David Myatt

  National Socialist

    EXTRAORDINAIRE

      A National Socialist 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull'

We received the following letter a little while ago and found this Gnostic activist and thinker, poet, classicist, philosopher, metaphysician and 'Gentleman of the Road' amongst many other things, to be one of the best image of a true Gnostic available in our dismal time. Here is a truly noble soul on the Path, revealing himself with total honesty to his readers. A gentle soul, struggling with material evil and mankind's slave mentality which sometimes even lead him into the ugly realm of violence and hatred. An a-typical National Socialist, he is also a-typical in all his spiritual pursuits. Indeed, his compassion for the suffering of mankind and his own self-understanding has excluded racism and even 'racialism' from his ideas of National Socialism. He is nothing less than a great soul, a true Gnostic, struggling for nobility, Knowledge and Liberation in a three dimensional world. His daring spirit has already explored dimensions of thought far beyond the realm set by the 'Aeons' as limit to man. A National Socialist 'Jonathan Livingston Seagull,' he soars far above his fellow humans who are still bound by tribal states of consciousness, and laughs from above at their attempts to interpret his words and actions by attempting to contain them within labels and doctrines. Let the earthbound pedestrians of the 'Searchlight' crowd and the professional accusers and 'anti-fascists' point their fingers at him far above and accuse him with the usual 'outraged' epithets and labels. How can the earthbound comprehend the realms of heaven? Did not Jesus the Christ say: "Throw not the pearls before the swine?" It takes a Gnostic to know one and I know this great soul because I have met him in myself. Having said this, I must admit that I appreciate him as an exceptional individual and a true Gnostic, but that I, nevertheless, disagree with him on many of his conclusions. But isn't that the name of the game anyhow? We make mistakes and arrive sometimes at wrong conclusions because as we live and learn, we are bound to find ourselves occasionally in the 'wrong camp'. And it is a great soul indeed, who admits his mistakes freely and is thus able to change course in 'midstream,' just when everybody around him thought that they had finally figured him out. Proving once again that great souls can not be labeled and held accountable to earthly standards. No matter what his political and spiritual conclusions are at this moment, they are but a travelogue of a great soul on the quest for liberation from this material prison earth and are not meant to be interpreted with any sense of finality. Those of us who understand him know this and only those of an earthbound, pedestrian state of consciousness will attempt to judge and condemn him because he might have offended their politically "correct" sensibilities. Pharisaical law-bending hypocrites all! 

Holger Werner

All Hallow's Eve 2002

Dear Sir,

Great site and thanks for educating us about the perils of the NWO. However I wish that you include the works of a remarkable man who is with no doubt a Gnostic. His name is David Myatt. His works have influenced me enormously and many others and I wish you share it with all.

I do not know if you have heard of him, but here is a description from a website:

"A modern day Faustian man, Myatt has spent several decades in a quest for the ultimate meaning of life. Widely traveled, widely read, and regarded as a Martial Arts expert, he has been, at different times in his life, a Christian monk, a Buddhist, a Taoist, a pagan, a Muslim and what he once described as a "revolutionary street-activist" for various White supremacist groups. He spent several years advocating a return to the ancient and honorable custom of dueling "with deadly weapons" and is known to have challenged several individuals to a duel. He has expressed a life-long admiration for the Japanese Samurai, and their Bushido spirit, as well as for ancient Sparta. He has also been accused of being the Grand Master of an underground Fascist-Occult order, and the mastermind, the "evil genius", behind a world-wide Fascist-Occult conspiracy to undermine and overthrow Western democratic Governments, an allegation he has dismissed as "pure fantasy". He has also made repeated denials about involvement with Satanic groups, and denies ever having been a Satanist. More recently, he has been called, by various Journalists, "a deeply subversive intellectual" and "a theoretician of terror".

A few years ago, he converted to Islam.

His life is certainly interesting, and complex, and defies the simple explanations some commentators, and many journalists, have advanced. Most of these simplistic, journalistic, explanations center around his political views and his alleged involvement with occultism, and, in particular, with Satanism. It is of interest that most of the journalists advancing such simplistic explanations are either politically motivated or intent of "making a good story".

Another brief sketch by Julie Wright,

" A controversial figure, now resident in the British Isles, David Myatt was born shortly after the Second World War and spent much of his childhood abroad, first in Tanzania where his father worked for the British Government (according to some sources as a Diplomat) and later in the Far East. Myatt returned to England in his mid-teens to complete his education. His political opinions were formed around this time and by his own admission he became involved with "extremist politics".

Despite the assumptions of various journalists, Myatt himself describes his childhood as an "extremely happy one, and I have many, many fond memories of those years."

He studied Physics at University but dropped-out to take up politics full-time. He described his role as that of a "revolutionary street-activist" and it was during this time that we was imprisoned twice for his violent political activism. One of these terms of imprisonment resulted from him leading a skinhead gang in a racial attack. During this period he was involved in many violent confrontations, believing, as he later said, that "violence purifies and makes the man."

After several years political activity, he became disillusioned with the leadership of the various extreme Right-Wing organisations, and spent some time as a 'Gentleman of the Road' - a homeless wanderer, or vagabond. It was during this period that he wrote his first volume of poetry, which he entitled Gentleman of the Roads.

He then traveled widely, and spent some time studying Buddhism, including a period living in a Buddhist monastery. Some time later he entered the Novitiate of a Christian monastery where he stayed for nearly two years.

It was during this time that he made a serious study of the Western Occult tradition, and he gained a reputation of being a "Satanist". Myatt himself has emphatically disputed this and denies being or having been a Satanist.

After several more years of travel and study, he began translating ancient Greek literature and published translations of Sappho, Aeschylus and Sophocles. During these years, he published more poetry including his collection Pagan Poems. It was during the travels of these years that he developed a particular affection for Egypt and its people, and since then he has returned on a regular basis to visit the friends made there. "

You be the judge, this guy is truly a Gnostic. The mainstream media keeps on lying about him. besides David Myatt has written many articles denouncing killing animals for meat and a way to written to a more honorable way of life.

I hope you will include many of his works or at least mention him on your website. For more information on D.Myatt,

http://www.geocities.com/davidmyatt/ 

and the articles section on

http://davidmyatt.cjb.net/ 

Regards.

Islam and National-Socialism

The Origin of the Good:

The Numen of Nature: A New Interview with David Myatt

Cosmic Ethics and the Meaning of Life

Brief Critique of Kant and Hegel

Being Human: A Learning from Aliens

Some Practical Consequences of Cosmic Ethics

This biographical article has been lifted in its entirety from the wonderful website of Judie R. Wright and we hope that she doesn't mind our internet 'theft,' as this material is so very relevant for us as Gnostics and for mankind in general who should be exposed to his Quest for Truth in order to find meaning and hope for their own lives.

Updated October 27 2002 AD

A Brief Sketch:

A controversial figure, now resident in the British Isles, David Myatt was born shortly after the Second World War and spent much of his childhood abroad, first in Tanzania where his father worked for the British Government (according to some sources as a Diplomat) and later in the Far East. Myatt returned to England in his mid-teens to complete his education. His political opinions were formed around this time and by his own admission he became involved with "extremist politics".

Despite the assumptions of various journalists, Myatt himself describes his childhood as an "extremely happy one, and I have many, many fond memories of those years."

He studied Physics at University but dropped-out to take up politics full-time. He described his role as that of a "revolutionary street-activist" and it was during this time that we was imprisoned twice for his violent political activism. One of these terms of imprisonment resulted from him leading a skinhead gang in a racial attack. During this period he was involved in many violent confrontations, believing, as he later said, that "violence purifies and makes the man."

After several years political activity, he became disillusioned with the leadership of the various extreme Right-Wing organisations, and spent some time as a 'Gentleman of the Road' - a homeless wanderer, or vagabond. It was during this period that he wrote his first volume of poetry, which he entitled Gentleman of the Roads.

He then traveled widely, and spent some time studying Buddhism, including a period living in a Buddhist monastery. Some time later he entered the noviciate of a Christian monastery where he stayed for nearly two years.

It was during this time that he made a serious study of the Western Occult tradition, and he gained a reputation of being a "Satanist". Myatt himself has emphatically disputed this and denies being or having been a Satanist.

After several more years of travel and study, he began translating ancient Greek literature and published translations of Sappho, Aeschylus and Sophocles. During these years, he published more poetry including his collection Pagan Poems. It was during the travels of these years that he developed a particular affection for Egypt and its people, and since then he has returned on a regular basis to visit the friends made there.

According to someone who has known Myatt for many years, shortly before he became involved with Combat 18 Myatt destroyed his own copies of his poetry and denounced all his poems as "self-indulgent and decadent. The personal life is dead..." He declared an intention never to write personal poetry again and expressed his own view on Poetry and Art in his essay, written at this time, A New And Numinous Art.

He then returned to the political fray "a harder and more determined man" according to one source and became involved with the extremist group Combat 18. It was during this period of his life that he wrote and published his voluminous writings about the philosophical, religious and ethical dimensions of National Socialism, and there was a rumor that, at this time, he received financial support from a former Officer of Hitler's SS. It was also during this time that he is alleged to have set-up a world-wide underground "Occult-fascist Axis" linking groups in the United States, Europe, New Zealand and elsewhere. He also published several purely scientific works which, in his own words, aimed to create a new "organic science and technology".

Following the arrest of the leader of Combat 18 - Paul "Charlie" Sargent - for murder, Combat 18 split into two feuding groups, with Myatt taking over the leadership of the loyalist Sargent faction.

A year later, with Sargent convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment, Myatt handed-over the leadership of this group to concentrate once more on what he then regarded as his "spiritual mission" and his aim of creating a pagan rural community where individuals can live in harmony with Nature. He was then working on a farm and his writings extolled the virtues of manual labor and what he has called the new "cosmic ethics".

Myatt then confounded both his supporters and critics by converting to Islam.

Light and Sinister Peregrinations:

What is especially interesting about Myatt's life is that there are two, apparently mutually exclusive, versions. The brief sketch above is taken primarily from the "official" version which Myatt himself has propagated, such as in his Autobiographical Notes (in three parts) with some information - especially about the gaps Myatt omits - supplied by anti-fascist organizations such as Searchlight. In this "official version" Myatt portrays himself as a life-long National Socialist undertaking a spiritual, philosophical and religious quest to find the meaning and purpose of our lives, and as a person committed to creating a revolution, by whatever means necessary, as the prelude to the emergence of Imperium which will create a new type of human society and a new, higher, type of human being. In this version, his Occult researches and involvement are described as a means to aid National Socialism, the destabilization of society and the revolution - or Holy War of National Socialism - which he has often written about.

The other version derives from such sources as Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke's book Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity. This version - which does seem to be supported by organizations such as Searchlight - portrays Myatt as primarily a Satanist: the heir to an ancient and sinister tradition which tradition he has extensively added to and indeed transformed.

According to this Occult version, Satanism, for Myatt is "a means to create a new fearless individual, a higher human type in a Nietzschean sense." (Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity, p.217).

"Myatt rejects the quasi-religious organization and ceremonial antics of the Church of Satan, the Temple of Set and other satanic groups. He believes that traditional satanism goes far beyond the gratification of the pleasure-principle and involves the arduous achievement of self-mastery, self-overcoming in a Nietzschean sense, and ultimately cosmic wisdom. His conception of satanism is practical, with an emphasis on individual growth into realms of darkness and danger through practical acts of prowess, endurance and the risk of life." (Black Sun, p.218)

 

In this Occult version, Myatt is portrayed as the Grand Master of the secret, subversive and satanic Order of Nine Angles, and may, or may not, have performed rituals or acts involving human sacrifice, and may or may not have used violence, terrorism, political groups and individuals for sinister, or evil, ends. These sinister ends include the creation - via a neo-nazi revolution - of a Galactic Imperium. Admittedly, the Satanism of the Order of Nine Angles is very far removed from the current public conception of Satanism, involving as it does self-mastery and self-overcoming although it does involve, according to Goodricke-Clarke, "the performance of acts that are generally regarded as forbidden, illegal and evil... Myatt derives the word 'evil' from the Gothic term 'ubils' meaning 'going beyond the due measure'....."

Which version is correct? The "official, National Socialist, version" propagated by Myatt himself? Or the Occult version, propagated by others? It seems that, for the moment at least, we will all have to draw our own conclusions based on the little evidence we have. I believe this is what Myatt himself would wish, as a test for us and our honor, although I admit that sometimes I cannot quite escape the intuition that I can hear Myatt laughing.

Following his involvement with Combat 18, Myatt converted to Islam and was believed to have begun a new life as a Muslim. Yet his political past was not forgotten by his former enemies.

The following quote is taken from an article, Cyberspace A New Medium for Communication, Command and Control by Extremists, by Michael Whine, and posted, in April 1999, on an Israeli counter-terrorist web-site.

" The Far Right has also used the Internet to post bomb-making manuals which are not otherwise available in Europe. The British neo-Nazi, David Myatt, of the National Socialist Movement posted his 'Practical Guide to Aryan Revolution' at the end of November 1997 at the website of Canadian Bernard Klatt in order to evade police scrutiny. The chapter headings included: Methods of Covert Direct Action, Escape and Evasion, Assassination, Terror Bombing, Sabotage, Racial War, How to Create a Revolutionary Situation, Direct Action Groups, etc. The contents provided a detailed step-by-step guide for terrorist insurrection with advice on assassination targets, rationale for bombing and sabotage campaigns, and rules of engagement. Although he may have committed no indictable offence in Canada, Klatt was forced to close down his site in April 1998. Myatt is currently the subject of a British criminal investigation for incitement to murder and to promote race hatred."

Not long after his conversion to Islam, Myatt briefly returned to political activity following information published in newspapers and magazines, and broadcast on Television, by Journalists investigating the role he or his writings played in the "London nail bomb" attacks for which NSM member David Copeland was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Information at that time indicated that Myatt re-established The National-Socialist Movement on the basis of what has become known as "leaderless resistance", although this new group was abandoned, by him, after six months. He was also alleged to be behind the distribution of an updated version of The Practical Guide to Aryan Revolution (renamed A Practical Guide to the Strategy and Tactics of Revolution) as well as other documents extolling the merits of leaderless resistance and calling for armed insurrection.

During this time, one of the websites featuring his writings included strident essays such as Why Intolerance is Natural and these essays appeared to refute the suggestion that Myatt had become more tolerant and less radical. If anything, such writings revealed an even harder and more determined man.

These writings - with titles like Nature and Racism, and Racism and Aryan Ethics - are and were, in effect, a theoretical justification for racism, and, combined with Myatt's exposition of Aryan Law, Aryan Ethics, Aryan Culture and his advocacy of rebellion, insurrection and leaderless resistance, represented a new, significant and disturbing development in extremist "right-wing" thought.

As with so many things in the past four years or so, it remains to be seen whether all such writings, and all the many various Usenet postings, are by Myatt himself, or the product of those political opponents of his who have in recent times taken to sending anonymous letters to Muslims about him. Such a campaign, to discredit or otherwise bring a person into disrepute, is not unknown in the world of subversives, political extremism and State Security Services with their disinformation and "black propaganda".

Many of these may well be, and possibily are - as one former associate of Myatt has suggested - items written by Myatt in the past which have only recently been widely circulated, with or, more probably without, Myatt's approval. Others do seem to be forgeries, written - or, in the case of Usenet, posted - fraudulently using Myatt's name.

During this time, his political enemies continued their campaign against him, for they - or so I am informed by a source close to Myatt - began sending out letters to Muslims and Mosques warning them about Myatt, and including with these letters copies of articles he is alleged to have written, including the now notorious Why Racism is Right.

As for his involvement with Islam, the article Islam and National-Socialism raises interesting questions. In addition - and following his involvement with Islam - Myatt began to write a series of articles in which he attempted to portray National Socialism in a new, non-racist, way. Myatt created, and assiduously propagated, what one source described as a "revisionist version" of National Socialism and which Myatt himself claims is "genuine National-Socialism". Myatt's vision of National Socialism is of an ethical - if not religious - way of life, based upon the ideal of personal honor. One of his recent, and indeed most intriguing and interesting political articles, was entitled Why National-Socialism Is Not Racist in which he was critical of the very concept of racism and attempted to portray National Socialists as people who respected other races and their culture. Several other articles, by him, elaborated upon this idea of a tolerant National Socialism, for example his Honour, or Instinct? The Question of Racism and Tolerance.

Another recent article - or rather, published letter - contained the significant and noteworthy statement:

Of course, I admit there was a time when I went around with such petty and irrational attitudes, even though it really was not my nature to do so. For several years I myself preached intolerance, believing it was necessary, and the right tactical thing to do, for surely the very survival of our race and culture was at stake?

But the more I thought about such tactics, the more uneasy I became. It took me several years to consciously understand and express in words why I felt uneasy: it was because such racial intolerance, such tactics, contradicted the very essence of National-Socialism. In brief, I re-discovered the essence of National-Socialism: its ethics, its values, its morality, its way of life. (Source: Aliens and National-Socialism )

More recently - in the past two years - Myatt has also propagated and written about what he calls Folk Culture and Cosmic Ethics, which seems to confirm this new, more tolerant approach. This may possibly be a learning from his Muslim days, or possibly yet another peregrination along the Faustian way. It may also be just a tactic in his life-long quest to win converts for what he describes as the "folkish philosophy underlying National-Socialism". Whatever or whichever it is, it appears Myatt continued his life-long quest to create a revolution, or at the very least continued to create the intellectual and practical foundations for the revolutionary overthrow of the Government.

Myatt, as ever, had "no public comment to make" about such matters, probably hoping, given his belief in personal honor, that those who really do wish to know his version of events, will ask him in person and in private, as he declared in one of his many Statements for Journalists:

" Such a personal contact is honourable, and I shall only ever give my side of the story to those who have the honour, the decency, to ask me in person and in private. (An interview is not a private matter between two individuals.) "

Whatever, it seems Myatt has now finally abandoned any and all political involvement - and even writing political items and articles - in favor of striving once again to create a rural folk community:

I intend now to concentrate on trying to make the ideals of Folk Culture real through a rural community, and possibly completing my translations of Homer and Aristotle. I will also withdraw completely from the world, the milieu, of politics - the world of a manic, urbanized, hubris - striving instead to live as I believe we should live, in a simple almost contemplative way, and upholding reason and honour and seeking to attain a balance with Nature. The politics of our times is the politics of the rootless urban dweller, and this is the total antithesis of our natural way of Blood and Soil. (Heil and Farewell.)

2001-2002 AD: End of the Quest?

The story continues, for, in the Summer of 2001 A.D., Myatt issued a new article which had the Buddhist sounding sub-heading Suffering and the Cessation of Suffering. These More Rambling Notes About Life are a discourse concerning the nature of the good, and in them Myatt defines the good in such a way that he seems to be implicitly rejecting and disavowing much of his own past and writings:

Good is simply the alleviation of suffering by means which do not cause more suffering; by means which do not cause harm to life and which certainly does not take life, human or otherwise. This is the simple, profound, message of Sages, religious teachers, prophets, over thousands of years.

Of especial interest, in the context of Myatt's Islam, was his Foreseeing the Future (apparently written some time ago before his conversion to Islam) in which he stated his belief that Islam could create the Galactic Empire he has always dreamed about:

I firmly believe that Islam has the potential to create not only a new civilization, governed according to reason, but also a new Empire which could take on and overthrow the established world-order dedicated as this world-order is to usury, decadence and a god-less materialism... I also believe that a new Islamic Empire could create the Galactic Empire, or at least lay the foundations of it. Perhaps the first human colonies on another world will have as their flag the Islamic crescent, a flag inscribed with the words, in Arabic, In the Name of Allah, The Compassionate, The Merciful.

 

In addition, Myatt, calling himself Abdul-Aziz Ibn Myatt, wrote many articles - including one entitled Palestine, Islam, The West, and the Zionist Quest for World Domination and another entitled The Crusader War Against Islam - in which he expressed the view that Islam, and only Islam, has the potential to defeat, in the near future, what he calls "Zionist power and influence". He viewed the Intifada (Uprising) in Palestine as "one of the first battles in the war to destroy the evil of world Zionism" and, more recently, has written about the recent attacks on the Taliban as "an openly declared war - by the Zionist-Crusader Alliance - against Islam" because this Alliance regards Islam (or at least the militant variety) as its foremost enemy.

Considering these views, and Myatt's belief that Islam could create his Galactic Empire, his enthusiastic support of Islam - and even his own conversion - are easily explainable, as is his support for the actions and beliefs of such people as Usama bin Laden, whom Myatt has praised in several articles, such as The War Between Imaan and Kufr in which he states:

The chief enemy of the true believers in this war is America, and all true believers are, knowingly or unknowingly, at war with America: with the American government, its people and its military forces... The defeat or downfall or collapse of the kufr State of America may take a few years, or several decades or longer ...and we must strive in the way of Allah against the infidels, for however long it takes. "

Yet it may well be - as some commentators have suggested all along and as the author of A Covert Life hints - that Myatt's interest in, and avowal of, Islam was purely tactical, part of some strategy to enable co-operation between radical Muslims and National Socialists, a co-operation Myatt admits to considering in Part Two of his Autobiographical Notes, written several years ago (long before the September 11 attacks) which included a photograph of Usama bin Laden and the statement: "I came to greatly admire these modern fighters in the cause of Islam..."

Would it be possible for there to be co-operation between these militant, Islamic, groups and National-Socialists? We both, it seemed, wanted to overthrow the existing power-structure of the West. I still passionately believed that the System was so repressive, so inherently evil - contrary to everything I believed in - that any assistance in undermining and destroying it would be welcome. (Myatt: Autobiographical Notes, Part Two )

Nevertheless, despite his covnersion to Islam, his political opponents and enemies are intent on continuing their campaign against him, as witness the recent publication of two books (White Riot, and Black Sun) whose authors constantly refer to Myatt's alleged involvement with Satanism, an involvement which Myatt has consistently denied.

Myatt recently explained this campaign against him in his own inimitable way:

The fact is that the Zionists - and all those who oppose the aim of a free, independent, Aryan homeland governed according to our unique Aryan laws - have no answer to the Aryan ideals I have propounded and explained over the past twenty or so years. Therefore they continue to smear me using one fabricated so-called "interview" which was printed nearly thirty years ago.

I have explained in clear words - in writings such as my The Complete Guide to the Aryan Way of Life - what our Aryan ethics are, what our Aryan way of life involves, what our system of government should be, as I have consistently championed the cause of Aryan freedom and Aryan culture. By trying to discredit me with their lying "black propaganda" about my non-existent involvement with satanism the Zionists - and all who oppose the aim of a free, independent, Aryan homeland - hope that Aryans will ignore my writings and the ideals I have expounded. That so many Aryans, it seems, continue to believe and parrot such Zionist "black propaganda" just reveals how far we, as a people, have strayed from our civilizing ideals of honour, loyalty and duty to the folk. (Myatt and Combat 18: Interview by JRW, December 2001 AD)

When asked about this Diablerie Myatt said he was aware of its existence, had read a "badly photocopied version of it some years ago", denied authorship and considered it to be a "a forgery at worst and at best some kind of subversive jape by someone previously involved in Occult things." He added:

"I can only repeat what I have said many times over the past seven or more years: that the System, the Establishment - what we refer to as ZOG - seeks to discredit me and thus my political and philosophical writings. Involvement with Satanism is just one means the System and its lackeys, agents, and allies, have used and are using to try and discredit me and my writings. For instance, years ago Searchlies suggested to the Police that I was responsible for an unsolved murder, and as a result I was questioned by the Police and also approached by World in Action. But the allegation was just that: an unproved, and malicious, allegation.

As for my own past, I have given as much detail as I care to give in my three-part Autobiographical Notes and anyone who wants to know the truth about my past and my involvement with Occultism, such as it was, should refer to them, and especially to my essay Occultism and National-Socialism and my article The Spirituality of National-Socialism: A Reply to Criticism." (Private E-Mail from Myatt to JR Wright, dated 15 February 2002 A.D.)

Conclusion:

Satanist? Or convert to Islam and active supporter of Islamic terrorism? Or life-long and fanatical National Socialist dedicated to creating a neo-nazi revolution by any means, including terrorism? Or possibly a modern Renaissance man, questing in a Faustian manner after experience, meaning, understanding and that ultimate goal: wisdom? Or even a Nietzschean who as a result of a life of self overcoming and experiences has transcended beyond both Occultism and National Socialism to the modern morality evident in some of his writings about Cosmic Ethics?

My own initial view, based as it was on an examination of his writings these past three years, on some personal correspondence and meetings with him, was that his conversion to Islam was part of his life-long Faustian quest, that - having experienced and understood Islam - he, after considering the matter every which way for some time, eventually returned to his pagan worldview as evident in much of his poetry and his writings, and that he did, as a result of his life-long quest, leave behind the political systems, ideologies, philosophies and religions of the past, creating the new worldview - or "Way of Life" as he himself expresses it - evident in his writings about Folk Culture and Cosmic Ethics.

However, given Myatt's continuing and year-long presence on Usenet as a defender of Usama bin Laden, given the continuing presence of his Islam Conversion Web-site and given the many Islamic articles he has written over the past three years and is still writing, it does seem that his commitment to Islam may be sincere. In a recent reply to one of his critics on Usenet - who suggested people follow a hyperlink to the BBC Panorama programme about David Copeland in order to know who Myatt was - Myatt replied: "Incorrect. Who he WAS." Myatt then quotes a Sheikh who says, among other things: "Asking for details of a persons past and wanting to know what sins they might have committed when they were ignorant about Islam is not right at all..." Myatt then goes on to say: "For me, it [my past] is irrelevant. Yet no doubt some will continue to concentrate on it. I could here mention, for example, Al Hajj Malik Shabazz." Al Hajj Malik Shabazz was the Muslim name of Malcolm X.

In addition, it seems to me now that a recent interview he gave (to myself) - the transcript of which was entitled The Numen of Nature: A New Interview with David Myatt - may well have been an attempt, by him, to divert attention from his Islamic activities, and I would not be surprised if he was next heard of at some Muslim fundamentalist Mosque, in this or some other country, speaking about the need to fight "the Zionist-Crusader alliance." For my last contact with him was in the form of a postcard, sent from Egypt, which contained only the following Koranic verse:

"It is Allah (SWT) alone who can nullify the plots of the kuffar." 8: 18

 

Sources:

• Cosmic Reich - The Life and Thoughts ofDavid Myatt. (Renaissance Press, New Zealand, 1995)
• Searchlight (UK magazine) April 1998
• Why I Am A National-Socialist. Autobiographical essay. Column 88 (UK magazine), #3, May 1998
• Independent on Sunday(UK Newspaper) 1^st February 1998
• Jeffrey Kaplan, "Religiosity and the Radical Right: Toward the Creation of a New Ethnic Identity," in Jeffrey Kaplan and Tore Bjørgo, eds., Nation and Race: The Developing Euro-American Racist Subculture (Northeastern University Press, 1998).
• E-text from Jeffrey Kaplan containing further biographical information on D. W. Myatt (supplied to me by someone describing himself as a "Myatt loyalist").
• Searchlight (UK magazine) July 2000
• Mr Evil: The Secret Life of Racist Pub Bomber David Copeland by Graeme McLagen and Nick Lowles (Blake Publications, England, July 2000)
• The Way of Leaderless Resistance. Anonymous posting on Usenet forum alt.politics.nationalism.white
• A Practical Guide to the Strategy and Tactics of Revolution.Anonymous posting (in two parts) on Usenet forum alt.politics.nationalism.white.
• The Subversive Intellectual. E-text by JR Wright, March 2001
• Nature and Racism. Posting on Usenet forum alt.politics.nationalism.white, March 2001
• Heil and Farewell.Article by David Myatt, Spring 2001 AD
• Palestine, Islam, The West, and the Zionist Quest for World Domination, Myatt article dated 1421AH
• The Crusader War Against Islam, Myatt article dated Rajab 1422 AH
• The War Between Imaan and Kufr, article dated Rajab 1422 AH, signed Abdul-Aziz ibn Myatt
• Private E-Mail from Myatt to JR Wright, dated 18 December 2001AD
• White Riot: The Violent Story of Combat 18 by Nick Lowles (Milo Books, England, 2001)
• Myatt and Combat 18, Interview with Myatt by JRW, December 2001
• A Covert Life.Essay by David Myatt, Invictus magazine, USA, 2000 AD.
• Statement for Journalists, by David Myatt, dated September 112yf
• Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, (New York University Press, 2002 AD)
• Private E-Mail from Myatt to JR Wright, dated 15 February 2002 AD.
• Private E-Mail from Myatt to JR Wright, dated 23 March 2002 AD.
• Item on Usenet forum soc.religion.islam dated 2002-09-19.
• The Tyranny of the Kuffar. Item on Usenet forum soc.religion.islam. This article recently appeared on a fundamentalist Islamic Web-site under the title The Tughyan of the Kuffar.

JR Wright
Oxford
May 2002 AD

Is it right that you  converted to Islam and what did this involve?

Yes, I did convert to Islam. This involves testifying, in Arabic and in front of two Muslim witnesses, that there is no god but Allah, and that Muhammad is his Prophet and Messenger.
 

Do you regret anything you have written or said?

No.
 

In the second part of your Autobiographical Notes  you state that you still, as a Muslim, regard Hitler as a good man and National Socialism as a noble cause. But, surely, Islam and National Socialism are different and irreconcilable?
 

They are different, but my understanding is that they are neither irreconcilable nor antagonistic to each other. In fact, they have many beliefs in common, such as honour, loyalty, duty and a belief in a person using their will to change themselves for the better by following a noble ideal.

As I mentioned in those Notes, genuine National-Socialists are not racists, just as National-Socialism cannot be defined in terms of racism. For racism is a modern term, invented by Marxist social engineers, and is used to mentally condition and control people so that a particular type of political society can be created.  These social engineers want us to view the world through the terms, the abstract ideas, they have created. I refuse to do this; I refuse to play their rigged game, and this makes me both unpopular and misunderstood.

Correctly defined and understood, National-Socialism is an ethnic philosophy which affirms that the different races, the different peoples, which exist are expressions of our human condition, and that these differences, this human diversity, should be treasured in the same way we treasure the diversity of Nature. National-Socialists believe our world would be poorer were these human differences to be destroyed through abstract ideas - through the creation of a socially-engineered Marxist society. The world would certainly be a very different place if there existed only one type of tree, one type of bird, one type of insect, one type of fish!

Genuine National-Socialists respect other cultures, and people of other races, because genuine National-Socialists uphold honour. Honour means being civilized; it means having manners: being polite; restrained in public and so on. Honour means treating people with courtesy and respect - unless, that is, those people act in a dishonourable way toward you, when retribution may be in order.

National-Socialism expressed the view that a person should be proud of their own culture and heritage, respectful of their ancestors and their ancestral way of life, and accept that other peoples have a right to be proud of their own culture and heritage as well. The ideal is a working toward mutual understanding and respect.
 

This is the truth about National-Socialism which I and others have uncovered in the past decades; a truth covered up by decade upon decade of ignoble Zionist propaganda.
 
 

On the question of race, does not National Socialism say that the White race - what you have referred to in the past as the Aryan race - is superior to other races? And does this not contradict what Islam says, which is that all people, all races, are equal before God?

No, National-Socialism does not say this. It says only that different races have different Destinies, different abilities, and different ways of living, and that these different ways should be respected.

This means a respect of others and a pride in one's own people and own own culture. The more other peoples, other races, have a pride in themselves and their own culture, the more they express their own Destiny, then the more genuine and respectful co-operation there can be between different peoples and cultures. For such genuine respect derives from a natural sense of belonging to one's own culture. To consider other peoples and cultures as inferior does the exact opposite because it leads to a denigration of those considered inferior and to hubris: to the excessive pride and arrogance which people such as Aeschylus and Sophocles warned us about.
 
 

But I have read in Hitler's Mein Kampf and elsewhere that he regarded negroes as inferior to Germans, to White people.
 

I admit there was an element of racial prejudice and racial stereotyping in the early days of the National-Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), but National-Socialism was not then fully developed as a way of life - as a complete philosophy of living. Indeed, it was not complete in this respect until during, and shortly after, the First Zionist War (commonly called the Second World War). Hitler wanted to save Germany from Marxist tyranny, and create a just and noble society for his people and it was not until just before he achieved power that serious thought was given to how National-Socialism could be implemented. Few people up to then even understood National-Socialism as a new and revolutionary way of living; for many, the NSDAP was just another nationalist political party which promised better times and which they supported to bring about those better times.

The society which was created after the NSDAP achieved power was in many ways a compromise. Hitler himself admitted (to Leon Degrelle among others) that it would be the next generation - the Hitler Youth generation - which would create a genuine National-Socialist society. Organizations such as the SS and the Hitler Youth were steps toward the creation of such a National-Socialist society, and it was these organizations which implemented the ideal of personal honour, and respect for others, of whatever race and culture. As Hitler and his true followers, such as Rudolf Hess, matured in understanding, so too did National-Socialism.  National-Socialism was not born, fully-developed and fully-understood, in the early years of the NSDAP - it developed slowly, over several decades. Thus, as Hitler admitted, Mein Kampf was never intended to be some kind of bible of National-Socialism: it was the product of its time and while most of the underlying principles of National-Socialism were laid down in that book, some principles were not. What was written was subject to change, to revision, as National-Socialism itself developed.

What must be understood is that many people in Germany at that time did not understand National-Socialism; and it could be said that many of the people who voted for or supported Hitler were not genuine National-Socialists: they voted for or supported him for personal reasons unconnected with the idealism of honour, duty and loyalty.

With the defeat of Germany and its allies in the First Zionist War, National-Socialism was purified, emerging as a complete way of life, centred around honour, loyalty and duty. The political compromises needed to achieve power were gone, as were the supporters who did not understand or live up to the ideals of National-Socialism.  The essence emerged as the shell covering the essence was destroyed in the crucible of that war. People who have described this essence include Savitri Devi, Miguel Serrano, and Leon Degrelle.

Since we now consciously understand this essence, it is possible to create - and only now possible to create - a genuine National-Socialist society. This would be an entirely new type of society and while the inspiration would be National-Socialist Germany, it would in many ways be very different, although it would manifest the same ethos, the same ideals.
 

But many people who call themselves National Socialists today describe themselves as racists. Many of these people also say they hate other races and regard them as inferior.
 

Then they are not true, genuine, National-Socialists. A National-Socialist, to repeat myself yet again, is a person who upholds the ideals of personal honour, who is loyal to those given loyalty and who strives to do their noble duty to their own people, and to Nature. A true National-Socialist lives by honour, and strives to do what is noble, just, and fair.

Honour means treating individuals with respect, with courtesy, regardless of the race or culture of those individuals, as it says in the National-Socialist Code of Honour. Honour means being fair. Racial prejudice - that is, judging someone by their race or culture - is unfair, because it is a pre-judging of others, and honour demands you only ever judge someone on the basis of personal knowledge of them.

Judgement of a person on the basis of race is like judgement of a person on the basis of hearsay, rumours, gossip - it shows a lack of honourable character on the part of the individual who so "judges".

Those people you describe have probably never met any former SS soldiers or combat veterans of the Hitler Youth, who might be able to tell them a thing or two about honour, loyalty and duty. Such people as you describe have been taken in by all the Zionist hate propaganda just as they, if they say or believe such things, do not really understand personal honour.
 
 

But did you not - in some of your writings before you became a Muslim - describe the Aryan race as superior?

Yes. Then, some years ago, I understood that the term superior was the incorrect term to use to describe the reality which National-Socialism expresses. The reality, as explained above, is one of mutual respect based upon a pride in one's own race, its culture and its achievements. There is also - or should be - an understanding that different peoples have different abilities, different talents, just like individuals within a race have different abilities and talents.

National-Socialism expresses the natural truth that each folk, each race, should live in such a way that its natural abilities and talents can find their highest expression, just as it expresses that within an ethnic, folkish, State - a Reich - individuals should live in such a way which suits, and have occupations suited to, their natural talents and abilities.

I have understood more and more about National-Socialism with the passing of the years and with each new experience, such as being a Muslim. As a result, I have been  better able to express in words the truths, the essence, of National-Socialism itself. In some ways, and as someone in Column 88 once described me, I was a Himmler in search of his Hitler. I never found the leader, the guide, I wished for so I had to stumble along the best I could.

As with National-Socialism itself, there has been for me a learning from experience: an organic process of change and development.
 

You have mentioned in the second part of your Autobiographical Notes the Muslims who joined the SS. I have read that some of the German Officers and NCO's of the 13th SS Battalion (Handscar) considered these Muslim recruits as inferior, made fun of them when they were praying, and called them by the derogatory name Mujos. Not very honourable behaviour, and not indicative of the Germans in the SS respecting what they considered a foreign culture.
 

There are always exceptions; always some individuals in any organization who do not live up to, or do not believe in, the ideals of that organization. For instance, there are some corrupt Police Officers, in this and other countries. But that does not mean that all Police Officers are corrupt, as it does not mean that the Police force tolerates corruption or has no noble ideals for its members to live up to.
 

National-Socialism is of the future - an expression of what is needed to create a noble, honourable society - and while it understands and values heritage and folk traditions and our ancestral ways of living, it values only that which is in accord with what is honourable, civilized and which can be used to further our evolution. A lot of what occurred in the past - a lot of traditions, and certain ways of thinking - were actually wrong; contrary to what is reasonable and honourable. What is honourable and necessary in our past must be found, understood and valued. What is not, must be rejected.

This is really what Adolf Hitler wished to do: create first a new Germany, and then a new Europe based upon the noble ideals and warrior ethos of National-Socialism, particularly evident in the pan-European Waffen SS.
 

Thus, in the distant past, Empires were created based upon military conquest and the exploitation of peoples. There really was no conscious understanding of honour; no desire to create order and harmony and create the way of living we now understand as civilization where things like reason are valued and where civic and private corruption are not tolerated. This changed with the Roman Empire, which strove to put into practice the noble ideals of ancient Greece, and which created a civilized way of life for the peoples of that Empire. Of course, this civilization was not perfect, but compared to what existed before - and compared to what existed after it for many centuries - it was a remarkable achievement, a step forward in our evolution.

Another great step forward was the original British Empire, which was an even greater achievement than the Roman Empire. It brought reason, justice, order and education to millions upon millions of people world-wide, greatly improving their way of life through building the infrastructure a civilization needs: an uncorrupt administration; roads; bridges; safe trade routes. For instance, the British Navy managed to control the piracy which was rampant in certain areas of the world (in South East Asia for example), as in India the British administrators ended the bribery and corruption of officials which was endemic. For a long time, and from about the middle of the 1700's, the British Navy was the most enlightened and civilized institution in the world: a fine example of our Aryan ethos. Throughout the whole British Empire, the civilized ideal was followed, and literally hundreds of thousands of British people struggle and died in the lands of the Empire over the centuries in their quest to do what was right, noble and just. Millions upon millions of people could live in relative safety and peace, in an ordered and just way, thanks to this Empire.

Note that I said the original British Empire, for the truth is that from very early on in the Victorian Era the ethos began to change - the true, respectful, civilizing mission of Empire gave way to a brute Imperialism based upon financial gain. To quote Thomas More: "Everywhere do I perceive a certain conspiracy of rich men seeking their own advantage under the name and pretext of commonwealth."  There had always been an element of this present, of course, but the financial cabal gradually became the dominant force behind the expansion of the Empire, often unscrupulously using missionary Christianity to achieve their capitalist purpose.

Aspects of the old, civilized, Roman-type, Imperial attitude remained, and inspired individuals and some Institutions but they were largely without power and influence, often mere show, and more often than not manipulated by the financial cabal and their capitalist lackeys.  By the time of the Boer War, British Foreign Policy had became purely a means of maintaining and extending capitalist markets, of obtaining raw materials with little or no regard for the native people.  This was particularly evident in Iran, where until just after the First Zionist War the British Government supported a despotic, unpopular and repressive ruling minority, while capitalist companies leeched away the natural resources of the country, with little respect shown for either Iranian culture or the way of life of Islam. The decadent life-style of wealthy often immoral Europeans was held up as some sort of "ideal" for the "natives" to follow.

I should also add that the civilization which Islam created and maintained was also a considerable and important achievement, comparable to that of both the Roman Empire and the original British Empire, and indeed more civilized, in terms of its treatment of people, than the Roman Empire. In this Islamic civilization it is true to say that reason, scholarship and scientific research flourished as never before.

With the collapse of the original British Empire, the defeat of National-Socialist Germany in the First Zionist war, and the final end of the Islamic Caliphate, the ideal of civilization had been replaced by the ignoble idea of a global capitalism where multi-national capitalist companies became rich by plundering the world, by committing hubris, with American military might used to maintain this plunder of the world by capitalism and its uncivilized consumer ethos. There was because of this, as there still is, an arrogance toward other people and the Earth itself: the arrogance of Marxism and capitalism, which really are just two sides of the same uncivilized way of life.
 

The next stage - the next development of civilization, built upon the achievements, the understanding, of the Roman, the Islamic and the British Empires - is to create a new type of Empire, based upon free, ethnic nations co-operating together, all bound together by a strong National-Socialist country whose people consciously understand their Destiny, their duty, to their own folk, and the world itself. The honourable, the civilized, thing to do is to trade on the basis of equal partners; to respect other peoples and their ways of life, their culture, and to respect the Earth itself. Capitalist and personal greed are uncivilized, irrational. We should be striving to create free, noble, societies and looking out toward the cosmos - toward exploring our galaxy - not turning inward and indulging in ignoble, squabbling among ourselves like children who have yet to learn self-discipline and so who are often moody, quarrelsome, petulant, petty, selfish, and vain. We must grow up, and learn to act, think and live as adults - as mature, civilized, human beings. For people to grow up, and so change the world for the better - to make the world truely civilized - we need another Empire, created and maintained by honourable, idealistic people, who look to the examples of the Roman, the Islamic and British Empires for inspiration, and who regard such an Earth-bound Empire as but the beginning: a base for a Galactic Empire.

I consider both National-Socialism and Islam as means whereby we can learn to behave as civilized adults. They are both moral ways of living, although it may well be that it is National-Socialism which will create the new world Empire we need and so begin to build the Galactic Empire which will be the next great leap forward in our evolution.

However, it is also possible for Islam to create such a world Empire, and there exists the possibility of National-Socialists aiding the creation of such an Empire and indeed being an integral part of it.  At this moment in time, the forces of Islam are far, far stronger than the forces of National-Socialism, and in the battle against the perfidy of world Zionism this may be decisive in the creation of such an Empire.
 
 

Are you a Muslim or a National Socialist? Or both?

Islam and National-Socialism are different in several ways, and yet similar in other ways: similar, for example, in the matter of honour, of loyalty, of duty,  in the use of will to change oneself for the better, and in the belief in a Supreme Being: in the belief there is an order to the cosmos, and a purpose to our individual lives.

Both Islam and National-Socialism are opposed to usury and the capitalist-consumer system based upon it, and both are dedicated to fighting the real evil which is Zionism.

In respect of the way of living, Islam believes the perfect society has already existed - the society founded by Muhammad at Medinah - and that all the laws and customs necessary to re-create this ideal social are already in existence, given by God in the Quran and the Sunnah (the example of the Prophet). In contrast, National-Socialism accepts that we are slowly evolving toward a noble, a perfect, society and that we have to use our reason, our fairness, in order to create the right type of laws and customs to manifest in a society a noble way of living, where the most excellent individuals of the past and present (such as real warrior heroes) may serve as examples for us.

In respect of theology, a Muslim accepts that there is only one god, Allah, and that Muhammad was the last Prophet of Allah who revealed the word of Allah in the Quran. A Muslim submits to God, and so strives to obey the commands of God, contained in the Quran and manifest in the life, words and deeds of Muhammad. For Muslims, Allah is the Creator of everything, the giver and taker away of life, but Allah is not manifest in the creations of Allah, as Allah cannot be conceptualized by us. Allah was not created, just as Allah did not and could not have any sons (or daughters) - human or otherwise. Allah is eternal, and unchanging, for the creation by Allah of anything and everything did not change Allah in any way.

A National-Socialist should accept there is a Supreme Being, and they may call this Being God, or the Eternal Creator or even something else. The Oath each member of the SS took was an oath before God.
 

As it says in the Quran: there should be no compulsion in religion. A person should be free to choose their way of life - their "religion" - with different ways respected. What I, as a Muslim, considered was important is that there should be this freedom of choice and correct, truthful, knowledge about the choices, about the different ways, and this is why I said all I said, as a Muslim, about National-Socialism. As a Muslim, I have a duty to present the truth about Islam to those who might be interested in it so that they have the opportunity to consider becoming a Muslim. But it is up to them whether they accept it, or reject it. If they reject it, they reject it, and I have to respect that decision.

The sad fact is that there is little truth, little truthful knowledge, in the West, about either Islam or National-Socialism. For Muslims, the pursuit of knowledge is a duty, which is why, for instance, Muslim scholars studied the manuscripts of the ancient Greeks, even though the ethos of ancient Greek civilization was different from the ethos of Islam, and indeed contradictory to it in many ways. By doing this, these scholars saved these precious treasures - for without this Muslim desire to respect learning, from whatever culture, and without this Muslim duty to seek accurate, truthful, unbiased, knowledge, the West would have been deprived of these ancient manuscripts.

Those who understand this will understand what I attempted to do, as a Muslim, in respect of National-Socialism. But I suspect I was and shall remain misunderstood, as usual.
 
David Myatt
1421 AH
111yf

"Three things have always inspired me: the ideal of Space Travel, the belief that our evolution, as human beings, has only just begun - that we can and indeed should evolve still further, in terms of our abilities and our consciousness - and a feeling concerning our being part of Nature. The first two are really part of one vision - the ideal of a Galactic Empire."
 

Suffering and the Cessation of Suffering

For decades I have been on a quest for knowledge, for understanding, for the meaning, the purpose of our lives. One mistake I seem to have made has been to quest after forms, ideas, ideals, goals: to forget, or see as irrelevant, my humanity, to ignore or eventually turn away from love, to not fully understand what was good.

Of course, many times I had spoken about, written about, "love", but it was always an abstract love, for instance, the love of one's own folk, one's own land. It was an abstract love because it was divorced from the simple humanity of letting-be: of striving to only do good, of submitting to only what is good.
 

But I have finally discovered, re-discovered, the meaning, the importance, of not doing any harm: that is, of always considering the consequences of ideas, words, deeds, ideals. Always it was a goal, an ideal, which inspired me and in the pursuit of this goal I was prepared to sacrifice my own happiness, my own life, my own health, as I expected others to do the same. I was also cavalier and at times emotionally ruthless, placing my own abstract ideals - my own perceived, selfish, Destiny - before the interests of others, especially before the interests of those individuals who, over thirty or more years, cared for and loved me, as an individual. So it was that I sometimes caused these caring, loving, individuals to be unhappy. Through them, in them, I added to the misery in the world, the suffering in the world, as perchance did some of my writings, some of my words, some of my deeds.

It was as if I regarded the goals I followed, the ideals I upheld, as, in the end, more important than people. The ideal world - which I wrote, talked about, strove to create through revolutionary activities - always involved me and others sacrificing our present, as it almost always involved strife, violence, hatred, suffering and even death. People were often regarded as a means to create some kind of "ideal world", and "ideal society", in the future where everything would be fine and wonderful, whereas, in truth, once implemented, such an "ideal society" did not last because it always, always, involved some kind of human misery or unhappiness, or suppression, coercion, manipulation, by those in power, in authority, against those who did not for whatever reason or reasons agree with such an "ideal society".

Quite simply, all this is wrong - dishonourable - for it destroys the very essence of life, placing as it does an abstract form - an idea, a goal, an ideal - above life, and especially human life.
 

The problems of the past few thousands of years are mostly the problems of people like me striving after something - some personal goal, some idea, some ideal - and in the process causing more suffering. Many, many people - myself included - quested after things because they sincerely believed they were doing what was right, good, noble and just even if their striving caused human suffering, human misery, and even human deaths. But even such good intentions are no excuse.

After thirty or more years of questing, of searching, I know now in my very being that no ideal, no cause, no idea, no goal, no quest, is worth even the intentional suffering of one human being: that nothing justifies us in intentionally causing more suffering. A good cause, a good goal, a good quest, a good ideal does not - repeat, not - justify doing harm in the present by appealing to some future "perfect society", some future "perfect life", some future "peace" which can only be created through harming others now, through killing others now, through some war now, through some act or actions which involve harming others, or taking away their liberty or manipulating them.

To do good we simply have to strive to do no harm: to seek to cause no suffering. Good is simply the alleviation of suffering by means which do not cause more suffering; by means which do not cause harm to life and which certainly does not take life, human or otherwise. This is the simple, profound, message of Sages, religious teachers, prophets, over thousands of years. But it gets forgotten, lost, overlaid with excuses for our own human failings. I discovered it, many times in my life, just as forgot it many times, and just as I made excuses for doing, saying, writing, what I did when my sayings, my writings, my deeds - political and personal - caused or could cause suffering.

Now after over thirty years of questing, I remember what I have forgotten many times, distracted as I have been by sights, by sounds, by spectacles, by visions, by dreams, by egotism. I have awoken, as if from a sound sleep, to remember where and what I am.

What I have remembered, what I have learnt, is that every idea, every cause, every goal, every means, every ideal, must be judged by whether it causes, or can cause, suffering: to human beings, and to the other life with which we share this planet which is presently our home. It must also be judged by whether it helps in some way to alleviate suffering. What is suffering? Suffering is that which causes injury, unhappiness, sickness, misery, loss of freedom, death.....

Any idea, cause, goal, means, ideal or teaching which causes or contributes to suffering is wrong - dishonourable - in greater or lesser degree to the amount of suffering it causes.

Years, decades, ago I had discovered these fundamental, essential, truths, and for a while lived them, as a Taoist, a Buddhist, a Christian monk, a Gentleman of the Road, a Gnostic, a Muslim convert submitting to the will of Allah. But my own ego - my own belief that I understood better, knew better - often contrived to move me away from the essence, the simplicity, the Oneness of being, the dwelling in the desert of mankind. This simplicity, this dwelling, is simply using our life to try to end in some way, however small, the suffering that besets us and this world. If we can do this, we will have been human: we will have been good, and done good, and therefore contributed to life, to the return to the source from which all life, all being, issues forth.
 

The Answers:

The essence of all true religion is the effort to grasp, to represent, through rituals and supplication and even "theology" the insight that there is suffering and the understanding of how this suffering can be alleviated. All the answers revolve around us restraining ourselves, learning to consider ourselves in a larger perspective: the perspective of God, or re-birth, or Paradise, or Nirvana, or the Tao, or The One, or Nature, or the Cosmos, or the Cosmic Being or The Essence.....
 

For decades, I believed in the idea, the concept, the ideal, of race, of national identity, and struggled to aid my own race, my own people, my own nation. Is national identity important? Many believe it is, and if it is, then it cannot be as important as not causing more suffering, for anything which causes more suffering is simply unethical, wrong: that is, any person, any cause, any organization, who and which seek to somehow preserve and extend race, and national identity, should only do what does not cause more suffering. This could and can be done, as I have striven to explain through the concept of Folk Culture with its Cosmic Ethics, its paganism and its tolerance, a concept which distanced me from the abstract concept of The State which State by its very nature restricts freedom and causes suffering, especially through its support for internment of opponents or potential opponents, its support for Prisons, the death penalty and many, many other things.

But is the tolerance of Folk Culture the right answer? Is Islam the answer? Or Taoism? Or Buddhism? Or what I have called, rather badly, The Way of the Numen?

We seem to have struggled painfully slowly over thousands of millennia to transcend our savage animal past - and yet we are still half-savage; still prey to our savage instincts which can overwhelm our reason, our judgement, our fairness, our honour.

Have can we do good? How can others be guided to do good, guided to seek to alleviate suffering? How can suffering be ended? My own limited understanding is that we can and should judge all answers by the criteria above: do or could the answers of others cause or lead to more suffering? Or do they, or can they, alleviate suffering without doing more harm?
 

Conclusion

If I have understood anything in the thirty or more years of my quest it is about what is good, what is wrong, and how we can judge what is good, and what is wrong. What is wrong is what is dishonourable; what is good is what is honourable.

The answer I have discovered is that The Way is to simply strive to do good, to cease to cause harm: to change oneself for the better and so be an example for others, with such a personal change being the real basis for creating a better world.

Further, I believe that Islam - of all the conventional answers - has the potential to change the people of this world for the better, for it is a guide to how we can restrain ourselves, a guide to how we can do good, how we can enjoin others to stop doing what is harmful. It is, in brief, a guide to creating a good society, good communities, where we can live as we humans can and should live. And it is in the creation of such a society that it differs from both Buddhism and Taoism, and even from modern Christianity. The essential strength of Islam, in the modern world - its key to establishing a new society without causing harm - is its vision, its apprehension of The One, The Unity: its refusal to separate the sacred from the material. This imbues the world, and especially the daily life of the individual Muslim, with not only a divine awareness, a remembrance of our reliance upon God, which Christianity has lost, except perchance in a few monasteries, but also provides the individual with the sense of duty, and the means, and the personal examples, to establish an Islamic way of life, an Islamic community, where there is Amr bil Maroof (enjoining good deeds) and Nahi anil Munkar (preventing bad deeds) through reason and example.

The problem, of course, is that today there are several interpretations of Islam, and many people acting in the name of Islam who really do cause harm, suffering, and who thus not only lead people astray but harm the image of Islam itself. Islam, correctly understood, is tolerant, a Middle Way, allowing others to believe what they will, and seeks only to use reason to guide others toward the good, toward the will of Allah. Islam regards the total submission to the will of Allah, by the individual, as the way to the good, the way to peace.

One other thing which I in my ignorance also know is that we can live as we human beings should live: in a civilized, rational way, acting with honour and fairness toward other human beings, and accepting and respecting all the other life-forms with which we share this planet which is presently our home. But whether we will do this - at least on a scale sufficient to significantly change ourselves, and the world - is another question to which I personally have no definite answer. I would like to believe we can and will change for the better, but the world today seems intent on trying to make me believe otherwise.
 
 

David Myatt
Jumaada al-Awal 1422 A.H
2001 CE
JD2452139.275

The Numen of Nature:

 A New Interview with David Myatt

[From Julie Wright's geocities site]

http://www.geocities.com/davidmyatt/ 

Note by JRW, October 2002 AD: This interview - which was recorded - was conducted by myself, in early September, on a hillside in Northern England where Myatt was then living as a tramp (a.k.a. vagabond/drifter) a role he played in that area for nearly nine months. Myatt himself has read this transcript and confirmed that it is an accurate account of what was said (he amended my punctuation in places).

The full interview will appear here soon.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

JRW: Why have you chosen to live here in such a way?

DM: Well, it was not really a choice; it just worked out this way. I came here to camp for a while because I had nowhere to live. In fact, I was on my way to Scotland, but the driver who gave me a lift was only going this far, and it was raining, so I stayed a few days. Then a week, then another week. And so on. I did move to live with a few friends for a few short weeks, but I missed the open air, the solitude - and their way of life was different from mine - so I came back here, and just stayed.

JRW: What do you aim to do?

DM: (Myatt shrugs his shoulders and smiles). I really have no idea. One week at a time; mostly, one day at a time. Hopefully find some work on a farm, here or elsewhere. But at my age, and being homeless, and with little such work about, it is not that easy. What happens, happens.

JRW: Are you still a Muslim, and if not, are you still supporting Islam?

DM: As I wrote in the third part of my Autobiographical Notes, and those "Retrospective" letters I sent to you a few months ago, I have journeyed beyond the conventional religions of the past with their limited, Earth-based, moralities. My home, my very being, is here, outdoors in Nature, and especially in what remains of these beautiful, rural, places, shaped as they have been by thousands of years of manual toil, by small rural communities toiling mostly outdoors using only their hands or horses.

There is a numinosity here, in much of the English countryside. I know, I feel, that I belong here. However, this world, my world, the world of numinous Nature, and particularly the rural England I love, is being destroyed. And the real sadness is that so few, so very few, of my own people even understand, or know, or feel, what is going on, so wrapped up as they are in the materialism, the machine-ethos, of the modern world.

We as a people have lost our soul; our respect for Nature - and each other - has gone, replaced by more material, more egotistical things. We ourselves are to blame for this, for the majority prefer the consumer, material urban-style life which has been created. We have become enslaved by our love of machines, for it is machines which in many ways have changed our ethos, our perspective, and have helped us destroy Nature Herself. Machines - especially modern machines using electricity, or some kind of petrochemical fuel - have distanced us from the reality, the truths, of Nature and thus from not only ourselves, but also the numinosity that should provide us with a meaningful perspective. In truth, these machines have made us arrogant and insolent; they have allowed us to commit hubris. That is, they have distanced us from our own humanity.

With our machines, we can rip through and destroy an ancient copse of trees in a few days. We can travel from point A to point B with hardly any effort at all. With our machines we can kill even more people in even more ways, such as dropping bombs on them from a great height. With our machines, we can poison a field of growing crops with chemicals and kill all insect life. With our machines, we can pollute our environment and our minds, our soul, with that cacophony which is misnamed modern popular "music". With our machines, we can work all through the night in huge, inhuman, factories, producing more things we really do not need.

In theory, we should be able to harness machines, and technology, and only use them in a moral way, in a human way, in a way which does not harm or injure or destroy Nature, and the other life with which we share this planet. But in reality, we human beings are still children, and are not yet mature enough to handle the power that such machines, that our technology, our Science, has given us. So we are destroying Nature, our own planet, and ourselves.

I once wrote that we human beings have become like an infestation which is sweeping across this planet, damaging it, and this is still true now, even more so.

The England I knew as an idealistic youth has almost gone. In fifty or so years time England will be even more overcrowded; more urbanized, with only a few, a very few, isolated pockets of true English life remaining. Not only are we dominated by machines, and their ethos, but we have still not freed ourselves from the outmoded, the tyrannical, ideas of the past. Our modern States are evidence of that. For they are all - as I have written many times - inhuman, abstract, dishonourable, and totally uncivilized. We are enmeshed in laws, in restrictions, subservient to powerful, dishonourable, national and international agencies like Police forces. In effect, modern States have outlawed honour, or do not allow us to be truly honourable: to uphold our honour. As such, these States and those that rule and govern them, have really enslaved us, although few people realize this.

What can be done? Well, I and others who feel like me can do nothing, and just enjoy the time remaining to us, occasionally and for example sending off into the aether - via for example the Internet! - some contribution to our understanding, or one more attempt to try and get some few to understand, or even produce one more "art-work" which might, just might, re-present something of the numinosity we are in danger of totally destroying. Or we can agitate for change, through either politics, or social action, or even religion. or through our own personal example.

As for myself, I could stay here, continue playing this Mage-man, ancient wizard, role - and grow my beard even longer! But in many ways I am still an idealist, despite all the things that have happened to me over the decades; despite all the many people who have let me down, who have done ignoble things, or put themselves, their own interests, before their duty, before their promises. Thus, I still feel - even here - the need to do something, however small, to try and bring about some type of change, some understanding in others. So it is that I have a few times in the past months wandered to some town, or walked then taken a train to visit for a day or two one of my two remaining friends, and written some things, and sent them out into the aether.

Thus one of the little things I have done over the past year is to try and support those who are fighting in a practical way the ignoble tyranny of the New World Order, and who - at least to me - do represent something noble, and who are indeed honourable people, despite all the propaganda against them. These people, these warriors, are at least doing something, and were they to be successful then in my opinion what would result would be much better than what we have now, in the West and elsewhere. These warriors are in effect the only people trying to do something practical about the tyranny which blights our modern world: the only serious threat which the New World Order faces at the moment. The reality of our times is that the New World Order is a great misfortune to befall us, and that if it is not destroyed in some way, by some means, by some people, then our future may well be quite bleak: a future of world-wide repression; of mental control; of hypocrisy; of an animal like living; a future of insolence, where the numinous is at best forgotten and at worst obliterated.

To be honest, I feel I could sometimes do more, perhaps by getting more involved in aiding those warriors fighting the New World Order. But if I did (and it is doubtful I will) that would not mean that my underlying beliefs had changed. I would still yearn to live as I desire to live, in a rural place, among my own people, in the land I love, as I would still hope that one day things in this country would change toward the numinous, and that people would learn once again to respect Nature, and live in harmony with Nature according to the wisdom of Folk Culture.

But such direct involvement implies and requires that way of thinking, of being, which, by being, here, I have abandoned, not especially out of choice, but because of circumstances. Yet sometimes - often on days and nights of cold and rain - there is again a yearning for that world of action. But I believe I have to move forward, and be what I am perhaps meant to be. This means leaving behind the forms of the past and thus no further involvement in such religious or political things. Maybe by just being here, living as I do (however hard it mostly is), writing the occasional poem, and talking to those who find me and seek to know, I can do more, in the long term, and especially for that Folk Culture Way of Life I have in recent years written about and sought to propagate.

Slowly, though, I feel myself becoming part of this land, as I feel that my very presence here - or in similar places - is necessary in a way that perhaps only a poem might explain, or hint at. In truth, the numen is still here, living; it does not live among far-flung battlefields or in some city or town where one person sits, writing, hoping what is written, or even said, about another religious way of life, can change things or somehow re-presence, or renew, the numen. Thus it does seem as if I will, and need to, stay here, living, being, what I seem to have become.

Time, here, is the authentic time of the numen, of which Nature as presenced here is but one beautiful emanation.

JRW: What about National Socialism?

DM: Well, a National-Socialist government in this or any other country would be vastly preferable to what there is now, for it would at least begin, through things such as Blood and Soil, to regain what has been lost, as well as providing that discipline, that noble character, which young people especially need.

But by such a government I mean, of course, the type I have often written about: a practical implementation of the essence of National- Socialism, which is honour, loyalty and duty. As such it would not, repeat not, be some slavish imitation of NS Germany. As for the details, I once produced a written Constitution for such a modern NS government.

It would be a beginning. But only a beginning. it is not and would not be THE answer; but it would perhaps enable us to progress further toward that answer, as well as halt the ignoble decline that has befallen us. And by ignoble decline, I mean the drift away from honour, from noble character, from duty, from that balance which an honourable folkish view of life brings.

JRW: Would you support such a government?

DM: Probably, if it indeed was honourable. But to create such a government would require - at least to my way of thinking - the emergence of a genuine, honourable, leader, and were such a person to emerge I would give him my loyalty, for what little my own support would be worth.

For well over a decade, in my youth, I sought to find such a leader. As one old Comrade of mine said: I was a Himmler in search of his Hitler. But the guiding factor, for me, would be, as always, honour. If such a movement, such a government, such a leader, or anyone involved with it, acting in a dishonourable way, then they would have to be denounced, and loyalty withdrawn.

As I have said and written many, many times, honour means treating people with respect, regardless of their race and culture; it means allowing for the personal freedom that a Code of Honour implies.

JRW: You said that National Socialism was not the answer. What do you believe is the answer?

DM: That Way which I have called Folk Culture, based as this is on the new Cosmic Ethics. The essence of this Way, which essence we must understand and strive to base our lives upon, is manifest in honour and the nexus. By nexus I mean how we relate to Nature, our place in Nature, and how Nature is but part of the Cosmos. We relate - or rather should relate - to Nature through a homeland, through a folk community, through living, dwelling, on the land and working in ways which do not disrupt or harm Nature and the other life with which we share this planet which is now our home. Honour means and implies a genuine freedom, as I have tried to explain in my writings. Through Folk Culture we can develop empathy, reason, and live as mature human beings in a truly free society.

Folk Culture means small communities; it means a move away from the large, modern-type, States that now dominate the modern world. It means a move away from an urban way of life; it means a return to a more natural, a more human, scale of things.

JRW: But isn't this a step backwards? A kind of Luddite approach?

DM: (Myatt smiles.) On the contrary, it is progressive; or rather, enlightened. It is we human beings using our will to change ourselves because we rationally understand that we need to change: that the Way of life we have chosen is better than what exists now.

In truth, it is an evolution, a development, of ourselves, for the modern world is a world based upon emotion, upon out-moded ideas, such as the impersonal State. The modern world is a world based for the most part on us following our selfish and animal desires and often refusing to control ourselves. In brief, the modern world has no cosmic perspective; it is a world of exploitation, of hubris, of tyranny, both physical and mental. It is, by and large, a world without honour; a world rife with corruption, greed and hypocrisy.

We can do much better. We can live in a different way. We should live in a different way, in a human way. But first we need to understand; we need a perspective beyond the moment; beyond our own lives. And we need a cosmic perspective, not the out-moded perspective of the religions and philosophies of the past. In particular, we need to know - to feel in our very being - what good and bad are, based as this knowledge, this feeling, are on reason and empathy, on the cosmic perspective, and not on some ancient blackmailing childish morality.

What is good can be defined quite simply: it is the alleviation of suffering by means which do not cause more suffering. In effect, what is good is what is honourable. What is bad is what is dishonourable. We have made too many excuses for our failings. We can and should change, and indeed must change if we are to evolve. To do this, we must begin to control ourselves, our own lives, and the key to this control is perspective, the understanding that comes with this perspective. The perspective, as I said, is of us in relation to Nature, in relation to all life, in relation to the Cosmos.

Of course, if we change - if our communities change - we may not have all the modern conveniences we have at present. But we have such things at a cost: a the cost of exploiting other human beings; at the cost of exploiting and killing other life; a the cost of exploiting and destroying Nature; at the cost of subjecting ourselves to the tyranny of the modern State; at the cost of living in an urban way. We have purchased what we have now at a price, and for me, this price is too high. It demeans us; it keeps us as barbarians.

We can find a balance, between the excessive materialism of the countries of the West, and a more simple, less urbanized, less mechanized, way of life.

JRW: Are you happy, here?

DM: Yes, and no. There are times - days - of peace, of great stillness. These are more often than not the days when it is sunny! But there are times, many more times, when things are hard. There are also times when I feel rather selfish; that I am neglecting the duty I swore to do, thirty-five or more years ago. This past year has aged me more than I sometimes care to admit. For I do feel a great sorrow, sometimes, for what has been done, and for what has not been done, by human beings over the past five thousand years or so. How is it that we human beings are still as we mostly are? Irrational; dishonourable; selfish; uncaring about Nature and other life. How is that we have not evolved in our understanding, in empathy? How is that we have not created an honourable way of life, a honourable society of true freedom? How is it that we keep repeating the same mistakes?

I have always had a long perspective about things, always tried to view what I did, what I believe, what I supported, in the context of history, in the context of that change, that cycle of evolution of which we are a part. But now my perspective, in many ways, is even larger - indeed cosmic. Of thousands of years; of us as but one species of life on one planet among millions upon millions of planets which probably are home to intelligent life.

So, really, what happens to me is not that important. But I do hope - and would like to believe - that something of what I have written, what I have said, what I have done in my quest, would inspire others, or change them for the better, or bring them to a better understanding. My greatest hope is for some people to understand what honour means and implies, to develop empathy, to do what is honourable, to distance themselves from the un-numinous ethos of the modern world, and to strive to live in a way consistent with the new Cosmic Ethic and the Folk Culture view of this world.

If enough people do this, then there may well be hope for our human species.

What Are Ethics?

Ethics are a set of moral principles: a set of rules which should guide us in our lives. These rules define what is good, and what is bad, and as such they express the purpose, the meaning, the aim, of our lives.
 

The Ethics of the Past

1) Primitive Ethics: Might is Right

Might is Right is the ethics of the barbarian, the primitive human being, and is just the human equivalent of the laws which govern animal behaviour. These ethics assert that right is on the side of the most powerful, the most strong: that what decides an issue is strength. Such ethics are primarily ethics of the individual in isolation.

2) Utilitarian Ethics

This is essentially the belief that what is right is happiness, and especially the "happiness of the majority": that is, what is right is what makes the most people happy, or secure, or comfortable.

3) Traditional Religious Ethics

The basis for most traditional religious ethics (Christian, Islamic and Judaic) is revelation from God, via a Prophet or Prophets, who reveal God-given laws which we should follow.

We should follow these laws in order to avoid being punished by God, in this life and the next, and to win a place in Heaven, or Paradise.

The basis for the religious ethics of non-revealed religions (such as Buddhism) is to attain something akin to "nirvana"/ end the cycle of birth-rebirth of one's soul, and so attain eternal bliss and happiness.

The reasoning behind all religious ethics is therefore a personal one: do as God/the Buddha/the Master says for then you will gain eternal life, not be punished, and so on. You might also gain personal fortune/good luck in this life.
 

Traditional religious ethics also gave rise to the concept of "Divine Right" where a Monarch (usually a King) was regarded as a representative of God, who therefore derived his authority from God and who therefore had the right to make and enforce laws because he was doing God's will on Earth. In Europe, this concept developed, as traditional religion declined, into a sort of "divine right of State governments" who ruled on behalf of The People, and who derived their authority from The People. Thus were State Ethics born.
 

4) State Ethics

This is basically the ethics which underlie all modern Western nations: the State, in the form of some "elected government" decides what is right, and what is wrong, and makes laws based on its beliefs and political policies.

State ethics is a sort of synthesis between Utilitarian ethics (the happiness of the greatest number) and the ethics of Plato. For Plato, what is good is defined as what contributes to harmony (we might say what contributes to "peace") and happiness.

In addition, according to the ethics of Plato, the ultimate reason for doing what is moral is still a personal, individual one: to earn reward, in this life and the next, since individuals possess an immortal soul.

From Utilitarian ethics State ethics derives the concept of the happiness of the majority; from Plato, it derives the concept of an ideal - or at least useful but always powerful, supra-personal - State, governed by laws made by law-givers who not only decide how prosperity, happiness and such like, can be attained, but who also possess the power, the authority, to make those laws enforceable.

Essentially, State ethics means that what is wrong - what is unlawful - is what the State says is unlawful, and the State bases its judgement on either one or both of the following:

a) on political or social ideas which form the basis for the Political Party, or movement, which is either elected into political power, or which seizes power.

b) On a "mandate" from "the people" who are said to have given their approval, or consent, for the policies of the Government by voting for them. This is  "utilitarian ethics" where what is considered right is what a majority of people agree is right, or feel is right.
 

State Ethics can also be based, in part, on the prevailing religious ethic which is accepted, or is believed to be accepted, by the majority of people of a certain nation, State, or country.
 

The quintessence of State ethics is that a State, a government, can and should introduce laws - which are enforceable by State-appointed officials such as the Police - to create a "good" society for its citizens, with their being punishment of those who contravene the laws which the State and its officials decide are "good" or "right", or of benefit to "the people".

Thus State ethics depends upon abstract notions such as The State, "The People", the "will of the people", and upon concepts such as "democracy" where the "will of the people" is said to be made known and which gives the State its mandate, and its authority. In many ways, Marxism and similar political theories, are just versions of these concepts of The State, and The People.
 
 
 

The New Cosmic Ethics: Morality of the Future

Cosmic ethics are revolutionary because they are not based upon the individual, not based upon the happiness of the greatest number, and not based upon some God-given revelation.

The conscious expression of the Cosmic Ethic begins with Aristotle, for whom arete (often mis-translated as virtue, but which properly is excellence) was a balance between extremes: that is, the avoidance of excess in feeling, action, thought, behaviour and deed.

That is, individual excellence, and excellence for the community, could be attained by following a reasonable, reasoned, middle way. This concept is itself a conscious expression of the basic attitude which underlay classical Greek society, manifest as this attitude was in the dramas of Aeschylus and Sophocles.

However, for Aristotle, the reason for striving for excellence is to attain a good or prosperous life: both in this mortal life and the next. That is, the goal, or meaning, of life is still understood in terms of the individual: in terms of their prosperity, their fortune (for good or bad) and in terms of their prospects, in this life, and the next. This is in contrast to Cosmic ethics.

The basis for Cosmic ethics are the concepts of personal honour, of duty to Nature and of duty to the cosmos of which Nature is a part.  Thus, according to Cosmic ethics we should do something not because we expect some reward, in this life or in the next, but because it is our human duty.

Our duty is an expression of our humanity. That is, by doing our duty, we are being human; we are acting in accord with our human nature which is to be fair, just, and rational.

The reason Cosmic ethics gives for these concepts of honour and duty is that they express what we know through reason: they express our natural relation to other human beings (defined as this relation is by honour, by fairness) and our natural relation to Nature (manifest as this relation is in folk-communities, which are themselves defined by our race, our culture). That is, honour, and race, express our human identity: we, as individuals, on this planet called Earth, are but a living nexus between the past of Nature, and the future of Nature, manifest as Nature is to us in our culture, our folk.

According to Cosmic ethics, we are Nature made manifest: what we do, or do not do, affects Nature and the living beings of Nature. We can either aid Nature, or harm Nature.

Reason informs us that Nature lives and changes, and produces diversity and difference. That is, that there is an evolution of the living beings of Nature. Our aim, our purpose, is to contribute, to aid, the change, the evolution, of Nature, by striving for excellence (for honour) for ourselves, and by striving for excellence for our own culture, our own folk, which itself expresses the difference and diversity of Nature. For such a striving is an evolution of ourselves, as human beings, as thus a further positive change, an evolution, of Nature.

Basically, personal honour is a manifestation of our human evolution: how we can respect the dignity, the rights, the freedom, of others, and how we can do our duty to Nature. Honour enables us to strive for excellence: it enables us, and our communities, to evolve further.

Although Cosmic ethics and Kantian ethics have some things in common - such as using reason, the respect for the dignity and rights of others - they are very different not only because of the importance in Cosmic ethics of the civilizing ideal of honour but also because of how Cosmic ethics conceives the individual. For Cosmic ethics, the individual is but a living nexus, a sentient manifestation of Nature, linked to their own collective (their ancestors and ancestral culture), linked to Nature, and thence to the cosmos beyond. For Kantian ethics, the individual relates to a transcendent pure Reason (basically, a mystical conception of God), from whom the purpose and meaning of life is derived, as it is with religious ethics.
 

According to Cosmic ethics, what is good is what is honourable, what aids Nature and the living beings of Nature, and what aids the evolution of the cosmos itself. Our duty is to do what is honourable and what aids Nature, the living beings of Nature, and the cosmos, even if doing this duty makes us, as individuals, unhappy, or even if it means our own death. Furthermore, the happiness of the majority, of other people, comes second to this duty.

The perspective of Cosmic ethics is that of Nature - and indeed of the cosmos itself of which Nature is but a part. The perspective of all other ethics is the perspective of the individual, of their happiness, their winning of some reward in this life or the next.

Thus, according to Cosmic ethics our motivation is idealism, not the expectation of reward, personal or otherwise, in this life or the next.

According to Cosmic ethics, a State or government exists only to encourage personal honour and encourage us to do our duty to Nature, to the living beings of Nature and the cosmos, with such a State or government respecting our right of honour and our right to do our duty to Nature.

Judged by this standard, all other types of State or government, are tyrannical because they take away, through laws, our most basic rights (the right of honour) and because they prevent us doing our duty to Nature and the living beings of Nature.
 

David Myatt
JD2451948.068
 

Kantian and Hegelian Ethics: Religious Ethics in Disguise

The ethics of Kant are basically a development of the concept of traditional religious ethics, where revelation of God - the laws revealed by God - are replaced by  "reason". That is, our moral duty derives from understanding the world around us and acting in such a way that we respect the dignity, the rights, of others. Why? The Kantian answer relies on the notion of duty. According to Kant, the only valid human motivation is duty; an individual has a duty to respect moral law, which itself is known through Reason. But what is Reason - that is, how does this duty arise? Kant, wishing to avoid deriving duty from God, settles on the concept of the norm: duty is that which does not take away the autonomy (freedom) of others and which allows an individual to be autonomous.   Kantian ethics is the morality of the categorical imperative.

In effect, Kant replaces the aim of happiness (of the individual; the majority) as well as the aim of God with the concept of the Norm, even though his ethics are a pure expression of religious ethics. Replace his Reason with God, and his ethics function perfectly.

Thus, in many ways, Kantian ethics are mystical, transcendental, ethics; Christian ethics without the Old Testament concept of God: that is, the ethics of the Protestant religion, in particular the Lutheran kind.
 

For Hegel, morality, the good, derives from the transcendent Will, the Universal Will, which is knowable via the The Dialectic, the conflict between Spirit and Matter. The State is objectified Spirit, but not Spirit itself; the being of the individual is defined via the State, and thus by interaction with the dialectic for the State reveals ethics to individuals, and obedience to the State - according to Hegel - enables freedom.

In effect, the State is understood as a revelation of Pure Spirit, a revelation of the Universal Will, and in the final analysis, Hegel's Pure Spirit is nothing other than the God of monotheistic religion.
 

Objections to Kant:
 

1) The idea of Kantian autonomy is against the reality of Nature and the cosmos. For Kant, the individual is in isolation, and defined only according to a transcendent pure Reason.

For Cosmic Ethics, the individual is defined as a living nexus between their folk, their culture, and thus between Nature and the cosmos.

For Cosmic Ethics, duty is what is honourable and what aids the folk and Nature; that is, duty is balance between personal honour, and the good of the folk, the good of Nature and the good of the cosmos, discovered as this duty is through practical reason.

Practical reason is rational thought based on a) principles of logic; b) practical observation of the external world; c) scientific experiments; d) the scientific method which asserts that observations should be repeatable and verifiable, with observations explained and connections made between observations by the fewest, most simple, most logical, explanations.

According to Cosmic Ethics, the duty an individual has arises because the individual is a nexus: a living link, and has a Destiny, that is, has potential to evolve themselves, their folk, Nature and the cosmos. And also the potential to harm these things.

2) The Kantian  norm does not allow for evolution, and who decides what is the Norm? The Norm is never properly defined (for instance in its relation to the real law which governs a community, society or State). Furthermore, while this Norm may be known, or discovered, by a Philosopher or Philosophers, who can communicate such knowledge to ordinary people and who may (as envisaged by Plato) act as "law-givers" on the basis of this knowledge, do ordinary people, who do not have this "mystical" knowledge, have a duty, enforceable in law, to obey the edicts of these "law-givers"? And what happens if the knowledge of one of more of these law-givers is wrong, or false? Is there a duty, by others, to rebel against their laws?

According to Cosmic Ethics, honour is the basis for freedom, defined as honour is through a practical Code of Honour which itself expresses the results of noble reasoning.
 

Objections to Hegel:

 What is the Hegelian Universal Will and how is it made known? Hegel answers that it is made known via the State. But this, according to Cosmic Ethics, is a negation, a denial, of individual honour and thus a negation of freedom because the individual is expected to, and can be compelled to,
obey the State which assumes the right to make laws, and punish individuals, because this State sees itself as a reflection of the Universal
Will, or at least the Will as a coming-into-being.

Like Kant, Hegel reduces such things as justice to an abstract fundamentally impersonal idea which is said to exist external to individuals in some "pure" or "ideal" form which can be approached, or made manifest in some way, via some other abstract thing such as a law, or some Institution, or even by some State, or some prophet, sage, Monarch or "leader" who is in contact with God, or the representative of God, or who is said to embody or manifest the Spirit of the Age, or something similar, and whose word is therefore law or can become embodied as law which other people are duty-bound to follow and obey.

This abstraction, in essence, is also what religion - and State ethics - do. In complete contrast, Cosmic Ethic affirms that such things as justice exist only in noble individuals and not in any abstract, supra-personal, form such as a law, an Institution or a State, and also not in any one person who assumes the guidance, moral or otherwise, of other individuals. For Cosmic Ethics, justice and freedom are manifest, and can only be manifest, in fair, noble individuals who uphold and who strive to live by a Code of Honour, and who thus accord all other individuals the freedom, the right, to live according to honour, regardless of the culture, the social status, the race, the education, the past, of those other individuals. Cosmic Ethics further asserts that any other type or notion of "justice" is tyrannical because, being abstract, it denies and takes away the fundamental sovereignty of the individual.

Such abstract concepts - with the consequent inhuman denial of liberty - are further developed in the ideas of Marx and others who reduce the individual to a virtual mechanistic automaton governed by economic factors and a material dialectic which assumes and which requires for the creation of some "ideal society" at best a suspension of morality and individual liberty and at worst the abolition of morality in favour of an "enlightened few" ruling the majority through political tyranny.
 

Hegel gives no satisfactory answer as to the nature of this Universal Will, asserting only that it is transcendent. Ultimately, it can only be defined as God, who is transcendent, monotheistic.

Furthermore, the Hegelian concept of the individual does not accord with the individual as a living nexus: a link between their own collective, and the collective which is Nature. Instead, there are the Hegelian  mechanistic, abstract, concepts of the State and of such things as "human history" where States, and Empires, are considered by Hegel to manifest the dialectic whereas what they did manifest was a disrespect of Nature, a disrespect for the honour and freedom of human beings, and a general disrespect for all living beings.

Thus there is in Hegel (as in Marx and others) no account of ourselves as part of Nature, as depending on Nature, and on having a duty to Nature: a duty ignored by most if not all historical States and Empires which have plundered, polluted and ravaged Nature in a quest for profit, indulgence, pleasure and power, and which in one way or another have trampled on the honour and dignity of fellow human beings, as well as having contributed in whole or in part to the destruction of the great diversity of human culture.
 

A Cosmic Ethics:

Considering the vastness of the Cosmos - millions upon millions of galaxies containing billions upon billions of stars - it is highly likely that intelligent life exists on other planets orbiting other stars. It is also possible that in our our own galaxy, there are living beings who are more evolved, more intelligent, more powerful, than we are.

Thus, to consider our own human species as the most intelligent, the most advanced, the most powerful, species in the cosmos is not only extremely arrogant, it is also highly irrational, given this vastness of the cosmos and the fact that we have only very recently - in cosmic terms - evolved from more primitive life here on this planet we call Earth.

The time has come for us to use the cosmos - its vastness, the possibility of it being teeming with other, alien, life - as the measure of our own human ethics. That is, to base our ethics upon what actually exists, and not what we believe, or would like to believe, exists or has happened, and certainly not on our limited, inward, Earth-only, view of life.

Hitherto, our ethics, our morality, have for the most part (the last few thousand years at least) been based upon the concept of God and on revelation. For instance, upon the belief that we humans have been created by an all-powerful deity who either considers us special (He gave His son to redeem us: Christianity), or who has created us and placed us on this planet to test us, so that we can enter Paradise (Islam).

The ethics based on these Theo-centric concepts is fundamentally homocentric: that is, based on the belief or assumption that the Earth is some kind of gift from God, with us as special, as masters of this world, and thus entitled to use the resources of this planet, including its other life, to aid us. That is, such religious morality affirms it is acceptable for us to breed and kill animals, and other living beings, for food, even though to survive it is often not necessary for us to kill and eat these living things. Such morality also affirms that it often is acceptable for us to kill other human beings, or imprison them, if they have transgressed some "law" and been found "guilty" in some Court of Law according to some "evidence" which has been produced in that Court.

But this is all very inhuman and inhumane; all very uncivilized. That is, it is unfair, illogical, and irrational, when viewed in the greater Cosmic Perspective.

It is these things because we have hitherto viewed them in limited terms, often in very limited, unfair, Earth-only, terms. We must evolve our ethics away from this small, arrogant, unfair, homocentric view toward a view based upon the reality of the cosmos: upon its vastness, with our own species occupying a planet which orbits an ordinary star somewhere on the edge of an ordinary galaxy surrounded by millions upon millions of other star-bearing galaxies.

The Alien Analogy:

The best analogy to explain the fundamental difference between the new, cosmic, ethics which we must now accept, and the old, homocentric, ethics, is that of a race of aliens visiting then invading this planet of ours. These aliens - we shall call them Phurads - have superior weapons and technology which make it easy for them to conquer the Earth.

In this analogy, the Phurads have a religion which makes it acceptable for them to herd together "lesser beings" and keep them for food. Thus, we humans find ourselves being hunted by these Phurads for food, as many human beings are captured, and held captive in huge buildings, for the purpose of producing offspring which are then fattened to be eaten.

Further, some humans are taken away, to other planets inhabited by the Phurad, and kept in cages: to be displayed like we humans once displayed wild animals in cages for "entertainment". In addition, some humans are taken to laboratories where they are kept sedated, and studied by Phurad scientists. Occasionally, it is judged acceptable for a few of these human specimens to be used in "scientific experiments". Some of these experiments seem quite harmless, to these scientists (such as tagging a few human beings and releasing them back "into the wild" so that their behaviour can be studied) while other experiments are deemed necessary "to further the scientific understanding of the Phurad". Thus, some humans are used in medical trials, because their blood, or organs, may hold cures for diseases which harm or kill the Phurad, and the suffering and death of several hundred humans (or several thousands over years) is considered morally justified since it may lead to medical breakthroughs, and save the lives of many Phurads.

We humans, of course, take a rather dim view of all these things. What gives the Phurad the right to kill us, eat us, hold us in degrading captivity, experiment on us?

The fact that the morality of the Phurads, based on their religion and philosophy, allows them to do such inhuman things to us is irrelevant to us.

What are we to do? Suffer, and die, in silence? Accept our inferior status? Or do we strive for our freedom and to be treated as equals? But what could we do if the power of the Phurads is such that we have no hope of freedom? Would we still rebel, and rather be killed than suffer the indignity of being kept confined for food? Would we bite the hand that feeds us? Or would we just fall down on our knees and pray for God - or some race of aliens more powerful than the Phurad - to  liberate us?

The Human Analogy:

We are treating the life on this planet of ours as the Phurads in the above analogy treated humans.

What gives us the right to do this? What gives us the right to breed animals for food? What gives us the right to inflict pain on animals in the name of "science"?

What gives us the right to inflict pain and suffering and death on our fellow human beings?

Are the animals that we breed and hold captive to slaughter for food silently praying to some god? Hoping for liberation from the human monsters who have such power over them? Such an idea, of course, is anthropomorphism, and the fact - known or assumed from our science - that such animals, on our planet at least, do not think, does not make this particular analogy any less valid, in cosmic terms.

That is, the fact that such an animal as a lamb does not and cannot think, in human terms, and so cannot "pray to or even believe in a god", does not mean that we should not treat that animal in a fair, a just, a rational, and civilized way. Is it entitled to live out its life in freedom? Do we really need to fatten it and then kill and eat it?

Would it be right to sedate it, and then experiment on it because such an experiment might lead to some cure for some human disease?

What is right? What is just? What criteria are we to use to judge such things?

The Cosmic Answer:

To live - or strive to live - in a civilized way, in a human way, we have to have ethics: a morality of some kind. That is, we have to have some criteria of judgement, for otherwise there is barbarism, repression, injustice, and a savage, irrational, way of living.

What is the cosmic criteria: what is the ethical standard which the greater, the higher, perspective of the cosmos gives us?

It is the criteria of reason, of fairness, of tolerance: the standard of the honourable thinking being. It is the standard of the living being who is aware, in a rational way, of their own place in the vastness of the cosmos: who is aware of the other life on the planet which is their origin and their home; who is aware of how they themselves have evolved from Nature, how they depend upon Nature.

In brief, it is the criteria of the nexus: of ourselves as living, organic, links between the past and the future of the living being which is this planet. It is the criteria of RESPECT for other living beings, both on this Earth, and in the cosmos.

It is the belief that there should not be any such thing as "ownership" or mastery of any piece of this planet, or other planets, by any one individual or grouping of individuals, since what matters is not ownership, but the well-being of the planet, or planets, the well-being of the living beings which depend upon this planet, and which depend on other planets in the cosmos.

Above all, the cosmic ethic is the belief that every living thing has a "soul", an essence, a life-energy, which is important for the well-being of the whole, with no one being, or one species of being, of lessor worth than others, and that if it is truely necessary for us to kill another living being, however small, to survive - or even if we kill such a being by accident - then we should respect that being, and indeed lament its death. The way of the cosmos, the cosmic belief, is the belief that we should strive to find ways of living, of surviving, that do not involve killing or harming other living beings.

The Cosmic Challenge:

The challenge now is to accept this higher, more civilized, cosmic ethics as the foundation for our personal lives, and strive to create new societies, new ways of living, based upon these ethics.

David Myatt
JD2451872.315

Cosmic Ethics establish a set of general guidelines for us to uphold and follow in our daily lives. Our personal behaviour is or rather should be determined by these guidelines, for by agreeing to accept the new Cosmic Ethics, we are pledging ourselves to personally uphold the noble ideals and principles of the new Cosmic Ethics.
 

General Principles:

The fundamental principles of Cosmic Ethics are: (1) personal honour; (2) respect for Nature, the cosmos, and all the life-forms of Nature and the cosmos;  (3) the truth concerning our own place, as human beings, on this planet Earth and within the cosmos itself ("the cosmic perspective"), and thus the truth about our own relation to Nature, the living beings of Nature, and to the cosmos and the living beings of the cosmos;  and (4) the truth that we, as human beings, possess the ability to consciously change ourselves for the better by using our will.

From these noble principles we derive our understanding of such things as freedom, dignity and duty; that is, we acknowledge that all living beings have a right to be free - that we have no right, no moral justification whatsoever, for mistreating or harming other living things and depriving them of their freedom - as we acknowledge that we, as conscious beings possessed of will, have a duty to strive to live in such a way that we: (1) do as little harm or damage as possible to our planet, to the living beings on this planet, to the cosmos, and to the living beings of the cosmos; (2) are honourable in our own lives, seeking to do what is honourable; that is, seeking to be fair, rational and just. We also acknowledge that our foremost duty is to our own folk and culture, for these manifest and embody Nature, and thus manifest and embody the Cosmic Being.

Furthermore, this freedom and this duty mean three important things. First, that we strive to restrain ourselves: that is, we accept we must strive to control our behaviour, our desires, our feelings, for such control - based upon moral guidelines - is an acknowledgement of our humanity. Second, that no one, no human being, or any living being, has a right to deprive us of our liberty or take away our honour, for these belong to us, and are inviolate. Thus, we have a natural right and duty to use physical force, and weapons, to defend ourselves and our honour, providing always that such defence is done in an honourable - a fair - way. Third, that we have the freedom to freely give our allegiance and to freely do our duty: to freely pledge ourselves to follow and be loyal to a person, the authority vested in a person, and/or an ideal or way of life; and to freely decide to accept and strive to do our duty.
 

Thus, while the Cosmic Ethic itself is a rational, reasoned, logical and noble set of principles - of guidelines for human living - and while we who accept and uphold it believe it to be a true representation of the nature of things, a true representation of the nature of life itself ("the truth"), we accept on the basis of this Ethic, that others are and must be free to decide for themselves, and free to accept or reject it. There can be no compulsion, no manipulation, just as there is no reason to accept this Ethic other than reason itself.
 

The Practical Consequences:
 

1) Treatment of Animals

Cosmic Ethics insists that we must show our respect for the other life with which we share this planet, and makes it clear that we, as human beings, have no more claim on this planet than any other form of life; indeed, Cosmic Ethics, makes it clear that we - because we are sentient beings possessed of will - have duties and responsibilities which other life do not have. We have a duty, a responsibility, to other life, and to this planet: to Nature herself. Other life on this planet is not "below us", just as  we are not superior, in any way, to other life. All living beings, here on this planet and elsewhere, are manifestations of the Cosmic Being, and thus have a "soul": a non-physical (that is, non-causal) energy which is not destroyed by the physical death of that living being since it is acausal. [ See Life and The Nature of the Acausal ]

One practical consequence of this is that there really is no justification for us to breed and keep animals for slaughter, as there is no justification for us to cage animals and experiment on them in the hope of gaining "knowledge" or making "medical advances" which might help our own human species.

Thus, if it is possible and practicable for us to live without killing and eating animals, then we should do so; but if this is not possible, due to circumstances and conditions, then we must respect the animals we may have to kill, respecting and honouring them while they live, and after they are dead, for they have given up their own lives that we might continue to live. Someone who does not understand such respect for animals, and such an honouring of them, does not understand the Cosmic Ethic itself, based as this Ethic is on an understanding of how we, as human beings, are but part of the living matrix, the living being, which is Nature which itself is but one presencing, on this planet, of the Creator, the Cosmic Being.
 

2) Our Own Way of Life

Since we are duty-bound to respect other life, and indeed to strive to be compassionate toward it, we must live in such a way that we do as little harm to other life, to Nature, as possible, as we must strive to live in balance with Nature, with all other life.

In practical terms this means we must strive to live in a simple, dignified way, restraining our desire for material possessions, for wealth, and refraining from not only polluting this planet, but from exploiting it.

If such a way of life means we have to go without certain things - and forgo certain pleasures - then it must be, for the welfare of Nature is more important than our own pleasure, our own desires, our own comfort, our own convenience.

The sad truth of our times is that if things continue as they have continued for the past hundred years or so, then in a few hundred years time our planet will be overrun by human beings, many of whom, being greedy, dishonourable and pleasure-seeking, will have all but destroyed the matrix of Nature, with other living beings decimated and numerous species driven to extinction. The whole planet will be seething with pollution, on land, in the sea, in the rivers, in the air. There will then be violent, bloody, wars for decades and centuries as humans vie for resources, for food, for shelter, with tens of millions - possibly hundreds of millions - of humans dying from disease, starvation, war.

Nature may recover, thousands or tens of thousands of years later; or Nature may not recover. But the reign of civilized human beings - of civilization itself - will almost certainly be over. Instead of evolving further - of fulfilling our Destiny among the stars of the cosmos - we will descend back into barbarism and probable extinction.

We assert that one way to avoid this is for us and others to uphold and live by the Cosmic Ethic.

In practical terms of society, the Cosmic Ethic means an end to the exploitation of both humans and this planet by abstract immoral ideas such as capitalism and International Finance. Furthermore, the Cosmic Ethic means an end to the tyranny of all presently existing societies, based as these societies are on: (1) the tyranny of a law which negates personal honour and the freedom which goes with it; (2) the tyranny of culture-destroying economics; or (3) the tyranny of a religion which usurps and takes away the honour due to other living beings, to Nature herself.

In practical terms, the Cosmic Ethic means a non-materialistic society - a collection of communities - where people consciously restrain their greed, their desire for comfort, for wealth, for possessions, and where the welfare of Nature herself, of the land, is considered as a priority.

This means a more rural society, with no vast urban sprawls, with everything - industry and commerce included - coming second to the welfare of Nature. This means a re-orientation of our attitudes and a moving away from the tyrannical, Nature and culture destroying idea of continued "progress" and continued "economic development".

We must focus on our place in Nature, and in the cosmos, and take the long-term view of our culture, our folk, of Nature: thinking ahead and planning for centuries, for millennia.

That is, we must understand the true meaning of our lives: as a nexus, a living link between the past of our culture, our folk, of Nature, of the cosmos, and between the future of these things.

The Cosmic Ethic does not mean a desire to return to some non-existent rural idyllic past; rather, it means creating a new and revolutionary way of life for ourselves - creating a new type of society - based upon the understanding we have achieved by using our reason.
 
 

3) Science and Medicine
 

True science is the study - the natural observation - of the natural world and the cosmos. That is, it is an observing of things and beings "as those beings are" and then the use of reason to make deductions from those observations. True science is not arrogantly interventionist: it is not us trying to "play God"; that is, true science is not us trying to interfere with the living processes of Nature, of life, and trying to change them for whatever reason or reasons.

True science is moral, that is, governed by moral guidelines. As such, true science respects Nature, and the living beings of Nature, and seeks only to observe, to study, to know, to understand, what is, what exists, or lives.

It is against the Cosmic Ethic, for instance, to conduct any experiments, on any living being, however small, which means or involves the capture,  the harming or the killing of that living being. This moral principle applies absolutely; there are no exceptions.

Thus it does not matter if it is claimed that such harmful experiments - which harm or kill or which even take away the freedom of a living being - will or might produce value "scientific" or medical information, or might save some human lives or alleviate some human suffering. Such harmful experiments are simply unethical: they are immoral, and anyone who conducts or condones such experiments is being disrespectful toward Nature, toward living beings and toward the Cosmic Being. That is, such "scientists" - whatever their excuse or reason - are acting dishonourably and in a cowardly bullying way, for they lack an understanding of and respect for those living beings they experiment on, considering themselves superior to those living beings.

The truth that the Cosmic Ethic asserts is that science and medicine must be ethical, and that knowledge can and should only be obtained by ethical means.  The reasons and explanations which some scientists give for conducting and condoning unethical scientific experiments are based on the disrespectful and arrogant assumptions that: (1) we human beings are some kind of "higher life" and can thereby use and experiment on other living beings if such use and experiment can "help" us in some way; and (2) that we have some kind of "right" to know, to discover, which gives us the "authority" to harm or destroy other living things in the interest of "knowledge" or in the interests of "science".

The Cosmic Ethic asserts that given a choice between conducting a medical experiment in which living beings are harmed and killed, and not conducting that experiment, the moral thing to do is not conduct that experiment even if such an experiment might, or possibly would, help to alleviate some human suffering or cure some human disease. Knowledge can be and should be discovered, and advanced, by means which do not involve doing harm to, or killing, other living beings.

Go to David Myatt Page II with his Autobiography

Go to David Myatt Page III

Go to David Myatt Page IV

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