[NOTE: The following is a repost of an interview between HML & AL borrowed from Pointyhat.wordpress.com. The interesting thing to note are all of the websites, wordpress, and links AL gives to Ms. HL. Another interesting note is that AL actually gives his personal understandings of "Satan" which he explains to Ms. HL as an "archetype of exeatic living."]
Some Questions About Satanism
Given below are extracts from answers to questions submitted to Anton Long in July 2011 CE by HML as part of her research into modern Satanism, and which research she intended to present at the academic conference on Satanism in Stockholm, September 2011 CE.
Can you tell me how and why you first became interested in Satanism? Were any of the reasons that you joined to do with an aspect of life in the UK in particular?
I became interested in my teenage years – three years before the publication of LaVey’s Satanic Bible – while living in [...], where I learnt a Martial Art, studied Taoism, and witnessed events such as the festival of Thaipusam.
This Martial Art, Taoism, and such events, inspired me to read the works of Carl Jung. I also at the time practised and studied classical Yoga according to the Hatha-Yoga Pradipika of Patanjali and so had some knowledge of Hinduism.
So, in summary, my reasons had nothing to do with life in the UK – I was not living in the UK at the time – but rather my interest stemmed from my practical experience and study of Taoism, a Taoist based Martial Art, and the diversity of religions I encountered in [...], which all inspired me to ask questions, which questions led me to read Jung and thence led me to Western Alchemy and Western Occultism. Satan was understood then, by me in those early years of my interest and involvement, as the archetype of exeatic living. [Footnote 1]
Given my youthful arrogance, my desire for exeatic experiences, and a generally rebellious nature, I felt an affinity with this particular archetype.
Perhaps I should add that the Taoism I encountered in [...] was more a practical religion than the rather rarefied mystical philosophy many people in the West associate with the term Taoism, just as the Martial Art I learnt had (at least to me then) a certain Occult mystique about it.
Did you join a Satanic organization initially (e.g. the Church of Satan)? If so, why did you leave the organization to start the ONA?
As far as I know, no one at the time in [...] had ever heard of LaVey or the CoS. So my initial understanding of Satanism derived from my own studies, which included the works of Jung.
So, no – I did not initially join an existing organization, not even when, a few years later, I came to live in England, and came across the writings of Crowley, heard about LaVey and read the Satanic Bible.
I did briefly in the first year of living in England (the late 1960′s) try to find a Satanic or Left Hand Path group, having found a useful contact in London [...] and did find, through that lady, one small ‘underground’ group who practised ceremonial ritual based on the Golden Dawn. However, I did not join this group, but arrogantly dismissed them, just as I then dismissed both Crowley and LaVey, regarding them as self-indulgent charlatans who never ventured to experience the dark side of life in a practical way, who never dared for instance to indulge in crime, violence, terror, culling. As far I was concerned, they were all talk and ‘ritual’, and while they may have had some limited skill in people manipulation, they never aspired to do evil, to destroy society and exult in the attempt.
In contrast to Crowley and LaVey, for instance, I even in those youthful years sought and enjoyed violence, and tested and challenged myself by certain ‘criminal’ activities. For me, it was experience of the dark side of life, and testing myself by practical deeds – and exulting in such things – which was the essence of the archetype of Satan, so that I considered myself in those youthful times far more of a Satanist, a manifestation of Satanic living, than such individuals.
For several years I sought to find someone I could respect and learn from – someone of true inner darkness. I never did find such a person until I met, in my early twenties, a lady who claimed to represent a primal type of Satanism that did not depend upon Jewish-Nazarene tradition and theology, and which had no connection to Crowley, LaVey or what was then (and still is) mistakenly regarded as the Western Occult tradition.
It was this lady who inspired me to form the ONA, based as the ONA was on her rather vague traditions and on my own practical sinister experience [...]
Could you summarize the main tenets of the ONA’s philosophy?
A summary of the Order of Nine Angles would be – we are evil, an evil slowly spreading over the Earth. A means to inspire practical Satanic, diabolic, deeds, and new, more sinister, ways of living.
To explain – the essence of the ONA is three-fold.
1) The way of practical personal sinister experience and learning from that experience. This experience is both esoteric and exoteric, and thus the individual must live a practical sinister life. This is and must be dangerous and difficult. It is sinister deeds which matter, not words or rituals. Rituals are but one useful means.
Thus, those who have the right sinister/Satanic spirit, the best sinister/Satanic character, succeed; those who do not fail. Our standards are high because we are unashamedly elitist, and do not care about quantity, about numbers of members or adherents.
2) The way of the clan/tribe/gang/nexion as opposed to both (a) the way of The State, and (b) the deification of the individual that lies at the core of other LHP/Satanic groups.
This means that we aim to live in certain ways, for instance as part of a nexion which is or which becomes like a family (or an extended family) to us, and that our first loyalty and duty is to our own ONA kind. Thus we have and rely on our own laws and our own justice – our own way of doing things – and these are more important to us than the laws and the so-called justice of The State and even more important than our individual desires.
This also means that each clan/tribe/gang/nexion can choose or develope their own identity or be part of an already existing living tradition/culture. Thus, we have ONA ‘families’ who are Hispanic and who identify with Latino cultures; we have ONA ‘families’ who are Asian and who identify with, for example, Thai or Chinese culture (and who may thus be Buddhists or Taoist); as we have ONA ‘families’ who are Caucasian and who identify with their native European cultures (and some of which families are orientated toward National-Socialism). In addition, we have ONA families who overtly identify with Satanism (or at least our variety of it, manifest in our Seven Fold Way).
3) The way of an Aeonic Kollective.
This means two essential things. (a) That our perspective is Aeonic – of decades and centuries – rather than just our own short, finite, lives as individuals. (b) That the ONA is analogous to an open-source software operating system (OS) for human beings, where our developers co-operate to de-bug, revise and develope the OS, and generally make it better and more useful. In the same way as the Debian GNU/Linux computer OS has guidelines adherence to which are essential for someone to become a Debian developer, so we have our Five Core ONA principles [Footnote 2] which our developers must be in sympathy with in order to be ONA.
Thus, we do not have a traditional hierarchy nor any dogma/theology which has to be rigidly believed in or adhered to. Instead, we are akin to a sinister ethos and a sinister praxis – a flexible but sinister (‘evil’) way of life which can assume
many forms and guises but whose intent, purpose, is always diabolic.
Can you tell me how members of the ONA are initiated?
It depends on whether they want to follow the practical way of the gang, the tribe, or follow our traditional, Occult, Seven Fold Way.
Gangs and tribes have their own initiations – a blooding-in or a hazing – which generally involve the candidate in doing a sinister practical deed or two.
Those following the Seven Fold Way have to successfully undertake several physical tasks [both exoteric and esoteric], like walking thirty-two miles, in hilly terrain, in under seven hours while carrying a pack weighing at least 30 lbs.
How many members of the ONA are there?
The answer depends on the definition of ‘member’. It is rather like asking how many people use the Debian GNU/Linux flavour of the *nix computer operating system. It depends on how you collect the stats which in turn depends on people telling someone they are users.
Technically, we do not have a central membership where someone collects people’s names and contact details – in fact, for operational reasons we encourage anonymity and encourage people to form their own independent groups/nexions/gangs/tribes, or work alone if they want. Many of our gangs/tribes do not have an Internet presence and do not directly use the ONA name – instead, they have their own tag.
So, I [could] only give an [unreliable] estimate [...]
Can you tell me some of the reasons why members of the ONA are drawn to the movement?
In my experience, there are three main reasons.
(1) Because of our sinister charisma – how we are viewed among the Occult and the Satanic community (which these days often means by those who frequent Internet forums and the like).
(2) Because we expect our people to do practical sinister deeds in the real world, and espouse individual amorality. Like it says somewhere in one of our texts – ‘we accept there is no law, no authority, no justice except our own individual one, and accept that culling is a necessary act of Life’.
(3) Because we are flexible, non-dogmatic and non-hierarchical and allow people the sinister freedom to use whatever outward (causal) practical form they want, from gangs, to tribes, to the Seven Fold Way, and so on.
Could you tell me a bit more about the relationship between Taoism, Martial Arts and the ONA?
There is no direct relationship per se (exoterically) – but there is an underlying (esoteric) commonality of ethos and understanding deriving from pathei-mathos and from the acausal knowing that empathy inclines us toward.
Or, expressed in more simplistic and less esoteric terms, the insight and understanding that is the essence of what is often called Taoism (and by extension a Martial Art based upon this Taoist apprehension) is similar to (some would say identical to) the insight and understanding of someone who has followed the Seven Fold Way of the ONA to the stages beyond The Abyss. Which stages, conventionally, are termed Master/Lady Master and, beyond that, Magus.
This is the insight and understanding of The Unity, the natural (or cosmic) balance that exists beyond causal apprehensions (and causal abstractions) and even beyond the division into causal and acausal continuums. For individuals, this is the realization of: (1) the illusion of all opposites (including good and evil); (2) the illusion of the self (and thus of the ego); and (3) the knowing of wyrd (‘tao’) beyond the illusion of personal or ideated destiny, and thus our emphasis on the way of the warrior, and undertaking practical warrior deeds which aid what we term the Sinister Dialectic (and thus which presence Chaos/the dark forces on Earth).
I have endeavoured to explain some of this in terms of the relation between the sinister way and the numinous way in the first section of the following article:
http://antonlong.wordpress.com/toward-the-sinister-mysterium/
In essence, therefore, one might write that a person who follows our Way, to beyond the Abyss, arrives at a certain understanding – a type of knowing – which is akin to the knowing that formed the basis for what we may describe by the term Taoism, but (and the but is important) with a perspective that inclines them toward participation in wyrd (using a Martial Art in attack and defence) rather than toward passivity. In practice, this understanding, this knowing – born from pathei-mathos (from a learning from practical experience) – makes a different type of human being, a more evolved human being.
Thus, all this perhaps hints at just why the ONA is so very different from other LHP and Satanic groups and individuals. They are for the most part all about macho posturing, ego, and the vulgarity of ‘might is right’, whereas we are about manufacturing a new type of human being.
In respect of the stupidity of ‘might is right’ you might be interested in the following article:
http://nineangles.wordpress.com/2011/05/07/the-de-evolutionary-nature-of-might-is-right/
You mentioned how each nexion identified with a different tradition/culture, could you tell me which tradition you identify with?
I am just me, so perhaps I am my own tradition. Or more pretentiously and arrogantly, perhaps I am the phenotype of that essence which currently goes by the name the ONA.
Thus, in one perhaps pretentious sense, my life might be considered to be a practical manifestation of The Seven Fold Way.
If it is the Seven Fold Way, could you specify what exactly this is?
A practical and an esoteric means to seek both inner and outer wisdom and to manufacture a new type of human being. Thus, a process of internal transformation (of internal alchemy).
This Way involves undertaking certain esoteric and practical tasks, many of which are difficult and dangerous, some of which are amoral, and which tasks take one beyond good and evil.
To follow this Way toward and into and beyond The Abyss – where wisdom begins – takes the individual around a quarter of a century. So it is not easy, and few individuals get that far.
A basic guide to the exoteric Seven Fold Way is at
http://www.nineangles.info/completeguide.html
Perhaps I should add that the final stage – that of Immortal – occurs only after one’s causal death, when one acquires (by our internal alchemy) an existence in the acausal continuum.
This is briefly outlined in an article concerning the ONA view of an after-life:
http://www.nineangles.info/afterlife-ona.html
Which perhaps neatly returns us to Martial Arts and the way of the warrior, our scorn of death, our emphasis on both kindred-honour and on clans/tribes/gangs, and which clans/tribes/gangs by their nature are martial and territorial.
Anton Long
122 Year of Fayen
Notes:
[1] We define exeatic as follows:
To go beyond and transgress the limits imposed and prescribed by mundanes, and by the systems which reflect or which manifest the ethos of mundanes – for example, governments, and the laws of what has been termed “society”. Source: A Glossary of ONA Terms (version 3.03)
As you probably know the term derives from exeat (as in the British an ‘exeat weekend’).
[2] These core principles are (1) the way of practical deeds; (2) the way of culling; (3) the way of kindred honour; (4) the way of defiance of and practical opposition to Magian abstractions; (5) the way of the Rounwytha tradition.
