Essays Regarding Influence, The Order of Nine Angles, Satanism, and The Left Hand Path.

The five recent (2012-2013) and adversarial essays in this collection challenge the consensus, both in popular occult culture and in academia, that (i) the most important exemplar of Satanism is Anton LaVey that (ii) Michael Aquino and his Temple of Set are representatives, par excellence, of the modern occult Left Hand Path (LHP) and that (iii) the Order of Nine Angles (O9A) is just a minor, if somewhat notorious, group within a minor sub-culture of the Crowley/Aquino dominated LHP milieu.

Two of the essays - Order of Nine Angles Influence? and Anton Long and The Exeatic Quest for Gnosis - compare LaVey and Aquino with Anton Long. Another essay focuses on how the O9A has developed its mythos over some decades and how, since its public inception, it presented an altogether different vision and version of both Satanism and the LHP from that promulgated by LaVey and Aquino.

The final essay debunks the much-hyped claim that the O9A based its 'nine angles' concept on that promulgated by Aquino.

About Author:

The Order of Nine Angles (ONA; O9A) is a Satanic and Left-Hand Path occult group based in the United Kingdom, but with affiliated groups in various other parts of the world. Claiming to have been established in the 1960s, it arose to public recognition in the early 1980s.

Describing its approach as "Traditional Satanism", it has been academically identified as also exhibiting Hermetic and Neo-Pagan elements in its beliefs.

According to the Order's own account, it was established in the Welsh Marches of Western England during the late 1960s by a woman who had previously been involved in a secretive pre-Christian tradition surviving in the region. This account also states that in 1973 a man named "Anton Long" was initiated into the group, subsequently becoming its Grand Master. Several academic commentators to have studied the ONA express the view that the name "Anton Long" is probably the pseudonym of the British Neo-Nazi activist David Myatt, although Myatt has denied that this is the case. From the late 1970s onward, Long authored a number of books and articles propagating the Order's ideas, and in 1988 it began production of its own journal, Fenrir. Through these ventures it established links with other Neo-Nazi Satanist groups around the world, furthering its cause through embracing the internet in the 2000s.

The ONA promotes the idea that human history can be divided into a series of Aeons, each of which contain a corresponding human civilization. It expresses the view that the current Aeonic civilization is that of the Western, but claims that the evolution of this society is threatened by the "Magian/Nazarene" influence of Judeo-Christian religion, which the Order seeks to combat in order to establish a militaristic new social order, termed the "Imperium". According to Order teachings, this is necessary in order for a Galactic civilization to form, in which "Aryan" society will colonise the Milky Way. It advocates a spiritual path in which the practitioner is required to break societal taboos by isolating themselves from society, committing crimes, embracing political extremism and violence, and carrying out an act of human sacrifice. ONA members practice magick, believing that they are able to do so through channeling energies into our own "causal" realm from an "acausal" realm where the laws of physics do not apply, with such magical actions designed to aid in the ultimate establishment of the Imperium.

The ONA lacks any central authority or structure, instead operating as a broad network of associates - termed the "kollective" - who are inspired by the texts originally authored by Long and other members of the "Inner ONA". The group comprises largely of clandestine cells, termed "nexions", as well as gangs known as Dreccs, artists known as Balobians, and folk mystics known as Rounwytha. With the first nexion based in Shropshire, Western England, the majority of groups have been established in the British Isles and Germany, although others have been formed elsewhere in Europe, Russia, South Africa, Australia, and North America. Academic estimates suggest that the number of individuals broadly associated with the Order falls in the low thousands.