° Preface
° Journalists, Allegations, and Propaganda
° The Logical Fallacy of Incomplete Evidence - A Case Study
° Conclusion
° Appendix: An Apposite Quotation

Journalists, Allegations, and Propaganda

For many years – in fact up to and including the present – rumours and allegations concerning my involvement with practical occultism and satanism have been in circulation, and regularly referred to and repeated by journalists, and others, in newspapers, magazines, articles and, latterly, on that new medium - greatly susceptible to the spreading of dishonourable allegations and rumours - that has been termed the Internet. One of these allegations is that I am a certain person known as Anton Long.

In the past thirty-seven years only four people, on hearing or learning about such rumours and allegations, have had the decency to ask me, in person, "for my side of the story". The first was Colin Jordan, the second was John Tyndall, the third was Steve Sargent, and the fourth was a Muslim whom I came to greatly admire and to whom I gave a personal pledge of loyalty.

I have, when asked in person, or via impersonal means of communication such as letters, always denied such allegations of such involvement, as I have, on numerous occasions, challenged anyone to provide evidence to support such accusations. No such evidence has ever been forthcoming ^[1].

For instance, I was for several days, in early 2000, covertly filmed, photographed, and followed by an investigative team working for the BBC as part of their research for a Panorama programme about David Copeland and the London nail-bombings ^[2]. Prior to that surveillance, and for an ever longer period, I was also the subject of covert surveillance by a private investigator hired to undertake preliminary research for that BBC investigation. What did all this covert surveillance and investigation reveal? A satanist? No. Someone living an ordinary, rather boring, life with his wife and family in a small village near Malvern who went to work everyday on a bicycle to a nearby farm.

Covert surveillance photograph of me on my way back from work
Taken by the BBC, 2000

In addition, since at least 1997 I have no doubt been under regular covert surveillance by Special Branch and MI5 – and especially so since 9/11 given some statements I made while a Muslim - with all my communications (internet, telephonic) monitored via GCHQ. Indeed, following my conversion to Islam and during the time I seemed to be, for the security services and the Police, 'a significant person of interest', I recall many meetings and friendly conversations with one of the Special Branch officers on attachment to the city near where I was then living.

Given such surveillance and interest, no doubt there are records somewhere of my activities as a neo-nazi extremist; of my subsequent life as a radical Muslim supporting Jihad, and finally of my life as a reclusive philosopher, a friend of σοφόν who seeks, through λόγος, to uncover – to understand – Being and beings, and who thus suggests or proposes an ontology of Being. What there will not be, will be any records of 'Myatt as Satanist'.

As I mentioned in my article Polemos Our Genesis in respect of such surveillance:

"I have [since at least 1997] worked on the assumption that my communications are monitored, so I have restricted my internet and telephonic communications to friends, family, and to people I personally know or who are personally known to someone I trust. This means two things. That all I communicate is personal, open, transparent, and honest; and that if someone not belonging to this small circle of contacts claims to have had some communication from me – either sent with my name or sent using some pseudonym – then it is bogus."

As I wrote some thirteen or more years ago:

" I have never bothered to have recourse to civil law, and established Courts, to sue those making libellous allegations about me quite simply because the only law I believe in and strive to uphold is the law of personal honour. Given that I have challenged two journalists, according to the law of personal honour, to a duel with deadly weapons for making such malicious allegations, and given that they did not have the honour to accept this challenge or issue an apology in lieu of fighting a duel, I consider my honour vindicated."

Such challenges, the lack of evidence to support the allegations and rumours, and the refusal of those so challenged to a duel of honour to either fight that duel of honour or issue an apology, reveals the truth of this particular matter – at least to those possessed of arête.

However, I quite understand why many people - journalists included - did in the past (and possibly still do) impersonally dislike or hate me, given my past and unethical support for, and my past propagation of neo-nazism, and my previous lamentable public incitement of hatred, intolerance, and violence. I was only reaping what I had sown. Thus I believe I also understand the motivation of those journalists and those authors who used rumours and allegations of involvement with Satanism to discredit me, for they were most probably only doing what they thought was necessary in the struggle against racism, extremism, and bigotry. But does that struggle - for what is ethical - justify their (in my view) unethical use of rumours and unproven allegations?

        My own rather old-fashioned view is and was that a personal knowing of someone, extending over a period of many months if not a year or more, is the only honourable way to form a reasoned opinion about someone. For honour means the cultivation of traditional gentlemanly and ladylike virtues and one of which virtues is that we strive to treat other human beings in a fair way; ignoring what others have said or written about them; ignoring their past (real or alleged); and giving them the benefit of the doubt unless and until direct personal experience, direct knowledge of them, reveals them to be dishonourable.

Instead of penning material based on such a personal knowing, it occurs to me that some journalists who wrote and published stories about me might knowingly or unknowingly have or had a somewhat prejudiced view, having put some political or personal agenda before veracity, and thence use their position and/or their influence (use the power of the Media) to propagate their opinion, their version of events, and belittle or otherwise denigrate persons they disliked or did not approve of because they viewed that person not in an empathic, non-judgemental way - as an individual human being whom they had taken the trouble to get to know - but in an impersonal abstract way according to some label or category they had assigned to that individual because of the alleged political or religious views of that individual. Thus, in my own case, they prejudged me - categorized me - as a 'fascist' or a 'nazi' or a 'satanist' - and since they disliked or hated fascists and nazis and considered satanists were immoral and 'evil', they adjudged me a reprehensible person whom they did not like.

Furthermore, in place of a personal knowing - and/or a scholarly research into the life and times of the person they intend to write about and lasting many months if not a year or more - they rely on certain journalistic practices in order to gather information. Practices such as: (1) bribing or persuading corrupt Police officers and government officials and others in order to obtain confidential information about individuals; (2) hacking/intercepting people's private telephonic/internet communications; (3) hiring private investigators to follow individuals and gather information about them; (4) hypocritically attempting to excuse such unethical conduct by making the spurious claim that what they write or say is 'in the public interest' when not only is this so-called 'public interest' an unethical abstraction but also when they as individuals would be offended if someone used such hack journalistic practices against them and their own family. Thus, and for example, a well-known anti-fascist organization could unethically obtain confidential information about its opponents by getting someone sympathetic to their cause in the civil service to obtain national insurance numbers, dates of birth, places of residence, and employment history; as they could employ the services of an unethical private investigator to obtain that and other information via corrupt officials and by covert surveillance.

The result of such journalistic practices, of such a lack of personal knowing, of such a lack of scholarly research, and of such prejudgement of a person, is a hasty piece of work that - to paraphrase what a friend of mine once wrote - possibly says more about the journalist, more about our society, and more about the modern Media, that it does about the person who is the subject of such a piece of work.

        In addition, and importantly, are those who in the past have prejudged me - who have written about me as a violent extremist - accepting of individual change, of the virtues of reformation and pardonance? Are they aware of my voluminous recent writings regarding my philosophy of pathei-mathos and those regarding my extremist past and my rejection of extremism? ^[3] Are they open to the possibility of my change and reformation? Or will they continue with 'the party line' and thus continue to insist that I am some sinister person whose recent mystical writings are just some sort of diabolical ploy?

More interestingly (perhaps) could my career as an extremist have been brought to an earlier end had one or some of my opponents taken the trouble to get to know me personally and rationally revealed to me the error of my suffering-causing, unethical, extremist ways? Perhaps; perhaps not - I admit I do not know. I do know, however, how my personal interaction with, and the ethical behaviour of, the Police I interacted with from the time of my arrest by officers from SO12 in 1998, permanently changed (for the better) my attitude toward the Police.

The Logical Fallacy of Incomplete Evidence - A Case Study

In a Master of Arts thesis entitled Political Esotericism & the convergence of Radical Islam, Satanism and National Socialism in the Order of the Nine Angles a post-graduate student named Senholt made certain claims, and drew certain conclusions, in respect of myself and alleged involvement with the Occult group the 'order of nine angles'. One of his claims is that "the role of David Myatt is paramount to the whole creation and existence of the ONA."

Given that this thesis ^[4] is often cited as having 'proved' my involvement, I believe a brief overview of the claims, and proofs offered, seems to be in order, especially as - to my knowledge - it has not so far been subjected to a critical analysis.

A reading of the thesis reveals two interesting things. First, the use of and reliance upon secondary and tertiary sources, many of which are anonymous and many of which are derived from 'the world wide web', that most unreliable source of information. For example, he relies on the book Black Sun by Goodrick-Clarke even after admitting it contains errors and that the author offers no proof for the assumptions made in respect of me and the ONA ^[5].

Second, that Senholt, undoubtedly inadvertently, commits the logical fallacy of incomplete evidence ^[6]. That is, the multitude of facts and circumstances which do not support his contention about me and the ONA are omitted.

Thus, and in my view, the Senholt thesis, while interesting, does not meet the requirement, the criteria, of scholarship.

This criteria is essentially two-fold: (i) of detailed, meticulous, unbiased research on and concerning a specific topic or topics or subject undertaken over a period of some considerable time, usually a year or more in duration, and of necessity involving primary source material; and (ii) a rational assessment of the knowledge acquired by such research, with such conclusions about the topic, topics, or subject therefore being not only the logical result of the cumulative scholarly learning so acquired but also possessing a certain gravitas, just like genuine scholars.

(1) He repeats Searchlight's claim that their 'expose' of me in the April 1998 issue of their magazine caused internal strife in the National Socialist groups I was then involved with, whereas it had no effect at all, other than to make people laugh, since few if anyone of the extremists in such groups ever took seriously anything stated in Searchlight. Instead, as their name for it indicated - Searchlies - they regarded it as "just more Jewish propaganda" and indeed as something of a badge of honour to be mentioned in it, with the general feeling being that 'if you get mentioned in Searchlies you must be doing something right!'

(2) He asserts that in 1998 the Police raided my home and arrested me. Which is correct. He then asserts that I was arrested again two years later, after the London nailbomb attacks, together with some other Combat 18 members. Which is incorrect. The facts being that I was not arrested in 2000, and that the 1998 raids were the ones that also involved some C18 and NSM members.

(3) He writes that: "His conversion did not escape the mainstream media, and most English newspapers and media-outlets wrote about the incident, including the BBC." In fact, as a search of media archives would have revealed, my conversion in 1998 was never mentioned until two years after the fact, and most of the media publicity in 2000 linking me with Copeland made no mention of it. But perhaps Senholt just meant to write something along the lines of 'the fact that Myatt was, at the time of Copeland's trial, a Muslim did not escape some of the mainstream media...'

            Moving on to his claims that there are several things which link me with the ONA. All of these alleged links can be shown not only to be unsupported by the facts but also that they do not even amount, as Senholt states, to circumstantial evidence in support of the claim made that I am Anton Long. The claims are:

(1) The use of alternative dating systems, such as yf, by both me and the ONA.

The fact that group A and group B use the same or a similar alternative dating system is not proof that B is a subset of A, only of borrowing, imitation, adaptation, and possibly of plagiarism.

(2) Some occult texts with my name on them.

See the first part of 'omitted facts and circumstances', below - regarding using the occult as a neo-nazi honeytrap.

(3) That ONA insight roles included supporting neo-nazi groups and terrorism (neo-nazi and Islamic), things which I was openly involved with.

As with alternative dating systems and some ideas (such as acausality - see item (5) below) there is only a possible borrowing, imitation, adaptation, plagiarism.

Also, what is not mentioned are the other ONA insight roles which do not fit in with my life. Such as a police officer, assassin, and joining an anarchist group.

(4) That there is linguistic evidence linking my writings and those of 'Anton Long'.

No evidence from forensic linguistics is presented, so that this claim is just claim about two people using similar concepts and ideas and sometimes the same words.

That is, there is no direct evidence of a link, so that once again this is probably just others borrowing, imitating and adapting already existing ideas and concepts, something that, like plagiarism, happens all the time.

(5) That my departure from Islam (in 2009) coincided with 'Anton Long' writing a plethora of new ONA items.

Since Senholt does not give dates, and does not list the items, before and after this date, this is a rather vague assumption which also ignores two important facts. First, the vast quantity of literature I produced from 2006 onwards (following the suicide of my fiancée) in the form of essays about my Numinous Way/philosophy of pathei-mathos, letters, poetry, and so on. Second, Senholt does not discuss the fact that there were and are several self-confessed satanists (such as the pseudonymous Jason King) who are of opinion that most if not all of the newer, recent, items attributed to Anton Long were written by someone quite different from the 'original Anton Long' associated with the original ONA (or ONA 1.0 as King described it).

(6) That some of my ideas and concepts - such as acausality and Aeons and Homo Galactica - are and have been used by the ONA.

These concepts date to the early to middle 1970's, evident in such non-occult writings as Emanations of Urania, and, later on, in my Vindex - Destiny of the West.

As an early advocate of copyleft, I have never been bothered by plagiarism or by others using and adapting my ideas and my 'inventions', such as The Star Game. Thus there is use and adaptation by others, and possibly plagiarism, but no proof of a direct link.

In most of the above cases there is also the established and the admitted fact up until 1998 I knew, as friends, some of the people involved with various occult groups, although - as mentioned to Professor Kaplan ^[7] and others - I did not share their views with us therefore agreeing to disagree on many things. Thus some allowed borrowing of ideas, concepts, and inventions, by such friends is hardly surprising.

            Finally, the omitted facts and circumstances that do not support Senholt's claims and conclusions include:

(1) My publicly stated admission, made in the 1990's in correspondence with Professor Kaplan and others - and publicly repeated by me many times in the past ten and more years - that my occult involvement, such as it was in the 1970's and later, was for the singular purpose of subversion and infiltration in the cause of National-Socialism, with part of this being to spread racist ideas and denial of the holocaust. Thus one such occult group I associated with was a honeytrap, and the whole intent was political, revolutionary, not occult and not to with 'satanism'. It was a matter of using, or trying to use, such occult groups for a specific neo-nazi purpose without any interest in or personal involvement with the occult.

As I wrote in part two (1973-1975) of Ethos of Extremism:

" In respect of covert action, I came to the conclusion, following some discussions with some C88 members, that two different types of covert groups, with different strategy and tactics, might be very useful in our struggle and thus aid us directly or aid whatever right-wing political party might serve as a cover for introducing NS policies or which could be used to advance our cause. These covert groups would not be paramilitary and thus would not resort to using armed force since that option was already covered, so far as I was then concerned, by C88.

The first type of covert group would essentially be a honeytrap, to attract non-political people who might be or who had the potential to be useful to the cause even if, or especially if, they had to be 'blackmailed' or persuaded into doing so at some future time. The second type of covert group would be devoted to establishing a small cadre of NS fanatics, of 'sleepers', to - when the time was right - be disruptive or generally subversive.

Nothing came of this second idea, and the few people I recruited during 1974 for the second group, migrated to help the first group, established the previous year. However, from the outset this first group was beset with problems for - in retrospect - two quite simple reasons, both down to me. First, my lack of leadership skills, and, second, the outer nature chosen for the group which was of a secret Occult group with the 'offer', the temptation, of sexual favours from female members in a ritualized Occult setting, with some of these female members being 'on the game' and associated with someone who was associated with my small gang of thieves [...]

But what happened was that, over time and under the guidance of its mentor, the Occult and especially the hedonistic aspects came to dominate over the political and subversive intent, with the raisons d'etat of blackmail and persuasion, of recruiting useful, respectable, people thus lost. Hence, while I still considered, then and for quite some time afterwards, that the basic idea of such a subversive group, such a honeytrap, was sound, I gradually lost interest in this particular immoral honeytrap project until another spell in prison for an assortment of offences took me away from Leeds and my life as a violent neo-nazi activist [...]

I had occasion, during the 1980's, to renew my association not only with some old C88 comrades but also with the mentor of that Occult honeytrap when, after of lapse of many years, I became involved again in neo-nazi politics and revived my project of using clandestine recruitment for 'the cause'. By this time, that Occult group had developed some useful contacts, especially in the academic world, so some friendly co-operation between us was agreed; a co-operation which continued, sporadically, until just before my conversion to Islam in 1998.

This clandestine recruitment of mine was for a small National-Socialist cadre which went by a variety of names, beginning with 'G7' (soon abandoned), then The White Wolves (c. 1993), and finally the Aryan Resistance Movement aka Aryan Liberation Army [qv. Part Five for details].

However, while some of these Occult contacts were, given their professions, occasionally useful 'to the cause' and to 'our people', by 1997 I had come to the conclusion that the problems such association with Occultism and occultists caused far outweighed the subversive advantages; a conclusion which led me to re-write and re-issue a much earlier article of mine entitled Occultism and National-Socialism, and which revised article was subsequently published in the compilation Cosmic Reich by Renaissance Press of New Zealand. As I wrote in that article - "National-Socialism and Occultism are fundamentally, and irretrievably, incompatible and opposed to each other."

By the Summer of 1998 I had abandoned not only such co-operation and contacts with such Occult groups but also such clandestine recruitment on behalf of National-Socialism, concentrating instead on my Reichsfolk group and my 'revised' non-racist version of National-Socialism which I called 'ethical National-Socialism'. Later still, following my conversion to Islam, I was to reject even this version of National-Socialism."

This explains many things, including early occult articles with my name - not the name 'Anton Long' - in zines such as The Lamp of Thoth, and the early version of Copula cum Daemone (which in fact was about the birth of Adolf Hitler). One question Senholt does not ask is why both my name and the name Anton Long occur on the same early texts, with the simple answer being that there were two different people, one of whom (me) ceased all involvement with such occult honeytraps in 1998.

(2) My time as a Christian monk and my writings praising Catholicism in particular and Christianity in general.

This does not fit in with the claim of me being a life-long 'devotee of extreme ideologies' or being a satanist, so it is ignored. No attempt was made to use primary sources - to talk to people who knew me as monk and who could recount my life then, and my autobiography Myngath where I recount my time as a monk.

No mention is made of my many articles in which I praise Catholicism or refer to it in a positive way. For example, my mention of the numinosity of the Latin Tridentine Mass [qv. Concerning The Nature of Religion and The Nature of The Numinous Way] and of the sacrament of confession. As I wrote in Soli Deo Gloria:

"It is my personal opinion that traditional Catholicism, with its Tridentine Mass and its particular conservative traditions, was a somewhat better, more harmonious, expression of the numinous (a necessary and relevant expression of the numinous), than both Protestantism and the reforms introduced by the Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, and which reforms served only to undermine the numinous, to untwist the threads that held together its 'hidden soul of harmony'."

There is also the small matter of me being married in Church in accordance with the Christian ceremony of marriage. And the small matter of writings of mine such as Pathei-Mathos - A Path To Humility.

(3) My article Occultism and National-Socialism - written in the 1980's and republished in the 1990's and again around 2006 - and in which I denounced occultism, is ignored.

(4) My writings about National Socialism and Islam - spanning some three decades - are for the most part ignored, except when they are adduced to show I, as a nazi or as a Muslim, incited violence and possibly terrorism. Are they ignored because they in their quantity and content reveal they were written by someone who was at the time of their writing a dedicated neo-nazi and then a dedicated Muslim, and which dedication to such causes most certainly precludes being some sort of sinister person who was just using those causes for his own satanic ends?

In addition, and importantly, what are also overlooked are:

(a) The very real threat of being imprisoned for some of those writings - something surely only a genuine fanatic, a believer, would be prepared to do.

(b) My decades of political activism on behalf of National-Socialism, my two terms of imprisonment resulting from such activities, and my involvement with the paramilitary group Column 88. Which long-term activities over some thirty years, which imprisonment, and which paramilitary involvement surely indicate an inner - a rather fanatical - dedication to that cause.

(c) My travels, as a Muslim, to certain lands, the talks I gave to and the discussions I had with Muslims ^[8], and my regular attendance at Mosques to pray with other Muslims, which would indicate someone who was, during those years, committed to that Way of Life.

(5) My semi-autobiographical poetry ^[9], my published correspondence, and my ethical philosophy of The Numinous Way/philosophy of pathei-mathos, are completely ignored. Why are these voluminous writings and these ideas of mine ignored? Because they honestly reveal the thoughts and feelings and ideas and experiences and (importantly) the failings of someone so different from a satanist that they have to be ignored.

(6) My years of interior ethical and philosophical struggle to reform, to change, myself - documented in hundreds of letters, essays, poems, especially after the suicide of my fiancée in 2006 - are completely ignored. Why? Because they do not fit in with the idea, with the theory, of me being 'a deceitful, manipulative, sinister trickster', the archetypal satanist.^[10]

        It seems, therefore, that some of the facts of my life have been interpreted in order to fit a theory regarding some posited and ideal ONA member, with this interpreted ONA life - with inconvenient facts and circumstances conveniently omitted or ignored - then being held up as proof that I am Anton Long, since this truncated, re-interpreted, life of mine allegedly seems to fit in with the person Anton Long is alleged to be or is said to be according to his satanist writings or according to what some anonymous person has written on the World Wide Web.

In essence, there are no proofs presented in the thesis, with many aspects of my life omitted and with no mention, let alone analysis, of those voluminous writings of mine which portray a person almost the exact opposite of a satanist.

As one person wrote in respect of the rumour, the allegation, and the claim, that I am the pseudonymous Anton Long,

"We basically have a choice between: (i) believing Myatt is an astonishingly diabolical, duplicitous, creative, polymathical genius who over four decades has been playing 'sinister games' and who has not deviated from his youthful sinister cunning plan, and which diabolical genius makes the likes of Crowley and LaVey (and everyone else associated with modern Satanism and the 'left hand path') seem pathetic and mundane; or (ii) assuming Myatt has spent most of his adult life as a covert servant of the British state; or (iii) accepting that Myatt has lived a quite adventurous (but not an exceptionally amazing) life, has made mistakes, has suffered a personal tragedy, and has learned from and been changed by his experiences and by that tragedy [...]

Which of [these] three scenarios is therefore the most plausible? Which offers the most simple, the most rational, explanation for Myatt's peregrinations? Which require the pomp of conspiracy theory, and which involve superfluous causes, and (sometimes bizarre, sometimes astonishing) ad hoc assumptions and claims?" [11]

Conclusion

In respect of allegations about involvement with satanism and 'being Anton Long' - and in respect of those who manufacture and propagate them - my own experience, my pathei-mathos, manifest in my philosophy of Pathei-Mathos, leads me to two conclusions. My first conclusion is that the research done by some modern authors and even some academics - whose works are published by reputable publishers or quoted by others engaged in academic research - is inadequate and does not meet the taxing criteria of scholarship. Thus these works are unreliable; they have no gravitas, no worth - in terms of learning - for the sagacious.

My second conclusion is that most if not all modern Media that concern themselves with the deeds and lives of individuals – from un-scholarly books and essays, to newspapers, to television news programs and political documentaries, to magazines, to the World Wide Web – are by their very impersonal and mass-media nature unethical. Why? Because they are un-numinous, and encourage and often embody hubris, being as they are the realm of personal opinions, hasty judgement, and misapprehension, and the abode of those for whom 'a story' or some personal/political agenda/prejudice or 'their career' or some unethical un-numinous abstraction (such as 'the public interest') come before honour, empathy, and the reasoned judgement of a personal knowing that has extended over a lengthy period of causal Time and/or been based on an extended period of scholarly research.

A corollary is that those who use such Media, and/or unscholarly books/essays, as sources of allegedly reliable information, as a guide, as a or as the basis for their judgement about and knowledge of someone or some many, are being unfair and uncultured because lacking in the following necessary virtues: (1) a reasoned, balanced, and thus ethical, judgement; (2) the empathy of manifold direct personal contacts; and (3) a scholarly research and/or a personal knowing extending over many years. Virtues which are the genesis of a genuine understanding of, and thence an unbiased knowledge of, another human being; and virtues which rapid, impersonal, mass means of modern communication actively discourage and which virtues are seldom, it seems, cultivated and employed by those involved with and who use and who rely on such modern means for information.

Notes:

It is interesting and - to me - relevant that among the many errors of Goodrick-Clarke are the following:
i) I was not born in 1952, as he claimed.
ii) I first met Colin Jordan in 1968, not 1969 as he claimed.
iii) My two terms of imprisonment for political offences were not both for six months, as he claimed.
iv) Morrison was never 'my follower' as Goodrick-Clarke claimed (Eddy was never anyone's follower).
v) Morrison's first name is Eddy, not Eddie as Goodrick-Clarke claimed.
vi) The Occult lady that 'Anton Long' met in the early 1970's did not 'lead the ONA' as Goodrick-Clark claimed, but rather the Camlad association, with the ONA being founded and then led by Anton Long himself following his meeting with that lady.
vii) He mentions a certain Wulstram Tedder whom he claims was a former aide of Colin Jordan during the old NSM days, whereas 'W Tedder' was one of the noms-de-plume I used, for instance when writing for John Tyndall's Spearhead magazine in the 1980's.

It also interesting that Goodrick-Clarke was ignorant of - or did not bother to discover - many documented things about me during the late 1960's and the early 1970's, such as my arrest by the Yorkshire Regional Crime Squad for organizing a gang of thieves. Instead, the often fictitious account he gives of 'my life' during that time is almost entirely taken from the fictional Diablerie manuscript

" The journalist promised to let me read his final copy before it was published – a condition I had specified before giving the interview – and several photographs of me were taken, with him suggesting I hold something to do with the Occult, since he had noticed I had a collection of horror, and Occult, fiction (most of which in fact were given or loaned to me by Eddy Morrison). Perhaps foolishly, I agreed, holding up some Occult thingy which Joe Short had given to me a few days before. Our conversation lasted for about half an hour, during which the journalist took a few notes (it was not recorded).

I assumed that he would simply recount what I had said. Of course he neither showed me the article before publication, nor printed what I said, except for one short sentence about causing chaos. The journalist also made some rather silly allegations about animal sacrifice, which were investigated at the time by both the Police and the RSPCA whose conclusion was that they were fabrications concocted by the journalist, and perhaps, as I concluded, to get his name on the front page of the newspaper and sell more copies.

What surprised me (and to be honest, upset me, for a while), after this interview, was how so many people believed everything the journalist had written, without bothering to ask me for my side of the story. As if just because something was printed in some newspaper or other then "it must be true" or – as the cliché of mundanes goes: "there is no smoke without fire." And it was then that I learnt several valuable lessons: just how easily people can be manipulated, just how dishonest and conniving (and thus dishonourable) some journalists seemed to be, by nature; and just how powerful the established Media was, able make or break a person's reputation."

All Searchlight has ever done is make unsubstantiated allegations [...]

One of the unsubstantiated allegations of the Searchlight crowd is that I was a friend of someone called Vik Norris – something they blandly stated in their alleged 'expose' of me, under the headline The Most Evil Nazi in Britain, in the April 1998 issue of Searchlight magazine. No evidence for this allegation was presented then, or subsequently.

Indeed, the article simply contains bland assertions by them about me and Satanism with no evidence presented to support such assertions. For example: (1) they stated that the ONA was "formed by Myatt himself in the early 1980′s" but offer no proof for this claim of theirs; (2) they write about "Myatt and his satanic friends" yet never name these alleged 'satanic' friends or provide any proof of involvement by any of my friends with Satanism; (3) they claim that "within days of being investigated", the ONA withdrew its material from the Internet and that I had shaved off my beard in an attempt to disguise myself, with yet again no evidence being provided for these allegations, which were patently untrue, as anyone could have verified at the time by searching the Internet, calling on me at my home or place of work or asking those with whom I worked.

Unsurprisingly, many people over the years have – for personal or political reasons – referenced this Searchlight article as 'proof' of my alleged involvement, when anyone of any sagacity on reading that and similar articles about me can rationally deduce that it and other such articles are merely malicious propaganda designed to discredit, but worded in such a dishonourable way that even were one to sue the authors for libel in a British civil court (assuming one had the money to do so) there would be no guarantee of success – a legalistic tactic such dishonourable journalists often rely on when they peddle their lies and make their malicious accusations.

As for me, I have never bothered to have recourse to civil law, and established Courts, to sue those making libellous allegations about me quite simply because the only law I believe in and strive to uphold is the law of personal honour. Given that I have challenged two journalists, according to the law of personal honour, to a duel with deadly weapons for making such malicious allegations, and given that they did not have the honour to accept this challenge or issue an apology in lieu of fighting a duel, I consider my honour vindicated and their own dishonourable character proven."

"The honest, the obvious, truth was that I – and people like me or those who supported, followed, or were incited, inspired, by people like me – were and are the problem. That my, that our, alleged 'problems' (political/religious), were phantasmagoriacal; unreal; imagined; only projections based on, caused by, invented ideas that had no basis in reality, no basis in the simple reality of human beings. For the simple reality of most human beings is the need for simple, human, things: for personal love, for friendship, for a family, for a personal freedom, a security, a stability – a home, food, playfulness, a lack of danger – and for the dignity, the self-respect, that work provides.

But instead of love we, our selfish, our obsessed, our extremist kind, engendered hate. Instead of peace, we engendered struggle, conflict, killing. Instead of tolerance we engendered intolerance. Instead fairness and equality we engendered dishonour and discrimination. Instead of security we produced, we encouraged, revolution, violence, change.

The problem, the problems, lay inside us, in our kind, not in 'the world', not in others. We, our kind – we the pursuers of, the inventors of, abstractions, of ideals, of ideologies; we the selfish, the arrogant, the hubriatic, the fanatics, the obsessed – were and are the main causes of hate, of conflict, of suffering, of inhumanity, of violence. Century after century, millennia after millennia [...]

That it took me four decades, and the tragic death of two loved ones, to discover these simple truths surely reveals something about the person I was and about the extremisms I championed and fought for.

Now, I – with Sappho – not only say that,

I love delicate softness:
For me, love has brought the brightness
And the beauty of the Sun ….

but also that a personal, mutual, love between two human beings is the most beautiful, the most sacred, the most important, the most human, thing in the world; and that the peace that most of us hope for, desire in our hearts, only requires us to be, to become, loving, kind, fair, empathic, compassionate, human beings. For that we just have to renounce our extremism, both inner and outer."

"There are no excuses for my extremist past, for the suffering I caused to loved ones, to family, to friends, to those many more, those far more, 'unknown others' who were or who became the 'enemies' posited by some extremist ideology. No excuses because the extremism, the intolerance, the hatred, the violence, the inhumanity, the prejudice were mine; my responsibility, born from and expressive of my character; and because the discovery of, the learning of, the need to live, to regain, my humanity arose because of and from others and not because of me.

Thus what exposed my hubris - what for me broke down that certitude-of-knowing which extremism breeds and re-presents - was not something I did; not something I achieved; not something related to my character, my nature, at all. Instead, it was a gift offered to me by two others - the legacy left by their tragic early dying. That it took not one but two personal tragedies - some thirteen years apart - for me to accept and appreciate the gift of their love, their living, most surely reveals my failure, the hubris that for so long suffused me, and the strength and depth of my so lamentable extremism.

But the stark and uneasy truth is that I have no real, no definitive, answers for anyone, including myself. All I have now is a definite uncertitude of knowing, and certain feelings, some intuitions, some reflexions, a few certainly fallible suggestions arising mostly from reflexions concerning that, my lamentable, past, and thus - perhaps - just a scent, just a scent, of some understanding concerning some-things, perfumed as this understanding is with ineffable sadness."