The Angel of d**h stands between heaven and earth, holding a poison-dripping sword. Identified with Satan, he is full of eyes, a diligent reaper, an old fugitive and wanderer like Cain, a beggar, a pedlar, an Arab nomad, a skeleton capering with sinners and misers in a juggler's dance.
But the nightmarish Angel presents a different face to the one who has 'died before d**h', or who has attained some measure of the apatheia of the saint.
We are told that Azrael, d**h, appears to our spirit in a form determined by our beliefs, actions, and dispositions during life. He may even manifest invisibly, 'so that a man may die of a rose in aromatic pain' – or of a rotting stench. When the soul sees Azrael, it 'falls in love', and its gaze is thus withdrawn from the body as if by a seduction. Great prophets and saints have even been politely invited by d**h, who appears to them in corporeal form. Thus it was with Moses, and with Mohammed. When the Persian poet Rumi lay on his d**hbed, Azrael appeared as a beautiful youth and said, "I am come by divine command to enquire what commission the Master may have to entrust in me."
In fact, a strange connection becomes apparent between Mors and Amor, Love and d**h. The moment of 'extinction' in the pleasure of love resembles that of d**h, and thus that of the mystic. In mythic terms, Eros and Thanatos are almost twins, for in some cases d**h appears as a lovely youth, and Eros as a withered starveling.
Both Love and d**h are gateways, hence their eternal adolescence and their fixation in the midst of the rite of pa**age.