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Abstract
During the 1980s and 1990s David Myatt, a British neo-Nazi ideologue, was involved in attempts to establish Aryan enclaves; Myatt’s enclave vision imagined a space secluded from the inauthenticity of liberal multicultural modernity where an Aryan folk community could live authentically in accordance with his National-Socialist ideology. This ideology was founded on a cosmology which inextricably interlinked Aryans, the landscape, and the cosmos in a symbiotic relationship. Myatt therefore envisaged rural enclaves established in harmony with Nature, where Aryans could live authentic lives in an authentic community, founded on an imagined emotionology that centred the Aryan virtues of honour, loyalty, and duty. Myatt’s legitimacy as an ideologue was largely formed by his vigorous personal adherence to this concept of authentic Aryanism, but this authenticity and legitimacy was tested by Myatt’s deliberate tactics of obscuration.
Data statement
Physical data supporting this publication is stored at the Searchlight Archive that is managed by the University of Northampton, and details on how to access this can be found here: https://www.northampton.ac.uk/about-us/services-and-facilities/the-searchlight-archives/. List of archive boxes consulted from this collection are: SCH/01/Res/BRI/01/004; SCH/01/Res/BRI/01/005; SCH/01/Res/BRI/01/006; SCH/01/Res/BRI/01/007; SCH/01/Res/BRI/12/002; SCH/01/Res/BRI/12/005; SCH/01/Res/BRI/12/007; SCH/01/Res/BRI/20/007; SCH/01/Res/ BRI/21/002; SCH/01/Res/BRI/ 21/003; SCH/01/Res/BRI/TMP/003; SCH/01/Res/SCH/003; SCH/01/Res/SCH/005; SCH/01/Res/SCH/006.
Notes
1 Searchlight, No. 239, May 1995, 2, SCH/01/Res/SCH/006, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
2 For Wulstram Tedder, see: Searchlight, No. 231, September 1994, 12, SCH/01/Res/SCH/006, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton; Searchlight, No. 239, May 1995, 2, SCH/01/Res/SCH/006, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton; For Arthur Tedder, see, for example: Arthur William Tedder Baron Tedder, The War Memoirs of Marshal of the Royal Air Force, Lord Tedder (London: Cassell, 1966).
3 For the NSM, see: Paul Jackson, Colin Jordan and Britain’s Neo-Nazi Movement: Hitler’s Echo (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017), 107–147; for John Tyndall’s BNP, see: Graham Macklin, Failed Führers (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020), 386–403; for a biographical overview of Myatt, see: Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun (NY: New York Uni Press, 2003), 216–224; for a journalistic account of C18, see: Nick Lowles, White Riot (Milo Books, 2001); for the founding of the N-SM, see: The White Dragon, No. 4, September 1997, SCH/01/Res/BRI/12/007, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton; for Myatt’s conversion to Islam, see: David Myatt, Myngath (Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, 2010) unpaginated; for Pathei-Mathos, see: David Myatt, The Numinous Way of Pathei-Mathos, Fifth Edition, (Createspace Independent Publishing Platform, 2018); for an introduction to National Action, Atomwaffen Division, and Feuerkrieg Division, see: https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/atomwaffen-division (Accessed December 23, 23).
4 https://www.davidmyatt.info/myatt-a-matter-of-honour.html (Accessed July 2, 23).
5 This hyphenation is justified in opposition to the ‘more common, and incorrect National Socialist. We do this is distinguish our Movement from others’: The National-Socialist. The Voice of Aryan Destiny, Number 27 108 yf [1997], Unpaginated, SCH/01/Res/BRI/12/007, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
6 Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun, 216–224.
7 Jackson, Colin Jordan, 176; Macklin, Failed Führers, 313; Graeme McLagan and Nick Lowles, Mr. Evil: The secret life of racist bomber and killer David Copeland (London: John Blake Publishing, 2000); Nick Lowles, White Riot (Milo Books, 2001); Nick Ryan, Homeland: Into a world of hate (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2003).
8 For examples of terrorism studies research, see: Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Madeleine Blackman, ‘Fluidity of the Fringes: Prior Extremist Involvement as a Radicalization Pathway,’ Studies in Confiict & Terrorism (2019); Enrique Arias Gil, ‘La estrategia y táctica terrorista de los actores individuales en la extrema derecha estadounidense,’ Revista UNISCI/UNISCI Journal, No 47 (May 2018); Roland Heickerö, ‘Cyber Terrorism: Electronic Jihad,’ Strategic Analysis, Volume 38, 2014 - Issue 4 (2014); Daniel Koehler, ‘Dying for the cause? The logic and function of ideologically motivated suicide, martyrdom, and self-sacrifice within the contemporary extreme right,’ Behavioural Sciences of Terrorism and Political Aggression, (2020), 13; DOI:10.1080/19434472.2020.1822426; Fredrik Wilhelmsen, ‘From New Order to the Millennium of White Power: Norwegian Fascism Between Party Politics and Lone-Actor Terrorism,’ Politics, Religion & Ideology, 22:1 (2021); Michael Whine, ‘Cyberspace-A New Medium for Communication, Command, and Control by Extremists,’ Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 22:3 (1999); for research concerning the Order of Nine Angles, see, for example: Mattias Gardell, Gods of the Blood (London: Duke Uni Press, 2003); Jacob C. Senholt, ‘The Sinister Tradition: political esotericism & the convergence of radical Islam, satanism and national socialism in the Order of the Nine Angles,’ Paper presented at Satanism in the Modern World, Trondheim, 19-20th of November, 2009 [Senholt wrote this as the co-founder of Integral Tradition Publishing, which later grew into Arktos Media, both notable for their metapolitical publishing of Traditionalist and New Right texts]; George Sieg, ‘Angular Momentum: From Traditional to Progressive Satanism in the Order of Nine Angles,’ International Journal for the Study of New Religions, 4.2 (2013); Ariel Koch, ‘The ONA Network and the Transnationalization of Neo-Nazi-Satanism,’ Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2022, DOI: 10.1080/1057610X.2021.2024944; Shanon Shah, Jane Cooper & Suzanne Newcombe, ‘Occult Beliefs and the Far Right: The Case of the Order of Nine Angles,’ Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 2023, DOI: 10.1080/1057610X.2023.2195065.
9 Searchlight, No. 231, Sept 1994, 12, SCH/01/Res/SCH/005, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
10 Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (London: Routledge, 1993), 26; Cas Mudde, The Far Right Today (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2019), 7.
11 Maiken Umbach & Mathew Humphrey, Authenticity: The Cultural History of a Political Concept (Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 1-2.
12 Barbara H. Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages (New York: Cornell University Press, 2006), 2.
13 William M. Reddy, The Navigation of Feeling: A Framework For The History Of Emotions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 129.
14 Ibid.; Reddy defines emotives as: ‘A type of speech act different from both performative and constative utterances, which both describes (like constative utterances) and changes (like performatives) the world, because emotional expression has an exploratory and a self-altering effect on the activated thought material of emotion,’ Ibid., 128.
15 Katie Barclay, Caritas. Neighbourly Love and the Early Modern Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, Incorporated, 2021), 3; Sara Ahmed, The Cultural Politics of Emotion, Second Edition (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2014), 54–55.
16 David Myatt, ‘The Meaning of Life: Race and Nature,’ Liberty Bell, Dec 1997, Vol. 25 No. 4, 35.
17 https://aboutdavidmyatt.wordpress.com/the-mythos-of-vindex-appendix-1/seven-essays-about-vindex/ (Accessed August 12, 23).
18 Myatt, ‘The Meaning of Life: Race and Nature,’ 35.
19 Kathleen M. Blee, ‘The Geography of Racial Activism. Defining Whiteness at Multiple Scales,’ in Spaces of Hate, ed. Colin Flint (New York: Routledge, 2003), 49; Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun, 222.
20 https://woodlanderinitiative.co.uk/mission-statement/ (Accessed September 8, 23); https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/officers/V0NRbT4fFZa_EzyMVgPdMhFwBq8/appointments (Accessed September 11, 23); https://hopenothate.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/patriotic-alternative-report-2021-11-v3.pdf (Accessed September 11, 23).
21 Charles Taylor, The Ethics of Authenticity (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1992), 10.
22 Dasein was a concept developed by Martin Heidegger to represent an authentic self. Heidegger was himself a member of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (Nazi Party) and the extent of his belief in Nazi ideology remains contested; see: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/heidegger/ (Accessed January 2, 24).
23 The National-Socialist, Number 4, June/July 106 yf [1995], Unpaginated, SCH/01/Res/BRI/TMP/003, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton; David Myatt, ‘The Meaning of National-Socialism,’ Liberty Bell, Vol. 26 No.1 Sept 1998, 15.
24 David Myatt, ‘Racism: The Will of Nature,’ Liberty Bell, Vol. 25 No. 9, May 1998, 30; Myatt, ‘The Meaning of National-Socialism,’ 4, 9. It should be noted that Myatt’s obsession with honour was not novel, and was shared with his mentor, Colin Jordan, and he in turn with his mentor, Arnold Leese - indeed, the Leese, Jordan, Myatt lineage represents an important transgenerational relationship that acts as a thread running through British fascism, maintaining the foregrounding of antisemitism in the extreme right cultic milieu from the primordium of fascism to the present day - see: Macklin, Failed Führers, 1, 305.
25 Myatt, ‘The Meaning of National-Socialism,’ 8, 9.
26 Ibid., 9–10.
27 Myatt, ‘The Meaning of Life: Race and Nature,’ 35.
28 Ibid.
29 Myatt, ‘The Meaning of National-Socialism,’ 11; Aryan Kindred Farm, Info bulletin #1, June 107 yf [1996], SCH/01/Res/BRI/21/003, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton; Myatt, ‘The Meaning of Life,’ 35.
30 Aryan Kindred Farm, Info bulletin #1, June 107 yf [1996], SCH/01/Res/BRI/21/003, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
31 Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self. The Making of Modern Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 161; ‘as above, so below, as within, so without’: this phrase, frequently used in hermetic circles, is unattributable but based on a quote from Hermes Trismegistus.
32 Johannes Zechner, ‘Politicized Timber: The ‘German Forest’ and the Nature of the Nation 1800–1945,’ The Brock Review, February 2011, 19; for habitus, see: Richard Jenkins, Pierre Bourdieu. Rev. ed. Key Sociologists. (London: Routledge, 2002), 74–75.
33 Aryan Kindred Farm, Info bulletin #1, June 107 yf [1996], SCH/01/Res/BRI/21/003, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton; Ryan, Homeland, 28; Aryan Kindred Farm, Info bulletin #1, June 107 yf [1996], SCH/01/Res/BRI/21/003, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
34 Myatt, ‘The Meaning of National-Socialism,’ 20.
35 David Myatt, ‘The Meaning of Life: Folk and Fatherland,’ 107yf [1996], unpaginated, SCH/01/Res/BRI/12/007, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
36 For affective economy see: Sara Ahmed, ‘Affective Economies,’ Social Text, No. 79 (Volume 22, Number 2), Summer 2004, pp. 117-139.
37 ‘One Race, One Homeland, One Destiny”, Information Bulletin Number 2, June 21st, 108 yf [1997], unpaginated, SCH/01/Res/BRI/21/002, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
38 The National-Socialist. The Voice of Aryan Destiny, Number 37 109 yf [1998], unpaginated, SCH/01/Res/BRI/21/003, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton; Myatt, ‘The Meaning of Life: Race and Nature,’ 51.
39 For emotional liberty, see: Reddy, Navigation of Feeling, 129.
40 ‘The Spirituality of National-Socialism: A Reply to Criticism,’ Future Reich, Number 3, August 109 yf [1998], unpaginated, SCH/01/Res/BRI/21/003, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
41 Myatt, ‘Meaning of National-Socialism,’ 5.
42 Searchlight, No. 104, February 1984, 4, SCH/01/Res/SCH/003, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
43 Ibid., 5.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid.
46 Nick Ryan, Homeland, 28; Lowles, White Riot, 165.
47 Ryan, Homeland, 20-21.
48 Ibid., 28, 21.
49 ‘One Race, One Homeland, One Destiny”, Information Bulletin Number 2, June 21st 108 yf [1997], unpaginated, SCH/01/Res/BRI/21/002, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
50 Searchlight, No. 273, March 1998, 24, SCH/01/Res/SCH/006, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton; Michael Whine, ‘Cyberspace - A New Medium for Communication, Command, and Control by Extremists,’ Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 22:3 (1999), 242.
51 David Myatt, A Cosmic Perspective: Observations On A Forthcoming Trial, May 109yf [1998], SCH/01/Res/BRI/21/003, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
52 Ibid.
53 Reddy, Navigation of Feeling, 121.
54 David Myatt, ‘A Political Re-awakening,’ Spearhead, No. 307, September 1994, 13.
55 Godric Redbeard is explained in a letter from Myatt as a ‘precaution for when Gabby Gable [Gerry Gable] and friends reproduce this letter in their monthly ‘Searchlies’ [Searchlight]: SCH/01/Res/BRI/12/007, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton; Myatt wrote under the name Abdul-Aziz ibn Myatt, and variations of this, during his islamist period, c.1998-2010, for a summary of these activities, see: George Michael, The Enemy of My Enemy: The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 2006),142-8; Myatt has long been suspected of being behind Anton Long, the founder of the satanic group the Order of Nine Angles, but has persistently refuted this; Long and/or the O9A are discussed in: see works mentioned in endnote 8; Spearhead was the magazine of John Tyndall, and associated with his British National Party at this time; Liberty Bell was a North American neo-Nazi journal founded by George P. Dietz in 1973.
56 Wulstan Tedder, ‘The Inner Meaning of Nationalism: An analysis,’ Spearhead, No.222, August 1987, 7-9, SCH/01/Res/BRI/01/005, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton; Wulstan Tedder, ‘A Brief Look at the Einstein Myth,’ Spearhead, No.275, January 1992, 14, SCH/01/Res/BRI/01/005, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton; Wulstan Tedder, ‘Spandau,’ Spearhead, No.224, October 1987, 11, SCH/01/Res/BRI/01/005, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
57 Spearhead, No.222, August 1987, SCH/01/Res/BRI/01/005, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton; Spearhead, No. 275, Jan 1992, SCH/01/Res/BRI/01/007, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton; Spearhead, No.195, March 1984, SCH/01/Res/BRI/01/004, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton; Spearhead, No.302, April 1994, SCH/01/Res/BRI/01/007, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
58 Wulstan Tedder, Physis, Unpaginated, SCH/01/Res/BRI/12/002, Searchlight Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
59 See, for example: Vincent Orange, Tedder: Quietly in Command (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014).
60 Searchlight, No.231, Sept 1994, 12, SCH/01/Res/SCH/006, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
61 https://www.davidmyatt.info/myatt-a-matter-of-honour.html (Accessed July 2, 23).
62 Myatt, ‘The Meaning of National-Socialism,’ 20.
63 Spearhead, No. 222, Aug 87, SCH/01/Res/BRI/01/005, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton; Wulstan Tedder, ‘The Inner Meaning of Nationalism: An analysis,’ Spearhead, No.222, August 1987, 7-9, SCH/01/Res/BRI/01/005, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
64 Wulstan Tedder, ‘“Berlin Walls” of the Mind. A look at the psychological tyranny dominating the peoples of the modern West,’ Spearhead, No 271, September 1991, 14, SCH/01/Res/BRI/01/006, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
65 For Ray Hill, see: Ray Hill & Andrew Bell, The Other Face of Terror: Inside Europe’s Neo-Nazi Network (London: Grafton Books, 1988).
66 Birmingham & District Party Members (and Party No’s), SCH/01/Res/BRI/20/007, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
67 Jackson, Colin Jordan, 104; Macklin, Failed Führers, 353.
68 For Spearhead, Colin Jordan’s paramilitary organisation, see: Jackson, Colin Jordan, 100-105; for John Tyndall’s BNP, see: Macklin, Failed Führers, 386-403.
69 The National-Socialist: Special Edition, April 106 yf, [1995] SCH/01/Res/BRI/12/005, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton; Info bulletin #1, June 107 yf [1996], SCH/01/Res/BRI/21/003, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton; The Order!, Unnumbered, SCH/01/Res/BRI/12/005, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
70 https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t95395/; https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t109337-2/; https://www.stormfront.org/forum/t109337/ (Accessed September 25, 23).
71 James Thurber, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (London: Penguin, 2013); The Spirituality of National-Socialism: A Reply to Criticism,’ Future Reich, Number 3, August 109 yf [1998], unpaginated, SCH/01/Res/BRI/21/003, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
72 For example: https://aboutdavidmyatt.wordpress.com/david-myatt-agent-provocateur/ (Accessed September 27, 23).
73 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SetkAwYSKtE (Accessed September 3, 23).
74 Alexander Reid Ross, Against the Fascist Creep (Edinburgh: AK Press, 2017), 116.
75 Taylor, Ethics of Authenticity, 11.
76 Bart Verschaffel, ‘(Sacred) Places Are Made Of Time: Observations On The Persistence Of The Sacred In Categorizing Space In Modernity,’ in Loci Sacri: Understanding Sacred Places Eds. T. Coomans, H. De Dijn, J. De Maeyer, R. Heynickx & B. Verschaffel, (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2012), 55; terra nullius: unoccupied land.
77 Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell Ltd, 1991), 44.
78 Reddy, Navigation of Feeling, 129.
79 For example: Myatt, ‘Racism: The Will of Nature,’ 35.
80 ‘One Race, One Homeland, One Destiny”, Information Bulletin Number 2, June 21st 108 yf [1997], unpaginated, SCH/01/Res/BRI/21/002, Searchlight Archive, Northampton University, Northampton.
81 Robert Paxton, Anatomy of Fascism (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), 42.
82 Gustav Westberg, ‘Affective rebirth: Discursive gateways to contemporary national socialism,’ Discourse & Society, Vol. 32(2) (2021), 214–230, 226; for further research that discusses the presence of ‘positive’ emotions in the far right, see: Hilary Pilkington, Loud and proud. Passion and politics in the English Defence League (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016).
83 Taylor, Ethics of Authenticity, 26.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Clive Henry
Clive Henry is a PhD student at the University of Northampton, researching the post-war British extreme right using history of emotions ideas and methodologies. This research is focussed on the neo-Nazi writings of the ideologue David Myatt (b. 1950), examining the emotional aspects and overtones of his ideological texts through the themes of Aryanism, masculinity, honour, nature, and time. Email: [email protected]