course.
A simple magic square with these three letters:
V I A
I A V
A V I
The third word AVI can be translated as ancestor.
The middle word IAV has no translation in Latin, but it is IAO, the great word of invocation if you accept the Vav as an O.
These three definitely contain an idea to me.
You could translate I as “one”, A as “away from” and V as “five”.
So, LCFR is 330 in Hebrew. VIA is 17 (both VIA and IAV are not mentioned in Sepher Sephiroth, but AVI is and it is translated as “alas!”)
330 + 17 = 347
In Sepher Sephiroth, 347 gives “bridal chamber”. And 348 gives “five”. So 347 is just one away from five…
And then it doesn’t take a lot to turn the symbol into this:
I recently did an invocation of Baphomet. For this I used the Enn:
Denyen Baphomet Ganabal On Ca
Two Sumerian interpretations of his Name:
BA (Vessel)
PU (Well)
METE (Image)
“The Image is a Vessel containing the Well“
BA (Animal)
PU (Mouth)
METE (Self)
“Through which the Animalistic Self Speaks”
Baphomet undeniably is connected to sex and transcending limitations. It’s funny to me how his name has been preserved in Dutch. The word for cunnilingus is “beffen”, but when the same act is performed on the anus, the word is “baffen”.
It never made sense to me that the planetary seal of Saturn is used as the seal of Azazel. I have asked fellow occultists about this and the answers varied.
“That is because Azazel is Zazel” someone said. That makes no sense because he is not. And because Zazel has his own seal which isn’t the planetary seal.
Someone else said “That is just one of those things we will probably never know”. Which is really dissatisfying to me.
In September of 2019 I was in contact with a small group of people who intended to evoke or invoke Azazel a couple of times for a set period of time and to share information afterwards. I suggested we’d all ask him about his true seal.
Turns out I was the only one who had asked him.
Now, spirits don’t communicate with me by speaking entire paragraphs of (common sense) ‘gnosis’. The answers I receive always are very short, in strange languages and most of the time quite puzzling. In a way that’s how I like it.
When I asked Azazel what he could tell me about the seal, he said:
“The body I did, there are three. Hear this, I am”
I have also asked an Angel about Azazel a couple of times. She always calls him ‘Azaz’.
Currently I am working on (amongst other things) a little grimoire dedicated to a group of fallen Angels. Of these, only Azazel has a (generally accepted) seal, and one of the others has a modern seal that has gotten popular in the last couple of years.
I didn’t want to use either of these if I couldn’t find seals for the other ones in the group. As I was working out the different Angels and reconstructing their Names to make correct seals, I suddenly saw something that has been staring at me the entire time.
Azaz (Strength) is spelled Ayin Zayn Zayn.
If you combine these three letters into a single glyph using the alphabet known as ‘Passing the River’, and mirror the second Zayn (to make the figure look balanced), you get this figure:
The Name I think is formed by combining three words:
AZAZ
Strength
AZA
To make hot
AZL
To depart
“The departed one who makes stronger by applying heat”
This “applying of heat” is a reference to his power to teach the making of swords