About David Myatt

David Myatt (born 1950) - also known as Abdul-Aziz ibn Myatt and David Wulstan Myatt - is the founder of a mystical philosophy called The Numinous Way, a former British Muslim and a former neo-nazi.

He is regarded as an "example of the axis between right-wing extremists and Islamists," [1][2] and one of the more interesting figures on the British neo-Nazi scene since the 1970's [3][4][5][2].

According to Professor Robert S. Wistrich, Myatt, when a Muslim, was a staunch advocate of "Jihad, suicide missions and killing Jews..." and also "an ardent defender of bin Laden". [6]

Myatt, writing in 2010, states that "Empathy may be said to be the quintessence of [my] Numinous Way. From and because of empathy, there is and there arises compassion, and thus the... desire to cease to cause suffering." [7]

Before his conversion to Islam in 1998, Myatt was the first leader of the British National Socialist Movement (NSM),[8][9][2] and was identified by the British newspaper, The Observer, as the “ideological heavyweight” behind the violent neo-nazi group Combat 18 [10] whose founder and leader, Charlie Sargent, was convicted, in 1998, of murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Following his conversion to Islam, Myatt dissociated himself from nationalism and racialism, and openly wrote and spoke about racism being unethical and dishonorable.

During his three-decade long involvement with neo-nazism, Myatt authored thousands of essays and pamphlets about National Socialism, in many of which he describes the Holocaust as “a hoax”. Following his conversion to Islam, he began writing about Islam, and so far has produced hundreds of articles, many of which advocate Islamic martyrdom operations, express support for Osama bin Laden, and the Taliban, and, in line with Al Qaida’s radical Islamist stance, support the killing of non-combatants [11]. One of Myatt’s articles justifying suicide attacks was, for several years, on the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (the military wing) section of the Hamas website [12].

An April 2005 NATO workshop heard that Myatt had called on “all enemies of the Zionists to embrace the Jihad” against Jews and the United States [13]. Political scientist Professor George Michael wrote that Myatt has “arguably done more than any other theorist to develop a synthesis of the extreme right and Islam.” [2]

Myatt first came to public attention in 1999, a year after his conversion to Islam, when a pamphlet he wrote many years earlier, A Practical Guide to Aryan Revolution, described as a “detailed step-by-step guide for terrorist insurrection,” [14] was said [1] to have inspired David Copeland, who left nailbombs in areas frequented by London’s black, Asian, and gay communities. Three people died and 129 were injured in the explosions, several of them losing limbs.

Myatt was also, for many years, a member of the secret British paramilitary organization Column 88 [15][16][17], which, it has been alleged, was part of the NATO “stay-behind” Gladio network, designed to conduct sabotage and assassinations in the event of a Soviet Invasion of Western Europe.

In addition to writing about Islam and National Socialism, Myatt has - using the name DW Myatt - translated works by Sophocles [18], Sappho [19], Aeschylus [18], and Homer [20], and has written several collections of poems and some Occult horror stories. He has also developed a mystical philosophy which he calls The Numinous Way (aka the philosophy of the numen).

It has been alleged [9][2] that Myatt - using the pseudonym Anton Long - was and is the current Grand Master of the Order of Nine Angles, a Left Hand Path, or Black Magick, Occult group. Myatt has always denied such involvement and challeged anyone to provide any evidence of such invovlement [21][16].

Myatt grew up in East Africa, and later in the Far East, where he studied the martial arts. He moved to England in 1967 to complete his schooling, and began a degree in Physics but did not complete it, leaving his studies to focus on his political activism. He is reported to live in the Midlands and to have been married three times.

The British anti-fascist magazine Searchlight has written of him: “He does not have the appearance of a Nazi ideologue … Sporting a long ginger beard, Barbour jacket, cords and a tweed flat cap, he resembles an eccentric country gentleman out for a Sunday ramble. But Myatt is anything but the country squire, for beneath this seemingly innocuous exterior is a man of extreme and calculated hatred.”

According to Professor Jeffrey Kaplan [3], Myatt has undertaken "a global odyssey which took him on extended stays in the Middle East and East Asia, accompanied by studies of religions ranging from Christianity to Islam in the Western tradition and Taoism and Buddhism in the Eastern path. In the course of this Siddhartha-like search for truth, Myatt sampled the life of the monastery in both its Christian and Buddhist forms."

Political scientist Professor George Michael has written [2] that Myatt is an “intriguing theorist,” with a reported IQ of 187, whose "Faustian quests" not only involved studying Taoism and spending time in a Buddhist and later Christian monastery, but also allegedly involved exploring the occult, and Paganism and what Michael calls "quasi-Satanic" secret societies, while remaining a committed National Socialist.

Myatt joined Colin Jordan’s British Movement, a neo-Nazi group, in 1968, where he sometimes acted as Jordan’s bodyguard at meetings and rallies. From the 70s until the 90s, he remained involved with paramilitary and neo-Nazi organizations such as Column 88 and Combat 18, and was imprisoned twice for violent offenses in connection with his political activism.

Myatt was the founder and first leader of the National Socialist Movement, of which David Copeland was a member. He also co-founded the neo-Nazi organization the NDFM (National Democratic Freedom Movement) which was active in Leeds, England, in the early 1970s, and founded and led the neo-Nazi Reichsfolk group.

Of the NDFM, John Tyndall - the founder of the BNP - wrote (in the April 1983 edition of his Spearhead magazine): "The National Democratic Freedom Movement made little attempt to engage in serious politics but concentrated its activities mainly upon acts of violence against its opponents.... Before very long the NDFM had degenerated into nothing more than a criminal gang." Myatt, writing in his autobiography Myngath, admits that during this time he did organize a small gang "whose aim was to liberate goods, fence them, and make some money with the initial intent of aiding our political struggle." Myatt was subsequently arrested in a raid by the Yorkshire Regional Crime Squad, and imprisoned for leading this gang.

Professor Michael writes that Myatt took over the leadership of Combat 18 in 1998, when Charlie Sargent, the previous leader, was jailed for murder.

In 1997, a pamphlet Myatt had written called A Practical Guide to Aryan Revolution was posted on a website run out of British Columbia, Canada, by Bernard Klatt. The pamphlet included chapter titles such as “Assassination,” “Terror Bombing,” and “Racial War.” According to Michael Whine of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, “the contents provided a detailed step-by-step guide for terrorist insurrection with advice on assassination targets, rationale for bombing and sabotage campaigns, and rules of engagement.”

In February 1998, Detectives from Scotland Yard raided Myatt’s home in Worcestershire, arrested him, and removed his computers and files. The case against him - involving allegations of incitement to murder, conspiracy to murder and incitement to racial hatred - was dropped after a three year international investigation because the evidence supplied by the Canadian authorities was not enough to secure a conviction. [22]

It was this pamphlet that, in 1999, allegedly influenced David Copeland, the London nailbomber - also a member of Myatt’s National Socialist Movement - who planted homemade bombs in Brixton, Brick Lane, and inside the Admiral Duncan pub on Old Compton Street in London, frequented by the black, Asian, and gay communities respectively. Friends John Light, Nick Moore, and Andrea Dykes and her unborn child died in the Admiral Duncan pub. Copeland told police he had been trying to spark a “racial war.”

According to the BBC’s Panorama program about Copeland broadcast in 2000, when Myatt was leader of the NSM, he called for “the creation of racial terror with bombs.” Myatt is also quoted by Searchlight as having stated that “the primary duty of all National Socialists is to change the world. National Socialism means revolution: the overthrow of the existing System and its replacement with a National-Socialist society. Revolution means struggle: it means war. It means certain tactics have to be employed, and a great revolutionary movement organized which is primarily composed of those prepared to fight, prepared to get their hands dirty and perhaps spill some blood”.

Various sources state that the Order of Nine Angles (ONA) was originally formed in England in the 1960s, with the merger of three neopagan temples called Camlad, The Noctulians, and Temple of the Sun. Following the original leader’s emigration to Australia, it has been alleged that Myatt took over the order and began writing the now publicly-available teachings of the ONA. The ONA now has associates, and groups, in the United States, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South America, and Russia.

Author Nick Ryan has asserted that Anton Long, the author of the ONA’s public tracts, is a pseudonym of Myatt. This assertion is repeated by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, who claims that Myatt was the founder of the ONA and writer of most of the ONA documents. The allegation has also been repeated many times by the anti-fascist Searchlight organization.

Myatt has always denied such allegations about involvement with the ONA, and using the pseudonym Anton Long, and repeatedly challenged anyone to provide any evidence of such allegations. In addition, Myatt challenged two journalists - Nick Lowles (from Searchlight) and Nick Ryan - to a duel for repeating such allegations, a challenge which they both declined.

Myatt converted to Islam in 1998. He told writer George Michael that his decision to convert began when he took a job on a farm in England. He was working long hours in the fields and felt an affinity with nature, concluding that the sense of harmony he felt had not come about by chance. He told Michael that he was also impressed by the militancy of Islamist groups, and believed that he shared common enemies with Islam, namely “the capitalist-consumer West and international finance.”

Shortly after his conversion, some critics and observers suggested that Myatt’s conversion was insincere and “may be just a political ploy to advance his own failing anti-establishment agenda.”

Others, however, accepted his conversion as genuine, and - given Myatt’s voluminous writings in praise of Islam and his support for the Taliban and his acceptance by other Muslims - this acceptance of his conversion as genuine gradually became the general consensus [24][25][26][27].

According to an article in The Times published on April 24, 2006, Myatt then believed that: "The pure authentic Islam of the revival, which recognises practical jihad as a duty, is the only force that is capable of fighting and destroying the dishonour, the arrogance, the materialism of the West ... For the West, nothing is sacred, except perhaps Zionists, Zionism, the hoax of the so-called Holocaust, and the idols which the West and its lackeys worship, or pretend to worship, such as democracy... Jihad is our duty. If nationalists, or some of them, desire to aid us, to help us, they can do the right thing, the honourable thing, and convert, revert, to Islam — accepting the superiority of Islam over and above each and every way of the West."

In 2010, Myatt publicly rejected Islam, writing that "according to The Numinous Way, the only ethical way in which we can change ourselves, and our society, is through an inner, individual, transformation by developing empathy and by striving to live in an ethical, and honourable, way, "and that "the desire not to cause suffering...may be said to be the basis of individual living according to The Numinous Way."

Myatt describes the Numinous Way as "the result of a four-decade long" personal pathei-mathos and "the often difficult process of acknowledging my many personal mistakes."

In addition, as he stated in his essay Questions About Race, The Folk, and The Numinous Way:

In his most recent writings (2010-2011), Myatt describes The Numinous Way as the culture of ἀρετή which he defines as "the education of discovering and knowing, intellectually and personally, that noble balance between our natural human tendency to commit ὕβρις - to go beyond the respectful, noble, limits of behaviour - and the necessity of learning the hard way, from πάθει μάθος, from direct personal experience. Δίκα is this balance; a balance manifest in us - or which can be manifest in us - through thoughtful reasoning, that is, by a well-balanced, fair, noble, personal judgement." [30] Thus he links his Numinous Way to Hellenistic philosophy and places it in the Western philosophical tradition [31].

References

[1] Mark Weitzman: Antisemitismus und Holocaust-Leugnung: Permanente Elemente des globalen Rechtsextremismus, in Thomas Greven: Globalisierter Rechtsextremismus? Die extremistische Rechte in der Ära der Globalisierung. 1 Auflage. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften/GWV Fachverlage GmbH, Wiesbaden. ISBN 3-531-14514-2, pp.61-64

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

[3] Jeffrey Kaplan (ed.). David Wulstan Myatt. In: Encyclopedia of White Power. A Sourcebook on the Radical Racist Right. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek, CA 2000, p. 216ff; p.512f.

[4] Arkadiusz Sołtysiak. Neopogaństwo i neonazizm: Kilka słów o ideologiach Davida Myatta i Varga Vikernesa. Antropologia Religii. Wybór esejów. Tom IV, (2010), s. 173-182

[5] Agnieszka Pufelska: Der Faschismusbegiiff in Osteuropa nach 1945 in ''Die Dynamik der europäischen Rechten Geschichte, Kontinuitäten und Wandel''. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2010. ISBN 978-3-531-17191-3

[6] Wistrich, Robert S, A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad, Random House, 2010. ISBN 978-1-4000-6097-9

[7] David Myatt. Three Essays Regarding The Numinous Way (2010)

[8] Goodrick-Clark, N. Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity. New York University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-8147-3124-4. p.50

[9] Searchlight, April 1998

[10] Barnett, Antony. "Right here, right now", The Observer, February 9, 2003.

[11] For example, refer to: Abdul-Aziz ibn Myatt, Al-Islam and The Question of Civilians, 14 Zhul al-Hijjah 1428

This article by Myatt, under a variety of pseudonyms (such as A Servant of Allah) - or anonymously - along with his equally infamous article The Aims of Al-Qaeda, was published on several Jihadi and Al-Qaida supporting websites and forums in 2008 and 2009, including one devoted to the Somali Jihad, all of which forums and sites have since been shut down for "violating their terms of service..." These two articles by Myatt are now virtually unobtainable on the Web.

[12] Durham, Martin. White Rage: The Extreme Right and American Politics. Routledge, 2007, p.113

[13] Karmon, Ely. Arenas for Radical and Anti-Globalization Groups Activity, NATO Workshop On Terrorism and Communications, Slovakia, April 2005

[14] Whine, Michael. Cyberspace: A New Medium for Communication, Command and Control by Extremists. International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, 1999

[15] Goodrick-Clark, N. op cit. Chapter 11

[16] David Myatt. Myngath - Some Recollections of a Wyrdful Life. (Ninth revised ed. August 2011). e-text

[17] Michael, George. op cit.

[18] J. Michael Walton: Found in Translation: Greek Drama in English, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp.206, 221, 227

[19] Gary Daher Canedo: Safo y Catulo: poesía amorosa de la antigüedad, Universidad Nur, 2005.

[20] Smith, S: Epic Logos, in Globalisation and its discontents, Boydell & Brewer, 2006

[21] Ryan, Nick. Into a World of Hate. Routledge, 2004, p. 53

[22] Vacca, John R. "Computer Forensics: Computer Crime Scene Investigation", Charles River Media, 2005, p.420 ISBN 1-58450-389-0

[23] Edmund Standing. Jihadism and the Dreamers of the Day. e-text. December 11, 2008

[24] Miller, Rory (2007). British Anti-Zionism Then and Now. Covenant, Volume 1, Issue 2 (April 2007 / Iyar 5767), Herzliya, Israel.

[25] Wistrich, Robert S, A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad, Random House, 2010. ISBN 978-1-4000-6097-9

[26] Amis, Martin. The Second Plane. Jonathan Cape, 2008, p.157

[27] Steyn, Mark (2006). American Alone, Regnery Publishing, USA, p.92. ISBN 0895260786

[28] David Myatt. An Overview of The Numinous Way of Life (2010)

[29] David Myatt. A Learning From Physis (2010).

[30] David Myatt. The culture of ἀρετή (2010).

[31] David Myatt. Classical Foundations of The Numinous Way (2010).

Wistrich, Robert S, A Lethal Obsession: Anti-Semitism from Antiquity to the Global Jihad, Random House, 2010. ISBN 978-1-4000-6097-9

Mark Weitzman: Antisemitismus und Holocaust-Leugnung: Permanente Elemente des globalen Rechtsextremismus, in Thomas Greven: Globalisierter Rechtsextremismus? Die extremistische Rechte in der Ära der Globalisierung. 1 Auflage. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften/GWV Fachverlage GmbH, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-531-14514-2, pp.61-64

Raphael Israeli. (2008) The Islamic Challenge in Europe. Transaction Publishers. pp 44-45. ISBN-13: 978-1412807500

Greven, Thomas (ed) (2006) Globalisierter Rechtsextremismus? Rechtsextremismus in der Ära der Globalisierung VS Verlag. ISBN 3-531-14514-2

Searchlight (UK magazine), issues of Feb 1984, April 1984, January 1991, July 1995, April 1998, July 2000

Steyn, Mark (2006). American Alone, Regnery Publishing, USA, p.92. ISBN 0895260786

Vacca, John R. “Computer Forensics: Computer Crime Scene Investigation”, Charles River Media, 2005, p.420. ISBN 1-58450-389-0

Jeffrey Kaplan. Encyclopedia of white power: a sourcebook on the radical racist right. Rowman & Littlefield, 2000

Jeffrey Kaplan, Religiosity and the Radical Right: Toward the Creation of a New Ethnic Identity, in Jeffrey Kaplan and Tore Bjorgo, eds., Nation and Race: The Developing Euro-American Racist Subculture (Northeastern University Press, 1998)

Jeffrey Kaplan (University of Helsinki) in Krista Vogelberg, Raili Pöldsaar. Negotiating Spaces on the Common Ground: Selected Papers of the 3rd and 4th International Tartu Conferences on North-American Studies. Tartu University Press, 2000 ISBN 9985401492, 9789985401491

Mr Evil: The Secret Life of Racist Pub Bomber David Copeland by Graeme McLagen and Nick Lowles (Blake Publications, England, July 2000)

Whine, Michael. Cyberspace: A New Medium for Communication, Command and Control by Extremists. International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism, 1999

Alan O’Day. Cyberterrorism. p.190 Ashgate, 2004. ISBN 0754624269, 9780754624264

“Proceedings of the NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Hypermedia Seduction for Terrorist Recruiting, Eilat, Israel, 17-21 September 2006″ p.93 IOS Press, 2007 ISBN 1586037617

Karmon, Ely. Arenas for Radical and Anti-Globalization Groups Activity, NATO Workshop On Terrorism and Communications, Slovakia, April 2005

Miller, Rory (2007). British Anti-Zionism Then and Now. Covenant, Volume 1, Issue 2 (April 2007 / Iyar 5767), Herzliya, Israel.

White Riot: The Violent Story of Combat 18 by Nick Lowles (Milo Books, England, 2001)

Ganser, Daniele: NATO's Secret Armies. Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe. (London: Frank Cass, 2005)

Michael, George. The Enemy of My Enemy: The Alarming Convergence of Militant Islam and the Extreme Right. University Press of Kansas, 2006

Myatt, David. (2010) Myngath - Some Recollections of the Wyrdful Life of David Myatt, Thormynd Press, 2010 ISBN 978-0-557-56804-8 [Ninth revised edition, August 2011, issued as a pdf e-text.]

Goodrick-Clark, N. Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity. New York University Press, 2002

Gary Daher Canedo: Safo y Catulo: poesía amorosa de la antigüedad , Universidad Nur, 2005

Edmund Standing. Jihadism and the Dreamers of the Day. e-text. December 11, 2008

J. Michael Walton: Found in Translation: Greek Drama in English, Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp.206, 221, 227

Smith, S: Epic Logos, in Globalisation and its discontents, Boydell & Brewer, 2006

Arkadiusz Sołtysiak. Neopogaństwo i neonazizm: Kilka słów o ideologiach Davida Myatta i Varga Vikernesa. Antropologia Religii. Wybór esejów. Tom IV, (2010), s. 173-182

Agnieszka Pufelska: Der Faschismusbegiiff in Osteuropa nach 1945 in ''Die Dynamik der europäischen Rechten Geschichte, Kontinuitäten und Wandel''. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2010. ISBN 978-3-531-17191-3

Gardell, Mattias. Gods of the Blood: The Pagan Revival and White Separatism. Duke University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-822330-71-7

Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas. Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism, and the Politics of Identity. New York University Press, 2002.

Kaplan, Jeffrey, ed. Encyclopedia of White Power: A Sourcebook on the Radical Racist Right. Rowman & Littlefield Pub Inc., 2000.

Lewis, James R. “Who Serves Satan?” in Marburg Journal of Religion, Volume 6, No. 2 (June 2001).

Lewis, James R. Satanism Today: An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore, and Popular Culture, 2001, ISBN 1-57607-292-4

Perlmutter, Dawn. “The Forensics of Sacrifice: A Symbolic Analysis of Ritualistic Crime”, in Anthropoetics (The Journal of Generative Anthropology) Volume IX, number 2 (Fall 2003 Winter 2004)

Perlmutter, Dawn. “Skandalon 2001: The Religious Practices of Modern Satanists and Terrorists”, in Anthropoetics Volume VII, number 2

Reilly, John J. Apocalypse and Future. Xlibris Corporation, 2000, ISBN 0-7388-2356-2

Ryan, Nick. Homeland: Into A World of Hate. Mainstream Publishing Company Ltd., 2002, ISBN 1-84018-465-5

Catherine Lowman Wessinger. Millennialism, Persecution, and Violence. pp.317-318. Syracuse University Press, 2000. ISBN 0815605994

Stephen Sennitt. Infernal Texts: Nox and Liber Koth. New Falcon Publications, 2004. ISBN 1-56184-234-6

Jacob Christiansen. The Sinister Tradition. MA Thesis. University of Aarhus, Denmark. 2008