>The symbolism of Azazel, identified in Semitic traditions as the scapegoat and lord of the seirim, the goat-like spirits of the desert, points to an archetype of cosmic disintegration and separation from the principle. In his ambivalent function, he represents the point of the fall of the primordial light into matter, that is, the moment when the creative power, moving away from the center, becomes an inverted reflection, a "mirror of light" imprisoned in the density of manifestation. Mount Seir, the domain of Edom, symbolizes this limit of Creation, the desert where the Spirit is exiled and where the "fallen angel" is bound until the end of the cycle. The figure of Dushara, or Dusares, the black god of the Nabateans, associated with the cubic stone of Petra, is none other than the continuation of this cult to the Saturnine principle, the "Lord of the Limit" (Shara, of Mesopotamian origin), who imprisons the celestial power in a mineral and inert form. The black cube, a symbol of Saturn, is the emblem of coagulated time, of the terminal state of manifestation: within it, the spirit is solidified, the light becomes opaque, and space replaces the center. The rite of libation upon the stone thus represents the residual attempt to reconnect with the lost axis, the blood sacrifice seeking to reanimate what has been petrified.

>But beneath the veil of this degeneration, the "shadow of the sacred" still hides: the androgynous principle evoked by the Zohar, where masculine and feminine unite in the "serpent rider," Azazel. As in all cyclic theogonies, the dethroned god, the devouring Saturn, is not merely the symbol of evil, but the guardian of the portal leading back to the Unmanifest. The crossing of the desert, the confrontation with the black cube, is, therefore, the ultimate rite of reintegration: returning to the center through the dissolution of form, when the "goat of exile" becomes the "lamb of return."

The Donkey God is the Ultimate Threshold Guardian.