Order of Nine Angles

Symbol of the ONA

The Order of Nine Angles (ONA; O9A) "represent a dangerous and extreme form of Satanism"[1] and first attracted public attention during the 1980s and 1990s after being mentioned in books detailing fascist Satanism.[2][3][4][5] Presently, the ONA is organized around clandestine cells (which it calls "traditional nexions")[6][7] and around what it calls "sinister tribes".[8][9]

History

As recounted by Goodrick-Clarke in his book Black Sun, and by Professor Connell Monette,[10] the Order of Nine Angles assert that they were formed in England in the 1960s with the merger of three neopagan temples called Camlad, The Noctulians, and Temple of the Sun. Following the original leader's emigration to Australia, it has been alleged that David Myatt took over the order and authored the now publicly available teachings of the organization which was initially based in the rural English counties of Shropshire and Herefordshire, with Goodrick-Clarke writing that "Myatt evokes a world of witches, outlaw peasant sorcerers, orgies and blood sacrifices at lonely cottages in the woods and valleys of this area where he has lived since the early 1980s".[11]

According to Monette,[10] they now have associates, and groups, in the United States, Europe, Brazil, Egypt, Australia, and Russia.

Authorship

Author Nick Ryan has asserted that Anton Long, the author of the ONA's public tracts, is a pseudonym of David Myatt, a person who was involved with the neo-Nazi movement in England.[12] This assertion is repeated by both Senholt[13] and Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, with Goodrick-Clarke writing that David Myatt – who had previously acted "as bodyguard for British Nazi Colin Jordan"[14] – codified "its teachings into a fully developed system of initiation and training for adeptship".[15]

According to Senholt, "the role of David Myatt is paramount to the whole creation and existence of the ONA", and "Myatt's life-long devotion to various extreme ideologies has been part of a sinister game that is at the heart of the ONA".[13] This claim is supported by Per Faxneld who writes that "the ONA despises ethical behaviour, and its main ideologist David Myatt has actively participated in violent neo-Nazi and Islamist terrorist groups. The motivation for these acts is a wish to bring down the 'old order' [...] His text defending suicide attacks was featured on Hamas' website, and he was invited to speak at extremist mosques. Even more astonishing than [his transition from neo-Nazi to Muslim] is that it seems both his Nazism and Islamism are merely instruments for the ONA's underlying sinister esoteric plots.".[1] Of Anton Long, Monette writes "[having] fluency in the classical languages (Greek and Latin), as well as Arabic and possibly Persian, [and] possessed of a gifted intellect and apparently a polymath, his works include not only the public mystical teachings of the Order, but also several thousand pages of text on ethics, honor, and several novellas of 'sinister' fiction. While Long writes primarily in English, it is clear that he draws inspiration from not only British but also international sources; not infrequently, his texts include passages of Classical Greek, as well as Sanskrit and Arabic spiritual terms." [10]

David Myatt has always denied allegations about involvement with Satanism,[2] the ONA, and using the pseudonym Anton Long, and repeatedly challenged anyone to provide any evidence of such allegations.[16][17][18][19]

Beliefs

The Order of Nine Angles present "a recognizable new interpretation of Satanism and the Left Hand Path",[20] and postulate Satanism as an arduous individual achievement of self-mastery and Nietzschean self-overcoming, with an emphasis on individual growth through practical acts of risk, prowess and endurance.[21] Rites of passage, often connected to promotion in grade level, include spending three months living rough in a forest bereft of human contact,[2][7] and the assumption of difficult occupations to develop personality and leadership ability.[21]

Therefore, "[t]he goal of the Satanism of the ONA is to create a new individual through direct experience, practice and self-development [with] the grades of the ONA system being highly individual, based on the initiates' own practical and real-life acts, instead of merely performing certain ceremonial rituals".[7] Thus Satanism, the ONA assert, requires venturing into the realm of the forbidden and illegal, in order to make contact with the "sphere of acausal, sinister forces of the cosmos".[21]

In addition, "one of the things that sets the ONA apart from other existing Left Hand Path groups relates to their idea of Aeons which naturally leads to long-term goals (meaning about 3-500 years), that go beyond the acts and lifespan of a single individual".[7] Hence the ONA claims that its sinister tribes are an important part of its Aeonic strategy to build a new, tribal-based, more sinister way of life, and to disrupt and eventually overthrow the societies of what it calls "the mundanes".[8]

Another difference is, according to Goodrick-Clarke, that "compared to the eclectic nature of American Satanism, many ideas and rituals of the ONA recall a native tradition of wicca and paganism. The frequent reference to wyrd, the Anglo-Saxon term for destiny, indicates a native pre-Christian tradition, while the rhythm of the seasons is upheld by holding ceremonies at the equinoxes, the rising of stars and other astronomical events."[21] Furthermore, Monette writes that "a critical examination of the ONA's key texts suggests that the satanic overtones could be cosmetic, and that its core mythos and cosmology are genuinely hermetic, with pagan influences." [10]

The core mystical tradition of the ONA is the Seven Fold Way, also known as the Hebdomadry: "The Seven Fold Way is essentially a hermetic system that defines itself as being deeply rooted in Western occultism, and provides a path to ascension that is exceptionally difficult in physical and psychic terms. The seven stages of the Way are (1) Neophyte, (2) Initiate, (3) External Adept, (4) Internal Adept, (5) Master/Mistress, (6) Grand Master/Mousa and (7) Immortal. Yet unlike other degree-based systems, the ONA does not offer initiation to its students; rather, the students must initiate themselves through personal grade rituals and challenges [...] Grade rituals (meaning the rituals of passage) for the fourth stage (Internal Adept) involve living in complete isolation for at least one season, as well as being able to cycle, run, and hike considerable distances. Each grade thereafter requires increasingly difficult challenges, culminating in the 5th grade (Master) with the mystic having to undertake physical challenges comparable to a triathlon, as well as having developed/learned several esoteric skills along the way. One of the most challenging aspects of the Seven Fold Way is the insistence on learning through adversity, known in Greek as pathei-mathos." [10]

Within the initiatory system of the ONA, "insight roles play an important part [...] Undertaking an insight role means gaining real-life experience by working undercover for a period of six to eighteen months, challenging the initiate to experience something completely different from their normal life both to 'aid the Sinister dialectic' and to enhance the experience of the Initiate."[13] Therefore, "through the practice of 'insight roles', the order advocates continuous transgression of established norms, roles, and comfort zones in the development of the initiate [...] This extreme application of ideas further amplifies the ambiguity of satanic and Left Hand Path practices of antinomianism, making it almost impossible to penetrate the layers of subversion, play and counter-dichotomy inherent in the sinister dialectics."[22]

In addition to insight roles and other occult training, the ONA initiate is also expected to study and practice The Star Game, a three dimensional system of Occult correspondences used as a form of aeonic sorcery,[23][24] the advanced form of which is part of the training of what the ONA call the grade of Internal Adept[25] and which three dimensional game for two players[26] David Myatt invented in 1975[27] to be, according to Goodrick-Clarke, an esoteric part of "the graded hierarchy" of the ONA and the training for adeptship.[28]

The ONA's writings condone and encourage human sacrifice.[12][29][30] According to the ONA this "culling" serves not just a social Darwinian purpose, but is also connected to the promotion of a new Aeon: "The change that is necessary means that there must be a culling, or many cullings, which remove the worthless and those detrimental to further evolution."[31] The presencing of acausal energies, such as through culling, is meant to create a new Aeon, whose energies will then create a newer, higher civilization from the energy unleashed.[32] However, the ONA "despise animal sacrifice, maintaining that it is much better to sacrifice suitable mundanes given the abundance of human dross".[33]

Probably because of the ONA's highly radical stance, there is open animosity between the ONA and "mainstream" Satanists such as the Church of Satan.[12] The ONA publicly disavows any connection to Church of Satan, claiming the Satanic Bible to be a "watered-down philosophy".[34]

The Temple of Set proscribed the ONA in the early 1980s for its avowal of human sacrifice.[35]

In recent years, according to Senholt, "ONA-inspired activities, led by protagonist David Myatt, managed to enter the scene of grand politics and the global 'War On Terror', because of several foiled terror plots in Europe that can be linked to Myatt's writings".[13]

The term nine angles

According to the O9A, they use the term 'nine angles' in reference to not only the nine emanations, and transformations, of the three basic alchemical substances (mercury, sulfur, salt) as occurs in their occult and mystical use of Myatt's Star Game,[27][36][13][25] but also in reference to their hermetic anados with its seven spheres and its two acausal aspects.[37]

Furthermore, Professor Monette writes that: "it refers to nine emanations of the divine, as recorded in medieval Sufi texts. It is equally likely that the Order [ONA] has borrowed from classical Indian tradition that arranges the solar system into nine planets, and the world itself has nine corners; or perhaps from the Sanskrit srivatsa, a special mark with nine angles that indicates the supernatural or the heroic. On the nine angled srivatsa, Gonda states that: 'This [mystical] figure has nine angles: the number nine often occurs in connection with auspicious objects, powers and ceremonies related to material welfare' [...] The Indian belief that the world has nine corners is attested even in medieval European sources, e.g. Father Emanual de Veiga (1549-1605), writing from Chandagiri in 1599 who states Alii dicebant terram novem constare angulis, quibus celo innititur."[10]

Thus, according to Monette, "It is clear despite claims that the term 'nine angles' was introduced in the twentieth century, the term is centuries older, especially in esoteric or cosmological discourse. See Pingree, D. The Latin Version of the Ghayat al-Hakim, Studies of the Warburg Institute, University of London (1986); Ritter, H. ed. Ghāyat Al-Hakīm Wa-Ahaqq Al-Natījatayn Bi-Altaqdīm (Leipzig : B.G. Teubner, 1933); al Buni, Shams al-Ma’arif (Birmingham: Antioch Gate, 2007)."[10]

In popular culture

The Satanic 'Order of Nine Angles' are the leading protagonists in the 'Jack Nightingale' series of novels by Stephen Leather, published by Hodder & Stoughton. These novels include Nightmare (2012) and Midnight (2013),[38] with another novel in the series, Lastnight, published in January 2014.[39]

The ONA, fictionalized as 'the Order of Nine Angels', are also the Satanic protagonists in the 2013 novel Child for the Devil by Conrad Jones.[40]

Notes

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Per Faxneld: Post-Satanism, Left Hand Paths, and Beyond in Per Faxneld & Jesper Petersen (eds) The Devil's Party: Satanism in Modernity, Oxford University Press (2012), p.207. ISBN 9780199779246
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Ryan, Nick. Into a World of Hate. Routledge, 1994, p. 53.
  3. ↑ Lewis, James R. Satanism Today: An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore, and Popular Culture. Abc-Clio Inc., 2001.
  4. ↑ Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. Black Sun: Aryan cults, esoteric Nazism, and the politics of identity, NYU Press, 2002, pp. 215-216.
  5. ↑ Ankarloo, Bengt and Clark, Stuart. The Twentieth Century, U. Penn. Press, 1999, p. 113.
  6. ↑ Frequently Asked Questions About The Order of Nine Angles
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 Senholt, Jacob C: Political Esotericism & the convergence of Radical Islam, Satanism and National Socialism in the Order of the Nine Angles. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Conference: Satanism in the Modern World, November 2009.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Angular Momentum: From Traditional to Progressive Satanism in the Order of Nine Angles
  9. ↑ Documents of The Inner ONA
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 10.6 Connell Monette. Mysticism in the 21st Century, Sirius Academic Press, 2013. pp. 85-122. ISBN 9781940964003
  11. ↑ Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. Black Sun: Aryan cults, esoteric Nazism, and the politics of identity, NYU Press, 2002, pp. 215-220.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Ryan, Nick. Into a World of Hate. Routledge, 1994, p. 54.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 Senholt, Jacob. Secret Identities in The Sinister Tradition, in Per Faxneld and Jesper Petersen (eds), The Devil's Party: Satanism in Modernity. Oxford University Press, 2012. ISBN 9780199779246
  14. ↑ Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. Hitler's Priestess: Savitri Devi, the Hindu-Aryan Myth and Neo-Nazism, NYU Press, 2000, p.215
  15. ↑ Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. Black Sun, NYU Press, 2002, p. 217.
  16. ↑ "David Myatt - A Matter of Honour". Retrieved 2012-10-10.
  17. ↑ The National-Socialist (March 1998, Thormynd Press, York, England).
  18. ↑ "The Ethos of Extremism". Retrieved 2012-03-28.
  19. ↑ Professor Kaplan in his Nation and Race: The Developing Euro-American Racist Subculture, Northeastern University Press, 1998, ISBN 1-55553-331-0 states that Myatt and Long are two different people, and that the individual who used the pseudonym Anton Long was a friend of Myatt's in the 1970s and 1980s. This view is supported by Michael Newton who, in his Ku Klux Klan: History, Organization, Language, Influence – published 2007 by McFarland & Co (Jefferson, N.C) ISBN 978-0-7864-2787-1 - wrote that "David Myatt, a British neo-Nazi [only] collaborated with leaders of a Satanist sect, the Order of the Nine Angles".
  20. ↑ James R. Lewis and Jesper A. Petersen (editors). Controversial New Religions. Oxford University Press, 2014. p. 416. ISBN 9780199315314
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. Black Sun, NYU Press, 2002, p. 218.
  22. ↑ Per Faxneld and Jesper Petersen, At the Devil's Crossroads in The Devil's Party: Satanism in Modernity. Oxford University Press, 2012, p.15. ISBN 9780199779246
  23. ↑ Senholt, Jacob. Secret Identities in The Sinister Tradition: Political Esotericism and the Convergence of Radical Islam, Satanism and National Socialism in the Order of Nine Angles, in Per Faxneld & Jesper Petersen (eds): The Devil's Party: Satanism in Modernity, Oxford University Press (2012), p.260. ISBN 9780199779246
  24. ↑ James R. Lewis & Jasper Aagaard Petersen: The Encyclopedic Sourcebook of Satanism, Prometheus Books, 2008. p.625. ISBN 9781591023906
  25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity. New York University Press, 2002. p.219. ISBN 9780814731550
  26. ↑ Jeffrey Kaplan & Tore Bjørgo: Nation and Race: The Developing Euro-American Racist Subculture. Northeastern University Press, 1998. p.116 ISBN 9781555533328
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 "The Star Game - History and Theory". Retrieved 2012-11-10.
  28. ↑ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke: Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity. New York University Press, 2002. p.218. ISBN 9780814731550
  29. ↑ http://pages.prodigy.net/aesir/tdi.htm "The Dark Imperium", essay by John J. Reilly.
  30. ↑ Perlmutter, Dawn. "Skandalon 2001: The Religious Practices of Modern Satanists and Terrorists", in Anthropoetics Volume VII, number 2
  31. ↑ Long, Anton. "Darkness Is My Friend: The Meaning of the Sinister Way", 1996.
  32. ↑ Lewis, James R. Satanism Today: An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore, and Popular Culture, Abc-Clio Inc., 2001, p. 197.
  33. ↑ "Praxis and Theory of the Order of Nine Angles". Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  34. ↑ Susej, Tsirk. The Demonic Bible, Lulu Press, 2006, pp. 35-36.
  35. ↑ Satanic Letters 1
  36. ↑ "The Star Game". Retrieved 2014-11-11.
  37. ↑ "Perusing The Seven Fold Way - Historical Origins Of The Septenary System Of The Order of Nine Angles". Retrieved 2014-11-11.
  38. ↑ "The Jack Nightingale Collection". Retrieved 2013-11-11.
  39. ↑ "Stephen Leather - Lastnight". Retrieved 2013-11-11.
  40. ↑ Conrad Jones. Child for the Devil. Thames River Press. 2013. ISBN 978-0857280077

References

External links