The Legitimacy of Authority

Authority is: (1) the direct power to enforce compliance and obedience upon others, ‘the subjects’, or (2) the indirect power of (a) manipulating others so that they are compliant and obedient, or (b) having influence over others of such a sufficiency that others are compliant and obedient.

It is from such power – however obtained, presumed, or acquired – that someone, or some many, assume or claim that they have a mandate to rule, govern, and command, and thence also claim that they, and those appointed by them, represent or are an, or are the, legitimate authority, and thus claim to possess the moral right, the duty, to command, lead, and decide what is lawful and unlawful and punish those who do what that authority has decreed is unlawful.

Thus, what is legitimate and what is lawful is or become what those who have power decide or decree is legitimate and lawful, with there being the expectation, the assumption, or the demand, that ‘the subjects’ accept what is, in effect, this imposed legitimacy.

Before the rise of the now almost ubiquitous nation-State ^[1], power was most usually direct power, acquired by individuals and groups through physical force; for example, by victory in combat or war or by the violent removal of someone or some many who already had power over others in a certain geographical area or territory. Once obtained by such means, such power was often legitimized and transferred by those having power decreeing that their progeny – or those appointed by them – were ‘the rightful rulers’/the legitimate authority, with such decrees, and the authority of the powerful, being enforced if necessary by the use of physical force, the threat of such force, and the punishment, by execution or imprisonment, of those actively opposed to such a transfer of power.

That is, those with the authority acquired by such force – initially or subsequently – relied both on their subjects being compliant and obedient, and on the use or the threat of physical force in order to enforce such compliance and obedience.

With the rise and the development of The State direct power has, for the most part, been replaced by indirect power; that is by some person or some minority influencing or persuading or manipulating a sufficient number of people to accept some leader/clique/minority/representatives as the legitimate authority. One of the mechanisms developed to enable some person or some minority to so gain and exercise power is the abstraction that is modern democracy where political parties compete for votes (from those entitled to and interested in voting) with such party representatives – said to be ‘of the people’ – being invested with power and influence usually by gaining the most votes, and with the leader of the political party that gains the most representatives usually assuming the primary role in governance.

However, the authority of those who acquire power by such indirect, non-forceful, means is – like the authority of those who acquire power through physical force – still an authority where there are subjects who are expected to be compliant and obedient to ‘a higher authority’, and where there is the use or the threat of physical force in order to enforce such compliance and obedience.

For elected governments always reserve to themselves, and their appointed officials or functionaries, the right, should they deem it appropriate, to use physical force, and imprisonment, as a means of curbing dissension and unrest among the subjects (the citizens) of The State. That is, those with such power regard themselves as the legitimate authority and thus as invested with the lawful and moral authority necessary to use force to quell public disorder. In addition, they invest themselves with the authority to declare war on another State or States, so that a legitimate (or just) war is considered to be one declared and fought by such State authorities.

In effect, therefore, The State/the government is of necessity predicated on the assumption of the obedience/acquiescence of individuals; that is, on the assumption that individuals within the territory controlled by The State accept its authority and accept that such authority is legitimate – whomsoever is deemed to be or appears to be the government – even though most of the individuals in that territory have given no formal personal pledge of allegiance or pledge of loyalty to the ruling authority.

In practical terms, the subjects of The State – just as much as the subjects of some potentate, tyrannos, or some monarch – are expected to defer to those in authority in certain and important matters of judgement. Hence it is The State – on the assumption that the government is the legitimate authority of the territory of The State – which judges when the people should go to war or when its armed forces can use lethal force in some land in pursuit of some goal or aim. ^[2]

Indeed, The State increasingly expands the matters on which, and where which, it expects its authority to be obeyed (on pain of arrest and punishment). Thus in a modern State such as Britain the individual is expected to defer to the authority of the government in all manner of personal matters; for example, where, when (or even if) they can assemble to protest; in what places they can smoke cigarettes or a pipe of tobacco; in what and what is not ‘an offensive weapon’; if and under what exact circumstances a parent or a teacher may discipline an unruly child or pupil; and so on etcetera.

Judgement, The State, And Authority

This usurping of individual judgement and this presumption or imposition of authority by others on individuals – be these others some government, some State, some monarch, some ‘people’s representative’, some military commander, in the ‘name of democracy’ or whatever, and be such usurping, presumption or imposition done by direct or indirect power – is a perpetuation of a primitive way of life and a concealment and suppression of our true human nature.

It is a primitive way because it involves the control and manipulation of individuals by others, and the use of or the threat of using physical force and punishment in order to ensure or obtain compliance, obedience, or acquiescence. It is primitive also in that the main method of punishment employed is imprisonment and which imprisonment is the praxis of the bully and the abandonment of those imprisoned to a life governed by primitive instincts, brute force, intimidation, and physical restraint and control. All modern nation-States employ and indeed rely on imprisonment as a punishment, as a ‘deterrent’, and as a means of social control.

This usurping of individual judgement and this presumption or imposition of authority by The State is a concealment and suppression of our true human nature because we possess the ability, the potential, be make our own decisions using our own judgement. To so make and to so exercise our own judgement, to act honourably, is the basis of our freedom as human beings: that is, of being free from servitude and being responsible for ourselves ^[3].

For, in practical terms, The State – as did potentates, monarchs, and others of that ilk – treat people, their subjects, as children. Restraining them; manipulating and influencing them; telling them what they can and cannot do; threatening to punish them if they misbehave; deciding how and in what manner they should be ‘educated’; placing restrictions of where they can and cannot go; making judgements and decisions on their behalf; and so on. That is, it is those in authority who manipulate, influence, and who constrain us, and who decide what our liberties will be, and who possess the power to restrict or deny such liberties when it suits them or when their judgement (not ours) deems it necessary.

Abstractions As Manipulation

The indirect power of modern governments – and thus of nation-States – and thence their presumption of authority, is mostly the result of two factors: (1) the manipulation of people by a minority by means of causal abstractions ^[4]; (2) the influence of such causal abstractions on people. Once power is attained, such abstractions are used to enforce compliance and obedience; that is, to provide some sort of assumed moral legitimacy for the actions and the policies of those who have gained or assumed power.

Thus, abstractions are used to provide a pretext for authority, with some abstractions being regarded as having or as representing a certain moral worth which other abstractions do not possess.

Thus, the system of governance that is called democracy ^[5] is regarded, by its theorists and supporters, as possessing a certain moral worth and indeed as representing what is ‘good’ and allowing for, or producing, or promoting, a way of life which it is said is preferable to and/or better than that produced or promoted by others means of governance. Hence these theorists and supporters of democracy invest this system of governance with a higher moral value than, for example, what has been termed anarchism ^[6] with many further claiming that democracy is the only moral, legitimate, way of governance so that a nation-State with a democratic government has the moral authority to not only declare war (a ‘just war’) on those considered to be non-democratic but also a duty to instigate ‘regime-change’ and that such violence as is used, and such suffering an deaths as may be caused, are morally justifiable ^[7].

Basically, abstractions have been and are used as a means of control, as mechanisms of manipulation and compliance. Thus, instead of some person – some monarch, prophet, or some tyrannos, for example – being said to have some ‘divine right’ or some ‘destiny’ to rule and thus being possessed of authority, it is said that some abstraction has worth and authority. Then it is assumed that those individuals striving to implement this abstraction are imbued with its authority so that what they do is ‘right’ and moral – provided their actions are in accord with, are a mimesis of, or approximate to this abstraction – and that they and others like them have a ‘right’ and a moral duty to lead and to govern and thus to exercise authority on behalf of this abstraction.

Among such moral-giving abstractions are and have been democracy, the Führerprinzip, capitalism, socialisme (society-before-self), communism (collective ownership), and religions such as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.

Authority In The Numinous Way

For The Numinous Way, it is the exercise of the judgement of the individual – arising from the use of empathy and the guidance that is personal honour – that is paramount, and which expresses our human nature.

That is, it is honour, the understanding that empathy provides, and the judgement of the individual, that are legitimate, moral, numinous, and thence the basis for authority. This means that authority resides in and extends only to individuals – by virtue of their honour, their empathy, and manifest in their own personal judgement, and therefore this always personal individual authority cannot be abstracted out from such personal judgement of individuals. In practical terms, this is a new type of authority – that of the individual whose concern is not power over others but over themselves, and which type of power is manifest in a living by honour, and thence in their self-responsibility and in how they interact with others.

Hence, The State, and all governments – elected or unelected – are not considered a legitimate authority since there can be no compliance to others other than that which is mutual, agreed, which arises from a personal knowing and a mutual personal respect, and which allow for the exercise of both empathy and personal honour.

For it is honour and empathy – not the authority, the laws, of some government or some State – which set the mode, the boundaries, for such agreement and such cooperation between individuals, and in practice this means a co-operation on a non-hierarchical basis, with empathy providing the personal knowing of another while honour determines how that knowing is made real through one’s personal behaviour and interaction with others.

Thus The Numinous Way is the way of such numinous authority – of the individual authority of empathy, of personal judgement, of honour, and of personal responsibility. A way quite different from that of religions, States, governments, potentates, monarchs, and others of such ilk, who and which all expect and who and which often demand the compliance and obedience of individuals, on the threat of punishment; who and which expect/demand that individuals forsake their own judgement in favour of that of some ‘higher authority’; and who and which place their own manufactured un-numinous laws before the natural human and numinous principle of personal honour.

David Myatt
November 2011 CE

Notes

[1] The State may be defined as the concept of both (1) organizing and controlling – over a particular and large geographical area – land (and resources); and (2) organizing and controlling individuals over that same geographical particular and large geographical area by: (a) the use of physical force or the threat of force and/or by influencing or persuading or manipulating a sufficient number of people to accept some leader/clique/minority/representatives as the legitimate authority; (b) by means of the central administration and centralization of resources (especially fiscal and military); and (c) by the mandatory taxation of personal income.

The State thus divides people into those so governed and controlled – subjects – and those who govern or who are employed by those who govern to organize and control the subjects, with both subjects and those who govern or who are employed to organize and control the subjects being regarded as citizens of The State. In addition, The State designates and decides what is public and private (for example, in relation to land, or particular places) as it appropriates to itself the authority to control what it has so designated as public.

Given that the modern State controls and assumes authority over a certain geographical area, and given that these geographical areas are described by the term nation, a useful alternative term for The State is the nation-State.

[2] Thus do the politicians and functionaries of The State echo the sentiment and words of Augustine, written over one and half thousand years ago, in Contra Faustum Manichaeum (XXII, 75): “The natural order, which would have peace amongst men, necessitates that the judgement about and the authority to declare war should reside in those who have authority over others [a monarch/prince].”

[3] Honour is an expression of our nature as individuals, as free human beings. It is honourable to use our own judgement, be responsible for ourselves, and not to submit to those who would oppress or constrain us. It is honourable to defy those who use force in an effort to obtain our obedience, and honourable to defend ourselves when attacked.

[4] An abstraction is:

“A manifestation of the primary error of conventional causal thinking; that is, of assuming only a causal linearality – of using causal reductionism: that simple cause-and-effect that excludes the acausal knowing that empathy provides and which knowing the numinous is a manifestation of. Implicit in abstractions is the notion of – the illusion of – the separateness of beings.An abstraction is the manufacture, and use of, some idea, ideal, “image” or category, and thus some generalization, and/or some assignment of an individual or individuals – and/or some being, some “thing” – to some group or category with the implicit acceptance of the separateness, in causal Space-Time, of such being/things/individuals. The positing of some “perfect” or “ideal” form, category, or thing, is part of abstraction.

Abstraction-ism – and the ideation that derives from it – can be philosophically defined as the implementation, the practical application, of ὕβρις.“  [A Glossary of Some Numinous Way Terms. 2011 CE. Version 1.03 ]

[5] The ideal of modern democracy is somewhat difference from the reality as manifest in modern nation-States. In reality, it is not government by the people for the people, but rather government by a rather privileged oligarchy in the interests of that oligarchy, in the interests of implementing some dogma or some political programme, or in the interest of some vested often hidden lobby group.

It is not even a fair and reasonable vote, since topics the oligarchy, the privileged elite, and the Media and the vested interests do not want to discus are not discussed, and voters are shamelessly manipulated, lied to, and shameless appeals are made to their instincts, their prejudices, their fears, with the elected government seldom if ever being truly representative of the people it governs (for example in terms of gender, occupation (or lack of it), ethnicity, standard of living) and most certainly most or all elected representatives being personally unknown to most of those who vote for them, and often or mostly voting ‘along party lines’ or according to what may benefit some interest group or lobby rather than according to the views of the majority of those who elected them.

It also happens that those who form the government – and thus who make decisions ‘on behalf of the people’ – do not represent the majority of voters, often receiving less votes than the combined votes of opposition parties.

In particular, all candidates of major parties liable to form a government have to undergo a rigorous ‘selection procedure’ by their already elected peers in order to ensure the loyalty of the candidate to the status quo. Thus, the candidates that the people get to vote for have all or mostly been pre-selected according to criteria which ensures they will represent their party – or some vested interests – first, rather than the people.

[6] A loose definition of anarchism is that it is that way of living which regards the authority of The State as unnecessary and harmful, and which instead prefers the free and individual choice of mutual and non-hierarchical co-operation.

[7] This was the type of argument used by the governments of America and Britain for their invasions of and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan.

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The Morality of The Numinous Way

In order to understand the concepts of war and violence in terms of the philosophy of The Numinous Way, it is necessary to begin by outlining the morality of The Numinous Way, since war and violence are inseparably bound up with how one understands morality.

Morality is, for The Numinous Way, a consequence of individuals using the faculty of empathy [1] – that is, a consequence of the insight and the understanding (the acausal knowing) that empathy provides for individuals in the immediacy-of-the-moment. This insight and knowledge is of how we are not isolated human beings, but rather only one fragile microcosmic nexion and thus connected to all Life, sentient and otherwise, human and otherwise, of this planet and otherwise. Consequently, there is a cosmic perspective – a cosmic ethic – and compassion: that is, the human virtue of having συμπάθεια with other living beings, and the feeling, the knowledge, that we should treat other human beings as we ourselves would wish to be treated: with fairness, dignity, and respect.

The morality of The Numinous Way is therefore defined by a personal honour, a personal compassion, and the personal virtue of justice. For justice is not some abstract concept, but rather a personal virtue, as εὐταξία [2] is a personal virtue. For justice is the personal virtue of fairness; the quality of balance, and is linked to other personal virtues as mentioned, for example, by Cicero:

“Aliis ego te virtutibus, continentiae, gravitatis, iustitiae, fidei, ceteris omnibus.” [3]

This morality is therefore a personal one so that it is the living individual of honour – someone who possesses certain virtues – who represents, who is, the cosmic ethics of The Numinous Way. For,

“the Cosmic Ethic [...] cannot live in some law, in some Institution, in some Court, in some dogma or in some abstract theory. To be numinous, to presence the numinous, what is ethical requires a living honourable person, not some abstract theory of ethics.” The Natural Balance of Honour (2011)

 

Thus the source of, the authority for – and the reason for choosing – such a morality is and can only be the judgement of the individual, deriving as this judgement does from their empathy and their unique πάθει μάθος.

The Source of Authority

For The Numinous Way, there is no authority other than that of personal empathy, personal honour and πάθει μάθος. That is, the source of authority is personal, and the bounds of this authority are defined by honour, with The Numinous Way thus being:

“the Way of the numinous and individual authority of πάθει μάθος where one’s own empathy and one’s own learning from practical experience take precedence and are considered a means for us to become a friend of σοφόν and thus acquire the virtue and the skill that has been termed wisdom.” Preface, Selected Writings Concerning The Numinous Way (2011).

In practical terms, this means that the individual following or being guided by this Way relies on and is guided by their own judgement, their own experience, and a Code of Honour, and does not relinquish these in favour of some chain-of-command or in favour of accepting the authority of some supra-personal institution, of some law, or of some association, political party or whatever. In place of accepting and submitting to such external authority there is only the giving of personal loyalty according to a Code of Honour, with such giving by its honourable and personal nature never involving the individual in relinquishing their own judgement or acting contrary to that Code of Honour.

Violence, War, The State, and Leges Regiae

Used in its correct, original, non-pejorative way, violence is using physical force against another person sufficient to cause some physical injury. However, a fairly recent synonym for violence is force – a term often used by politicians and castellans and theorists of The State, among others, when they attempt to try and justify the use of violence by those persons (such as the police) such politicians and castellans (and others) believe have some ‘lawful authority’ to inflict injury on people.

The distinction that such politicians and castellans and others thus attempt to make between violence and force reveals their reliance, stated or unstated, known or unknown, on the principles of Leges Regiae. That is, on the principles used historically by kings and emperors and their courts where someone or some group assumes authority over others, and thus exercises command over them, makes decisions for or on behalf of them, and, ultimately, by the use of violence and the threat of punishment are able to force or persuade others to obey them and their commands.

Principles, for example, manifest in the ancient Jus Papirianum attributed to Sextus Papirius:

“After Romulus had distinguished the persons of higher rank from those of inferior condition, then he passed laws and apportioned the duties for each to do…

For the king, he chose the following prerogatives … to maintain the guardianship of the laws and the national customs, … to judge in person the greatest of crimes … to have absolute command in war. ” [4]

Notice how Romulus – the legendary King of ancient Rome – assumed the authority to divide individuals into categories – high and low – and how he manufactured laws, and told individuals what their duties would be, and assumed absolute command in war.

Modern nation-States have, via people such as Augustine of Hippo [5], simply replaced kings and emperors with Prime Ministers, Presidents, or representatives (or whatever) and covered or attempted to cover their use of violence (by their police forces and armies) and the threat of punishment (such as prison) by rhetoric about ‘law and order’ and by social and political theories (such as that of democracy). But the demand that individuals accept some supra-personal authority remains the same, as does the threat or the use of violence against individuals by officials appointed and approved by such personal authorities, as does the demand that individuals forsake their own judgement and rely instead on the judgement of ministers, governments officials, and on the Courts of Law of The State. In addition – as it was for the Roman kings and Caesars – the individual is expected to obey the laws they manufacture, with such laws being regarded as ‘just’ and moral.

Thus justice – far from being a personal virtue, defined by honour – becomes what some king, some Caesar, some τύραννος, or some government decrees it is according to the laws they manufacture and which their officials and their Courts uphold and enforce, by violence (or the threat thereof) and by imprisonment (or the threat thereof). Hence all the rhetoric by castellans and officials of The State that individuals “should not take the law into their own hands”, whereas true – natural, numinous, living – justice only exists in living honourable individuals and their actions.

This usurpation of personal judgement and natural justice is overtly manifest in war. War – the bellum of Latin writers such as Cicero and Livy – is armed conflict involving large opposing groups where there is acceptance, by those fighting, of some recognized chain-of-command and of some supra-personal commanding authority who or which is or are personally unknown to most if not all of those accepting such authority, and where the conflict is mostly if not entirely non-personal for all or most of those involved. That is, war mostly or entirely results from the pursuit of some abstraction, or from the desire, the beliefs, of some leader or commander, or from the political or social or religious agenda or polices of some supra-personal authority such as some government.

In The Numinous Way, a distinction is made between war and combat in that combat refers to gewin – similar to the old Germanic werra, as distinct from the modern krieg. That is, combat refers to a more personal armed quarrel between much smaller factions (and often between just two adversaries – as in single combat, and trial by combat) when there is, among those fighting, some personal matter at stake or some personal interest involved, with most if not all of those fighting doing so under the leadership of someone they personally know and respect and with the quarrel usually occurring in the locality or localities where the combatants live.

Thus, war is contrary to The Numinous Way – to the Cosmic Ethic – not only because of the impersonal suffering it causes, but also because it is inseparably bound up with individuals having to relinquish their own judgement, with them pursuing some lifeless un-numinous abstraction by violent means, and with the development of supra-personal abstract and thus un-numinous notions of ‘justice’ and law.

Hence, there is, for The Numinous Way, no such thing as a ‘just war’ – for war is inherently unjust and un-numinous. What is just and lawful are honourable individuals and their actions, and such combat as such individuals may honourably and personally undertake, and such violence as they may honourably and of necessity employ in pursuit of being fair and ensuring fairness.

David Myatt
October 2011 CE

Notes

[1] For a basic explanation of empathy, see my essay Introduction to The Philosophy of The Numen

[2] εὐταξία is what I would describe as the quality, the personal virtue, of self-restraint; of personal orderly (balanced, honourable, well-mannered) conduct especially under adversity or duress.

Regarding εὐταξία, Cicero wrote:

” Deinceps de ordine rerum et de opportunitate temporum dicendum est. Haec autem scientia continentur ea, quam Graeci εὐταξίαν nominant, non hanc, quam interpretamur modestiam, quo in verbo modus inest, sed illa est εὐταξία, in qua intellegitur ordinis conservatio. Itaque, ut eandem nos modestiam appellemus…” De Officiis, 1, 40, 142

[3] M. Tullius Cicero, For Lucius Murena, 10, 23. My translation is: ‘For your other virtues of self-restraint, of dignity, of justice, of good faith, and all other good qualities…’

[4] The quotation is from the reconstruction of the texts given in: Allan Chester Johnson, Paul Robinson Coleman-Norton, and Frank Bourne. Ancient Roman Statutes: A Translation with Introduction, Commentary, Glossary, and Index. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1961

[5] The assumed need for individuals to accept supra-personal authority is much in evidence in Augustine, especially in his De Civitate Dei contra Paganos in which he champions a order, a hierarcy, with God its pinnacle and ordinary individuals at the bottom. In between are those appointed to oversee indivuduals and ensure ‘order’ with everyone in their rightful place: “Ordo est parium dispariumque rerum sua cuique loca tribuens dispositio.” (XIX, xiii)

As Augustine writes in Contra Faustum Manichaeum (XXII, 75): “The natural order, which would have peace amongst men, necessitates that the judgement about and the authority to declare war should reside in those who have authority over others [a monarch/prince].”

In addition, his rhetoric regarding the necessity of waging war is remarkably similar to that of modern politicians:

“War is undertaken to bring about peace. Therefore, even during war, remember the value of peace so that when those you have fought are conquered you can show them the advantages of peace…” (Contra duas epistulas Pelagianorum ad Bonifacium Papam, CLXXXIX)

He also, it seems, in writing about a ‘just war’, provided them with rhetorical justification for castigating their enemies as ‘evil’, as ‘wicked’ and they themselves, even though they may cause suffering and death, as doing what is ‘right’, what God decrees, as, for example, Bush and Blair did during the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and as with the desire of some nation-States to humiliate and vanquish those deemed as enemies. As Augustus wrote in De Civitate Dei contra Paganos:

“Nam et cum iustum geritur bellum, pro peccato e contrario dimicatur; et omnis uictoria, cum etiam malis prouenit, diuino iudicio uictos humiliat uel emendans peccata uel puniens.” [ For even when we wage a just war, our enemies must be sinners, for every victory then, even though gained by evil men, results from divine decree, with the vanquished humiliated and their sins either punished or wiped away. ] XIX, 15

Some Definitions

Before proceeding to analyze the connexion between honour, empathy and compassion, it would perhaps be useful to give definitions of the terms themselves since such definitions (and etymologies, if applicable) might help to avoid confusion and mis-understandings in respect of the use of these terms in the philosophy of The Numinous Way.

Compassion

The English word compassion dates from around 1340 CE and the word in its original sense (and as used in the philosophy of The Numinous Way) means benignity [1]. Hence, compassion is being kindly disposed toward and/or feeling a sympathy with someone (or some living being) affected by pain/suffering/grief or who is enduring vicissitudes.

The word compassion is derived from com, meaning together-with, combined with pati, meaning to-suffer/to-endure, and thus useful synonyms for compassion, in this original sense, are compassivity and benignity.

Honour

The English word honour dates from around 1200 CE, deriving from the Latin honorem (meaning refined, grace, beauty) via the Old French (and thence Anglo-Norman) onor/onur. As used by The Numinous Way, honour means an instinct for and an adherence to what is fair, dignified, and valourous. An honourable person is thus refined: that is, they are noble and cultured and hence distinguished by virtue of their character, which is one of manners, fairness, natural dignity, culture, and valour.

In respect of early usage of the term, two quotes may be of interest. The first, from c. 1393 CE, is taken from a poem, in Middle English, by John Gower:

And riht in such a maner wise
Sche bad thei scholde hire don servise,
So that Achilles underfongeth
As to a yong ladi belongeth
Honour, servise and reverence. [2]

The second is from several centuries later:

” Honour – as something distinct from mere probity, and which supposes in gentlemen a stronger abhorrence of perfidy, falsehood, or cowardice, and a more elevated and delicate sense of the dignity of virtue, than are usually found in vulgar minds.” [3]

Empathy

Etymologically, this fairly recent English word, used to translate the German Einfühlung, derives, via the late Latin sympathia, from the Greek συμπάθεια – συμπαθής – and is thus formed from the prefix σύν (sym) together with παθ- [root of πάθος] meaning enduring/suffering, feeling: πάσχειν, to endure/suffer.

As used and defined by The Numinous Way, empathy – ἐμπάθεια – is a natural human faculty: that is, a noble intuition about another human being or another living being. When empathy is developed and used, as envisaged by The Numinous Way, it is a specific and extended type of συμπάθεια. That is, it is a type of and a means to knowing and understanding another human being and/or other living beings – and thus differs in nature from compassion.

The Connexion Between Honour, Empathy, and Compassion

Compassion – the human virtue of having συμπάθεια with other living beings – often or mostly derives from, has its genesis in, our natural (and thus still undeveloped) faculty of empathy: from that translocation of ourselves that empathy provides. In essence, to be compassionate is to not cause or contribute to the suffering, or to aid in the alleviation of the suffering, of other living beings.

The Cosmic Ethic is the expression used to describe the ethics of The Numinous Way, and the Cosmic Ethic is essentially that presencing of ψυχή [Life] which occurs when the insight (the acausal-knowing) of a developed empathy inclines us toward a compassion balanced by and manifest in and through personal honour.

Thus, honour establishes both boundaries for and, to an extent, the content of compassion as compassion is understood by The Numinous Way, and thence represents the natural – the Cosmic – balance of human life. Or, expressed another way, honour manifests, presences, the numinous for us as human beings, and is a means whereby we can live in a more numinous way.

This natural human balance which honour presents is the principle of Δίκα – and the boundaries of compassion are most obvious in the principle of honourable self-defence. For The Numinous Way allows for the use of physical force sufficient to cause injury (‘suffering’) to another being- and allows for, if honourable, the use of lethal force – both in self-defence and (in the immediacy of the personal moment) in defence of someone close-by who is dishonourably attacked or threatened or bullied by others. Such action is the honourable – the fair, the valourous – thing to do so when faced with someone or some many acting dishonourably; when personally faced with someone whose nature inclines them toward, or subsumes them into, committing the error of ὕβρις thus upsetting the natural balance and undermining the numinous. Such a dishonourable person thus may be said to have a bad (a rotten) φύσις – that is, they lack or are deficient in ἀρετή and thus have little or no understanding of Φύσις [4] and do not possess the virtue, the skill, of σωφρονεῖν, of a reasoned, a balanced, judgement.

Hence, for The Numinous Way, compassion – benignity – is not (as it tends to be in some other Ways) unconditional, but rather must be balanced by and be in accord with honour. To so balance compassion by the ethical guidelines that honour provides is, from the perspective of The Numinous Way, the human thing to do; that is, consistent with our natural numinous nature, consistent with Nature, and thus with how Φύσις is revealed to us by both empathy and πάθει μάθος.

The connexion, therefore, between empathy, honour and compassion is the living human being, or rather a type of human being, for a well-manned individual adhering to what is fair, dignified, and valourous, presences the Numen [5], aids the cultivation and development of empathy (and embodies such empathy), and has benignity, that is, is compassionate in a manner consistent with the natural human balance that is Δίκα.

Expressed simply, such a type of human being is the Cosmic Ethic – and thus Δίκα - just as such an Ethic cannot live – exist, be found – in anything other than such a living being; that is, this Ethic cannot live in some law, in some Institution, in some Court, in some dogma or in some abstract theory. To be numinous, to presence the numinous, what is ethical requires a living honourable person, not some abstract theory of ethics.

Thus, in essence, it is the cultivation of such empathic, honourable, individuals – individually, and by, for example, a culture of ἀρετή – that is the simple praxis of The Numinous Way.

As mentioned elsewhere:

” The culture (the ethos, the way) of ἀρετή is, in essence, the self-education of discovering and knowing, intellectually and personally, that noble balance between our natural human tendency to commit ὕβρις – to go beyond the respectful, noble, limits of behaviour – and the necessity of learning the hard way, from πάθει μάθος, from direct personal experience. Δίκα is this balance; a balance manifest in us – or which can be manifest in us – through thoughtful reasoning, that is, by a well-balanced, fair, noble, personal judgement.

This culture of ἀρετή is thus a particular and an acquired balance – born from personal honour, from πάθει μάθος (from the personal knowing of the error, the unbalance, that is ὕβρις) and from using reasoned judgement (σωφρονεῖν), and both of which make us aware of the true nature of our φύσις [our own individual character] and of the nature of Φύσις itself.” A Glossary of Some Numinous Way Terms, Version 1.09

David Myatt
October 2011 CE

Notes

[1] The word benignity derives from the Latin benignitatem and the sense imputed by the word is of a kind, compassionate, well-mannered character, disposition, or deed. It came into English usage around the same time as compassion; for example, the word occurs in Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde [ ii. 483 ] written around 1374 CE.

[2] John Gower, Confessio Amantis. Liber Quintus vv. 2997-3001 [Macaulay, G.C., ed. The Works of John Gower. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1901]

[3] George Lyttelton. History of the Life of Henry the Second. London, Printed for J. Dodsley. M DCC LXXV II [1777] (A new ed., cor.) vol 3, p.178

[4] In respect of φύσις and Φύσις see, for example, my brief essay Physis, Nature, Concealment, and Natural Change [Some Notes on Heraclitus Fragment 123 ].

[5] That is, presences beauty – τὸ καλόν – culture, grace, a respect for ‘the sacred’, and imputes a knowledge of the need to avoid what is vulgar, dishonourable, and undignified.

David Myatt in 1993

Editorial Note: The following item is an extract from a letter written by David Myatt in 2010 CE, in reply to questions about his political past and his current views. In our opinion, the letter gives a fascinating insight into Myatt’s neo-nazi past, and provides an excellent overview of both his past and his current views, although we include here only the parts dealing with Hitler and National Socialism. The complete letter (with the title Three O’clock One English Morning) is included in Myatt’s Letters to Friends (for which see the link below, given at the end of this extract).

In fairness (so that the quotes here are seen in context), Myatt’s current views, as he says in his letter, are -

“  the compassionate way of The Philosophy of The Numen [...] obtained by the pathei-mathos of my past forty years. My experiences, my reflexion upon those experiences, have therefore changed me, as a person, and taken me far beyond, far away from, National-Socialism and even from what I termed, over a decade ago, the ethical NS of Reichsfolk.”

^^^^^^^

In Respect of Adolf Hitler

As I wrote some years ago while living that Way of Life known as Al-Islam:

” I have never, in my heart and mind, renounced my belief in Adolf Hitler as a good man, an honourable man, who – believing in God – strove to create a just and noble society, and who was destroyed by the ignoble machinations of those opposed to what is good and who have spread dishonourable lies about him, his followers and his Cause. Thus it is that I find I cannot denounce this noble man and those who fought and died for the cause he upheld, as I cannot and will not denounce those who today honourably (and I stress honourably) continue the struggle in his name and who respect the Way of Life which is Al-Islam… Thus it is that I continued for several years… with Reichsfolk – an honourable organization striving to presence something of the Numen I believe was manifest in National-Socialist Germany and in and through the life of Adolf Hitler.”

Furthermore, the National-Socialism of Reichsfolk was the ethical, non-racist, National-Socialism I had developed in the late nineteen nineties; a Way of Life which saught to respect the difference and diversity of Nature, and which saught the development of separate, free, ethnic nations, with their own culture and identity, with these nations co-operating together, with no one race believing they were somehow superior to, or better than, any other race, but with each striving to achieve their differing Destinies, with there being no hatred of other races but instead a respect, deriving from honour.

This non-racist National-Socialism was developed for two main reasons. First, because I considered that the notion of racial superiority was untenable because it was fundamentally dishonourable; that is, unethical. Second, because I realized that the old type of National-Socialism led to unethical conflict, and that modern warfare was itself unethical.

In Respect of National-Socialism

For some thirty years, from the late nineteen sixties to the late nineteen nineties (CE), I actively strove by various means, political and otherwise, to propagate National-Socialism with the overt aim of creating, in my own homeland, another NS State, on lines similar to that of NS Germany. Indeed, one might with truth say that this singular aim was the main, the most important, aim of my life.

For the first ten or so of those years I naively and idealistically believed that this goal was attainable by conventional political means, given good leadership and a correct explanation of what I then understood National-Socialism to be – a noble cause, based on the values of honour, of loyalty to comrades, and duty to one’s folk. I never saw or even imagined myself as some leader; instead, and knowing the importance of leadership, I saught to find someone to whom I could pledge my loyalty and who, unlike me, possessed the charisma, the virtues, of a genuine revolutionary NS leader. Indeed, it was something of a friendly jest among certain members of Column 88 that I was “a Himmler in search of his Adolf Hitler”.

Never finding such a leader – but always, during those decades, hoping that such a person would emerge – I floundered about, doing the best I could to propagate NS politically; and also trying keep the spirit, the ethos, of NS alive, as Colin Jordan had done and did do, until his death, although in a much better way than I ever did. For I was often reckless and impatient, and perhaps too fanatical at times. Not to mention occasionally arrogant, disdainful as I was on such occasions of advice from people such as CJ – who, for instance, considered that my plan for recruiting and using ruffians (as with the short-lived NDFM) was not only foolhardy but not really in keeping with the ethos of NS.

After those first ten years, while much personal experience was gained, little if anything political had been achieved, and not only not by me. No one else, no other NS (or even nationalist) organization, had achieved anything significant either, despite much commitment and effort by hundreds of supporters. Indeed, what I termed The Magian System seemed to be stronger, more tyrannical.

Thus, for most of the next two decades I occupied myself with other tactics, other than overt political ones. Trying to use covert means, and seeking to explain, codify, refine, and possibly evolve National-Socialism itself. However, toward the end of these two decades I did briefly return to active, overt, politics – forming and leading the NSM, but more to try and continue the work begun by a loyal and dedicated comrade than because I had changed my view of myself as a leader. For I hoped, even then, that this new organization might attract someone of the right calibre to lead it. But neither these covert tactics, nor this new political organization, worked, leading me, over of period of many years, to certain conclusions, and among which conclusions are and were the following.

1) The first conclusion was that NS – or something based upon or evolved from it – could only ever become a significant political force if there arose a leader of sufficient nobility to lead a new movement. For such a leader would be the movement – just as Adolf Hitler was both the NSDAP and NS Germany. That is, political programmes, slogans, propaganda, activities, ideology, meetings, marches, were all fundamentally irrelevant – if there was no such leader to inspire, to lead, to give one’s loyalty to, and who embodied the essence of the NS ethos, just as Adolf Hitler embodied the essence of German National-Socialism. Without such a unifying, charismatic, figure, all movements, organizations, groups, whatever the initial idealism and enthusiasm of their members, descended, sooner or later into squabbling factions, just as dishonourable behaviour and lack of loyalty became rife. Even some limited electoral success, as the BNP and other European nationalist movements have shown, does not prevent this process, so that such organizations soon devolve to be at best minor political parties, perhaps with some political representation, but without any realistic hope of being elected to power, despite their constant rhetoric to the contrary. Thus they become a minor irritant to The System, but no real threat to it.

2) The second, perhaps more disturbing, conclusion was that we ourselves are a significant part of the problem. That it is not just a question of simply changing the political system, but of changing ourselves, as individuals, in a fundamental way.

Thus, and for example, perhaps a majority of those of European ethnic descent were no longer Aryan in nature. Instead, they de-evolved to become what I termed Homo Hubris, and it was this new sub-species of the genus Homo which has become the often willing and the easily manipulated hordes who had sided with the Magian and so defeated NS Germany. Not only that, but it was these new White hordes who kept the whole Magian System going, by their obedience to its ethos, and by their love of, and even now need for, the abstractions and materialism of The System.

In a personal way – through a practical striving for covert action over many years – I discovered just how difficult it is to find people (freedom fighters) ready and willing to do practical deeds and possibly sacrifice themselves “for the Cause”. Partly because this Cause – supposedly our shared Cause – did not live in them: they merely agreed (instinctively or consciously) with some aspects of its outward tenets. That is, it was more akin to some fleeting, easily discarded interest, or some passion which they could and often would forget when some other passion came along to enchant or ensnare them. For our Cause was not for them a Way of Life, a numinous and living faith, but rather just one type of politics among many.

Furthermore, while perhaps a few individuals might be inspired to action – or a few other individuals might do some deeds, elsewhere – such few actions, such few deeds, did not and never would affect The System in any significant way, and certainly would not break it, simply because a majority still supported it, actively or passively, and certainly did not support “us”, our Cause.

One therefore discovered for one’s self the truth of the truism that practical resistance to tyranny – to an occupying power – only works if one has support, significant support and sympathizers, from one’s own people, from those so occupied because they resent such occupation and its tyranny. The hard reality was that a majority of our people did not even feel they were living under some alien tyranny, and that a significant percentage even embraced the ideas and the ways of the occupiers and their collaborators (the hubriati) so much so for so many decades that The System had ceased to be something which “they” (some alien interlopers) imposed upon “us” but instead had become a hybrid system, partly “theirs” but also now “ours”, although always under the influence and ultimate control of “them” and of those who benefited from such a system, such as the hubriati. In a simplistic sense, “we” – our folk, or a majority of them – had been changed, from within; or been bred and educated by The State to accept and endorse, or at least be fairly passive parts of, The System.

One therefore began to consider working to undermine The System not from within, but from without – by aiding those freedom fighters who for various reasons also wanted the demise of the Magian and their own oppressive systems, and who thus not only desired to live in their own lands in their own way, but who also had a Cause that many were ready to die for.

Then, after about a decade or so of such experience it became obvious that even this approach was also not working, and would most probably also not ultimately succeed. (a) It was not working partly for similar reasons it has not worked for “us” (although our efforts were on a far smaller scale, over less periods of time) – that is, because these external allies were also a minority among their own kind, with many many others of their kind actively supporting and even collaborating with “the enemy”, and even desiring to manufacture a type of Magian system in their own lands. Thus, they were as lost to their kind, as a majority of our people were lost to their own innate ethos and the potential latent within us. (b) It would probably not ultimately succeed because to do so it needed internal dissent in the heartlands of the West, which was not forthcoming. Indeed, while some dissent existed, it was an annoyance to The System rather than a threat, with perhaps a majority believing the propaganda levelled at those freedom fighters, and actively or passively supporting the policies of their governments aimed at disrupting and destroying those freedom fighters in other lands.

3) The third conclusion was that each and every European homeland was no longer European by ethnicity, given the large-scale and continuing immigration of many decades, and that – short of implausible practical civil wars and a significant change in exterior lands – there was no practical way to make them wholly European again, and thus build a new folkish State. Implausible, because as mentioned above, a majority of even each and every European folk would find such a practical, civil war, solution unacceptable now and in the foreseeable future; and because one small homeland alone could not take such steps to expel whole communities while Magian power and the Magian ethos held sway in other lands, for the lone small homeland would soon find itself subject to punitive sanctions and, ultimately, invasion and thence “regime-change”.

4) The fourth conclusion was that, in essence, The State itself – as concept, as idea, as ideal – was ultimately incompatible with the numinous essence behind what Adolf Hitler had intuitively presenced, manifested, as National-Socialism in Germany. That is, that The State could no longer be made numinous, or manifest the numen, as it had begun to do in NS Germany, and that NS Germany was only an intimation, a beginning, a pointer toward a deeper truth; a truth revealed in part by the defeat of NS Germany by the White Hordes incited and led-on by the Magian.

This is the truth of our natural and necessary tribal nature, and of the nature of honour itself. The truth of Numinous Law (the law of personal honour) and the truth of how the clan, with a living, numinous, tradition, is and always will be immune to the Magian, and the dishonourable, un-numinous, abstractions that the Magian and their hubriati have manufactured, and which abstractions stifle our potential, disconnect us from the numen, and profane and undermine Nature and thus the living folk communities which are and which have been natural manifestations of Nature.

5) My fifth, last, later, and possibly most significant if contentious, conclusion was that the very notion – the idea – of there existing, or of desiring to move toward the ideal of, some pure race was an abstraction, and as such was un-numinous and thus unethical; contrary to honour itself, and which honour I had concluded was a practical expression of the essence of personal empathy. That is, that both race itself and the concept of an ethnic folk were – just like the concepts of the nation and The State – causal, immoral, abstractions; and that what was needed were new clans, new tribes, not based on any abstractions, any ideology….

David Myatt, 2010 CE

Source: 

Myatt-Letters-to-Friends.pdf (1.5 Mb)

David Myatt

Understanding A Myatt

Humorously, one might write that to understand a myatt is to strive to apply reason, to be dignified, and to renounce the prejudice inherent in all abstractions. For I am a myatt – one of a class of beings adjudged by others on the basis of hearsay, rumour, the disinformation, lies, propaganda and misinformation that abounds in modern mediums such as that one which has been termed the Internet.

Being David Myatt

Perhaps more seriously, in my own far from uncommon case, the misapprehension of my diverse life by others is perhaps a modern allegory of our current human nature: of our propensity to use modern means of communication to act in an undignified and dishonourable manner, and an allegory of how people are still in their majority swayed by an appeal to their emotions and/or are in thrall to un-numinous abstractions, manifest as these abstractions are, for example, in politics, in dogma, and in social theories.

Thus, the majority of people who come to know or hear or learn about my own past judge me – and make assumptions about my motives – on the basis of some category, or on the basis of what others have told them or on what someone else has written or said about me.

Being David Myatt means that in my life I have acquired practical, years-long, experience of Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, National Socialism, and Islam. It means I have been imprisoned for violence in the pursuit of a political cause; have been arrested and convicted in connection with organizing a criminal gang; and was once arrested because Police officers from Scotland Yard were investigating me (as part of Operation Periphery) for ‘incitement to murder’ (among other things). It means I have founded and led several violent political organizations, and also spent many years working with my hands, as a farm labourer and as a gardener.

Being David Myatt means that David Myatt has, in the words of Professor Kaplan, “undertaken a global odyssey which took him on extended stays in the Middle East and East Asia, accompanied by studies of religions ranging from Christianity to Islam in the Western tradition and Taoism and Buddhism in the Eastern path. In the course of this Siddhartha-like search for truth, Myatt sampled the life of the monastery in both its Christian and Buddhist forms.”

It means that David Myatt has “arguably done more than any other theorist to develop a synthesis of the extreme right and Islam.” It also means that David Myatt has been accused (without any evidence ever having been provided) of being the Grand Master – the leader, the organizer – of a subversive, world-wide, Satanic, group; accused of being a terrorist, of inciting some people to commit terrorist acts; and accused of being “the man who shaped mind of a bomber [...] the mentor who drove David Copeland to kill…”

It is perhaps no wonder then – given this précis and such accusations – that many individuals, lacking certain stalwart personal qualities, on first hearing or reading about me are often shocked and often readily make some assumption about me and my beliefs. For they do not seem to be able to, or do not want to, see the real person behind the lifeless abstract labels and terms that others have used to categorise me and my practical Siddhartha-like quest to answer the question Quid Est Veritas.

For instance, only a few weeks ago, a female artist – who was at the time professionally working with an artist friend of mine – wrote:

” We’ve been contacted by people regarding your lengthy association with David Myatt – we’d never heard of him so looked him up [on the Internet] and were both deeply shocked.

Whilst I enjoyed working with you and [...] enjoyed your company we don’t want to be associated with this guy and his appalling beliefs and actions in any way whatsoever (even indirectly). “

I mention this female artist not because she was subsumed by some political agenda or by hatred or was possessed of a prejudiced nature. On the contrary, I mention her because she is (according to my information) a gentle inherently good person who just happened to let herself be led astray by biased information supplied by someone who was indeed subsumed with hatred, jealousy, pride, and who indeed did possess a prejudiced nature. A female artist perhaps too trusting and totally unfamiliar with the barbaric and cunning scheming nature that blatantly exists in many modern human beings and which nature, experience reveals, lurks within so many others. And a good-natured person who immediately – as seems now to be the common practice at least in the West – turned to the Internet as a source of information regarding an individual.

Thus this particular otherwise good human being – like so many others over so many decades – was easily persuaded that I personally have “appalling beliefs” and that I am someone whom ‘good people’ should distance themselves from and indeed someone whom ‘good people’ should castigate in public and in private.

There was thus another victory for the mundane, the vulgar, ones – for those lacking honour, reason, and dignity. A victory for those seeking to replace honour and reason with prejudice and presumption.

For what this female artist – like so many many others, decade after decade – did not do was to: (1) at the very least objectively, rationally, consider ‘my side of the story’ evident in my ethical, compassionate, philosophy of The Numinous Way, in my autobiography Myngath, in my many now published personal letters, in my poetry, and so on; or (2) do the honourable, the decent, the dignified, the civilized, thing and give me the benefit of the doubt – apply the noble Muslim principle of Husn al-Dhan – and then ask me in person for my story, and which story is one of πάθει μάθος (pathei-mathos), of a slow and painful learning from my diversity of experiences, and of a change deriving from a very interior reflexion.

Instead of doing one or both of these things, and thus formulating their own reasoned judgement of me, I am and I have been adjudged by others to be – on the basis of hearsay, rumours, lies, and allegations spread by prejudiced hate-filled people with their own personal or political agenda – to be a terrorist, a sinister person, a weirdo, a wacko, a fanatical nazi, a satanist, a fantasist, and so on ad nauseam.

Only a few days ago, for instance, I was adjudged to be “a clinically diagnosable psychopath” by someone called ‘Robert Spencer’, a zionist who specializes in anti-Islamic rants and who has given lectures to the FBI, the Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the U.S. intelligence community. Adjudged in public to so be, even though, of course, this person has never met me, or asked me for my side of my story, or even bothered to read my autobiography, my many published personal letters, my poetry, or slowly study in detail my philosophy of The Numinous Way, and which philosophy represents the results of my πάθει μάθος and of a decade-long interior reflexion.

Instead, this person – as so many many others, decade after decade – just reads items about me by others, then in a cursory rather arrogant manner reads perhaps one or two items by me, and proceeds to hastily formulate his own opinion of me to agree with his existing prejudices and/or his agenda, political, personal or otherwise. Thus the aforementioned person in addition to publicly labelling me a psychopath, had the chutzpah to state that my Numinous Way was “based on rather bizarre readings of the fragments of pre-Socratic philosophers like Heraclitus,” when (so far as I know) this person does not read Ancient Greek, and when anyone of any sagacity, taking the trouble to be reasonable and apply reason and actually study my work in detail (as a scholar would), would know that the Numinous Way is, on the contrary, based on the faculty of empathy and the principle of personal honour, and that references to Heraclitus are purely comparative and for the purpose of elucidation in respect of principles such as ὕβρις and δίκη [1].

Thus, here we have one more victory for those who gush forth their person opinion, their prejudices, by modern means of rapid communication. Yet one more victory for the vulgar ones – for those for whom sustained interior reflexion is a distant forbidding still undiscovered land, and who are lacking in honour, reason, and dignity.

Dignity, Honour, and Wisdom

Dignity is self-restraint and self-reliance, both of which are codified by means of personal honour. In living cultures – possessed of ancestral traditions – and in Ways of numinous living (such as Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam), dignity is a virtue to be cultivated and aspired to. Many such cultures, and many such Ways, regard dignity as one of the qualities which distinguish us from animals, and from the animals (the barbarians) among our own human kind.

A dignified person possesses a natural balance within themselves – a self-knowledge and a self-honesty – born from their πάθει μάθος, and thus is someone unswayed by appeals to their vanity and their emotions; that is, they are wary of words, spoken or written by others, and instead apply the principle of honour.

Honour means we strive to treat other human beings in a fair, a reasonable, manner – giving them, for example, the benefit of the doubt unless and until direct personal experience, direct knowledge of them, reveals them to be dishonourable. That is, an honourable person only judges others on the basis of a personal knowledge of them, and their behaviour, over a period of causal Time – not on what others have said or written about them.

Dignity and honour combine to elicit within an individual a certain personal humility – that is a respect for the numinous, a knowing of their own fallibility (born from πάθει μάθος) and a desire not to overstep the natural limits which honour and their ancestral culture (or their Way of numinous living) reveals.

Modern means of communication, however, and the rapid and massive flow and production of information, rumour, misinformation, propaganda and lies, which such mediums encourage and present to individuals, militate against dignity and honour and living ancestral traditions. For such means of communication lead to and encourage the formulation of, or the reinforcement of, and the propagation of, opinion and prejudice and abstract ideas instead of a reasoned judgement based on a direct personal knowing and upon interior reflexion.

Thus, such rapid modern means of communication – and the information so communicated and presented – are not conducive to wisdom. For in essence wisdom is personal, individual, and unique, and derives from πάθει μάθος – from one’s own personal experience, from reflexion upon that experience, and from the learning that such reflexion and such πάθει μάθος brings.

This is a slow often scholarly process, over long durations of causal Time, and almost always involves direct and reasoned (that is, hospitable, dignified, honourable and well-mannered) contact with fellow human beings, as well as a judgement of others based only on a personal knowledge of them over durations of causal Time. A judgement in the present that moreover is entirely independent of the other person’s past or alleged or assumed beliefs, whether these be deemed to be political or religious or whatever. And a judgement that is balanced because there is the accumulated wisdom of a living ancestral tradition (or of a Way of numinous living) for comparison, to give gravitas.

For me, there seems a certain sadness in the knowledge that my situation vis-a-vis assumptions made by others regarding my past, my experiences, my intent, is fairly common, and indeed possibly the rule for others, despite – in the societies of the West – over a hundred years of State-sponsored education, despite the accumulated πάθει μάθος, spanning over a thousand years, of Western culture, and despite the wisdom, accumulated over thousands of years, manifest in both other non-Western ancestral cultural traditions and in diverse numinous ways of life such as Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam.

A sadness deepened by my intuition that such rapid means of communication we have devised – from newspapers to broadcast media to the Internet – have led us away not only from the slow interior reflexion, and the ethos of the scholar, which are the genesis of wisdom, but also from the cultivation of dignity and honourable behaviour toward others. It seems no coincidence to me that these means of communication arose from and depend upon the industry, the commerce, the usury, of the metropoleis, and that these means allow for and encourage the ideation, the haste, and the profaneness, implicit both in urban living and in the now all-pervasive un-numinous State.

 
David Myatt
July 2011 CE

Notes

[1] Refer for instance to my essay An Overview of The Numinous Way of Life and also Introduction to The Philosophy of The Numen, and to JR Wright’s article The Numinous Way of David Myatt.

In respect of the numinous principle of δίκη, see my brief essay The Principle of Δίκα

David Myatt

Given below is a link to a pdf file (c. 1.5 Mb) containing a selection of David Myatt’s recent mystical writings. The work also contains an Introduction by Julie Wright (which we reproduce in full, below).

David Myatt – Some Mystical Writings (pdf)

Introduction by JR Wright

This work contains my selection, my prelations, from David Myatt’s recent and mostly autobiographical writings which I consider can rightly be described by the term mystical, revealing as these writings do not only the nature of Myatt’s philosophy of the Numinous Way, but also the results of his life life-long gnostic and Promethean quest.

It would, therefore and in my view, be correct to describe Myatt now as a mystic – as someone whose life devolves around a nondualistic awareness and understanding of the ultimate reality; an awareness and understanding of what Myatt himself describes as the numinous. Myatt the mystic seems and is – as a reading of the writings included here should reveal – worlds away from his past public personae as neo-nazi activist, theoretician of terror, and as a radical Islamist.

For Myatt’s life-long quest has been essentially two-fold. A global spiritual and gnostic odyssey, and a Promethean, an experiential, learning.

According to Professor Jeffrey Kaplan, this global spiritual odyssey took Myatt “on extended stays in the Middle East and East Asia, accompanied by studies of religions ranging from Christianity to Islam in the Western tradition and Taoism and Buddhism in the Eastern path. In the course of this Siddhartha-like search for truth, Myatt sampled the life of the monastery in both its Christian and Buddhist forms.” (1) Others – such as Professor George Michael and Goodricke-Clarke – have alleged that Myatt’s spiritual odyssey included exploring the occult, paganism, and “quasi-Satanic” secret societies (2) (3) and that Myatt founded, and led, the Left Hand Path occult group, the Order of Nine Angles. Myatt himself, however, has always denied having any practical involvement with occultism and Satanism. (4)

Myatt’s experiental learning involved life as a neo-nazi agitator, street thug, and small-time racketeer, with several spells in jail for violence; life as an advocate of Jihad, supporter of bin Laden and the Taliban; and life as a theoretician of terror. Myatt also founded and led two neo-nazi organizations – the NSM, and Reichsfolk – and was once arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder (5), although all charges against him were later dropped due to “insufficient evidence” (6).

Of Myatt the radical Islamist, Professor Robert S. Wistrich wrote that he “was a staunch advocate of Jihad, suicide missions and killing Jews [and] an ardent defender of bin Laden.” (7). At a NATO conference On Terrorism and Communications in April 2005, Myatt was described by Ely Karmon, a research scholar at The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, as having called on “all enemies of the Zionists to embrace the Jihad against Jews and the United States.” (8)

Of Myatt the theoretician of terror, Michael Whine of the Board of Deputies of British Jews wrote that the contents of one of the terrorist documents authored by Myatt “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.” (5)

Myatt was also described, by one English newspaper, as “the man who shaped mind of a bomber; the mentor who drove David Copeland to kill [...] Behind David Myatt’s studious exterior lies a more sinister character that has been at the forefront of extreme right-wing ideology in Britain since the mid-1960s.” (9)

Given such descriptions of his past activities and of his former ways of life, it is hardly surprising that Myatt the mystic has received no attention, something that I hope this selection of his recent writings will help to change.

Julie Wright
NYC
7/31/2011

Footnotes

(1) Kaplan, Geoffrey. Encyclopedia of white power: a sourcebook on the radical racist right (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000) p.216

(2) Michael, George. The Enemy of My Enemy: The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right. University Press of Kansas, 2006. p. 142ff.

(3)  Goodrick-Clark, N.  Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity. New York University Press, 2002.    Most of chapter 11 – Nazi Satanism – is devoted to Myatt.

(4) Myatt, David. Myngath – A Wyrdful Life. Thormynd Press, Seventh Edition, 2011.

(5) Cyberspace: A New Medium for Communication, Command and Control by Extremists. 1999. Published in Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, RAND, and also by International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, Herzliya.

(6) Vacca, John R. Computer Forensics: Computer Crime Scene Investigation, Charles River Media, 2005, p.420

(7) Wistrich, Robert S. A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad, Random House, 2010

(8) http://www.ict.org.il/Articles/tabid/66/Articlsid/194/Default.aspx   Accessed 7/31/2011

(9) Sunday Mercury, July 9, 2000

^^^^^^^

Source – http://www.davidmyatt.ws/myatt-mystical-writings-1.pdf

David Myatt, Interviews, Journalists, and Pathei-Mathos

Part One – Extracts from Myatt’s autobiography, Myngath (7th edition, 2011 CE)

Interviews

During the course of my political involvements, I gave four interviews to journalists, as one is inclined to do in the hope, however naive at the time, that one might thus publicized in a positive way the political cause or organization one is involved with.

Two of these interviews occurred during my time in Leeds and involvement with the NDFM, the other two during my involvement with Combat 18. It should be noted that the article that appeared about me, in 2006 CE, in The Times newspaper, under the main heading Muslim Extremists in Britain – like other similar newspaper articles – was about me, and not based on a direct, personal, interview. Instead, the comments attributed to me in that and other such articles about me are mostly taken from my writings, or from what others have reported I may, or may not, have said.

Of these real interviews, only one interviewer had the integrity to write an article containing a fairly accurate summary of what I said, and only one interviewer (unsurprisingly, the same one) had the integrity to produce an article which gave a reasonably accurate impression of me, as I was at the time. The other three all seemed, for some reason, to have some political, or perhaps some personal, agenda, which led to them to produce somewhat biased articles.

The person of integrity was Nicholas Witchell, who was then a student at Leeds University, an aspiring journalist, and editor of the student newspaper, in which newspaper the two page article about me was printed, under the headline Evil Genius. This was to be my second interview, and Nicolas Witchell, perhaps not surprisingly given the integrity of personal character he revealed to me at that time, went on to have a very successful career in journalism and broadcasting, becoming, for many years, the main newsreader for the BBC’s early evening television news, and later on, their Royal Correspondent, probably one of the best jobs in British journalism.

My first interview, however, was a few months before that, and not long after the formation of the NDFM, and during the interview I briefly mentioned how it might be possible for chaos to be created by subversive means, and subversive groups, as a prelude to a revolution which an NS movement could take advantage of, an idea I had been discussing for a while with several Comrades, including some in Column 88.

The journalist promised to let me read his final copy before it was published – a condition I had specified before giving the interview – and several photographs of me were taken, with him suggesting I hold something to do with the Occult, since he had noticed I had a collection of horror, and Occult, fiction (most of which in fact were given or loaned to me by Eddy Morrison). Perhaps foolishly, I agreed, holding up some Occult thingy which Joe Short had given to me a few days before. Our conversation lasted for about half an hour, during which the journalist took a few notes (it was not recorded).

I assumed that he would simply recount what I had said. Of course he neither showed me the article before publication, nor printed what I said, except for one short sentence about causing chaos. The journalist also made some rather silly allegations about animal sacrifice, which were investigated at the time by both the Police and the RSPCA whose conclusion was that they were fabrications concocted by the journalist, and perhaps, as I concluded, to get his name on the front page of the newspaper and sell more copies.

What surprised me (and to be honest, upset me, for a while), after this interview, was how so many people believed everything the journalist had written, without bothering to ask me for my side of the story. As if just because something was printed in some newspaper or other then “it must be true” or – as the cliché of mundanes goes: “there is no smoke without fire.” And it was then that I learnt several valuable lessons: just how easily people can be manipulated, just how dishonest and conniving (and thus dishonourable) some journalists seemed to be, by nature; and just how powerful the established Media was, able make or break a person’s reputation.

During my time with the NSM and Combat 18 I had occasion to give two more interviews, one with the journalist Nick Ryan, and the other with Nick Lowles, who worked for the Searchlight organization. Why did I give those interviews? Because I still, even then, despite many years of political involvement, believed that I, in trying to be honourable, should give people, including my political opponents, and even journalists, the benefit of the doubt. I bore them no personal malice since I neither liked or disliked them before I met them in person. But I was to be, rather sadly, disappointed, by their subsequent behaviour.

The first of these two interviews was with Ryan. We had arranged to meet on the top of the Malvern Hills, but he did not turn up, no doubt fearing an ambush, or an attack, or something equally silly. Perhaps he had heard rumours that I always carried a weapon, be the weapon a knife, a swordstick, or a .22 Bersa pistol, and perhaps he had heard that I was “a bit of a psychopath” who had no compunction about using such a weapon.

So, another meeting was arranged, at the small Tea-Shop on Malvern Railway Station – a public place, where no doubt he felt safe, and one which would make a good stop-off for me on one of my long cycle rides. We talked about politics, and especially about the NSM and Combat 18, and also a little about Martial Arts, which he had an interest in. I was affable, and honest – although somewhat circumspect as to where I was living – and my opinion of him was not unfavourable.

However, when his version of our encounter appeared in print, in his book entitled Homeland, it was clear that he seemed to have some political or personal agenda, for his account was somewhat biased, and seemed deliberately, if not rather cunningly, designed to give a quite negative impression of me. Ryan wrote:

Myatt draws inspiration from a fanatical devotion to Germany in the 1930s. “National Socialist Germany is the closest thing to there being a cultural expression of something which is natural and healthy for Aryan peoples,” he says in a polite, soft-spoken accent when we meet at the tea shop in Malvern station, surrounded by oblivious old-age pensioners.

Listening to Myatt is a surreal experience. A slim, diminutive figure dressed in bright cycling gear and sporting a huge beard, he has a passion for toasted tea cakes and translating Greek literature.

As someone [RS] was later to write about Ryan’s piece:

Notice how in just a few paragraphs Ryan paints his own picture of Myatt – as a rather strange diminutive fanatic. The impression that Ryan wants to create – and does, for most of his readers – is of Myatt as some weird character, whom you just cannot take seriously.

Note, for instance, how Ryan states that Myatt has a fanatical devotion to Germany in the 1930′s – quoting a few words by Myatt out of context, omitting Myatt’s later remarks about Myatt’s own revision of German NS ideology, evident in Myatt’s ethical National-Socialism and his Reichsfolk group, and omitting how even some of Myatt’s opponents (as evident for example in one Searchlight article) considered he had attempted to revise Hitler’s National-Socialism. Thus, Myatt certainly did not have a fanatical devotion to Germany in the 1930′s – more like a devotion, at that time, to his own version of that ideology.

Note, for instance, how Ryan states that Myatt is a slim diminutive figure – whereas if Ryan was being truthful and unbiased he could have written something like, “Myatt is five foot nine inches, and fit for his fifty years, due to his work as a farm laborer and competing in cycle races…”   Myatt’s height, by the way, is average for men of his generation.

Note also how Ryan states that Myatt has a passion for toasted tea cakes, whereas Myatt simply ordered a tea-cake (and tea) in an establishment that only sold tea-cakes and sandwiches, and just stated that he liked tea-cakes.

Note how Ryan states that Myatt is dressed in bright cycling gear and sporting a huge beard. Conveying the impression of a rather weird person. The simple truth is that Myatt was dressed in bright cycling gear because of cycling long distances on busy roads – which makes sense, although Ryan makes it sound eccentric; and as for the socalled huge beard, see the photograph of Myatt below, where Myatt’s red-beard (which goes with his green eyes) is not “huge” by any standards, and never was.

David Myatt 1993

The second of these two interviews was with Nick Lowles. As someone later wrote about this encounter, since he was there:

Myatt is interviewed at an Inn in Craven Arms, Shropshire, by Nick Lowles of Searchlight, who – fearful of Myatt’s reputation as man of violence who “always carries a weapon” – brings along a “minder” and declines Myatt’s suggestion to meet elsewhere, fearing an ambush. Unknown to Lowles, several supporters of Myatt are already present in the Inn. Lowles tries to get Myatt to admit to being Anton Long, mentioning a PO Box in Hereford which he claims is “proof”, but Myatt politely replies that he was, for a short while only, merely doing a favor for a long-standing friend whose views he did not share. Lowles eventually gets angry – shouting at Myatt: “Why don’t you just admit it!” – but Myatt remains calm and polite and repeats his denial. Myatt was later to write that he had mentioned this friend several times before, including to Professor Jeffrey Kaplan (see footnote #51 of Kaplan’s book Nation and Race).

Some of Lowles’ fellow travellers subsequently and incorrectly claimed that I had, during this conversation, “admitted to being Anton Long”. Lowles also claimed that, at the time of the interview, I was living on a farm in Shropshire, with my good friend Richard Moult, although the truth was that I was, as I had been for years, living with my wife in a village near Malvern – a fact I assumed a journalist such as Lowles would have ascertained, or could easily have ascertained. This false claim might perhaps indicate something regarding the veracity of other claims made by Lowles.

Suffice to say that these two interviews, the last I ever gave, and their consequences and their subsequent use, and the attitude, character, and intent of those two individuals described as journalists, provided me with more opportunities to learn from experience, a learning which aided my insights into abstractions and how some individuals can, it seems, so easily behave in an unethical way if they believe that what they are doing, or what they believe in, is right and just.

I, however, as a result of such experiences as these – and many many more similar experiences over the next ten years – would finally come to the conclusion, expressed in my philosophy of The Numinous Way – that nothing, no cause, no ideology, no faith, no belief, no abstraction, justifies unethical personal behaviour.

Thus, there was to be, for me, and eventually, an interior revolution, a complete change of ethos. Or, perhaps more correctly, I would discover again the simple truths I had felt, though then not rationally understood, as a young curious naive boy in Africa and the Far East. Truths which I had once tried to express, while at University, during an exchange of letters with, among others, Martin Webster.

Journalists, Allegations, and Propaganda

For many years – in fact up to and including the present – rumours and allegations concerning my involvement with practical Occultism have been in circulation, and regularly referred to and repeated by journalists, and others, in newspapers, magazines, articles and, latterly, on that new medium, greatly susceptible to the spreading dishonourable allegations and rumours, that has been termed the Internet. One of these allegations is that I am a certain person known as Anton Long.

These rumours, and allegations, derive in part from the aforementioned scurrilous article in 1974 CE in Leeds. In the three decades since that interview, only three people, on hearing or learning about such rumours and allegations, have had the decency to ask me, in person, “for my side of the story”. The first was Colin Jordan, the second was John Tyndall, and the third was Steve Sargent.

I have, when asked in person, or via impersonal means of communication such as letters, always denied such allegations of such involvement, as I have, on numerous occasions, challenged anyone to provide evidence of such accusations. No such evidence has ever been forthcoming.

I have also, on a few occasions, challenged some individuals to a duel with deadly weapons, according to the etiquette of duelling, for repeating and spreading such rumours and allegations, two of these individuals being Nick Lowles and Nick Ryan. Not one of the individuals so challenged to a duel had the honour to accept, or issue a public apology in lieu of fighting such a duel.

Such challenges, the lack of evidence to support such allegations and rumours, and the refusal of those so challenged to a duel of honour to either fight that duel of honour or issue an apology, reveals the truth of this particular matter – at least to those possessed of arête.

Why have such rumours and allegations persisted? Perhaps there are two simple reasons. First, because some people, lacking empathy, have had and probably still do have a vested interest, or motive – political or otherwise – in trying to discredit me, because to them I am not an individual but rather only a nazi or a fanatic or some weirdo or whatever; second, because some people are just dishonourable or irrational by nature, and so make instinctive judgements based on their own prejudices, and/or they believe what they hear or read without ever bothering to do their own research, and/or they lack the ability to rationally consider the matters for themselves and certainly lack the personal character to give someone the benefit of the doubt.

Thus, in some ways, the persistence of such rumours and allegations may well be a tribute to our current human condition and our current societies. Of how so many people are still in thrall to abstractions and still prejudiced – and so judge others on the basis of such abstractions or on some instinctive ignoble prejudice – and of how current societies seem to militate against, and even to discourage, with their impersonal means of communications and their Media, that direct and personal knowing which is the basis for all ethical judgement.

One of the unsubstantiated allegations of the Searchlight crowd is that I was a friend of someone called Vik Norris – something they blandly stated in their alleged ‘expose’ of me, under the headline The Most Evil Nazi in Britain, in the April 1998 issue of Searchlight magazine (an issue now widely available in facsimile on the Internet). No evidence for this allegation was presented then, or subsequently – although their intent was obvious: smear by association, one of the many underhand tricks employed by dishonourable journalists.

Indeed, in typical tabloid dishonourable-journalist style, the article simply contains bland assertions by them about me and Satanism with no evidence presented to support such assertions. For example: (1) they propagandistically stated that the ONA was “formed by Myatt himself in the early 1980′s” but offer no proof for this claim of theirs; (2) they write about “Myatt and his satanic friends” yet never name these alleged ‘satanic’ friends or provide any proof of involvement by any of my friends with Satanism; (3) they claim that “within days of being investigated”, the ONA withdrew its material from the Internet and that I had shaved off my beard in an attempt to disguise myself, with yet again no evidence being provided for these allegations, which were patently untrue, as anyone could have verified at the time by searching the Internet, calling on me or asking those with whom I worked.

Unsurprisingly, over the years, many people over the years have – for personal or political reasons – referenced this Searchlight article as ‘proof’ of my alleged involvement, when anyone of any sagacity on reading that and similar articles about me can rationally deduce it and they are merely malicious propaganda designed to discredit, but worded in such a dishonourable way that even were one to sue the authors for libel in a British civil court (assuming one had the money to do so) there would be no guarantee of success – a legalistic tactic such dishonourable journalists often rely on when they peddle their lies and make their malicious accusations.

As for me, I have never bothered to have recourse to civil law, and established Courts, to sue those making libellous allegations about me quite simply because the only law I believe in and strive to uphold is the law of personal honour. Given that I have challenged two journalists, according to the law of personal honour, to a duel with deadly weapons for making such malicious allegations, and given that they did not have the honour to accept this challenge or issue an apology in lieu of fighting a duel, I consider my honour vindicated and their own dishonourable character proven.

Furthermore, what the manufacture, the publication, and the re-publication, of such allegations – and the lack of proof to substantiate them – reveal to me at least, is the personality of those manufacturing, publishing and repeating them. For such individuals reveal a personal or a political agenda: some motivation that makes them think and behave in a prejudiced and often hateful way, although of course they themselves often or almost always delude themselves or arrogantly believe, in their pursuit of their agenda (their ‘crusade’) they are doing something good, and that their methods, and their words, are somehow ‘justified’.

In addition, while the individuals manufacturing, publishing, and repeating, such allegations castigate the object of their allegations as a person ‘full of hate’ and/or as ‘intolerant’, it is they themselves who are the intolerant, hate-filled prejudiced ones.

For, in the interests of making or pursing some ‘story’, or in the interests of discrediting someone they have a prejudice against (because of assumed or real political/religious beliefs) or because of some innate, irrational, dislike of someone, such individuals have a profound disregard for truth, do not care about establishing the facts based on solid evidence, and reveal an astounding lack of empathy. For their assumptions about someone, and/or their prejudice about people who have certain political/beliefs, come before their humanity. They just do not see, or do not care about, the real human being behind the image they have manufactured of that human being. Instead, they neatly in their prejudice, see only some label they or others have assigned to that human being – labels such as ‘fascist’, or ‘nazi’, or ‘fanatic’ or ‘satanist’.

Not that, of course, those individuals manufacturing, publishing, and repeating, such allegations would admit this about themselves, even if they possessed the self-awareness to understand it.

Note: The following excerpts are taken from David Myatt’s lengthy and highly controversial essay, The Uncertitude of Knowing, published March 2011 CE. These excerpts provide informative insights about Myatt’s mystical Numinous Way philosophy, and his sometimes controversial views regarding Catholicism, National Socialism, and other subjects. For convenience, we have divided the excepts into categories.

In our view, one of the most interesting comments Myatt makes in that essay is regarding the collective (contrasted with the individual) nature of National Socialism, and his description of NS Germany as “a curious mixture, of ἀρετή and ὕβρις.“

Myatt’s complete essay is available as a pdf file here: Uncertitude of Knowing

The Numinous Way

Fundamentally, what I believe the ethical thing to do is for individuals to live according to the mystical principles I have tried to outline in my Numinous Way philosophy. This is what I personally now try to do. Few individuals, of those inclined by nature toward honour, however, will do this, and will instead turn to or rely on other Ways, or some causal form, which attracts them because such Ways or forms radiate at least something numinous, and thus may or can presence something honourable, in this suffering-blighted world. Such Ways include, for example, Buddhism, the Sufism of Islam, and the remnants of the old Catholicism of the Catholic Church (manifest for example in the Latin Opus Dei of monasticism).

I understand such Ways for the type of presencing of the numinous that they are; for the guidance that they are, have been, to a better, more ethical, way of life for many human beings, and thus how they have and still can alleviate at least some suffering. But of course, to me, they – and similar Ways and forms, including Reichsfolk – are imperfect; not what I personally adhere to or believe in. In addition, I am acutely aware that my answers are just my answers, and that I could be in error. So it is that I make no claims for my own Numinous Way, other than it represents my fallible answers to certain complex philosophical and ethical questions. Thus while I may point out how this Numinous Way of mine may differ from Buddhism, or from Reichsfolk, or from traditional Catholicism, I do not, given my understanding of such forms, such Ways, stridently criticize them; only appreciate them for what they are, or more correctly, for what I with my limited understanding consider them to be.

A basic aim of a Way such as my Philosophy of The Numen is to foster a better understanding of empathy – for instance, as a source of ethics, and for what I have termed acausal knowing – and thus to suggest that by cultivating empathy human beings can live in a compassionate and honourable way and also move toward the emergence of a new way of living involving new types of societies. I have suggested that one way for such a new way of living to emerge is for empathic individuals (empaths) – that is, individuals who have or who are cultivating a sympatheia [συμπάθεια] with their fellow humans and with Nature, and who have, of their own volition, decided to follow an ethic, a morality, based on empathy [συν-πάθος] – to form small new clans and thence new tribes. [1]

Thus, one might well use an expression such as ‘forming societies of empaths’, in preference to forming new tribes and clans, as one might use The Society of Empaths, or something similar, to describe The Numinous Way itself.

However, since The Numinous Way is, by the very nature of empathy, an individual way, there is no necessity, no duty explicit or implied, no expectation for individuals sympathetic to The Numinous Way to form such new societies – it is only one possibility which may emerge for them if they are so inclined toward a more communal way of living with others of their empathic kind, and one thing which would distinguish such a numinous society of empaths from other, currently existing societies, is personal honour and its implementation within such a society. Hence the appellation clan and tribe….

In practical terms, this means that The Numinous Way is not only an individual choice for people to accept or to reject, agree with or disagree with, but also that individuals who are sympathetic to it can choose to live in any currently existing society and engage, for example, in whatever occupation they choose, for it is their empathy – their application of empathy – which is important; their personal judgement deriving from their empathy and from the immediacy of the living moment. That is, their choice, their choices, is and are determined only by themselves by means of their own empathy.

In effect, therefore, the cultivation of empathy engenders a genuine liberation of the individual, and it does this without any exterior abstractions, without any dogma, and indeed without imposing any causal structures or restrictions upon the individual. The cultivation and use of empathy by individuals means that they develope their own guidelines.

Catholicism

For over a millennia Catholicism presenced something of the numinous – as is evident, for example, in the Latin plainchant of liturgia horarum; in the solemnity of the Latin Tridentine Mass; and in the inspiration afforded to composers such as John Dunstable, Dufay, and Josquin Desprez, and artists such as Raphael and Michelangelo. In addition, Catholicism contributed significantly to the development of Western culture – for example, by the scholarly attitude that developed in the monasteries and led to the foundation of places of learning such as Oxford; and in the monastic contribution to medieval and pre-medieval life, which included care of the sick and dying, and which in places such as England led, for instance, to the drainage and cultivation of the Fens and the Somerset levels, and the development of the trade in wool, all of which increased the well-being and prosperity of the local population.

What is important here is that by so presencing the numen, by so manifesting a cultural ethos, a civilized attitude where manners, certain standards of personal behaviour, were expected – and having a living tradition to maintain these over centuries – Catholicism, by its unique society, provided a reminder of balance, of Δίκα, and thus of that personal humility that is not only essential to civilized behaviour but which is the prehension of wisdom. That is, it expressed and gave a necessary intimation of the divine beyond our mortal and often dishonourable lives. For without such an expression, without such an intimation, without such a reminder, we so often descend down to be barbarians, again….

Thus, Catholicism – especially of the traditionalist variety – is still “capable of guiding honourable individuals to do what is honourable”, and thus still has “the ability to alleviate at least some of the suffering which blights this world.”

Political Involvement

Personally, for me there is the acausal wisdom termed wu-wei. There is the empathy of the immediacy of the moment, and the desire deriving therefrom to cease to personally be a cause of suffering and to instead become imbued with such manifestations of the numinous as culture kept and keeps alive. This, and these, preclude involvements in causal things, and causal organizations, such as many people suspect me of. They preclude support for all such causal forms, although I do on occasion admit to feeling as Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη felt:

ὢ πόποι, ἦ δὴ πολλὸν ἀποιχομένου Ὀδυσῆος
δεύῃ, ὅ κε μνηστῆρσιν ἀναιδέσι χεῖρας ἐφείη

Before the gods! How great is the need here for the absent Odysseus -
For him to set about these disrespectful ones with his fists!

Homer, The Odyssey, Book I, 253-254

Over the decades, my experience – my learning from my experiences – has taught me to be wary of abstractions, of dogma, as it has led me far away from all political dogma, away from faith, from believing in some heaven; from believing in the efficacy of prayer to some deity; and distanced me from accepting such axioms as nirvana and rebirth.

National Socialism

The Numinous Way, per se – philosophically, ethically – has no direct affinity with National-Socialism just as those striving to live by the ethics of empathy have no συμπάθεια with that particular causal form and the abstractions that make it what it is….

Since race is an abstraction, a perceived race, however defined, cannot re-present the numinous in a numinous – in an authentic – way. In addition, since both State and nation are themselves abstractions [8], they cannot ground, or presence, or authentically manifest, the numinous, but serve only to distance the individual from the empathy and the personal honour, and the local dwelling with its necessity of personal knowing and personal interaction, that (according to The Numinous Way) do manifest the living, the human, nature of the numinous. Furthermore, the use of the abstraction of race (or any abstraction) – codified by abstract laws – to judge others, and interfere in and with their lives, personal and/or professional, is contrary to both empathy and honour.

It is in [the] context, of practical knowledge and practical experience, that I, for instance, write and speak about Adolf Hitler – for I have met people who knew him, as I have felt, known, understood, these people to themselves be honourable individuals. Thus my view of Adolf Hitler, and of his National-Socialism, is very different from that held by the majority of people today – and indeed amounts to an heretical view, for I consider him to be have been an honourable man who honourably and intuitively strove to presence, in Germany, the numinous and who succeeded against all expectations in creating the beginnings of a noble society. And a society adjudged noble, by me, because I have also known many, many, good people who lived in that society and thus have their first-hand accounts to guide me…

[Here] I try and place that phenomena into the correct perspective, based on my own knowledge and experience, and which knowledge and experience has led me to believe that both National-Socialism and National-Socialist Germany have been much misunderstood and much maligned. Given this perspective, then one can proceed to form a reasoned judgement about National-Socialism.

[What] has not really been understood, let alone appreciated, is that NS Germany was an intuitive attempt to transfer the traditional collective way of living to a modern State and nation, and thus should be considered in this context. Hitherto, it has been judged, philosophically [5], by particular abstract criteria – such as the happiness and the freedom and the ‘rights’ of the individual – which in my opinion is not correct since it expresses a different, non-individual, ethos. As I mentioned in Part Two, in the collective way the individual has duties and obligations to the community, which come before the happiness, the desires, of the individual.

Therefore, this modern attempt to re-establish a collective, traditional, way of life, using modern means – forms such as The State – is interesting philosophically, existentially, especially since Blud und Boden was an intuitive apprehension of the numinous, and then an attempt to manifest and evolve, using such modern forms, a still living tradition devolving around a living folk and to re-present and encourage the symbiotic relationship that lies at the heart of the collective ethos and in the dwelling of particular people in a particular locality who have a common tradition.

Or, as Heidegger attempted to express it in some controversial writings – for instance regarding the Volksgemeinschaft and by quoting Aeschylus [6] – National-Socialism could be considered a modern means to engender a will-to-existence for the German volk grounded in truth and the essence that was the German volk.

[6] τέχνη δ᾽ ἀνάγκης ἀσθενεστέρα μακρῷ.

How so very feeble Craft is before Compulsion!

Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, 514. Quoted by Heidegger in his 1933 speech at the University of Freiburg.

For The Numinous Way, National-Socialist Germany is judged in respect of the use of particular causal forms and causal abstractions – the forms of State and Nation, and the abstraction of race, for instance. That is, by the use of such forms to try to constrain or limit or impose boundary conditions upon the numinous in order to manifest and evolve a still living tradition. In effect, therefore, National-Socialist Germany was an attempt to create a hybrid society – to establish an ethnic communal State based on a traditional communal way of living (with its sense of common duty and loyalty), to use science and technology in the service of this State for the benefit of the race (the people), to establish a common duty to this State on the basis of a shared tradition, and to establish a mission (a destiny) for this State, and thus the people, which would strengthen and evolve their tradition and the people themselves.

But this hybrid society with its planning did not, and could not, succeed for basically three reasons. First, because the numinous living essence – manifest in the natural traditional communal life of ancestral folk communities of extended families, and thus of clans and tribes – cannot be extrapolated out of its context of local dwelling and local difference to become contained within a planned, manufactured, abstraction such as a State. Second, because the use or the threat of the use of force to stifle dissent, encourage cohesion and enforce policies, with the threat or the reality of imprisonment for dissenters, is a dishonourable thing to do, more so if sanctioned by some supra-personal authority. Third, because National-Socialism and thus NS Germany, became synonymous with the will, the judgement, the instinct, of one man – and human beings are mortal, and one man, however gifted, is fallible, can and will make mistakes, and sooner or later will suffer death or be defeated by his enemies, especially if those enemies be legion. Sic Transit Gloria.

Thus, while National-Socialist Germany did manage to move toward creating the beginnings of a new type of society which was more noble and more numinous than those of its contemporary States (which exposes the reality of those States), it was inherently flawed, and transient, due to the use of abstractions, such as race, State, abstract laws enforced by threat of imprisonment, that of a supra-personal and somewhat arrogant destiny, and of war as a means of trying to resolve conflicts and implement that destiny. Hence, it was an unstable amalgam, a curious mixture, of ἀρετή and ὕβρις, as for example were many Greek heroes of myth, literature and legend, such as mighty Agamemnon, that son of Atreus: which possibly explains why NS Germany continues to fascinate and enthral certain people, and why as a way of living it engaged so many good, honourable, and indeed cultured, Germans, with many of these admiring it even after its defeat.

Human Rights

[One] important foundation of the theory that is the basis for what is termed ‘human rights’ is the distinction made between the collective individual and the idealized individual, and the assumption that the latter is morally superior to the former.

In many ways, this is the distinction between the secular philosophy and ethos of the now urbanized material West, and the collective ethos that is manifest in Islam and in the living reality of more traditional, communal based, societies that still exist in many non-Western lands where spirituality is far more of an expression of community cohesion than spirituality is in the lands of the modern West.

What is of note here is the idealized individual. The ideation of manufacturing, of positing, some general, ideal and isolated, individual who possesses – or who should possess – certain qualities. That is, the abstraction that is ‘human rights’ is projected upon the ideation that is this idealized individual without the individual being considered in context – for the individual has been abstracted out from the living reality of their culture, from their society, from their own πάθει μάθος, from their own personal knowing and experience, and – importantly – from the numen itself.

In the illustrative sense, the theory of ‘human rights’ manufactures a template (a blueprint) for the individual human being, and then this template is used to judge not only the diversity of living individuals but also the societies which those living individuals dwell in, which in effect means the proponents of the theory of ‘human rights’ manufacture another template, in this instance for an idealized society which fits their idealized, disconnected, human being.

Actual existing societies are then morally judged on how well they conform to this ideal, this template – it being considered that the more they conform or approximate or strive for this manufactured ideal, then the more moral, the better, they are. In addition, it is assumed that laws, some particular type of government, some charters, some agencies and forces of ‘law and order’, can aid the process of making a society approach, approximate to, or reach, the ideal.

For in the theory of ‘human rights’ – in all variants of this theory – the abstraction of such rights is bound to the notion of a structured society, of some nation, some State, or some supra-national organization, being able to safeguard, give, cultivate, or guarantee such rights, and thus such rights by necessity require such a controlled society, and depend on the relation which exists between that society and the individuals within it, a relationship governed by enforceable and abstract laws.

Thus the context of such societies – and of the individuals in them – becomes these abstractions, laws relating to them, obedience to such laws, and the pursuit of these abstractions, these ideals, which ideals are said to be able to produce or to guarantee ‘human rights’ and thus can ensure the happiness of individuals, with the happiness of isolated, abstracted, individuals being considered desirable if not the most important thing. Society then becomes an un-numinous collection of mostly isolated individuals or nuclear families who possess expectations concerning their rights and their standard of living, and who thus pursue materialism and an abstract happiness dependant upon how well their ‘rights’, their individual demands, their expectations, are met and catered for by their society and the government which rules over and controls this society.

In contrast, in the collective ethos, the person is not considered to be separate from their community, but instead is considered a necessary part of it in a living, an organic, a symbiotic, manner usually determined by ancestral or cultural custom (rather than by abstract laws) so that the person has duties and obligations – a necessary function, a contribution to make – rather than abstract ‘rights’. Fulfilling these duties and obligations, and so following custom, is therefore their raison d’etre, and comes before their own individual happiness and even desires, since the welfare, the well-being, of the community depends on this unity, derived from the accepted contribution of the individuals who compose the community. Thus, with the collective ethos, the individual nurtures the community and the community succours (cares for) the individual….

The Police

[Due] to my strange if not quixotic ways of life…. I have known more good Police officers than bad, and some who were indeed honourable individuals, motivated by the best of intentions, trying to do their best in their own way to help victims of dishonourable deeds and catch those responsible for such deeds, and who strove to make a difference and who in their own way understood what Muslims mean by Amr bil Maroof wa Nahi anil Munkar.

There are many honourable individuals in various societies who have strived and who strive to do what is good and who for so being honourable and so striving cannot – at least by me from my mystical airy-fairy ‘above Time’ Ivory Tower – be condemned. Such as an honourable Police officer seeking to find the person who has perpetrated a dishonourable deed, and whose whole professional life centres around such a noble seeking.

I understand such a person; I respect and even admire them for their honourable behaviour, even if I personally and philosophically have reservations about The State, and the laws of such a State which give to such a Police officer certain authority. For it is the dishonourable nature of the deeds done by a dishonourable person, and the instinct for honour, for fairness, which motivates such an officer, which are important, which transcend the temporal nature of some law made by some government and the temporal nature of some police organization existing in some temporal State. For what is honourable is what is honourable and right, and what is dishonourable is wrong, Aeon after Aeon. Thus, such honourable individuals transcend their context, their causal Time, the causal form those individuals might personally adhere to, such as the British Police force. But perhaps it is necessary that I here in further explanation add that I have known such people, such honourable Police officers striving to do their honourable duty, and so am writing and talking about that which and those whom I have some practical knowledge of. That is, I have not constructed – or I believe I have not constructed – some abstract theory or dogma to judge such actions, such individuals, but only view them in the context of my own πάθει μάθος and that recorded and transmitted πάθει μάθος which resides in that treasure which is our human culture, and especially in the treasure that is the Hellenistic and Western cultural tradition – of philosophy, of music, of literature, Art – and in the treasures I have discovered and learned from in other cultures, such as the Muslim one, the Buddhist one, the Hindu one, and the Taoist one.

Source – http://www.davidmyatt.ws/myatt-uncertitude-of-knowing.html

The following downloadable pdf files to items by David Myatt are, in our view, the essential ones for understanding his life and works, including his philosophy of The Numinous Way.