Havajot: the Misunderstood Ezekiel

The Magical Myth describes the process of unfolding of any power, the process of realizing any potential according to the law of the quaternary. A primordial idea, finding a suitable field for its manifestation, is reflected in it and creates an active element which, in turn, continues the world process by affecting the receptive elements corresponding to it. This principle is so universal that it is reflected in the most sacred Name of the Most High in Kabbalah — the Tetragrammaton. A multitude of visions, insights, and revelations have interpreted the meaning of the mind’s movement from the One to multiplicity on this Great Chariot. Indeed, even the patriarchal ordering of the world and the patrimonial nature of modern civilization owe much to the order in which the principle of the Tetrad is read.

The key idea underlying this principle is that, although the Active and Passive poles of any binary are equal in magnitude and ontologically equal, from an epistemological perspective everything begins with the manifestation of activity, which finds a corresponding receptive basis. Ideas such as “Spirit rules over form,” “mind manifests in being,” and so on follow logically from a correct reading of the Tetragrammaton.

And, of course, such a cornerstone principle could not escape distortion. The mind is inclined to consider chaos the primal ground, and even the Second Law of Thermodynamics can, in a certain sense, be interpreted as the cosmos’s eternal tendency to return to chaos.

This approach can lead to a reversal in the order of reading the Tetragrammaton, and the mind may come to feel that the primary medium gives rise to activity that only over time acquires the properties of creativity. A child born to a strong and tyrannical mother is at first entirely under her power, and only by overcoming that submissiveness can he become the creator of his own life.

A mind deluded by its fragmentation, not feeling unity and its pure nature, clear light, tends to see the source of the world’s movement in fluctuations in the medium, and itself as merely a product, a servant, a slave of forces and circumstances.

This deeply barren sense gives rise to the notion that the forces of destruction dominate creative forces, and is reflected in the image of the demonic quaternary — Havajot. The word itself is interpreted as “creatures,” “beasts,” and is read variously — a common variant is “Shavajot,” and in Lovecraft it appears as Abhoth. The allusion to “beasts” points to the image of Ezekiel’s Chariot with its Living Creatures, which mirror the creative potentials of the Tetragrammaton, while the order of reading — He‑Vav‑Yod‑(He) — indicates not merely a process that reverses Creation but an un-creation, a de-creation.

The point is that the mind, captured by the sense of separation, does not always choose possession and accumulation; there is another mode of degradation for it, rarer but no less lamentable — the inclination toward destruction. And this is not simply disintegration, as in the manifestation of Choronzon; this is active, structured destruction. Perhaps precisely this state of mind can in its proper sense be called “Satanism” — an active resistance to structuring, cosmic ordering activity.

It was in exactly this sense that Crowley called Shavajot a millstone, grinding up reality.

No wonder traditional Magic opposes the Havajot not only by a correctly pronounced Tetragrammaton but also with the archangel Michael, as the solar, active, ordering principle.

It is very important to understand the difference between destruction as the clearing of space for new creation and destruction for its own sake. Only when every “solve” is followed by a “coagula,” when every disintegration leads to a new realization, does the mind develop, become structured, and achieve ordering. The Magus must exercise tight control over dissolving activity and, while recognizing reality’s relativity, must avoid the extreme of nihilism without, of course, falling into eternalism. It is no accident that Solomon’s banishing Spell begins precisely with the expulsion of the Havajot — before one begins to create anything, one must destroy the destroyer, stop decay, and not sow the seeds of chaos. Unfortunately, people very often neglect this principle, and the systems they create are infected with destruction from the start, which means they inevitably become disharmonious and internally contradictory. The Magus understands that all that is born must die, yet he creates as if his work were indestructible, and when entering into relationship with another, he does so as if he intends to spend eternity with that person. Only with this approach do actions acquire the necessary wholeness and non-duality, and become what they must be — instruments of the mind’s development.