זוהר בראשית — דף קכו ע”א

The Zohar continues describing the practices of Balaam: through a circle, incantations and other acts, he drew impure spirits to himself, which revealed knowledge, sorcery and divination to him, hence the verse “He did not go, as at other times, to meet omens.” Rabbi Yosi asks why sorcery is found mostly among women; he is told that when the serpent came upon Eve it cast a defilement into her and not into her husband, and he kisses Rabbi Yitzhak. He then asks where Balaam learned these arts, and is told: from his father, and in the mountains of the East, where the angels Aza and Azael, cast down from heaven and bound in iron chains, teach sorcery to human beings. The verse about the wilderness is then linked to the spirit of impurity and the golden calf.