– Charles Allan Gilbert, All Is Vanity, 1892

Although I am adamant about the importance of finding new and uncommon sources of inspiration to interpret the world, I find that certain sources leave a recurrent impression across the psyche. Such works lend depth to the way inspiration can be made meaningful, which can then be used to inspire others through the creation of new works.

My approach to the Order of Nine Angles is no different. In identifying, interpreting, and then making meaningful certain recurrent dynamics from my own experiences and then finding correlates at the heart of the ONA, I try not to draw from the Spenglers or Toynbees of the world, or even the literature of the ONA; rather, I look to the Alfred North Whiteheads, Alasdair MacIntyres, Charles Taylors, Henry James’, Thomas Manns, and Guy de Maupassants – sources that contain these dynamics in a much richer and deeper way, but which go unnoticed and unexamined within the tradition.

Insofar as the ONA is not just a system of thought or practice but a mode of life, one can learn to identify the dynamics it reveals in transformative experience through the cultural canvas of the world, be that nature, thought, art, music, or the history of ideas. In identifying these dynamics in uncommon and unexpected sources of inspiration, one can impart a certain vitality to the tradition. Thus, rather than recycling what have now become dogmatic misinterpretations within and outside of the Order, one can learn to view it through a new and valuable lens of interpretation, thereby lending a much-needed source of renewal and novelty to the tradition.[1]

With that said, there are two main approaches to that renewal and novelty. The first involves identifying the deep dynamics of transformative experience in unexpected sources outside of the tradition and then synthesizing them into new forms within the tradition. The second involves a kind of hermeneutic approach, where one revisits sources of inspiration from their past through a new lens of interpretation, one made possible by transformative experience. In the latter case, the lens changes as we do, which makes the source in question “recurrent,” in that it is continually redefined and, in that sense, “alive.”

While both approaches are essential and typically work together, one such “hermeneutic” or recurrent source I revisit regularly is the following lecture by Christopher Hyatt (aka Alan Miller). When I first discovered Hyatt’s work many years ago, what struck me was not his knowledge of magick, training under Israel Regardie, or previous association with the OTO – none of which appealed to me – but the richness of his life and the no-nonsense pragmatism with which he approached the human mind and our place in the world. Hyatt’s brutal honesty and ruthless empiricism find shelter in much of the ONA, despite their differences in approach; but unlike the ONA, Hyatt seems to form a bridge between practical utility and meaning – between whether something works and what it is in determining how it finds meaningful application.

Having revisited this lecture today, I reflected on some of its deeper psychological import and application within the ONA. In my experience, Hyatt’s psychological characterization of what he terms the idealized, actual, and diminished selves can serve as a powerful psychological model to gauge “where one is” with respect to the dyssolving of the ego. It may also be a helpful way to gently estimate where others are in their own development, particularly within the ONA and in terms of its opponents. This lecture thus struck me as relevant to the current climate of the ONA, keeping in mind that this is merely a model, an overview, and one way of viewing the human psyche (and a general one at that):

Nameless Therein
Scothorn Nexion
Walpurgisnacht,
April 30, 2022

[1] And to clarify: the sources I have in mind here are primarily philosophical, artistic, and related. Syncretizing certain incompatible “magickal” traditions with the ONA is not something I generally find productive or worthwhile, seeing as how many of these lack the depth of their philosophical and artistic counterparts, particularly in a modern context. However, members of the Fenrir team do have the knowledge and experience to syncretize traditions that are compatible – and this I view as important and worthwhile. Combined with the philosophical and artistic domains, this knowledge can then be used to expand the ONA’s system of magick and, eventually, create one’s own.