The Order of Nine Angles (ONA) is a purported secretive Satanist organization, initially formed in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, and which rose to public note during the 1980s and 1990s after having been mentioned in books detailing fascist Satanism. Presently, the ONA is organized around clandestine cells (which it calls "traditional nexions") and around what it calls "sinister tribes".

History

According to their own testimony, the Order of Nine Angles was originally formed in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in the 1960s, with the merger of three neopagan temples called Camlad, The Noctulians, and Temple of the Sun. Following the original leader's emigration to Australia, it has been alleged that David Myatt took over the order and began writing the now publicly-available teachings of the ONA. The ONA now has associates, and groups, in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

, New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

, Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

, and Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

.

Authorship

Author Nick Ryan has asserted that Anton Long, the author of the ONA's public tracts, is a pseudonym of David Myatt, a person who was involved with the neo-Nazi movement in England. This assertion is repeated by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke

Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke B.A. , D.Phil. is a professor of Western Esotericism at University of Exeter and author of several books on esoteric traditions....

, who claims that David Myatt was the founder of the ONA and writer of most of the ONA documents, and had previously acted as bodyguard for "British Nazi Colin Jordan

Colin Jordan

John Colin Campbell Jordan was a leading figure in postwar Neo-Nazism in Britain. In the far-right nationalist circles of the 1960s, Jordan represented the most explicitly 'Nazi' inclination in his open use of the styles and symbols of the Third Reich.Through organisations such as the National...

".

Ryan also alleged in his book that Myatt lived in the 1990s on a smallholding in Shropshire with Christos Beest, who has given several interviews on behalf of the ONA and performed a live recording of The Self-Immolation Rite that was included with Vol. 2 No. 3 of Fenrir. Myatt in his autobiography Myngath, and other writings, has denied this and challenged Ryan to a duel for making that and other allegations.

David Myatt has always denied allegations about involvement with Satanism, the ONA, and using the pseudonym Anton Long, and repeatedly challenged anyone to provide any evidence of such allegations.

Beliefs

The Order postulates Satanism

Satanism

Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...

 as being a highly individualized quest that aims to create self-excellence and wisdom, by undertaking challenges that allow a person to transcend his physical and mental limits. It is meant to involve the arduous achievement of self-mastery and Nietzschean

Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...

 self-overcoming, with an emphasis on individual growth through practical acts of risk, prowess and endurance. Rites of passage, often connected to promotion in grade level, include spending three months living rough in a forest bereft of human contact, and the assumption of difficult occupations to develop personality and leadership ability. This is meant to aid in the evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

 of the individual: "this new individual will be fierce, free, exult in exploration and discovery and possess an essentially pagan attitude to life." This, in turn, will lead to the transformation of society into a higher, refined civilization.

According to the ONA:

"Satanism is understood by its genuine adherents as a particular Occult

Occult

The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...

 way or method. That is, it is a specific path or way toward a specific goal, the following of which involves a particular way of living. The specific path, or 'Left Hand Path

Left-Hand Path and Right-Hand Path

The terms Left-Hand Path and Right-Hand Path are a dichotomy between two opposing philosophies found in the Western Esoteric Tradition, which itself covers various groups involved in the occult and ceremonial magic. In some definitions, the Left-Hand Path is equated with malicious Black Magic and...

', is a dark, sinister one, and the specific goal is the creation of a new type of individual. On a more general level, Satanism is concerned with changing our evolution and the societies we live in - creating, in fact, a new human species and a civilization appropriate to the new type of human being." (Anton Long: Satanism: A Basic Introduction for Prospective Adherents, Thormynd Press, England, 1992)

In addition, the ONA claims that its sinister tribes are an important part of its Aeonic, sinister, strategy to build a new, tribal-based, more sinister way of life, and to disrupt and eventually overthrow the societies of what it calls "the mundanes".

The ONA's writings condone and encourage human sacrifice as a means of eliminating the weak: Anton Long describes it as "a contribution to improving the human stock, removing the worthless, the weak, the diseased (in terms of character)". This "culling" serves not just a social Darwinian

Social Darwinism

Social Darwinism is a term commonly used for theories of society that emerged in England and the United States in the 1870s, seeking to apply the principles of Darwinian evolution to sociology and politics...

 purpose, but is also connected to the promotion of a new Aeon: "The change that is necessary means that there must be a culling, or many cullings, which remove the worthless and those detrimental to further evolution." Thus, true Satanism, they assert, requires venturing into the realm of the forbidden and illegal, in order to make contact with the "sphere of acausal, sinister forces on the cosmos." The presencing of acausal energies, such as through culling, is meant to create a new Aeon

Aeon

The word aeon, also spelled eon or æon , originally means "life", and/or "being", though it then tended to mean "age", "forever" or "for eternity". It is a Latin transliteration from the koine Greek word , from the archaic . In Homer it typically refers to life or lifespan...

, whose energies will then create a newer, higher civilization from the energy unleashed.

Probably because of the ONA's highly radical stance, there is open animosity between the ONA and "mainstream" Satanists such as the Church of Satan

Church of Satan

The Church of Satan is an organization dedicated to the acceptance of the carnal self, as articulated in The Satanic Bible, written in 1969 by Anton Szandor LaVey.- History :...

. The ONA publicly disavows any connection to Church of Satan, claiming the Satanic Bible to be a "watered-down philosophy". The ONA eschews the religious type of approach evident in groups such as the Temple of Set

Temple of Set

The Temple of Set is an initiatory occult society claiming to be the world's leading left-hand path religious organization. It professes Setian philosophy and magical practice.-History:...

and regards other Satanic groups, such as the Church of Satan, with contempt.

The Temple of Set proscribed the ONA in the early 1980s for its avowal of
human sacrifice.

The ONA has its own, unique, ontology and theology of Satanism, based on the axioms of (1) a bifurcation of Reality into an acausal continuum and a causal continuum, and (2) the existence of acausal beings in this acausal continuum, one of whom is the being conventionally known as Satan.