I have to tell you about one of the strangest name I’ve ever found tucked into Scripture.

Azazel.

You won’t find a full story about him in Genesis. You’ll barely find him at all in the books we call the Bible. But if you go back and read what the Hebrews and the Jews of that era actually believed, back before the canon was closed, back when this story was common knowledge around a fire, this name came up again and again. And once you see the shape of what he supposedly did, you’ll start noticing it repeating in your own feed almost every day.

The Story Behind the Name

Here’s the short version. According to a text called 1 Enoch, ancient, widely read, and deeply respected in Jewish and early Christian circles, a group of angels called the Watchers came down to earth before the flood. They weren’t supposed to be here. They took human wives. And they brought something down with them that was never meant to leave heaven. Secrets. Knowledge humanity wasn’t ready to hold.

Azazel gets singled out as the worst offender. He’s credited with teaching men how to forge weapons, swords, knives, shields, breastplates, and how to work the metals of the earth to do it. He also taught women how to adorn themselves. Cosmetics, dyeing, jewelry, the beautifying of the eyelids. Basically all things vanity.

And underneath all of it, the weapons and the makeup both, here’s what actually mattered. He revealed secrets of heaven that people were never meant to hold, not apart from God, and not all at once.

According to 1 Enoch, this is part of why violence and corruption multiplied so quickly in the years leading up to the flood, the same downward spiral Genesis 6 describes when it says the earth had become filled with violence.

Wait, Is This Actually in the Bible?

Here’s where I want to be honest with you, because this matters. 1 Enoch is not Scripture. It’s not in your Bible, and it shouldn’t be treated the same.

But it’s not nothing either.

Jude, an actual book in the New Testament, quotes 1 Enoch directly, by name, when describing the Lord coming with thousands of His holy ones to execute judgment (Jude 1:14-15). And Genesis 6 itself mentions the “sons of God” coming into human daughters and producing the Nephilim, the same event 1 Enoch spends chapters unpacking.

There’s one more detail that stopped me in my tracks, and it’s actually how this whole rabbit trail started for me. I was reading my Bible one day when, out of nowhere, I came across the name Azazel. I sat up. I already knew that name from 1 Enoch, but I had no idea Scripture itself mentioned it. You’ll find it in Leviticus 16. On the Day of Atonement, the scapegoat carrying Israel’s sin was sent out into the wilderness “for Azazel.” Whatever the ancient Hebrews believed about this figure, it was real enough to build into their most sacred yearly ritual.

So no, we’re not treating 1 Enoch as inspired Scripture here. But we are taking seriously what an entire faith tradition, the very one our own faith grew out of, genuinely believed about where forbidden knowledge comes from

Why This Story Still Matters

Strip away the ancient setting for a second, and look at the actual shape of the story. It’s not really about swords or eyeliner. It’s about a being who offered humanity access to things they were never meant to reach for on their own, secrets, power, hidden wisdom, apart from God and ahead of His timing.

That shape hasn’t gone anywhere, friend.

It’s the same shape underneath a tarot deck promising to reveal what’s coming. It’s the same shape underneath astrology charts promising insight your own faith didn’t hand you. It’s the same shape underneath every modern practice that promises access to hidden knowledge, ancient wisdom, secrets the universe is dying to tell you, if you’ll just look the right direction to receive it.

That’s exactly why I wanted to lay this foundation before we go any further. Over the next several posts, we’re going to walk through some of these trends one at a time, astrology, tarot, crystals, manifestation, and more, each one through this same lens. Because it turns out none of them are actually new. They’re just the same old offer, dressed in a new decade’s clothes.

A Question Worth Sitting With

Here’s what I want you to carry with you. Not every fascination with the ancient or the mysterious is dangerous. Curiosity isn’t the enemy here. It never has been.

But when something offers you secret knowledge, hidden wisdom, or access to what’s coming, ask yourself where that offer is actually coming from, and who’s supposed to be the one you go to for it. If it’s not the God of the Bible, turn it down. There is only one truth, Jesus (John 14:6). And we already have the perfect one who leads us into all truth, the Holy Spirit (John 16:13). God was never stingy with wisdom. James tells us if we lack it, we can simply ask Him, and He’ll give it generously. We were never meant to go around Him to get it.

this post is part of a series walking through the spiritual trends showing up most right now, one at a time, through the WONDER Framework from Discerning the Wonder.