Cinema and the ONA: Everything Everywhere All at Once
(Rev. 2.2)
Certain dynamics alluded to by the Order of Nine Angles find application in many areas of life. In the world of cinema, these take on complex artistic expressions. They can be found in numerous films, such as Andrzej Zulawski’s masterpiece Possession (1981), which addresses how the little-discussed relationship between the Star Gate and Dark Angle forms the basis for all intersubjective experience (captured beautifully in the expression by Isabelle Adjani’s character, “Because you say ‘I’ for me”); in Tarkovsky’s Stalker (1979), which explores how universal desire is revealed in the constitution of spiritual absence (connecting to the path of Lidagon as one of the three hidden paths on the Tree of Wyrd); in David Lynch’s Lost Highway (1997), which explores the relationship between transformation and disassociation with respect to identity (redolent of what can occur during the journey of the Sevenfold Way at the individual level); in Ingmar Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly (1961), which addresses the boundary between madness and divinity in the beauty of the ordinary and the everyday (calling into question the use of the term “mundane”); in Neten Chokling’s Milarepa (2006), which explores the consequences of revenge and the infliction of suffering through the story of one of Tibet’s greatest yogis and saints (calling “culling” into question and placing it in its proper mythic context within the Labyrinthos Mythologicus); in Lars von Trier’s Melancholia (2011) and Breaking the Waves (1996), which, taken together, establish a cosmic context for what lies beyond – and what most misunderstand by – the phrase “Insight Role”; and in the comedic cynicism of works like Man Bites Dog (1992) and Trier’s more profound The House that Jack Built (2018), which remind us not to take ourselves too seriously and what can happen in a world without love, respectively.
Though I hope to explore cinema in relation to the Order of Nine Angles further in the future, here I want to briefly note a film that unexpectedly caught my attention this evening: Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert’s Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022). In addition to its parallels to the ONA – [SPOILER ALERTS] such as the possible link between Jobu Tupaki and Baphomet, navigating the multiverse and directing acausal energy through consciousness, and influencing parallel states of existence [END SPOILERS] – the film casts a beautiful thematic shadow over the idea of constituting meaning from chaos. Its heroic approach to making meaningful the statement “nothing matters” also illustrates a curious turn in the current narrative of the ONA with respect to its trajectory, its interpersonal application in the real world, and the underlying motivations of its hidden practice. The film does this in cogent, topical, creative, and highly original way, one that I personally found quite moving. Obviously it won’t appeal to everyone, but the unexpected parallels to the ONA alone make it worthwhile viewing. Top-tier performances from Michelle Yeoh, Stephanie Hsu, and Ke Huy Quan. Recommended.
The Star Game, Chess, and the Nine Angles:
An Introduction to Chess Hermeneutics
Much attention is given in the Order of Nine Angles to the importance of learning and playing the Star Game. At its most basic level, the Star Game can function as a learning tool or “game” to familiarize oneself with various Septenary correspondences and refine certain imaginative, creative, rational, and abstract faculties. At one of many esoteric levels, the Star Game functions as a way of magickally apprehending “the nine fundamental ‘alchemical’ forms,” which “re-present the acausal manifest in the causal.”[1] These “nine fundamental forms” are represented by the pieces of the Star Game, where each alchemical combination represents an “angle” with respect to the Septenary Tree of Wyrd, alluding to one esoteric meaning of the term “nine angles.”[2] These forms are said to “exist in many combinations within the nexion which the ‘Tree of Wyrd’ represents,” where such combinations “are abstractly symbolized by the placement of the many pieces of the Star Game over the seven boards (‘Spheres’) of that game.”[3] The aforesaid abstraction “makes the [nine fundamental] forms understandable on a level higher than using words and ideas,” which is in turn meant to cultivate “a new form of thinking” – a form of thinking referred to as “acausal thinking.”[4] The symbolism of the Star Game is essentially “a new tool to assist and develope our understanding, and it is via this symbolism that the meanings of the nine angles may most easily be understood without confusion.”[5] The simple or Septenary form of the Star Game is meant to be an introduction to its advanced form, which is a “complete and full representation of the septenary system.”[6] In more advanced applications, the Star Game functions as a “sophisticated magickal ‘clock’” with respect to the Wheel of Life;[7] and in its advanced form, the game can be used for Aeonic magick.[8]
While many associates have some understanding of the esoteric significance of the Star Game and its basic applications, I find it bewildering how so many associates attempt to learn the Star Game while completely neglecting training and experience in the game of chess.
CHESS AND THE STAR GAME
Like the Star Game, chess can be played as nothing more than an entertaining game, rich with complexity and a deep cultural history over the course of its long evolution. But from its longstanding cultural origins, its tangible influence on world history,[9] its influence on global technology,[10] and its usefulness in developing certain higher-level faculties in the individual, the significance of chess has broader socio-cultural implications. Unlike the Star Game, chess is merely a game. But it can be an invaluable tool to develop, refine, and expand the necessary faculties required for applying the Star Game to its many esoteric and magickal contexts. At a practical level, the study of certain fundamental patterns in chess provides a foundation for navigating the boards and pieces of the Star Game. With care, experience, and creativity one can find correlates between the patterns found in chess and the nine fundamental alchemical forms represented by the pieces of the Star Game, which again represent one esoteric meaning of the “nine angles.”[11] Insofar as these nine alchemical forms “are the basic apprehensions of magickal energy … [representing] the acausal manifest in the causal,”[12] and given that these forms can manifest in many ways, the study of correlative fundamental patterns in chess is a worthwhile and important activity. At a more advanced level, discovering correlations between the patterns in chess and the forms of the Star Game can aid in the development of the imaginative, creative, rational, and abstract faculties required for their magickal apprehension and application. At more advanced levels of chess, experience with these fundamental patterns not only finds application in real life – in navigating interpersonal conflict, strategizing, and identifying complex networks of meaning, for example – but can form a bridge between instinct and what with respect to the Star Game is referred to as an “intuition” – a lower form of abstraction that can arise with “acausal thinking.”[13] The capacity for acausal thinking arises from the relation between the abstract symbols of the Star Game and “conventional representations,” such as “archetypal forms; the energies of the pathways; the symbolism of the Tarot and the many and various Occult symbolisms.”[14] This capacity thus arises, in part, from the formation and implementation of the meaningful associations and “deep roots” that I described elsewhere (see my previous articles, “‘Deep Roots’ and Meaningful Associations: Musical Tarot Continued, Auditory Sigils, and Aeonic Chant Magick” and “Techniques for Doing a Musical Tarot Reading & Creating Auditory Sigils”). Thus, in forming the aforesaid correlates between the patterns of chess and the forms of the Star Game, in establishing a bridge between instinct and “intuition,” and in developing and then refining the necessary faculties to apply said patterns to more advanced esoteric and magickal contexts, training in chess is an invaluable tool for learning and playing the Star Game.
Colloquially, the number of possible chess games that can be played is sometimes said to exceed the number of stars or atoms in the known universe. More precisely, the number of possible legal positions was estimated by Claude Shannon in 1950 to be “of the general order of 64!/32!(8!)^2(2!)^2, or roughly 10^43,” which is now referred to as “Shannon’s number.”[15] More recently, Victor Allis estimates this to be around10^50,[16] additionally estimating the game-tree complexity of chess to be 10^123.[17] Again, given this immense number and given the even greater complexity of the Star Game when accounting for the variables involved in its advanced magickal applications at the Aeonic level (which, like our “normal” understanding of the septenary, reflects not just a “‘map of consciousness and the cosmos,”[18] but a dynamic of the universe), it is difficult to imagine how one can approach the Star Game, let alone the advanced form of the game, without some experience in chess.
That said, while one can play the Star Game without any experience in chess, it is my opinion that high-level chess players, including those at the Master and Grandmaster levels, would be of assistance in developing the Star Game. Such players could assist in developing a consistent notation to record and then analyze games, in addition to determining how to approach tactics, strategy, openings, and calculating accurate moves in specific positions. Eventually, we may be able to develop Star Game engines, both to analyze our games and to play against. Without these and similar developments, the Star Game will likely encounter obstacles over the course of its evolution, highlighting an asymmetry between the potency of its magickal applications and the practical limitations of playing and studying the game. It is hoped that in emphasizing the importance and usefulness of studying chess in relation to the Star Game, others will take up these tasks. With the esoteric and magickal applications of the Star Game in mind, it is also hoped that a confluence between chess and the Star Game can aid Internal Adepts and Masters/Mistresses in constructing and then employing new empty formal structures of magick to employ at the Aeonic level. These function as formal structural “models” that can then be populated, directed, and implemented according to a specific magickal or esoteric technique.
With those aims in mind, I will be regularly introducing various chess patterns or puzzles in relation to various levels of meaning relevant the Order of Nine Angles. I call these “chess hermeneutics.” To make sense of what I mean by this phrase, in addition to how these chess puzzles will be applied to the ONA, I will say a little more about the origin and meaning of “hermeneutics.”
A BRIEF HISTORY OF HERMENEUTICS
The word “hermeneutics” comes from the Greek infinitive hermenuein, which means “to interpret.”[19] Hermeneutics is an ancient field with a long history, one that was revived in the modern age and particularly in the nineteenth century. In the ancient world, hermeneutics developed in two contexts: one was Greek and the other was biblical. In the Greek context, hermeneutics took shape with respect to the work of Homer, who is sometimes regarded (and explicitly referred to) as the teacher of Greece. Through Homer we find the ancient myths conveyed in epic poetry, which provided a context for the Greeks to understand the world they inhabited. Though there are disagreements about when to date Homer, we can see from the fourth and fifth centuries that his work guided the Greeks over the course of several centuries. With this guidance and as history began to run its course, the question concerning how Homer’s work could come to bear on the current circumstances of individual lives took shape. The response, broadly speaking, was that some dynamic or process of interpretation was needed. This was also the case in the biblical context of hermeneutics, both with respect to the New Testament and the Old Testament. Hermeneutics was the name given to that process or dynamic of interpretation.
Hermeneutics made its way from the ancient world to the modern one through works like Aristotle’s On Interpretation, which was devoted to the task of analyzing sentences, to the work of St. Augustine in the early medieval period, which was concerned with the question of how the word of God could be understood by human beings. Hermeneutics saw a revival in the nineteenth century through the work of the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, who was interested in the question of scriptural interpretation. Schleiermacher developed a mode of hermeneutics characterized as “romantic,” which in effect concerned a type of understanding or communion between the interpreter and the historical source of the text. Hermeneutics began to branch out from theology as Schleiermacher became interested in the character of understanding generally. Around this time, we also find contributions to hermeneutics in the work of the philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey, whose name comes up in Heidegger’s Being and Time when Heidegger distinguishes his own hermeneutical project from that of philosophical anthropology. Dilthey essentially draws a distinction between the natural sciences (Naturwissenschaften) and the human sciences (Geisteswissenschaften), which includes the social sciences developed in the nineteenth century.
Dilthey may have been looking for a way to work within the human sciences that was more appropriate for them than that of the natural sciences. We find, in turn, that the type of thinking appropriate for the human sciences is understanding, which brings along with it a question of meaning. This is contrasted with the type of thinking appropriate for the natural sciences, which is explanation. In short, Dilthey concluded that hermeneutics is the method appropriate for the human sciences.
At this point, hermeneutics began to re-emerge prominently as a development that continued and intensified into the twentieth century. Additionally, the distinction between the natural sciences and human sciences created a division between those who approached the human sciences with respect to understanding and meaning versus those who attempted to work within the human sciences as if they were natural sciences. This essentially involved a division between a hermeneutical approach (sometimes called interpretive social science) and a calculative methodology (sometimes called calculative social science). This division can still be seen in, for example, the difference between Continental philosophy and Anglo-American analytic philosophy, broadly speaking.
Though there are other fields that take a strong interest in hermeneutics – hermeneutic interpretation finds a strong presence in law and jurisprudence, for example – today the term usually refers to philosophical hermeneutics, and specifically philosophical hermeneutics after Heidegger. Heidegger brought hermeneutics into philosophy in a major way through his analysis of Being. In analyzing the structure of the type of being that we are (which Heidegger calls “Dasein”), Heidegger finds that we are “always already” interpreting. This discovery – that a hermeneutical interpretive dynamic is always already at play with respect to the ontological structure of our being – was a major contribution to the Western intellectual tradition and carried hermeneutics into the modern world.
CHESS HERMENEUTICS: SHAPESHIFTING, SATANISM, AND MIMESIS
With respect to what has been written here on the Star Game, chess, and hermeneutics, the phrase “chess hermeneutics” is thus meant to refer to a specific way of interpreting the correlations between certain fundamental patterns encountered in chess and the nine fundamental alchemical forms in the Star Game, which represent one of the esoteric meanings of the “nine angles.” In keeping with the role of the “shapeshifter” in the ONA, studying certain recurrent, fundamental chess patterns in their myriad configurations can help illuminate the many ways these dynamics are interpretive and require interpretation – not just on the board, but in real life. Like the “nine angles,” such dynamics are operative in consciousness and throughout the cosmos, requiring a kind of reflexivity between the operator and their environment: before one can identify the many ways such dynamics manifest in the world, they must first develop the faculties required to identify and then imitate these primordial patterns, thereby “shifting their shape” or “shapeshifting,” to illustrate one esoteric sense of the term.
Many who claim the title “Satanist” have not developed the faculties required for this kind of imitation at even the most basic level – faculties required to approach any magickal apprehension of “shapeshifting.” Beyond Satanism and with greater experience, one learns to approach this basic form of imitation through the more advanced interpretive dynamic of mimesis, which, in one advanced form, alters by way of complex forms of “imitation” certain formal structures of the narrativity of wyrd. This is a clue to what “shapeshifting” actually entails, here approaching the Aeonic level. At that level, “‘Mimesis’ is one method of aeonic magick that has come down over the centuries,” involving the imitation of “some aspect of cosmic/Earth-based movement/working, and then either following the natural pattern or slightly altering that pattern to bring about a subtle change.” Additionally, given that it is this “alteration” that “forms the basis for ‘black’ magick,”[20] it is quite telling that so few “Satanists” have a sense of what that means.
In an attempt to remedy this, and as a practical way of encouraging others to develop the faculties required for advanced magickal applications of the Star Game, I will thus be introducing a series of “chess hermeneutics.” These will involve specific puzzles and positions in relation to certain interpretive dynamics. Those dynamics may include (but are not limited to): 1) relations to certain energies, forces, paths, spheres, and Dark Gods on the Tree of Wyrd; 2) applications in certain interpersonal scenarios in real life; 3) connections to other magickal and esoteric ideas, techniques, or correspondences; and 4) potential connections to the Star Game, when and where applicable. While these are not intended to be comprehensive, they will offer a few ideas on how to identify and then utilize such dynamics with an eye toward broader, more advanced esoteric, magickal, existential, and cosmic applications.
In turn, I will try to select puzzles and positions requiring varying levels of skill and experience on the chess board, ranging from intermediate to advanced. These will be created as I find puzzles and positions worthy of constructing into a “chess hermeneutic,” which may take some time.
In closing, I encourage those interested or experienced in the Star Game to supplement their knowledge with chess. Though there are many online resources to begin studying and playing the game – chess.com is an excellent resource, for example, and has a “puzzles” trainer that includes over 150,000 different puzzles to solve at different Elo ratings – what is important, as with all things, is to get started.
Nameless Therein
Scothorn Nexion
April 13, 2022
NOTES
[1] Anton Long and the Order of Nine Angles, “The Nine Angles – Esoteric Meaning,” in Hostia: Secret Teachings of the O.N.A., Volume I (Shrewsbury: Thormynd Press, 1992).
[2] Long and ONA, “The Nine Angles.” The Tree of Wyrd itself “possesses nine causal angles and nine acausal angles in the causal geometric sense,” which the author notes “can be represented as formed by the corners or angles of a causal and acausal tetrahedron, one a reflexion of the other, the base of both lying in the plane of the middle sphere (the Sun). This double tetrahedron encloses in three-dimensional space the path from causal to acausal – the ‘Initiate journey’ from the sphere of the Moon to Saturn via the other spheres, this path being helical (cf. ‘The Wheel of Life’). The direction of this path is ‘counter-clockwise’.” Regarding the nine angles themselves, the author adds that, “In essence, the acausal is a reflexion (and vice versa) of the causal, so the single term ‘Nine Angles’ describes what is our normal (i.e. un-Initiated) view of the septenary, this septenary being a ‘map’ of consciousness and the cosmos. The realization of the dual nature of the spheres (for example, Mercury is the ‘shadow’ of Mars) arises from Initiation and is the first stage of an esoteric understanding of the term ‘nine angles.’”
[4] Ibid. The author notes that the higher-level understanding of these nine fundamental forms “arises from playing the Star Game and relating the abstract symbols to conventional representations (e.g. archetypal forms; the energies of the pathways; the symbolism of the Tarot and the many various Occult symbolisms) – this developes the capacity for what may be termed ‘acausal thinking’: when the conventional representations are abandoned and collocations are viewed abstractly.” The author emphasizes that this abstraction is “not a dry, academic process,” but a “new ‘insight’ (a lower form of which is often described an ‘intuition’),” whereby consciousness is extended “into new and important realms and pre-figures the development of a symbolic language which eliminates the confusion, both moral and linguistic, which exists in words and the translation of complex ideas into such words.”
[6] Long and ONA, “Advanced Star Game,” in Hostia I.
[7] Long and ONA, “Star Game: Addendum,” in Hostia I.
[8] For more on this subject, see, Long and ONA,“Aeonic Magick – General Notes,” in Hostia I. Also see the final section of “The Septenary Star Game” in Hostia I, which elaborates briefly on what “Aeonic magick” in part entails with respect to the Star Game. The author notes that, “It is important to understand that the most important and practical aspect of an Aeon is the associated higher civilization – magickal Aeonic workings shape the ethos of this during the transition period between the ending of one Aeon and the beginning of another.” Elaborating further, the author states:
Hitherto, Aeonic workings – when they have been undertaken at all – have concentrated on opening the Gate that presences the power of a new Aeon. Yet is possible to extend by such workings a … [higher civilization] into the … [sulphur] stages. For the present, this implies the end of the Western as c. 3090 AD instead of 2390 AD. This is the first time in history that such a change is possible, since heretofore the process of Aeonic change has not been consciously understood by Adepts – it was approached mainly via mythological symbolism. It is through the abstract symbolism of the Star Game that full control is possible.
However, the following comments from Hostia I, “Aeonics” should also be kept in mind when approaching these advanced esoteric topics: “These are ‘esoteric’ teachings – of necessity, because their understanding requires the insight and knowledge which an External Adept and Internal Adept has attained. Without this insight and knowledge, there is liable to be mis-understanding and a failure to appreciate the finer points (or even any of the points at all).”
[9] Chess has seen many historically significant events over the course of its history. The defeat of the Soviets in the 1972 world championship between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky is one of many notable examples. See David Edmonds and John Eidinow, “Match of the Century,” ch. 1 in Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2005). The authors colorfully expound upon the historical significance of this event as follows:
To Western commentators, the meaning of the confrontation seemed clear. A lone American star was challenging the long Soviet grip on the world title. His success would dispose of the Soviets’ claim that their chess hegemony reflected the superiority of their political system. The board was a cold war arena where the champion of the free world fought for democracy against the apparatchiks of the Soviet socialist machine. Here was the High Noon of chess, coming to you from a concrete auditorium in Iceland.
[10] As evidenced in, for example, the 1996 match between IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue and Garry Kasparov, which demonstrates the lasting influence chess technology and chess engines have had on global technology. One can trace these developments to related subjects in, for example, the analytic tradition of philosophy of mind, particularly with respect to consciousness (see, e.g., David Chalmers’ zombie argument), physicalism (see, e.g., Frank Jackson’s Mary argument on qualia), dualism (see, e.g., Descartes’ Meditations and the mind-body problem), epiphenomenalism (see the entry linked here), and, more recently panpsychism or Russellian monism, which is thought to be a resurgence of vitalism and is a rich development in philosophy of mind. On the subject of panpsychism, see, for example, some of the recent work by Sam Coleman, David Chalmers, Thomas Nagel, in addition to Galen Strawson et al., Consciousness and its Place in Nature (Charlottesville: Imprint Academic, 2006). All of these areas of research have more or less had some influence on the concomitant development of artificial intelligence, and thus have some bearing on the rise of chess engines. See, for example, David Chalmers’ work related to “strong” and “weak” AI with respect to consciousness, as well as the famous thought experiment by John Searle referred to as “The Chinese Room Argument.” A great (illustrated) overview of this thought experiment, in addition to notable criticism of it, can be found here: https://mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/searle_chinese_room/searle_chinese_room.html. For an overview of one of the more famous critiques of this thought experiment, see the “Robot Reply” found here: https://mind.ilstu.edu/curriculum/searle_chinese_room/searle_robot_reply.html. In terms of the rise of chess and artificial intelligence, many of these subjects are relevant to early ideas on Turing machines. See, for example, Claude E. Shannon, “A Universal Turing Machine with Two Internal States,” in Automata Studies (AM-34), eds. C. E. Shannon and J. McCarthy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956). On the question of whether chess computers can “think,” see Claude E. Shannon, “A Chess-Playing Machine,” Scientific American, 182, no. 2 (February 1950): 48-51.
[15] Quoted in Stefan Steinerberger, “On the Number of Positions in Chess without Promotion,” International Journal of Game Theory 44, no. 3 (August 2015): 762, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00182-014-0453-7. Steinerberger clarifies what this number calculates as follows:
The number is known as Shannon’s number: it counts the number of ways to arrange all chessmen (henceforth simply called med) taking into account that no two men can occupy the same square and that furthermore any two identical men of the same color are indistinguishable. This number does not consider the possibility that not all the men need to be on the board (some might have been already captured) and … it also does not account or the rule of promotion whereby a pawn must be promoted to a more powerful figure if it advances to the end of a file (column of the chessboard). However, it also accounts for all sorts of illegal positions that can never possibly occur. This combination of factors makes it difficult to say whether Shannon’s argument over or underestimates the actual state space.
[16] See Steinerberger, “Positions in Chess,” 762.
[17] Victor Allis, “Searching for Solutions in Games and Artificial Intelligence” (PhD diss., Maastricht University, 1994), 171.
[19] Brian Gilchrist, “Questions Concerning Ge-Stell: Heideggerian Confrontations with Technology,” Explorations in Media Ecology 14, nos. 3-4 (December 2015): 240.
[20] Long and ONA, “Aeonic Magick – General Notes,” in Hostia I.
“Deep Roots” and Meaningful Associations: Musical Tarot Continued, Auditory Sigils, and Aeonic Chant Magick
With respect to my previous post on musical tarot (“Techniques for Doing a Musical Tarot Reading & Creating Auditory Sigils”), I would like to add a few comments regarding the selection of appropriate music. I will additionally offer some commentary regarding the purpose of sensory layering techniques like combining musical and visual tarot readings in relation to the creation of advanced auditory sigils for the purpose of chant magick. I will conclude by noting a few ways this finds application in Aeonic magick.
Regarding the selection of music for musical tarot readings, a few things should be kept in mind. The music selected should be meaningful to the user, emotionally evocative, and selected with care, keeping in mind that it needs to be appropriate for this type of working. While one should feel free to experiment, it should be noted that certain forms of popular music may introduce coloration and structural distortion in the creation of auditory sigils. Lyrics and certain lyrical themes, certain musical production elements, “noise,” and other distracting characteristics may misdirect the user’s emotional and psychic attention. Lyrics, for example, can be distracting insofar as they involve the mediating role of language. This is not to say that music with lyrics should be avoided; chant itself is defined as “sung speech.”[1] But on this point – and though here taken grossly out of context – something Nietzsche wrote on the relation between lyric poetry and music is relevant:
Language can never adequately render the cosmic symbolism of music, because music stands in symbolic relation to the primordial contradiction and primordial pain in the heart of the primal unity, and therefore symbolizes a sphere which is beyond and prior to all phenomena. Rather, all phenomena, compared with it, are merely symbols: hence language, as the organ and symbol of phenomena, can never by any means disclose the innermost heart of music; language, in its attempt to imitate it, can only be in superficial contact with music; while all the eloquence of lyric poetry cannot bring the deepest significance of the latter one step nearer to us.[2]
In keeping one’s “eye on the prize,” the user must remember that the goal of techniques like sensory layering is to form meaningful associations – associations that combine many levels of meaning across the emotive, mnemonic, sensory, and symbolic domains. These are structured organically, in that each experience will be unique according to the musical selection, tarot reading, and a plethora of other associations from the user’s unique history; but there is also an element of chaos, in that the way these meaningful associations structure themselves systematically through sensory layering are unpredictable and beyond the comprehension or control of the user. Interestingly, however, in being directed systematically across the seven Septenary spheres of the Tree of Wyrd, the structure of such experiences can be reproduced for other individuals (in using, for example, the same music and tarot reading); but the way that structure takes shape across the psyche for a given user will be unique. This structure, which is in part created by meaningful associations combined with sensory layering techniques in motion across the Septenary spheres, creates what I call an “auditory sigil.” In the technique described above and in my previous post, this involves combining musical and visual tarot readings using a Septenary spread and then moving from one card and sphere to the next sequentially while listening to the corresponding music.
These auditory sigils become more efficacious as layering meaningful associations reach their zenith through an increase of precision and symbolic condensation. The technique I suggested of combining musical tarot readings with visual tarot readings and then directing them across the seven Septenary spheres is an introductory exercise. It is meant to allow the user to experience certain energies of the Septenary spheres, to form meaningful associations with them through sensory layering, and then to direct these systematically across those spheres, where the sequential movement or motion of meaningful associations from one sphere to the next essentially creates the auditory sigil (at the most basic level of chant, melodic movement and chant sequencing across the spheres perform this function). The exercise is not only a useful introductory tool to familiarize and then personalize the Septenary energies and correspondences, but also serves as a simple and practical technique to start creating and then cataloguing a “toolkit” of auditory sigils for use in more advanced Septenary and sinister magick.
As one gains experience with the creation of auditory sigils and begins to establish a catalogue, the practitioner may wish to make their way into the more advanced domain of esoteric chant magick. Much more can be said on this subject, and I may elaborate on some of the following techniques in a subsequent article. But part of the purpose of chant magick is to expand and increase the efficacy of these auditory sigils, and then direct them. Through a precise series of correspondences, meaningful associations can be focused, deepened, and directed using advanced sequences of melodic motion, specific Gregorian modes and diatonic musical keys, polyphonic and harmonic layering, visual sigils, incenses, colors, and the Dark Gods, to list a few examples. Each individual will additionally bring with them a vast host of meaningful associations from their life experiences, magickal experimentation, and transformations through the Grade Rituals. Previous, less clarified, and rudimentary auditory sigils can be expanded upon and developed; they can be structurally recreated and worked with interpersonally and intersubjectively in a group setting; they can be introduced into even larger groups of practitioners for purposes determined by specific Nexions; they can be used in the Star Game, including the advanced form, for the purposes of Aeonic magick; and they can be animated as “egregores” through advanced mimetic techniques.
While these are only a few of the applications of esoteric chant magick, its application, unlike external and internal magick, is one of the most powerful forms of magick in the Order of Nine Angles. These techniques are unique to the tradition. It is also one of the few forms of magick that is capable reaching the Aeonic level for use in Aeonic magick.
On this point, and returning to the topic of selecting music for musical tarot readings, I would like to draw the reader’s attention to an interview with the composer Edward Artemyev on his experience working with the cinematic auteur and master, Andrei Tarkovsky. Artemyev’s account of Tarkovsky’s views on the inclusion of music in his films not only highlights the appropriate mindset one should have in selecting music for a musical tarot reading, but illustrates what is partially required for chant magick to find application in Aeonic magick, where all previous meaningful associations, symbolic “gestures,” and forms fall away, collapsing into an incommunicable essence that is then directed as “melodic” spiritual energy:
I’ll begin with Tarkovsky. The most unusual things were the tasks set and our first conversation with him … I was struck by his attitude to music in film, precisely in his films. He told me right away that he didn’t need a composer at all. He needed the composer’s ear and his masterful command of sound, in order to mix music, to make musical effects. Possibly, to add some orchestra, but so that it didn’t stand out. So that it be background sound organized compositionally. I was simply startled by this. But so it was when we filmed Solaris, Mirror and Stalker. This idea of his was constantly present. He did not need music as a developing theme. “This is not a concert,” he said. “This is something special. When I run short of cinematic means, then I put on music.” But since he, basically, had enough means, he needed a composer only as an organizer of the background sound. And if a film needed some music, as in Solaris, he used Bach. There was Bach in Mirror, too, it was either “The St. John Passion,” or “The St. Matthew Passion.” Music as the lining to image he did not want.
Once Tarkovsky told me a very interesting thing. I asked him: “Why? I can write something [music] for the film too.” He [Tarkovsky] answered that cinema had no roots, that it was too young an art. It is only one hundred years old. To give the viewer a sense of deep roots, to make a linkage with the world art, the music of old masters is needed. As well as the paintings of old masters which he did quote … Subconsciously, it creates, as he believed and was right to believe, the deep roots for that art.
In many respects, the Order of Nine Angles is equally too young an art, despite its ancient influences and roots. In constructing meaningful associations with the aim of auditory sigils and chant magick, in addition to the application of magick in general and the establishment of tradition, Tarkovsky’s point is helpful: the creation of “deep roots” requires a “linkage with the world of art,” and for this “the music of old masters is needed.” This is perhaps even truer in making linkages with the world of magick. For this, the “music of old masters” is indeed needed; and in the application of chant magick, that music tends to find its most powerful voice through devotional Gregorian chant. The “deep roots” Artemyev referred to need to initially extend into the unconscious and find shelter there, which is part of the goal of introductory sensory layering techniques like combining musical tarot with visual tarot. When one reaches the more advanced stage of esoteric chant magick, these will begin to form a “bridge” into consciousness (through, for example, the path from the Moon to the Sun, which is the path of Azoth / Satanas). Eventually, these “deep roots” will exceed both, requiring the dyssolving of the ego. At this point, previous forms of meaningful association will shed their skin, taking on a structural identification that can only be approximated in music or speech as their sensory, psychic, and spiritual layering becomes more and more condensed. This can occur, for example, when one’s “catalogue” of correspondences, associations, and auditory sigils has become rich and expansive enough to resemble a Tree a Wyrd through the “doors” or “paths” created by layered associations across the psyche (through, e.g., years of advanced chant magick). Chant itself then becomes malleable, where certain musical and magickal elements of a given chant become interchangeable with others. Auditory sigils themselves can then be layered, where that malleability can lead to a kind of musickal dyssolving, unlocking the true power of chant magick. Contrary to popular belief, the map can become the territory. And this is required before an Aeonic context becomes possible. For this, “deep roots” and meaningful associations can only do so much; it is necessary to enact both as a kind mimesis through embodied imitation – an imitation of these condensed associations and their function as a Tree of Wyrd within the psyche – through transformative activities like the Grade Rituals of the Seven-Fold Way (though there may be other ways). Put another way, one’s psycho-spiritual constitution should actually resemble the “deep roots” and meaningful associations an individual has established – a resemblance that mirrors and enacts a functional Tree of Wyrd within the psyche. (One’s psycho-spiritual constitution and the development of “deep roots” go hand-in-hand. Attempting to develop one without the other will usually be self-evident to those who have developed both.) Unless real alchemical change has occurred in the individual in lock-step with their approach to chant magick, this kind of magick is not only dangerous but may have catastrophic effects.
With respect to Artemyev’s reference to Tarkovsky on “deep roots” in relation to art, some of Nietzsche’s comments on the Apollinian and the Dionysian in The Birth of Tragedy may be helpful. Though unrelated and taken completely out of context – this passage needs to be read in its proper context to understand what Nietzsche is trying to convey – it does cryptically illuminate a sense of some of what has been said here on the relationship between “deep roots” and chant magick, particularly with respect to “imitation.” In needing to be practiced and experienced, chant magick by and large resists rational comprehension or explication – and Nietzsche indirectly captures both sentiments if the following is read “artistically” or “musically” with this in mind:
Thus far we have considered the Apollinian and its opposite, the Dionysian, as artistic energies which burst forth from nature herself, without the mediation of the human artist – energies in which nature’s art impulses are satisfied in the most immediate and direct way – first in the image world of dreams, whose completeness is not dependent upon the intellectual attitude or the artistic culture of any single being; and then as intoxicated reality, which likewise does not heed the single unit, but even seeks to destroy the individual and redeem him by a mystic feeling of oneness. With reference to these immediate art-states of nature, every artist is an “imitator,” that is to say, either an Apollinian artist in dreams, or a Dionysian artist in ecstasies, or finally – as for example in Greek tragedy – at once artist in both dreams and ecstasies; so we may perhaps picture him sinking down in his Dionysian intoxication and mystical self-abnegation, alone and apart from the singing revelers, and we may imagine how, through Apollinian dream-inspiration, his own state, i.e., his oneness with the inmost ground of the world, is revealed to him in a symbolical dream image.[3]
In closing and to elaborate upon what has been written here a little further, I would like to share a transcript of part of a conversation I recently had with a close friend – someone who has completed the Grade Ritual for Master of the Temple (the sphere of Mars, past Internal Adept). Our conversation was on the subject of chant magick, during which I was asked the following:
As a musician … do you feel like when you perform esoteric chant … it is the precise performance of the chant that gives you access to … [a] particular pathway of [the acausal]? Or do you feel that it … [arises from] the connection … [you make] empathically [to it]? Or is it somewhere in the middle? Is it because you are a musician and by performing … [the chant as accurately as possible, you evoke] that empathic connection and … access is granted to you? What are your thoughts on that?
My response was as follows:
[While much more can be said,] the most important thing with respect to accessing the acausal is what I would call “charging.” Someone could formulaically perform a chant perfectly at every technical level and achieve nothing by way of magick. There are so many factors that play into successful chant work, but the energy generated to “unlock” a certain direction or momentum … [to] puncture into the acausal “stratosphere,” so to speak, comes from a continual, impromptu acclimation into higher and higher spheres of meaningful signification. This happens in real time, and those significations converge, often violently. I call this “charging,” and without that chant is at best informal mediation, not musick and certainly not magick. In this, certain “forms” can help the charging – the more symbolically condensed and meaningful the better. But eventually one doesn’t … need such symbols anymore. The condensation, like a sigil, becomes a kind of “muscle memory” – a treasure incarnated and recalled with each subsequent performance and charging.
The amazing and difficult thing about chant magick is that unlike, say, a Hermetic ritual, there are no symbols or meaning structures other than the internal movement of the … melody in combination with the words. Generating the proper charge from that takes skill and a certain – I would say [almost] Rounwythic – constitution. Because by definition and at the most advanced level, there are no gods, dates, holidays, or other meaningful correspondences. One has to make their own [through the malleability and “openness” of these condensations]. And this symbolic condensation is quite nameless, quite wordless, in the act itself. Which in my opinion and experience makes chant magick one of the most powerful types of magick, [capable of tremendous energy, direction, and adaptation to any form of chaos]; [capable, in turn,] of reaching the Aeonic level.
Nameless Therein
Scothorn Nexion
April 9, 2022
ADDENDUM: GETTING STARTED WITH ESOTERIC CHANT MAGICK
For those interested, there are many ways to begin learning chant. Other than various online resources, including the instruction manual by Fr. Columba Kelly provided in the first endnote below, the best way to start, as with all music, is to use your ear: listen. Listen carefully, thoughtfully, and actively, as many times a day and as often as you can. Repetition is the key to many mysteries; and chant magick is no exception. There is much to observe in listening: the movement of the melody, the structure of the chant, where to hold notes, how to enunciate and project properly, as well as breathing and breath control. Once you have listened carefully for some time, the next step is to try to imitate what you are hearing, trying to match your performance to the original as closely as possible through continual practice and repetition. After you have spent some time singing along, start looking at the chant notation while you sing to try to understand what certain symbols and notes mean. Once you have done this for some time, supplement your eyes, ears, and voice with a more detailed study of the notation itself using an instruction manual. There are further resources at the bottom of this addendum to assist with this.
To get started, I suggest beginning with the main ONA Septenary chants, which are simpler than some of the more advanced ones, such as the Dark God chant arrangements below. The main ONA Septenary chants will provide a basic familiarity with the energies of each of the spheres on the Tree of Wyrd and will provide a framework to learn and construct more advanced sequences. Below are some resources to get started.
Once upon a time, I learned the main ONA chants from the old Chant of the ONA cassette, released by MMP Temple. Most people have digital versions of these and they are not hard to find. Currently, they can be accessed here, for example:
There are, however, mistakes in some of these performances. I corrected these in the versions found in my “Dark Gate” sequence. This can be used to practice the main Septenary chants (and I recommend these over my older versions of the chants). It should be noted that this sequence includes the first public recordings of the chants for the Star Gate (“Chant to Open a Star Gate”) and Dark Angle or Man’s Gate (“Chant to Return Atazoth to Earth”), which are advanced and difficult to learn (having taken me many years to decipher, learn, and then finally record and release). They are required and important for more advanced chant sequences, being two of the most powerful, dangerous, and magickally significant chants:
When one gains more experience and familiarity with the main chants, they can move on to experiment with more difficult chants, such as the arrangements I did for each of the Dark Gods. Though I will not elaborate on how to use these in detail here, the most basic approach involves substituting Dark God chants for specific Septenary sphere chants in a given sequence or series of sequences to generate a specific type of acausal energy. (These can follow a specific pattern determined by the cantor according to, e.g., a “magickal algorithm”; or they can be completely random, to list just two examples.) For example, the “Agios Kthunae” chant could be substituted for the “Agios Alastoros” chant for Mars in a given sequence to target a specific aim, goal, energy, attribute, or desire. The Dark God chants can be found in the following playlist:
Other chants, such as the chant arrangements I did for those listed in the ONA’s Black Book of Satan can be found through the following link. These can be used to generate specific types of energy, usually of a sinister or “Satanic” nature:
Finally, some of the advanced chant magick techniques I alluded to in this article are demonstrated in the following chants I composed. These are but an introduction to the many possibilities of such techniques:
Additional chants can be found on my youtube channel:
It should be noted that chant can be used for more subtle forms of magick, such as internal and external magick. These can take the form of devotional, contemplative, reflective, or pensive exercises aimed at creating or projecting a certain type of energy generated from a “mood” or “disposition.” These require a different approach to creating and layering meaningful associations, which I will not go into here. My chant composition for David Myatt’s c. 1986 poem, “In the Night,” is one such example:
More resources can be found within the ONA for guidance. I may create a more detailed list in the future. For now, I suggest NAOS: A Practical Guide to Modern Magick for the beginner, which provides some basic instructions to get started. The Hostia texts and some of the old Fenrir editions under Christos Beest provide more advanced guidance for the discerning reader.
A helpful resource outside of the ONA can be found at Corpus Christi Watershed. The Saint Antoine Daniel Kyriale performances are accurate and are an excellent place to start:
[1] See Fr. Columba Kelly, “Part 2: Chant is ‘Sung Speech’,” in Singing Chant: Latin and English:A Performance Manual (Indiana: Saint Meinrad Archabbey, 2016). I consulted this text for many years in learning chant. It is a great resource and reference manual. The text can currently be found in its entirety at the following location: https://www.saintmeinrad.org/media/1387/chant_manual03.pdf
[2] Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy, in Basic Writings of Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: The Modern Library, 2000), 55-56. One must be very careful here, as making sense of what this passage means requires carefully navigating Nietzsche’s analysis of the Dionysian and the Apollinian, in addition to understanding the distinctions he makes between epic poetry, lyric poetry, art, and music in relation to these. See, for example, Nietzsche’s characterizations of the “plastic artist,” the epic poet, the Dionysian musician, and the “lyric genius” on p. 50. See also p. 49, where Nietzsche discusses the taking for granted of the union or identity “of the lyrist with the musician” in relation to ancient lyric poetry.
I thought I might say a few words on the topic of music for aspiring musicians and artists in the Order of Nine Angles. In briefly detailing some of its influence in my life, I hope others can find some inspiration in the following commentary. By way of practical advice, I also include some techniques of my own on how to do a “musical” tarot reading using the ONA’s Septenary spread, in addition to creating what I call “auditory sigils.” The aim of such techniques is to establish a kind of toolkit by cataloguing these experiences in preparation for more advanced Septenary workings and rituals, such as esoteric chant.
Though I have spent many years refining my thinking and writing in the academic world, the existential cadence underlying my life has always been one of music. As strange as it may sound, I went into academia to become a better musician. My classical musical training provided an important toolkit to connect visceral, internal movements with meaningful forms of signification, whether historical, cultural, symbolic, or emotive. Through what I would call a kind of “pre-phonetic” musical grammar – the way certain combinations of tones stir the heart and spirit at a primal level – I began to sense over time that music and these “movements” provided the possibility and condition for the formal structures of thought.
Thought for me has always been a kind of primal impression of music, a way of visualizing sound in an organized and creative way. In my experience, the process is visceral rather than cerebral, emotive rather than intellectual, grounded first and foremost in instinct, intuition, and the way these combine into meaningful patterns across the heart rather than in the mind. In this, I found that the “pre-phonetic” patterns and movements of music have a direct connection to the grammar of natural language and can be used to structure it directly in thought. Contrary to much of what is written against abstraction in the ONA, I find that there is a kind of magick and alchemy in emotionally cataloguing the way thought can be made musical, where the abstract convergence of the two can creatively shape our worldview and direct our lives. For me, life is musical – a living narrative between abstraction and particulars, thought and spirit, cadence and caesura, without which thought alone would be quite uninteresting.
With this in mind and reflecting on the current climate of the ONA, I thought about what an auditory or “musical” tarot reading might look like for the immediate future of this tradition. I considered some of my own musical influences, including those that influenced the guitar compositions on my 2018 release, Hex Haruspex, as well as some of my classical guitar compositions. (As a curious aside, the songs on Hex Haruspex form auditory correlates to many of the tarot images of Christos Beest’s “Emanations” deck. It could thus be used for musical tarot readings.) In considering these and the immediate future of the ONA, a few of my deeper and long-standing musical influences emerged. I think these paint an optimistic picture for the future of the ONA in addition to demonstrating that sinister influences can – and should – be found in uncommon and unexpected places. My musical tarot reading thus looks as follows:
1. Moon – Michael Hedges, “The Naked Stalk”
2. Mercury – Michael Hedges, “Ritual Dance”
3. Venus – Michael Hedges, “Shava’s Song”
4. Sun – Kostas Grigoreas, “Ballad of Sensation and Illusion”
5. Mars – Michael Hedges, “Song of the Spirit Farmer”
6. Jupiter – Jeremy Jouve, “Cavalcade”
7. Saturn – Roland Dyens, “Fuoco (Libra Sonatine)”
There are many ways that a musical tarot reading can be conducted. One simple way involves assigning the above selections to the spheres of a traditional Septenary spread according to their numbers and interpreting them accordingly. I have listed which song goes with which sphere above. See, e.g., this Sinister Tarot Reader plugin page for further instructions on how to interpret these in a Septenary spread: https://luxlycaonis.com/index.php/tarot-reading/
A more advanced reading involves combining the songs from the musical tarot reading with tarot cards. In this case, one would combine the musical selections above with cards from the Sinister Tarot. To do this, you would draw seven cards from the Sinister Tarot deck using a Septenary spread and meditate on each card while listening to the corresponding songs in the musical tarot reading. Thus, if one drew the Nythra card for the Moon sphere, they would listen to the musical selection for the Moon sphere – which in this case is Michael Hedges’ “The Naked Stalk” – while meditating on that card. This method adds additional layers of signification to the overall reading and helps personalize the Septenary correspondences in a deep way through the combination of music and the tarot images. It also has the advantage of potentially combining readings from more than one individual, where one person “draws” musical selections for the musical tarot (using whatever technique they like) while another draws and then combines these with tarot cards.
For example, regarding the question of the immediate future of the ONA, I drew the following corresponding tarot cards for the above musical tarot reading. These can be combined using the technique just described and interpreted as follows:
Moon [unconscious factors] – Michael Hedges, “The Naked Stalk”: XIII Death / 2 Nythra
Mercury [past] – Michael Hedges, “Ritual Dance”: 0 Physis / 8 Ga Wath Am
Venus [past] – Michael Hedges, “Shava’s Song”: III Mistress of Earth / 19 Davcina
Sun [present] – Kostas Grigoreas, “Ballad of Sensation and Illusion”: XIV Hel / 5 Aosoth
Mars [immediate future] – Michael Hedges, “Song of the Spirit Farmer”: X Wyrd / 6 Azanigin
Jupiter [immediate future] – Jeremy Jouve, “Cavalcade”: VIII Change / Nekalah
Saturn [outcome] – Roland Dyens, “Fuoco (Libra Sonatine)”: VI The Lovers / 12 Karu Samsu
Much like in performing sequences in esoteric chant magick, the experience of meditating on the cards with ritually significant music playing forms a kind of larger “auditory sigil” from the combination of these two in a structured, organic motion across the psyche. Over time one could even catalogue these sigils – either visually, through music, or otherwise (and then potentially use those for new and more advanced tarot readings). This is a practical way to bring certain energies of each Septenary sphere to life through personalized musical experiences of the Sinister Tarot in a ritualized, meditative, active, and reflective setting. (This involves a species of active contemplation rather than passive reception.) Rather than reading this and trying to understand it rationally, I strongly encourage the reader to try the above tarot reading using the link to the Sinister Tarot cards in combination with the music specified above. This will give you a sense of what that “auditory sigil” feels like with respect to sensory layering. I found the particular musical and tarot combinations listed above to be a beautiful experience. When doing this, one should keep in mind the question or aim of the tarot reading (the immediate future of the ONA in this case), the correspondences of each tarot card, the sensory and internal experiences the music evokes while listening (emotions, memories, tactile sensations, etc.), the energies of each sphere, and the contours of what “takes shape” as one moves across the spheres, keeping in mind that sensory layering between sight and sound will combine with the movement across the spheres as a kind of structure: what I call an “auditory sigil.” The more experience with and “cataloguing” of these sigils, the more specialized a toolkit one will have at their disposal in approaching other more advanced Septenary rituals and workings involving these correspondences, such as esoteric chant. The difference is that in using appropriate music, one can personalize these experiences, lending greater significance to their understanding of Septenary correspondences and the energies of the spheres. This method helps make those uniquely their own and may function as a kind of informal pathworking.
Many other methods can be derived using additional techniques, tarot spreads, and tarot decks – these are just a few techniques that I created. The Sinister Tarot Reader plugin can be used to initially experiment with such techniques. In “drawing” songs for the musical tarot reading, one could experiment with genres, styles, eras, and cultures for certain forms of music, for example, perhaps assigning a given genre to a certain Septenary sphere, star, or Aeon for advanced workings. (The techniques described in this article could, in a very advanced setting, be combined with the Star Game, but that will not be explored in this brief overview, which merely provides a few techniques to get started.) Songs could be selected randomly using a variety of methods (writing them down and drawing randomly, picking from a physical music collection, shuffling them digitally on a computer or phone, and the like). There are many possibilities. The only limitations to deriving new techniques are one’s creativity and imagination.
I would like to close with a few comments on the above musical pieces. The songs by Michael Hedges come from his album Taproot, which had a lasting influence on my musical approach and guitar style growing up. I recommend the album highly. Kostas Grigoreas brings the tradition of Greek classical guitar into a modern context (he is also a terribly friendly person). Jeremy Jouve is a talented modern classical guitarist who deserves more attention in my opinion – both for his ability and exceptional performances. Roland Dyens is a well-known French classical guitar virtuoso with a background in composition (whom I almost had the pleasure of meeting/studying with briefly and have had the pleasure of seeing live). It should be noted that none of these individuals have anything to do with the occult or the Order of Nine Angles. I think their music does, however, capture something unique about its essence, its spirit, its current climate, and the possibilities for its future.
I’ve made a few minor updates to the Lux Lycaonis site. Included among these is an announcement with some news about the status of the upcoming edition of Fenrir. Please see the following link, which also includes some exciting news regarding David Myatt. Stay tuned!
He turned around the corner from the office building of the Ministerio del Interior and headed towards his luxury apartment in Buenos Aires. The air of the metropolis seemed especially beneficent today, and Operative 093, a.k.a. “Fernando”, happily inhaled the pollutants that laced the atmosphere. Every person he had interacted with for the last ten years seemed to breathe life into the present he was now stepping into.
His, too, was more than a work of art. Not quite as grand a creation as the state of Israel, but similar sacrificial and psychical methods had been used in bringing it about. Fanatical National Socialists had been mercilessly removed from the Patagonia area by the hand of professional military personnel carrying out the orders of the Argentinian and Chilean governments. Their pointless complot, blind resistance, and violent deaths had paved a path of skulls towards his crowning achievement. This was what the soil cried for. This was exactly what made the grass grow.
His glory would be enjoyed from the solitude and darkness, he thought, in some retreat in the Caribbean after his work was done. For this, he had already set aside a completely legal account in the Cayman Islands through a diversified permanent portfolio. Neither personal fame before the mundane nor illegal means had been in any way necessary for the attaining of Aeonic sinister goals. Steady, step-wise acquisition of influence and worldly power, however, was the most straight-forward and obvious path.
He stepped into his high-end apartment, enjoying the air that the sober, lean, modernistic lines with which it was furnished imparted him. He thought briefly of the traditional mystics crouching in rundown cottages, scribbling away in impenetrable philosophical language and issuing dozens upon dozens of documents filed away by some, read by few, and understood by even fewer who would never make a difference upon the world. He shook his head, chuckling, and heaved a heavy sigh. Hanging on the wall was the law degree he had earned twenty years ago, and how that had been the beginning of a long career culminating in influential posts within the Argentinian government.
With the help of other associates in the Argentinian and Chilean governments, and without needing to infiltrate the army at all since the army wields no executive power whatsoever, an autonomous region was created within the Patagonia area with the express purpose of conducting a long-term social experiment. Herein, it was granted power and advanced technological means to a select group of families previously nominated and screened by the secret group of associates to live outside the norms and laws of South American society. Furthermore, technical advice and economic aid would be forthcoming from both governments to assist towards cultivating a new way of life and its viability for the future. Therein, they would be allowed to practice the religion and customs of their choice.
He walked into the darkest room in his house, purposely darkened and dedicated to his dark meditations. These consisted of wordless concentration. No sigils were ever used, nor candles lit. No names were summoned. Only a single-pointed power that emanated from him, a power fed in turn by all those who served his will. Worlds upon worlds took shape therein.
For years he had come into this room and seen the silent bloodshed that was now still taking place in removing from the area the last specimens of an obsolete phalanx of ideologically-obsessed pawns. Their ill-begotten leaders were now kept in black sites, the contents of their fanzines and the nature of their fetishistic altars tortured out of them by intelligence officers that would never comprehend or accept the answers given them and who would carve their own trapezoidal sigils into the flesh and psyche of their victims.
For years he had stood still for hours on end breathing life into the now-solidified vision of high-tech sustainable abodes that would house the Internal Adepts and their families who would form the rank-and-file of the autonomous region. The orchestrators would remain unnamed, retiring into peace and luxury, pulling the strings only by whispering through networks of connections cultivated through years of patient work.
Today his work had come to full fruition. He felt the rush of energy, the returned shockwaves of his actualized vision filling him, making him grow even stronger. He was here yet he was also there. And that same night an airborne disc-like shape haunted the fjords of the autonomous region of the Patagonia, raising alarms as it was seen by the naked eye of military personnel and radar alike. He would then pay one last visit to the warm oases of Antarctica and commune with the presence that there abides before leaving his beloved Buenos Aires.
As promised, here is the important announcement I recently alluded to: After a great deal of time, energy, and effort – and on the night of the full moon – it is my pleasure to announce the official new home and website of Fenrir: Journal of Satanism and the Sinister!
What follows is some commentary on the choice of the name “Lux Lycaonis,” in addition to the future direction of the site and what purpose it will serve.
A Note on the Name “Lux Lycaonis”
The name “Lux Lycaonis” comes from the Latin “lux,” meaning “light,” and the myth of the impious Greek king of Arcadia and son of Pelasgus, Lycaon.[1] Lycaon, whose name appears to come from the Greek word for wolf (λύκος),[2] “is sometimes considered to be the first werewolf.”[3] While Lycaon’s actions occasionally depict him as a “culture-bringer and pious ruler”[4] – as the founder of Lycosura and having given Zeus the epithet Lycaeus, for example[5] – he is depicted elsewhere in a different light. Some sources report that he “sacrificed a human infant to Zeus Lycaeus.”[6] Other sources, such as Ovid’s Metamorphoses, follow the tradition “that Lycaon offended the gods by serving human flesh to them.”[7] In the latter case, Lycaon’s impiety is compounded by entertaining “Zeus … [at] a feast and … [offering him] human flesh to test his divinity.”[8] Thus centering around the theme of the “wickedness of mortals,”[9] the myth of Lycaon is recounted in the following way:
Prometheus had a son, Deucalion, and Epimetheus had a daughter, Pyrrha. Their story … involves a great flood sent by Zeus (Jupiter) to punish mortals for their wickedness. In … [Ovid’s account], Jupiter tells an assembly of the gods how he, a god, became a man to test the truth of the rumors of human wickedness in the age of iron. There follows an account of Jupiter’s anger at the evil of mortals, in particular Lycaon.[10]
Ovid’s account in Metamorphoses thus recounts Zeus’ telling of the story:
Reports of the wickedness of the age had reached my ears; wishing to find them false, I slipped down from high Olympus and I, a god, roamed the earth in the form of a man. Long would be the delay to list the number of evils and where they were found; the iniquitous stories themselves fell short of the truth. I had crossed the mountain Maenalus, bristling with the haunts of animals, and Cyllene, and the forests of cold Lycaeus; from these ridges in Arcadia I entered the realm and inhospitable house of the tyrant Lycaon, as the dusk of evening was leading night on.
I gave signs that a god had come in their midst; the people began to pray but Lycaon first laughed at their piety and then cried: “I shall test whether this man is a god or a mortal, clearly and decisively.” He planned to kill me unawares in the night while I was deep in sleep. This was the test of the truth that suited him best. But he was not content even with this; with a knife he slit the throat of one of the hostages sent to him by the Molossians and, as the limbs were still warm with life, some he boiled until tender and others he roasted over a fire. As soon as he placed them on the table, I with a flame of vengeance brought the home down upon its gods, worthy of such a household and such a master.
Lycaon himself fled in terror, and when he reached the silence of the country he howled as in vain he tried to speak. His mouth acquired a mad ferocity arising from his basic nature, and he turned his accustomed lust for slaughter against the flocks and now took joy in their blood. His clothes were changed to hair; his arms to legs; he became a wolf retaining vestiges of his old form. The silver of the hair and the violent countenance were the same; the eyes glowed in the same way; the image of ferocity was the same.[11]
The name “Lux Lycaonis” was thus selected for this site in light of the following: first, the myth of Lycaon recounted by Ovid is in keeping with the heretical and impious nature of the Order of Nine Angles, both in terms of the two sides of its dialogue (embodied in the relationship between Zeus and Lycaon) and its roots in the ancient Greco-Roman tradition.[12] Secondly, the myth illustrates a tension at the heart of the ONA: that of navigating some of its deliberate trickery and misdirection aimed at imparting something important – something true, sincere, and honest – to the adept through years of difficult discernment. Again, this speaks to the need for Hellenic contemplation or “mindfulness” to inform action, as acting without foresight or proper reflection can prove disastrous (and often has in the ONA). Thirdly, the transformation of Lycaon into a wolf bears an obvious relation to the title of this journal (Fenrir); but the addition of “lux” or “light” also alludes to Fenrir as the Journal of Satanism and the Sinister. This concerns the sense in which, while lycanthropy and werewolves are often associated with lunar aspects of transformation, there is also a hidden solar side. That dynamic has to do with the sense in which these lunar aspects – which are typically “hidden,” “dark,” “absent,” or “unknown” – interact with this solar aspect. While that aspect is typically associated with what is “seen,” “present,” or “illuminated,” it is interestingly hidden from the moon and yet provides the moon with its source of illumination and light. Lycaon’s transformation into a wolf speaks to this dynamic. With respect to Mircea Eliade’s notion that objects and human action are only made real through participating in a reality that transcends them,[13] it also speaks to the importance of the sun in the ONA as the center of the Tree of Wyrd – a center that every other dynamic, process, sphere, and entity on the tree participates in (including the hidden paths, albeit in a complex way). The sphere of the sun is also an important part of the process of dyssolving, involving as it does the essential alchemical process of putrefaction, and thus is an important – and overlooked – part of Satanism and the sinister.
In turn, while this site will remain the official home of Fenrir, I thought it important to leave room for expansion (hence the choice of “Lux Lycaonis” for the name over something like “Fenrir Journal” or the like). Thus, in addition to showcasing the work and talent of the main contributors of the journal, whom I have invited to be a part of this and assist with the Fenrir project, there will remain the possibility of adding other elements to the site to broaden its purpose and horizon. Additionally, while there will indeed be a primary emphasis on contemplation, scholarship, esotericism, and practical magick here, I also hope to incorporate and emphasize music, poetry, and art in the future. Finally, this site will be a lighthearted place to air the thoughts and personal experiences of all involved as we continue our journey through the ONA, in addition to providing news and updates on various related subjects.
Nameless Therein
Scothorn Nexion
Full moon in Libra
March 18, 2022
2775 ab urbe condita
NOTES
[1] Christine L. Albright, “Lycaon,” chap. 3 in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, 1st ed. (Oxon: Routledge, 2018), 10.
[2] Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth, eds., “Lycaon,” in The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd ed., (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).
[3] Albright, “Lycaon,” 14. Albright notes that the phenomenon of lycanthropy is not unique to the myth of Lycaon in ancient Greece. Plato alludes to it in the Republic, where men transform into wolves “after eating human flesh at a human sacrifice on Mt. Lycaeon in Arcadia.” The ancient Greek geographer Pausanias notes how “these men would return to human form after nine years, provided that they abstained from eating human flesh.”
[9] Mark P.O. Morford, Robert J. Lenardon, and Michael Sham, Classical Mythology, 11th ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), 99.
[10] Morford, Lenardon, and Sham, Classical Mythology, 99.
[11] Quoted in Morford, Lenardon, and Sham, Classical Mythology, 100.
[12] The question of piety and impiety has deep roots in ancient Greece. See Plato’s Euthyphro, for example.
[13] Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005), 34. For Eliade, anything that has reality through its participation in a transcendent reality composed of mythological archetypes is considered sacred. Anything that lacks this reality is profane. This applies to contemplation and equally to action (“an object or act becomes real only insofar as it imitates or repeats an archetype”); though importantly, action without contemplation – without this participation in that transcendent reality and being informed by it – is profane. To use a common term the ONA employs, we might say in light of this that many of the actions and activities associated with the ONA are not only profane but “mundane.”
In response to Clarice and in an effort to halt any tensions between us, what follows is an excerpt from a dialogue we had concerning the aims I hope to see realized collectively with respect to the future of the ONA. While many will not agree with what is expressed here, I think it may help clarify some of the motivations behind Fenrir. Additionally, I should note that I consider my personal desires, aims, and “vision” irrelevant to the ONA. Whatever emerges beyond our lifetime must realize itself organically through forces that are out of our control. I realize that it may be possible to influence these in our lifetime; but I sense that we are rarely in control of the actions that catalyze this influence.
[My purpose] is motivated by the … [original aims] of the Old Guard: to enact the conditions for the possibility of long-term and concrete Aeonic change across the world – both as a practical strategy for future generations, as well as those within our lifetime. This purpose is informed by my history in sinister and Satanic magick, my experiences through the Grade Rituals and alchemical transformations of the Seven-Fold Way, the insights I have gained from those experiences, the conversations I have had with some important associates of the ONA, and my desire to see an end to the current narrative of extremism and radical politics, which I think has become self-destructive toward these aims. If we are to take the notion of [the transitory nature of] “causal forms” seriously, which includes that of radical political ideologies like National Socialism, there cannot be a double-standard.
In reviewing some of my recent writings, a friend of mine from a known Italian Nexion remarked that “what is happening suggests that the O9A might be using its own disruptive evolutionary techniques on itself,” which is … [an accurate observation]. My practical aim here is to [aid in restoring] a positive image of the Order of Nine Angles in the public eye, [to help filter out] those who are detrimental to its survival and aims, and to redirect the negative attention it has received in order to create the necessary conditions for transparent Aeonic change.
The other side of this purpose concerns practical techniques that can aid in the devotional practice of sinister magick across a wide spectrum. Aside from my work in esoteric chant … [both myself and contributors on the Fenrir team] hope to introduce techniques that can, in combination with some of the “contemplative” ideas I will introduce, be layered into unique and more powerful systems – all with the aim of Aeonic magick in mind. With respect to Fenrir … [we aim to] create a true dialectic (though I have issues with that term): contemplative, “numinous” scholarship addressing the higher three Septenary spheres (past the Sun), and techniques of practical Sinister magick [introduced by other Adepts in the ONA] to guide those who resonate with the lower three “sinister” spheres. The alchemical unification of these at an internal level in the ONA, collectively and across history to ensure its survival and growth – in this way, the gun is loaded.
All this is well and fine. But Clarice importantly remarked that it is hard to see a “tangible end” to this desire for long-term Aeonic change. In turn, she posed the following question:
So, we ask again, if you could show us a video-recording of the Aeonic change already having changed this inner society of individuals, what scenes and personalities would we see in that “movie”?
From a place of sincerity and honesty, my answer comes from instinct, as instinct has always guided everything I do and say, including my thought. My answer is this: We would see scenes of deep compassion, a mutual desire to uphold the lessons derived from meaningful tragedy, a profound intimacy shared between us from that understanding, and a stillness and silence content with the majesty and beauty of this world. I think more than anything, we would see love, which to me is profoundly heroic. This would not be a society of philosopher kings but of heroes. We would find fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. We would see the value in family and a simple way of living. We would share in the joy of this unique existence and treasure the time we have together. This is my vision of that Aeonic change. If this was a movie, it would be Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev or the Czech masterpiece, Marketa Lazarová. That change is perhaps best summarized in the following vision from Major Briggs to his son Bobby in David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, which applies powerfully to the ONA:
May I share something with you? A vision I had in my sleep last night – as distinguished from a dream which is mere sorting and cataloguing of the day’s events by the subconscious. This was a vision, fresh and clear as a mountain stream – the mind revealing itself to itself. In my vision, I was on the veranda of a vast estate, a palazzo of some fantastic proportion. There seemed to emanate from it a light from within – this gleaming radiant marble. I had known this place. I had in fact been born and raised there. This was my first return, a reunion with the deepest wellsprings of my being. Wandering about, I was happy that the house had been immaculately maintained. There had been added a number of additional rooms, but in a way it blended so seamlessly with the original construction, one would never detect any difference. Returning to the house’s grand foyer, there came a knock at the door. My son was standing there. He was happy and care-free, clearly living a life of deep harmony and joy. We embraced – a warm and loving embrace, nothing withheld. We were in this moment one. My vision ended. I awoke with a tremendous feeling of optimism and confidence in you and your future. That was my vision: it was of you.
As a response to this vision – and to the “vast estate” it refers to – and being first and foremost a musician, I think its application to the ONA can additionally be illustrated through music. Music alone can express what in speech must remain silent. And silence is the creative foundation for all music. The following song, and particularly the lyrics, perhaps better express what I’ve said above (and to be clear, United Bible Studies has no affiliation with the ONA and has spoken out firmly against it). It has had a powerful influence on my thinking over the years, and speaks to the mystery at the heart of the Order of Nine Angles:
When I was born, my father said to me:
The room in which I was born
was not what it seemed
It had a coffee pot,
a cat,
and some shadows
I asked what he meant, and he said:
Do you mean –
The room in which you were born
is not what it seems?
It was built ten long years
after when you were born
I said: what do you mean?
The room where I was born?
I recall his cold eyes
as he revealed this truth to me:
My son, it’s a shameful secret
spoken in the room where you were born,
which was itself born after me,
which I believe makes me unborn –
Unborn
Unborn
Though I think this vision may not be attainable – perhaps closer to something like a regulative ideal – the sentiment it expresses may serve to balance the other side of the ONA’s dialogue, directing us toward a future end that cannot possibly be known. My hope is that this is not an end, but merely a beginning.
Nameless Therein
Scothorn Nexion
March 15, 2022
2775 ab urbe condita
From your reaction and from my writing, many reading the last few posts here may think that I’m some studious, academic bookworm lost in a world of theoretical reflection and abstraction with no grounding in vital experience or action: a “pathetic husk pouring over the dusty tomes of vacuous minds intent on finding solace for their inadequacy-in-the-world,” bound, as you put it, to “the emasculating chains of vain scholarship” in opposition to “putting boots on the ground to carry out definitive action.”
In response, I will say this: those who know me personally – including some of the most powerful Nexions in this tradition – know that my background is steeped in a solemn history of profound sinister/Satanic activity. What I write is not meant to be theoretical. And it is from my history of violent and transformative action that I can even approach the contemplative. My journey along the Seven-Fold Way was prefaced by extreme experiences: I know what it’s like to fight for my life, to be beaten and broken, to approach physical death on more than one occasion; of losing everyone and everything and having to rebuild from a bottom that no longer exists. I know what it’s like to lose my mind, to find my best friend dead in a bathtub after committing suicide, to find myself in the emergency room on multiple occasions, to know and love a woman and then to see her die … My boots aren’t just on the ground: they’re on the earth.
The best among us know what it’s like to be wounded. One cannot approach the ONA or the Seven-Fold Way, let alone expect to succeed, without having had such experiences break down the resistance structures that prevent us from maintaining composure in the face of great adversity. It is precisely from this wounding, from having been the recipient of its necessary violence, that I object to propagating it, whether in language or in deed.
You have misunderstood what was written in my last post: action is not meant to be a substitution for contemplation, but neither is contemplation meant to be a substitution for action. The two must inform each other.
What I wrote was not meant to target any specific person or Nexion. I have engaged in brief dialogue with your parent Nexion, The Black Order, for example – and while I disagree with much of what is written in their literature on some of the grounds explicated in my previous post, I think it is nevertheless important to engage in serious dialogue with them and their ideas for just this reason.
Your response, which I found vulgar and distasteful, seems to indicate just the contrary. And it’s “vita activa,” not “via activa.”
But my brain grew more and more perplexed. At last I jumped out of bed to find the water tap. I wasn’t thirsty, but my head was feverish and I felt instinctively a need for water. When I had had my drink, I went back to bed again and decided that I was going to sleep, by hook or by crook. I closed my eyes and forced myself to be quiet. I lay for several minutes without moving a muscle, began to sweat and felt the blood pulse violently through my veins. Wasn’t it just too funny, though, that he should look for money in the cornet! And he coughed, just once. Is he still walking around down there? Sitting on my bench? … The blue mother-of-pearl … the ships …
– Knut Hamsun, Hunger
Nameless Therein
Scothorn Nexion
March 15, 2022
2775 ab urbe condita
What follows is a draft of an article for inclusion in the upcoming edition of Fenrir on the subject of politics and extremism in the Order of Nine Angles. While the upcoming edition explicitly moves away from politics and extremism, the article attempts to clarify what a “movement away” involves. In unveiling some of the deeper Hellenic influences at the ONA’s roots and examining the way these inform the relation between action and contemplation, it is hoped that the content presented here will impart a new perspective on a very old dialogue, in turn opening new lines of communication and inspiring a few individuals along the way.
– Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Socrates, 1787
Contemplation, Logos, and Faith: The Role of the Vita Contemplativa in the Politics of the Order of Nine Angles
The upcoming edition of Fenrir’s movement away from extremism and politics marks a return to the ONA’s roots in esotericism and scholarship – esotericism with respect to the hidden nature of experiences attainable through this tradition, and scholarship with respect to both the Aristotelian role “for contemplation of a larger order as something divine in us” [1] and the ancient Hellenic role of the vita contemplativa[2] or the contemplative life. While the ONA has roots in extremism and politics, it may be helpful to clarify what is meant by Fenrir’s “movement away” from these in relation to the lesser-known Greco-Hellenic influences that form a large part of the ONA’s foundation.
Contemplation played an important role in the ancient Hellenic world. While many historical shifts occurred during that time, one of particular significance was the shift from the vita activa or active life to the vita contemplativa or contemplative life. Hannah Arendt, a notable student of Heidegger,[3] analyzes these in detail in her influential work, The Human Condition. She describes how the three activities of the vita activa – labor, work, and action, respectively – have specific conditions and contexts. Arendt notes that the condition of labor is nature, whose domain has to do with providing the necessities of life. The condition of work is world or worldliness, which contrasts with labor in terms of the human-made things it pertains to and carries a sense of artificiality. (Labor, by contrast, concerns the phenomena of nature.) For Arendt, labor in relation to nature illustrates our relation to other animals, whereas work in relation to worldliness is distinctively human.
Action as the third activity of the vita activa takes on a special significance. Arendt identifies action as the prerogative of the human being, where the condition of action is plurality. For Arendt, “[p]lurality is the condition of human action because we are all the same, that is, human, in such a way that nobody is ever the same as anyone else who ever lived, lives, or will live.”[4] Arendt draws our attention to the fact “that men, not Man, live on the earth and inhabit the world,”[5] where action is “the only activity that goes on directly between men without the intermediary of things or matter.”[6] Action is thus important in several respects: it “has the closest connection with the human condition of natality”[7] insofar as it pertains to the way birth brings with it the potential for what is new; natality in relation to action has some bearing on Arendt’s discussion of mortality; and – most importantly for our purposes – action is political in nature and is connected closely to the domain of the political.[8]
Through a major historical shift that marked “perhaps the most momentous of the spiritual consequences of the discoveries of the modern age,”[9] Arendt notes how action and the political were overtaken by the vita contemplativa, the contemplative life. As the highest and purest type of action, it became the highest rung of human activity, and this lasted for some time. The trial of Socrates in ancient Greece played an important role in this shift,[10] where philosophers began to distance themselves from and distrust the political following the execution of Socrates. On this point, it is important to note that the primacy of contemplation did not equate to the primacy of thought over political action, as Arendt makes a clear distinction between contemplation and thought.[11]
Arendt observes that “the enormous superiority of contemplation over activity of any kind, action not excluded, is not Christian in origin.”[12] Contemplation can be found, for example, “in Plato’s political philosophy … [and in] Aristotle’s … articulation of the different ways of life … [which is] clearly guided by the ideal of contemplation (theōria).”[13] She describes how the philosophers of the ancient Greek world added “freedom and surcease from political activity (skholē)”[14] to the “ancient freedom from the necessities of life and from the compulsion by others,”[15] whereby the “later Christian claim to be free from entanglement in worldly affairs, from all the business of this world, was preceded by and originated in the philosophic apolitia of late antiquity.”[16] Thus, “[w]hat had been demanded only by the few was now considered to be a right of all.”[17] In this, we find a close parallel to what David Myatt, in “Classical Paganism and the Christian Ethos,” refers to as an “ancient paganus spirituality,” or “paganus weltanschauung” present in the Greco-Roman worldview.[18] From Arendt’s analysis, we find a clue and possible answer to Myatt’s question, “Is the fundamental difference between such a paganus spirituality and Christianity (past and present) simply the difference between λόγος (logos) understood as ‘reason’ and λόγος understood as faith and belief and thus as the Word of God?”[19] As we have seen, the difference rests heavily on the shift from the vita activa to the vita contemplativa in the ancient Greek world, where contemplation becomes the highest human activity. Understanding this shift may thus help us better understand the complex relation between the ancient Greeks and Christianity, and thus between logos and faith.
As a more substantive response to Myatt, I will note that Pope Benedict XVI addressed this very question – the relation between logos and faith – in his September 2006 address at the University of Regensburg, entitled “Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Reflections.”[20] The Pope states that “[t]he encounter between the Biblical message and Greek thought did not happen by chance.”[21] From the vision of Saint Paul, for example, “who saw the roads to Asia barred and in a dream saw a Macedonian man plead with him: ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us!’,”[22] we find a line of interpretation that points to the necessity of a “rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek inquiry.”[23] Though in the late Middle Ages there is evidence of certain theological trends “which would sunder this synthesis between the Greek spirit and the Christian spirit,”[24] the dialogue between the ancient Greeks and the early Christians – and thus between faith and reason – was more than a conversation: it took place as a kind of communion, one that has had a lasting influence on the modern world.[25] In fact, the “dehellenization” of the Christian worldview did not emerge until the sixteenth century with the “postulates of the Reformation,”[26] where Reformers were responding to a system of scholastic theology that appeared as “an alien system of thought” – one where “faith no longer appeared as a living historical Word but as one element of an overarching philosophical system.”[27] This was in contrast to the principle of sola scriptura, which “sought faith in its pure, primordial form, as originally found in the biblical Word.”[28] Even after the dehellenization of the Reformation, we find the convergence between the ancient Greeks and Christianity carried through the Enlightenment and into the modern world as a powerful impulse. Immanuel Kant, one of the most important thinkers in Western history, “stated that he needed to set thinking aside in order to make room for faith,” where he “anchored faith exclusively in practical reason, denying it access to reality as a whole.”[29]
In response to Myatt’s question then, we find that the complex relation between faith and reason has a similarly complex history with respect to the ancient Greek worldview and Christianity. In that history, the demarcation between logos as reason and logos as faith becomes blurred, which undermines its role in distinguishing the ancient Greek worldview from its Christian counterpart. On this point, Pope Benedict XVI says the following:
[D]espite the bitter conflict with those Hellenistic rulers who sought to accommodate it forcibly to the customs and idolatrous cult of the Greeks, biblical faith, in the Hellenistic period, encountered the best of Greek thought at a deep level, resulting in a mutual enrichment evident especially in the later wisdom literature. Today we know that the Greek translation of the Old Testament produced at Alexandria – the Septuagint – is more than a simple (and in that sense really less than satisfactory) translation of the Hebrew text: it is an independent textual witness and a distinct and important step in the history of revelation, one which brought about this encounter in a way that was decisive for the birth and spread of Christianity. A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking place here, an encounter between genuine enlightenment and religion. From the very heart of Christian faith and, at the same time, the heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, Manuel II [Paleologus] was able to say: Not to act “with logos” is contrary to God’s nature.[30]
Thus, in many respects the ONA is a response to a very old and long-standing dialogue between faith and reason, directed through the ancient Hellenic role of the vita contemplativa as the highest human activity, one that directly informs action. To return to the aforesaid question concerning a “movement away” from the ONA’s roots in extremism and politics with respect to Fenrir, it should be noted that this emphasis on contemplation is not meant to replace the three activities of the vita activa; it is meant to inform them by restoring a direct line of communication between how the transformative and ecstatic experiences of the ONA – such as those catalyzed by the Grade Rituals of the Seven-Fold Way – shape the way we inhabit and interact with the world.[31] With respect to the ONA, contemplation is specifically meant to inform plurality as the condition of action, where plurality and action also inform contemplation. Attempting to exclude one over the other is to misunderstand this relation, which sadly continues to occur both within the ONA and by its opponents. Insofar as action as the condition for plurality is political, so too are the ONA and Fenrir in this respect. However, Fenrir’s “movement away” from politics concerns a movement away from the substitution of action for contemplation, which involves a breakdown of the relation between the vita activa and the vita contemplativa. We find this breakdown in almost every major socio-political outlet in the world, which fail to take this complex historical shift into account – a shift that has made possible various developments in the modern world.
With respect to Fenrir’s movement away from extremism, Pope Benedict XVI’s comments regarding the topic of violent religious conversion ring true here. In a dialogue between “the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam,”[32] the Pope recounts how:
The emperor, after having expressed himself so forcefully, goes on to explain in detail the reasons why spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. “God,” he says, “is not pleased by blood – and not acting reasonably (σὺν λόγω) is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…”[33]
In closing, one should recall that Fenrir remains – and will remain for the foreseeable future – a journal of Satanism and the Sinister; and this should, at the very least, give one pause in considering how to interpret what has been said here: that the outer boundaries demarcating the true nature of the Order of Nine Angles are deeply hidden, complex, and discoverable only through years of difficult ordeals, careful navigation, and – most importantly – contemplation informed by plurality and action. The upcoming edition’s underlying themes of alterity, empathy, and practical sinister magick speak to this in a powerful way.
Home! and with them are gone
The hues they gazed on and the tones they heard;
Life’s beauty and life’s melody: — alone
Broods o’er the desolate void, the lifeless word;
Yet rescued from time’s deluge, still they throng
Unseen the Pindus they were wont to cherish:
All, that which gains immortal life in song,
To mortal life must perish!
– Friedrich Schiller, “The Gods of Greece”
Nameless Therein
Scothorn Nexion
Sun in Pisces, March 13, 2022
2775 ab urbe condita
NOTES
[1] Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2007), 27.
[2] Hannah Arendt identifies the vita contemplativa with the ancient Greek bios theōrētikos. See Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, 2nd ed. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1958), 14. Regarding the role of contemplation in the ancient Greek world, Arendt characterizes it as follows: “and the life of the philosopher devoted to inquiry into, and contemplation of, things eternal, whose everlasting beauty can neither be brought about through the producing interference of man nor be changed through his consumption of them.” Arendt, Human Condition, 13.
[3] Hannah Arendt’s history with Heidegger is complex and will not be explored here. See, for example, Antonia Grunenberg, Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger: History of Love, trans. Peg Birmingham, Kristina Lebedeva, and Elizabeth von Witzke Birmingham (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017). What is important for our purposes is that in addition to having studied under him directly, Heidegger had a profound influence on Arendt’s thought. Lewis and Sandra Hinchman note, for example, that “[r]eading Arendt’s few comments on Heidegger, one would scarcely imagine what a vast, pervasive influence he had upon her.” They add that “[t]he stamp of Heideggerian thinking is especially noticeable in three elements of Arendt’s work: the status of her elaborate system of distinctions and concepts, her approach to language, and her interpretation of action as self-revelation.” Lewis P. Hinchman and Sandra K. Hinchman, “In Heidegger’s Shadow: Hannah Arendt’s Phenomenological Humanism,” The Review of Politics 46, no. 2 (April 1984): 196.
[8] This is consistent with the fact that the condition of action is plurality, since it is the plurality of human beings that constitutes the domain of the political.
[9] Arendt, Human Condition, 289. The full quote is as follows:
Perhaps the most momentous of the spiritual consequences of the discoveries of the modern age and, at the same time, the only one that could not have been avoided, since it followed closely upon the discovery of the Archimedean point and the concomitant rise of Cartesian doubt, has been the reversal of the hierarchical order between the vita contemplativa and the vita activa.
[10] See Arendt, Human Condition, 12: “The term vita activa is loaded and overloaded with tradition. It is as old as (but not older than) our tradition of political thought. And this tradition, far from comprehending and conceptualizing all the political experiences of Western mankind, grew out of a specific historical constellation: the trial of Socrates and the conflict between the philosopher and the polis.”
[11] Arendt does not address contemplation at length in The Human Condition, as she is interested in the historical shifts that have to do with labor, work, and action. However, regarding the shift from the vita activa to the vita contemplativa, in addition to the difference between contemplation and thought, the following comments may be helpful:
With the disappearance of the ancient city-state—Augustine seems to have been the last to know at least what it once meant to be a citizen—the term vita activa lost its specifically political meaning and denoted all kinds of active engagement in the things of this world. To be sure, it does not follow that work and labor had risen in the hierarchy of human activities and were now equal in dignity with a life devoted to politics. It was, rather, the other way round: action was now also reckoned among the necessities of earthly life, so that contemplation (the bios theōrētikos, translated into the vita contemplativa) was left as the only truly free way of life. (Arendt, The Human Condition, 14)
[20] See Pope Benedict XVI, “Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Reflections” (speech, Aula Magna of the University of Regensburg, Bavaria, Germany, September 12, 2006). A transcript of the speech can be found at www.vatican.va.
[21] Pope Benedict XVI, “Faith.” Interestingly, Pope Benedict XVI also addresses faith and reason with respect to the relation between Christianity and Islam. Recalling part of a dialogue carried on “by the erudite Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam,” he notes “the truth of both,” adding that:
It was presumably the emperor himself who set down this dialogue, during the siege of Constantinople between 1394 and 1402; and this would explain why his arguments are given in greater detail than those of his Persian interlocutor. The dialogue ranges widely over the structures of faith contained in the Bible and in the Qur’an, and deals especially with the image of God and of man, while necessarily returning repeatedly to the relationship between – as they were called – three “Laws” or “rules of life”: the Old Testament, the New Testament and the Qur’an.
[25] With respect to the convergence between the ancient Greek world and Christianity, Pope Benedict XVI observes the following:
This inner rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek philosophical inquiry was an event of decisive importance, not only from the standpoint of the history of religions, but also from that of world history – it is an event which concerns us even today. Given this convergence, it is not surprising that Christianity, despite its origins and some significant developments in the East, finally took on its historically decisive character in Europe. We can also express this the other way around: this convergence [between the ancient Greek world and Christianity], with the subsequent addition of the Roman heritage, created Europe and remains the foundation of what can rightly be called Europe. (Pope Benedict XVI, “Faith”)
[31] The question of how we interact with others in the world, particularly with respect to the relation between plurality, action, and community, is a theme relevant to my forthcoming article for the upcoming edition of Fenrir, which concerns alterity (our relation to the other).
[32] Pope Benedict XVI, “Faith.” The Pope notes that this dialogue may have occurred in 1391, “in the winter barracks near Ankara.”
