Order of Nine Angles
The Order of Nine Angles is a Satanic left-hand path network that originated in the United Kingdom, but has since branched out into other parts of the world. Claiming to have been established in the 1960s, it rose to public recognition in the early 1980s, attracting attention for its neo-Nazi ideology and activism. Describing its approach as "Traditional Satanism", it also exhibits Hermetic and modern pagan elements in its beliefs.
According to the Order's own claims, it was established in the Welsh Marches of Western England during the late 1960s by a woman previously involved in a secretive pre-Christian tradition. This account adds that in 1973, a man named "Anton Long" was initiated into the group, subsequently becoming its grand master. Several academics who have studied the ONA believe that "Anton Long" is probably the pseudonym of the British neo-Nazi activist David Myatt; he denies this. From the late 1970s onward, Long wrote books and articles which propagated the Order's ideas; in 1988, the organization launched its own journal, Fenrir. Through these ventures, it established links with other neo-Nazi Satanist groups around the world, among them the Tempel ov Blood in the United States and the Black Order in New Zealand. During the 2000s, the ONA furthered its cause through embracing the Internet. By the 2010s it was attracting further attention for its influence over neo-Nazi militant groups such as Atomwaffen Division and National Action as well as broader extremist networks like 764.
The ONA promotes the idea that human history can be divided into a series of aeons, each of which contains a corresponding human civilization. Adherents believe that the current aeonic civilization is that of the Western world, but that the evolution of this society is threatened by the "Magian/Nazarene" influence of the Judeo-Christian religion, which the Order seeks to combat in order to establish a militaristic new social order, which it calls the "Imperium". According to Order teachings, this is necessary in order for a galactic civilization to form, in which "Aryan" society will colonise the Milky Way. It advocates a spiritual path in which practitioners are required to break societal taboos by isolating themselves from society, committing crimes, embracing political extremism and violence, and carrying out acts of human sacrifice. ONA members practice magic, believing that they are able to do it by channeling energies into their own "causal" realm from an "acausal" realm where the laws of physics do not apply, and these magical actions are designed to help them achieve their ultimate goal of establishing the Imperium.
The ONA eschews any central authority or structure; instead, it operates as a broad network of associates – termed the "kollective" – who are inspired by the texts which were originally authored by Long and other members of the "inner ONA". The group is composed largely of clandestine cells, which are called "nexions". Some academic estimates suggest that the number of individuals who are broadly associated with the Order falls in the low thousands. Various rapes, killings, and acts of terrorism have been perpetrated by far-right individuals influenced by the ONA, with various British politicians and activists calling for the ONA to be proscribed as a terrorist group. ONA has subsequently been banned as a terrorist group in New Zealand.
Definition
The ONA has been characterised as a new religious movement. The group presents its teachings as "Traditional Satanism", and various scholars of religion have described it as Satanic. The scholar Jesper Aagaard Petersen called the ONA's teachings a "new interpretation of Satanism and the left-hand path". Other scholars have offered similar descriptions; Per Faxneld described the ONA as "a dangerous and extreme form of Satanism", while Fredrik Gregorius called it "one of the most controversial and infamous Satanic groups of the twentieth century". Religious studies scholar Graham Harvey thought that the ONA fit the stereotype of the Satanist "better than other groups", like the Church of Satan, in large part due to its embrace of "deeply shocking" and illegal acts. Conversely, the scholar of religion George Sieg argued that the ONA should be categorised as "post-Satanic" because it has "surpassed identification with its original satanic paradigm".Other scholars have portrayed it principally as an overlap between Satanism and Nazism; the historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke called it a "Satanic Nazi cult", while the specialists in far-right politics Jeffrey Kaplan and Leonard Weinberg characterised it as a "National Socialist-oriented Satanist group". Further academic descriptions have highlighted other links; the religious studies scholar Connell R. Monette called it a "blend" of Satanism with Hermeticism and "some pagan elements", while the historian of religion Ethan Doyle White characterised it as a group existing at the intersection of the Satanic and modern pagan milieus. Considering the manner in which the ONA had syncretized both Satanism and Heathenry, the historian of religion Mattias Gardell described its spiritual perspective as "a heathen satanic path". With the recent appearance of ONA in American and European news media, historical scholarship has examined the relationship between ONA's unique esoteric tradition and violent political accelerationism to characterize the movement as neo-fascist.
Alternative definitions have been provided by counter-terrorism organisations. The Global Network on Extremism and Technology for instance labels the ONA a "decentralised esoteric militant accelerationist network of threat actors". The ONA has been described as "occult-based neo-Nazi and racially motivated violent extremist group" by the United States government.
History
Origins
Academics have found it difficult to ascertain "exact and verifiable information" about the ONA's origins given the high level of secrecy it maintains. As with many other occult organisations, the Order shrouds its history in "mystery and legend", creating a "mythical narrative" for its origins and development. In its writings, the ONA has claimed that accounts of its history are "just stories andtales to be accepted, or rejected, on that basis" and that it does not maintain that they are "accurate and/or describe historical events".
The ONA's writings claim the group as a descendant of pre-Christian pagan traditions which survived the Christianisation of Britain. These, it maintains, were passed down from the Middle Ages onward in small groups or "temples" based in the Welsh Marches – a border area between England and Wales – each of which was led by a grand master or a grand mistress. These claims to an ancient pre-Christian heritage run counter to established scholarly understandings of British history, but reflect a belief common among modern pagans in mid-20th century Britain. Parallels have for instance been drawn with Wicca, whose early followers claimed to be part of an ancient pre-Christian religion.
According to the Order's writings, in the late 1960s, a grand mistress of one of these temples united three of them – Camlad, the Temple of the Sun, and the Noctulians – to form the ONA. She then welcomed outsiders into the tradition, one of whom was "Anton Long", an individual who described himself as a British citizen who had spent much of his youth visiting Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Long claimed that prior to his involvement in the ONA he had been interested in occultism for several years, having contacted a coven based in Fenland in 1968, before moving to London and joining groups that practiced ceremonial magic in the style of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley. He also claimed a brief involvement in a Satanic group based in Manchester, the Orthodox Temple of the Prince run by Ray Bogart, during which time he encountered the ONA Grand Mistress. According to the Order's account, Long joined the ONA in 1973 – the first person to have done so in five years – and he became the grand mistress's heir. He later recalled that at that time the group held rituals at henges and stone circles around the solstices and equinoxes.
This account further states that when the Order's Grand Mistress migrated to Australia, Long took over as the group's new grand master. The group claimed that Long "implemented the next stage of Sinister Strategy – to make the teachings known on a large scale". From the late 1970s onward, Long encouraged the establishment of new ONA groups, which were known as "temples", and from 1976 onward he wrote various texts for the tradition, codifying and extending its teachings, mythos, and structure.
These texts are typically written in English, although they include passages of Classical Greek as well as terms from Sanskrit and Arabic, reflecting Long's fluency in such languages. Goodrick-Clarke described these texts as evoking "a world of witches, outlaw peasant sorcerers, orgies and blood sacrifices at lonely cottages in the woods and valleys" of the Welsh Marches.
Anton Long's identity
The real identity of "Anton Long" remains unknown both to members of the Order and to academics who have studied it. However, a 1998 issue of the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight claimed that "Anton Long" was a pseudonym of David Myatt, a prominent figure in the British neo-Nazi movement. Shared ideas between the two include the belief in an "acausal" realm where the laws of physics do not apply, the idea that human history divides into distinct aeons, support for the future colonisation of space, and the "Star Game," a board game that Myatt claimed to have developed in 1975.Born in the early 1950s, Myatt had a long history in neo-Nazism, serving as a bodyguard for Colin Jordan of the British Movement before joining the Combat 18 militia and becoming a founding member and leader of the National Socialist Movement. In 1973, Myatt has claimed, he formed an occult group to serve as a "honeypot" to pull occultists toward neo-Nazism, but that he left its organisation largely to a man from Manchester.
Myatt's text on A Practical Guide to Aryan Revolution, in which he advocated violent militancy in aid of the neo-Nazi cause, was cited as an influence on the nail bomber David Copeland. In 1998, Myatt converted to Islam and remained a practicing Muslim for eight years, in which time he encouraged violent jihad against Zionism and Israel's Western allies. In 2010, he announced that he had renounced Islam and was practicing an esoteric tradition that he termed the "Numinous Way"; Gregorius characterised this as "a type of Hellenistic Pantheism".
Academic scholars of esotericism who have supported Long's identification as Myatt include Goodrick-Clarke, Faxneld, and Jacob C. Senholt. Senholt presented additional evidence that he believed confirmed Myatt's identity as Long, writing that Myatt's embrace of neo-Nazism and radical Islamism represented "insight roles" which Myatt had adopted as part of the ONA's "sinister strategy" to undermine Western society. In 2015, an ONA member known as R. Parker argued in favour of the idea that Myatt was Long. As a result of Page's publication, the sociologist of religion Massimo Introvigne stated that the ONA has "more or less acknowledged" that Myatt and Long are the same person. The ONA have utilised this ambiguity, in 2018 issuing a publication titled A Modern Mysterium: The Enigma of Myatt and the ONA containing essays both arguing for and against the case that Myatt is Long.
Myatt has repeatedly denied allegations that he has any involvement with the ONA, maintaining that he has never used the pseudonym "Anton Long". He has claimed that he had personal contacts with people involved in the ONA around the 1980s, and that similarities between his ideas and those of the ONA result from the latter's borrowing from him. Some scholars have argued that Myatt's identification as Long remains circumstantial. Kaplan suggested that Myatt and Long are separate people, while Sieg thought the association was "implausible and untenable based on the extent of variance in writing style, personality, and tone" between Myatt and Long. Doyle White suggested that 'Long' could be one of the individuals involved in Myatt's "honeypot" occult group, hence explaining the borrowings from Myatt's ideas. Monette posited the possibility that "Anton Long" was not a singular individual but rather a pseudonym used by several different people.