David Myatt (1994)

The Numinous Way, Love, Reichsfolk, and National Socialism
Some Recent Quotes by David Myatt

 

” It is the compassionate way of The Philosophy of The Numen that represents my views, now; views, perspectives, obtained by the pathei-mathos of my past forty years. My experiences, my reflexion upon those experiences, have therefore changed me, as a person, and taken me far beyond, far away from, National-Socialism and even from what I termed, over a decade ago, the ethical NS of Reichsfolk, since as I mentioned this is somewhat immoral because still based on what I have termed the immoral, un-empathic, abstractions, of race and of the folk.” Three O’clock One English Morning (2010)

 

” What is important is that the choice of partners – and of friends – is entirely a matter for individuals. A question of love, of loyalty, of honour, of what feels is natural for one, and not a question of something called “race” or ethnicity. A question of Life working as Life works, in a natural manner in its species of time, with no abstractions imposed; no ideology followed or formulated, no dogmatic rules for individuals to try to or have to conform to.The best illustration here is falling in love. To fall in love is natural, human – indeed possibly one of the most human things to do. If we happen to fall in love with someone similar to ourselves, in outward appearance or whatever, fine. If we happen to fall in love with someone different from ourselves, in outward appearance or whatever, fine. The flow of Life within and exterior to us naturally decides.

What matters is the love; the returning of love. The wu-wei of love. The numinosity of love. The loyal and honourable sharing. The experience of life together. That is the foundation on which a clan, and from it a new folk, comes-into-being – and should come-into-being: not some abstract criteria we impose upon ourselves or upon others, and which imposition is or can be the beginning of suffering. Not some dogmatic belief in some idealized race and the need to try and “preserve” that race. Not the rejection of empathy and love for the sake of such an abstraction, such dogma.

Thus, if one is happy living among one’s own kind in a village of one’s kind and treasures their traditions and ways and wants to hand them onto to one’s own children – fine. If one falls in love with someone of one’s own kind, and is happy, fine, and thus may begin a new folk of similar people. If one falls in love with someone different from one’s self and one’s own ancestors, fine. And so on. It is the numinosity of love, of living numinously, that is important – that is ethical. It is the imposition of some abstraction one’s self, on others – judging others by some abstraction – that is immoral, wrong, contrary to The Numinous Way.

It is, simply expressed, a question of the natural balance of Life; of using empathy and honour to find and feel and appreciate and try to live that balance.” Some Questions Concerning The Folk, Race, and Empathy (2011)

 

” The primal mistake of the past has been to seek to strive after illusive abstractions rather than to seek to change ourselves in the necessary numinous way, with such a striving after such abstractions being the primary cause of the suffering we human beings have inflicted upon others, upon ourselves, and upon the other life with which we share this planet.

To be human – to manifest the reasoned humanity that our pathei-mathos and the pathei-mathos of human cultures have revealed to us – is, quite simply, to be empathic in the immediacy of the living moment, so all that is needed is the cultivation, and the practical application of, empathy, by ourselves, as individuals. This is wu-wei: a living numinously, and a living which, over a certain duration of causal Time, will aid the cessation of suffering and bring-into-being new, more human, ways of living.” A Numinous View of Religion, Politics, and The State (2011)

 

” [They] revealed to me the most important truth concerning human life. Which is that a shared, a loyal, love between two people is the most beautiful, the most numinous, the most valuable thing of all.”  Myngath – Some Recollections of the Wyrdful Life of David Myatt (2010)

 

” To Sue and Fran I especially am indebted, for by their love, their lives, their early deaths – so unexpected, so tragic, so full of such a personal longful sadness  – I am so reminded each and every time of their recalling of just how stupid, so fallible, so error-prone, I myself have been, with my arrogant and inhuman love of abstractions.” One Mystic To Another (2011)

” It is personal love – with all its tenderness – combined with fairness, a sense of personal honour, and with the ability to empathize with other human beings, that are not only numinous, but which also express our culture, our social nature, and are the things we should value, treasure, and seek to develope within ourselves.” The Numinous Foundations of Human Culture (2010)

” Thus am I humbled, once more, by such knowing feeling of the burden made from my so heavy past; so many errors, mistakes. So many to humble me here, now, by such profusion as becomes prehension of centuries past and passing, bringing as such a passing does such gifts of they now long beyond life’s ending who crafted from faith, feeling, experience, living, love, those so rich presents replete with meaning; presenting thus to us if only for a moment – fleeting as Thrush there feeding – that knowing of ourselves as beings who by empathy, life, gifts, and love, can cease to be some cause of suffering.

For no longer is there such a need – never was there such a need – to cause such suffering as we, especially I, have caused. For are not we thinking thoughtful beings – possessed of the numinous will to love? ”   Bright Berries One Winter (2010)

” We become, we are, each intimation of The Divine that so enthrals us, still – so that our pasts become presenced in our future and our future in our shared pasts: for so long as we hold fast to that love which dreams us, beckoning in such sadness, strength, ecstasy, and hope as melds us to those beyond our selves. Their dreams our dreams; their hurt our hurt; their joy our joy; their life our life. And one lifetime here is never ever long enough… Which is why there is the you beyond the I that is this me.” Were I To Die, Now (2010)

 

Article source – David Myatt – Some Recent Quotes

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David Myatt

Three O’clock One English Morning

It is three o’clock one morning of an English Winter, and outside it is dark, and somewhat cold, with cloud to cover the stars of night and a slight breeze to rustle the fallen leaves that, somewhat dried by recent daytime snow-melting Sun, have been wind-gathered to rest where two parts of one garden fence meet and are met.

Inside, the soft candlelight that pleases as I sit, typing this, at my desk on which the decanter of fine vintage Port rests, still half-full, and music by Mozart gently suffuses the room, brought forth from grooves in vinyl by a modern marvel of sound reproduction. There is, alas, here in this modern dwelling no fire of logs to warm, as in that farmhouse, abode for many happy years until quite recently… Instead, only the warmth of such rememberings as often keep this old man happy in these, the twilight years of his, of my, life.

Much to recall; and much to remain silent about, untransmitted by words such as this – to be brought forth, and some of which have been brought forth, only aurally to trusted friends of long-standing who may or who may not, according to their own judgement, recount such matters for and to others, by whatever means, but only after I myself am dead. Thus, there are some things I will not comment about, here, by written means such as this.

So, to try and answer at least some of your questions, although trying to abridge four decades of experiences into one concise reply will of necessity mean some terse and perhaps unsatisfactory explanations.

In Respect of Adolf Hitler

As I wrote some years ago while living that Way of Life known as Al-Islam:

I have never, in my heart and mind, renounced my belief in Adolf Hitler as a good man, an honourable man, who – believing in God – strove to create a just and noble society, and who was destroyed by the ignoble machinations of those opposed to what is good and who have spread dishonourable lies about him, his followers and his Cause. Thus it is that I find I cannot denounce this noble man and those who fought and died for the cause he upheld, as I cannot and will not denounce those who today honourably (and I stress honourably) continue the struggle in his name and who respect the Way of Life which is Al-Islam… Thus it is that I continued for several years… with Reichsfolk – an honourable organization striving to presence something of the Numen I believe was manifest in National-Socialist Germany and in and through the life of Adolf Hitler.

Furthermore, the National-Socialism of Reichsfolk was the ethical, non-racist, National-Socialism I had developed in the late nineteen nineties; a Way of Life which saught to respect the difference and diversity of Nature, and which saught the development of separate, free, ethnic nations, with their own culture and identity, with these nations co-operating together, with no one race believing they were somehow superior to, or better than, any other race, but with each striving to achieve their differing Destinies, with there being no hatred of other races but instead a respect, deriving from honour.

This non-racist National-Socialism was developed for two main reasons. First, because I considered that the notion of racial superiority was untenable because it was fundamentally dishonourable; that is, unethical. Second, because I realized that the old type of National-Socialism led to unethical conflict, and that modern warfare was itself unethical.

In Respect of National-Socialism

For some thirty years, from the late nineteen sixties to the late nineteen nineties (CE), I actively strove by various means, political and otherwise, to propagate National-Socialism with the overt aim of creating, in my own homeland, another NS State, on lines similar to that of NS Germany. Indeed, one might with truth say that this singular aim was the main, the most important, aim of my life.

For the first ten or so of those years I naively and idealistically believed that this goal was attainable by conventional political means, given good leadership and a correct explanation of what I then understood National-Socialism to be – a noble cause, based on the values of honour, of loyalty to comrades, and duty to one’s folk. I never saw or even imagined myself as some leader; instead, and knowing the importance of leadership, I saught to find someone to whom I could pledge my loyalty and who, unlike me, possessed the charisma, the virtues, of a genuine revolutionary NS leader. Indeed, it was something of a friendly jest among certain members of Column 88 that I was “a Himmler in search of his Adolf Hitler”.

Never finding such a leader – but always, during those decades, hoping that such a person would emerge – I floundered about, doing the best I could to propagate NS politically; and also trying keep the spirit, the ethos, of NS alive, as Colin Jordan had done and did do, until his death, although in a much better way than I ever did. For I was often reckless and impatient, and perhaps too fanatical at times. Not to mention occasionally arrogant, disdainful as I was on such occasions of advice from people such as CJ – who, for instance, considered that my plan for recruiting and using ruffians (as with the short-lived NDFM) was not only foolhardy but not really in keeping with the ethos of NS.

After those first ten years, while much personal experience was gained, little if anything political had been achieved, and not only not by me. No one else, no other NS (or even nationalist) organization, had achieved anything significant either, despite much commitment and effort by hundreds of supporters. Indeed, what I termed The Magian System seemed to be stronger, more tyrannical.

Thus, for most of the next two decades I occupied myself with other tactics, other than overt political ones. Trying to use covert means, and seeking to explain, codify, refine, and possibly evolve National-Socialism itself. However, toward the end of these two decades I did briefly return to active, overt, politics – forming and leading the NSM, but more to try and continue the work begun by a loyal and dedicated comrade than because I had changed my view of myself as a leader. For I hoped, even then, that this new organization might attract someone of the right calibre to lead it. But neither these covert tactics, nor this new political organization, worked, leading me, over of period of many years, to certain conclusions, and among which conclusions are and were the following.

1) The first conclusion was that NS – or something based upon or evolved from it – could only ever become a significant political force if there arose a leader of sufficient nobility to lead a new movement. For such a leader would be the movement – just as Adolf Hitler was both the NSDAP and NS Germany. That is, political programmes, slogans, propaganda, activities, ideology, meetings, marches, were all fundamentally irrelevant – if there was no such leader to inspire, to lead, to give one’s loyalty to, and who embodied the essence of the NS ethos, just as Adolf Hitler embodied the essence of German National-Socialism. Without such a unifying, charismatic, figure, all movements, organizations, groups, whatever the initial idealism and enthusiasm of their members, descended, sooner or later into squabbling factions, just as dishonourable behaviour and lack of loyalty became rife. Even some limited electoral success, as the BNP and other European nationalist movements have shown, does not prevent this process, so that such organizations soon devolve to be at best minor political parties, perhaps with some political representation, but without any realistic hope of being elected to power, despite their constant rhetoric to the contrary. Thus they become a minor irritant to The System, but no real threat to it.

2) The second, perhaps more disturbing, conclusion was that we ourselves are a significant part of the problem. That it is not just a question of simply changing the political system, but of changing ourselves, as individuals, in a fundamental way.

Thus, and for example, perhaps a majority of those of European ethnic descent were no longer Aryan in nature. Instead, they de-evolved to become what I termed Homo Hubris, and it was this new sub-species of the genus Homo which has become the often willing and the easily manipulated hordes who had sided with the Magian and so defeated NS Germany. Not only that, but it was these new White hordes who kept the whole Magian System going, by their obedience to its ethos, and by their love of, and even now need for, the abstractions and materialism of The System.

In a personal way – through a practical striving for covert action over many years – I discovered just how difficult it is to find people (freedom fighters) ready and willing to do practical deeds and possibly sacrifice themselves “for the Cause”. Partly because this Cause – supposedly our shared Cause – did not live in them: they merely agreed (instinctively or consciously) with some aspects of its outward tenets. That is, it was more akin to some fleeting, easily discarded interest, or some passion which they could and often would forget when some other passion came along to enchant or ensnare them. For our Cause was not for them a Way of Life, a numinous and living faith, but rather just one type of politics among many.

Furthermore, while perhaps a few individuals might be inspired to action – or a few other individuals might do some deeds, elsewhere – such few actions, such few deeds, did not and never would affect The System in any significant way, and certainly would not break it, simply because a majority still supported it, actively or passively, and certainly did not support “us”, our Cause.

One therefore discovered for one’s self the truth of the truism that practical resistance to tyranny – to an occupying power – only works if one has support, significant support and sympathizers, from one’s own people, from those so occupied because they resent such occupation and its tyranny. The hard reality was that a majority of our people did not even feel they were living under some alien tyranny, and that a significant percentage even embraced the ideas and the ways of the occupiers and their collaborators (the hubriati) so much so for so many decades that The System had ceased to be something which “they” (some alien interlopers) imposed upon “us” but instead had become a hybrid system, partly “theirs” but also now “ours”, although always under the influence and ultimate control of “them” and of those who benefited from such a system, such as the hubriati. In a simplistic sense, “we” – our folk, or a majority of them – had been changed, from within; or been bred and educated by The State to accept and endorse, or at least be fairly passive parts of, The System.

One therefore began to consider working to undermine The System not from within, but from without – by aiding those freedom fighters who for various reasons also wanted the demise of the Magian and their own oppressive systems, and who thus not only desired to live in their own lands in their own way, but who also had a Cause that many were ready to die for.

Then, after about a decade or so of such experience it became obvious that even this approach was also not working, and would most probably also not ultimately succeed. (a) It was not working partly for similar reasons it has not worked for “us” (although our efforts were on a far smaller scale, over less periods of time) – that is, because these external allies were also a minority among their own kind, with many many others of their kind actively supporting and even collaborating with “the enemy”, and even desiring to manufacture a type of Magian system in their own lands. Thus, they were as lost to their kind, as a majority of our people were lost to their own innate ethos and the potential latent within us. (b) It would probably not ultimately succeed because to do so it needed internal dissent in the heartlands of the West, which was not forthcoming. Indeed, while some dissent existed, it was an annoyance to The System rather than a threat, with perhaps a majority believing the propaganda levelled at those freedom fighters, and actively or passively supporting the policies of their governments aimed at disrupting and destroying those freedom fighters in other lands.

3) The third conclusion was that each and every European homeland was no longer European by ethnicity, given the large-scale and continuing immigration of many decades, and that – short of implausible practical civil wars and a significant change in exterior lands – there was no practical way to make them wholly European again, and thus build a new folkish State. Implausible, because as mentioned above, a majority of even each and every European folk would find such a practical, civil war, solution unacceptable now and in the foreseeable future; and because one small homeland alone could not take such steps to expel whole communities while Magian power and the Magian ethos held sway in other lands, for the lone small homeland would soon find itself subject to punitive sanctions and, ultimately, invasion and thence “regime-change”.

4) The fourth conclusion was that, in essence, The State itself – as concept, as idea, as ideal – was ultimately incompatible with the numinous essence behind what Adolf Hitler had intuitively presenced, manifested, as National-Socialism in Germany. That is, that The State could no longer be made numinous, or manifest the numen, as it had begun to do in NS Germany, and that NS Germany was only an intimation, a beginning, a pointer toward a deeper truth; a truth revealed in part by the defeat of NS Germany by the White Hordes incited and led-on by the Magian.

This is the truth of our natural and necessary tribal nature, and of the nature of honour itself. The truth of Numinous Law (the law of personal honour) and the truth of how the clan, with a living, numinous, tradition, is and always will be immune to the Magian, and the dishonourable, un-numinous, abstractions that the Magian and their hubriati have manufactured, and which abstractions stifle our potential, disconnect us from the numen, and profane and undermine Nature and thus the living folk communities which are and which have been natural manifestations of Nature.

5) My fifth, last, later, and possibly most significant if contentious, conclusion was that the very notion – the idea – of there existing, or of desiring to move toward the ideal of, some pure race was an abstraction, and as such was un-numinous and thus unethical; contrary to honour itself, and which honour I had concluded was a practical expression of the essence of personal empathy. That is, that both race itself and the concept of an ethnic folk were – just like the concepts of the nation and The State – causal, immoral, abstractions; and that what was needed were new clans, new tribes, not based on any abstractions, any ideology.

In Respect of the Future

Given these conclusions – arising from four decades of practical experience and from much reflexion – it is my view that the future lies in numinously pursuing two things. First, the numinous goal of new clans and tribes, and which new clans and tribes could be either (1) evolutionary manifestations of (derived from) the natural already existing folks found in and evolved by Nature (and which thus possess ancestral living traditions), or (2) honourably and thus ethically, entirely new folks (not based upon any particular ethnicity nor upon any belief in such ethnicity) and which new folks we ourselves found and establish by dwelling in a certain local area, and which begin as our own extended family, or that of ours and also of a few trusted friends who feel as we do. Second, in changing ourselves as individuals, within, by a striving to live in balance, in rural harmony, with Nature and by a striving to uphold the most important because numinous principle of personal honour.

There is thus, in either of these two possible ways, no involvement with practical politics, nor any desire to seek revolutionary change, by whatever means or tactics. In truth, there is no ideology, and no politics at all – only a living of life in a certain way. A rejection of The System by withdrawing from it, and letting it decay and fall as it is destined to decay and fall, as all such causal un-numinous systems decay and fall, given time.

The former – that is, (1) above, the first possible way –  is, for example, the old way of Reichsfolk, and of kindred groups; and the latter – (2) above, the second possible way – is the ethical, human, way proposed by my own Philosophy of The Numen where what matters is a personal compassion, personal empathy, and personal honour. And it is the latter – the compassionate way of The Philosophy of The Numen – that represents my views, now; views, perspectives, obtained by the pathei-mathos of my past forty years. My experiences, my reflexion upon those experiences, have therefore changed me, as a person, and taken me far beyond, far away from, National-Socialism and even from what I termed, over a decade ago, the ethical NS of Reichsfolk.

In The Philosophy of The Numen, there is a return to a more human personal scale of things; to slowly growing, through the generations, the foundations for new communities. An evolution toward a new type of human being, a new human species, and a new type of culture. For these, we do not need some revolution, some ephemeral State, some ephemeral political type of power; some ephemeral military force. Instead, we only need to presence, to manifest, within us the numinous itself, beyond ever changing causal abstractions.

There is thus the perspective of decades, of centuries – born as this perspective of ours is from the wisdom of our experience; from a concentration on the important and the numinous as against the unimportant and the profane.

In Conclusion

Now, the decanter only a quarter full, and Dawn not long in duration away, it is time for a full English breakfast to ready me for the tasks of another daylight day, again.

But before then, perhaps I should, and in conclusion, quote some words of mine, recently written, which at least for me seem to capture the essence of my life and the understanding I believe I have garnished from such strange livings as have been mine:

What, therefore, shall I personally miss the most as my own mortal life now moves toward its fated ending? It is the rural England that I love, where I feel most at home, where I know I belong, and where I have lived and worked for many many years of my adult life – the rural England of small villages, hamlets, and farms, far from cities and main roads, that still (but only just) exists today in parts of Shropshire, Herefordshire, Yorkshire, Somerset and elsewhere. The rural England of small fields, hedgerows, trees of Oak, where – over centuries – a certain natural balance has been achieved such that Nature still lives and thrives there where human beings can still feel, know, the natural rhythm of life through the seasons, and where they are connected to the land, the landscape, because they have dwelt, lived, worked there year after year, season after season, and thus know in a personal, direct, way every field, every hedge, every tree, every pond, every stream, around them within a day of walking.

This is the rural England where change is slow, and often or mostly undesired and where a certain old, more traditional, attitude to life and living still exists, and which attitude is one of preferring the direct slow experience of what is around, what is natural, what is of Nature, to the artificial modern world of cities and towns and fast transportation and vapid so-called “entertainment” of others.

That is what I shall miss the most, what I love and have treasured – beyond women loved, progeny sown, true friends known:

The joy of slowly walking in fields tended with care through the hard work of hands; the joy of hearing again the first Cuckoo of Spring; of seeing the Swallows return to nest, there where they have nested for so many years. The joy of sitting in some idle moment in warm Sun of an late English Spring or Summer to watch the life on, around, within, a pond, hearing thus the songful, calling birds in hedge, bush, tree, the sounds of flies and bees as they dart and fly around.

The joy of walking through meadow fields in late Spring when wild flowers in their profusion mingle with the variety of grasses that time over many decades have sown, changed, grown. The joy of hearing the Skylark rising and singing again as the cold often bleak darkness of Winter has given way at last to Spring.

The simple delight of – having toiled hours on foot through deep snow and a colding wind – of sitting before a warm fire of wood in that place called home where one’s love has waited to greet one with a kiss.

The joy of seeing the first wild Primrose emerge in early Spring, and waiting, watching, for the Hawthorn buds to burst and bloom. The soft smell of scented blossoms from that old Cherry tree. The sound of hearing the bells of the local village Church, calling the believers to their Sunday duty. The simple pleasure of sitting after a week of work with a loved one in the warm Summer quietness of the garden of an English Inn, feeling rather sleepy having just imbued a pint or two of ale as liquid lunch.

The smell of fresh rain on newly ploughed earth, bringing life to seeds, crops, newly sown. The mist of an early Autumn morning rising slowly over field and hedge while Sun begins to warm the still chilly air. The very feel of the fine tilth one has made by rotaring the ground ready for planting in the Spring, knowing that soon will come the warmth of Sun, the life of rain, to give profuse living to what shall be grown – and knowing, feeling, that such growth, such fecundity, is but a gift, to be treasured not profaned…

These are the joys, some of the very simple, the very English, things I treasure; that I have loved the most, and whose memories I shall seek to keep flowing within me as my own life slowly ebbs away…

David Myatt

(Extracts from a letter to a friendly enquirer)

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David Myatt 1995 CE

David Myatt – Selected Autobiographical Writings

Below are two links to pdf files which contain a small selection of the autobiographical writings and letters of David Myatt. Most of these writings are from the period 2002-2010 CE.

The first file (c. 3.9 megabytes) contains a selection of items from Myatt’s personal website (as of December 2010 CE) including a copy of the fifth revised edition (December 2010 CE) of his autobiography Myngath.

The second file (c. 430 kilobytes) contains a selection of the private letters of Myatt from the years 2002-2008 CE.

These personal writings give some autobiographical background to the development of both Myatt’s Numinous Way philosophy and also his rejection of Islam as a way of life.

David Myatt – Selected Autobiographical Writings (pdf)

David Myatt – Selected Private Letters (2002-2008) (pdf)

 

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David Myatt

A Review of

Myngath –  Some Recollections of the Wyrdful Life of David Myatt

Myngath is the title of David Myatt’s recently published autobiography. To those unfamiliar with Myatt, he has been called, at various times, in the last forty years, an evil genius, the most evil nazi in Britain, a ferocious Jihadi, a deeply subversive intellectual, and described as the mentor who drove David Copeland to kill.

In these forty or more years, Myatt has been twice jailed for racist attacks; acted as Colin Jordan’s bodyguard; led the political wing of the violent neo-nazi group Combat 18; translated ancient Greek literature; written several volumes of pagan poetry; been a Catholic monk, and last – but not least – supported Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.

According to the British newspaper, The Observer, Myatt was the “ideological heavyweight” behind the violent neo-nazi group Combat 18. 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,”; while he was described, at a NATO conference on terrorism, in 2006, as having called on “all enemies of the Zionists to embrace the Jihad against Jews and the United States…” Myatt has also been accused of being the Grand Master of the secretive and sinister Occult group – famed for its support of human sacrifice –  the Order of Nine Angles, an accusation he has always denied.

In 1998, after over thirty years of involvement with neo-nazi politics, Myatt confounded his supporters and critics by converting to Islam. He has since and in the past three years – according to his own account – developed his own philosophy which he calls both The Numinous Way, and The Philosophy of The Numen – based, in his words, on the virtues of empathy, compassion and honor – thus ending his association with Islam, and instead devoting himself to philosophy, mysticism, and writing poetry.

Given this varied and somewhat strange and extreme life, one might expect his autobiography to provide interesting, if not fascinating, personal accounts of street brawls; meetings with Muslim extremists; life as a neo-nazi fanatic, as a convert to Islam, and then as a Muslim apostate.

What one gets, however, is something of an apologia – often rather cursory accounts of some events in his life, followed by an explanation of his feelings and motives. Occasionally, Myatt adds one of his own poems in order to express these feelings. The section on Islam – on his life as a Muslim – is particularly sparse, and while it seems somewhat glossed over, it is certainly interesting, with Myatt writing, for instance, that, “being part of the Ummah dissolved every last vestige of my former political beliefs…..I travelled in the Muslim world, met some very interesting and committed Muslims…..In a literal way, Islam taught me humility, something I aspired to during my time as a monk but which my then prideful nature rebelled against…..”

In fact, the work neatly falls into two categories, almost exactly mirrored by Myatt’s division of Myngath into two parts. The first category centers around his early life and his often violent and always extreme political involvements; the second, around his personal life, and in particular his liaisons with women. It is these liaisons that are, for me – and I suspect for many other readers – the most interesting, as well as being, in my opinion, the most informative about Myatt’s personal character.

These liaisons include two tragic events, and Myatt is remarkably honest about his feelings and his failings; and one is left with the impression of reading an almost religious story of redemption, only without God; the story of someone very slowly, and quite painfully, learning from their mistakes.

The story, that is, of a violent, driven, often fanatical and selfish man, obsessed with making his own inner and extremist political vision real, who gradually rediscovers his humanity after suffering two personal tragedies, and who ends up writing, in probably the most poignant passage of the book, that the tragedies had, “at last – after so much arrogance and stupidity and weakness on my part – revealed to me the most important truth concerning human life. Which is that a shared, a loyal, love between two people is the most beautiful, the most numinous, the most valuable thing of all.”

Of his departure from Islam, Myatt writes that it resulted “from one singular, important, event…” To wit, his love for a woman, and the subsequent tragic death of that woman.

Overall, this apologia – I do not feel it deserves to be called an autobiography – might therefore be more correctly described as a modern allegory, a tale of redemption, and it is this which, in my opinion, makes it a worthwhile and ultimately a valuable book to read. For its interest lies not in the person or character of Myatt himself – not in his various peregrinations, nor even in his own motivations for his deeds and involvements – but rather in the allegory: a modern Faust without the cloying appearance of God at the end.

JRW
August 2010

Myngath is published under the Creative Commons License and is available in pdf format here (david-myatt-myngath), in several other places on the Internet, and as both a freedownload, and a printed book, here via on-line publishers Lulu dot com.

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David Myatt, from a painting by Richard Moult

Myngath is the title of Myatt’s recently issued autobiography, subtitled Some Recollections by David Myatt.

A copy of this work, issued under the Creative Commons License, is available below (and note that this is Myatt’s updated Third Edition)

 

David Myatt – Myngath
(pdf 1.3 MB)

 

Of this work, the artist and composer Richard Moult, wrote:

“ DWM is my closest and oldest friend, and I in turn like to think that I have come perhaps closest to appreciating the unity of his myriad lives and masks – often so contradictory and perplexing and enraging to outsiders. And also to knowing the man within – often sensitive, humorous, gentle and very human, and always empathic and inspiring.

Life for him has been and is an opportunity to be revelled in and not to be wasted. This work presents aspects of that life (and there is much left unwritten) and is a reminder to all of us who can all too easily lose ourselves in the illusory mundane existence of this present age.

DWM is a traveller in all senses, a pioneer leading the way in exploring the uncharted worlds within, around and without us. Perhaps many decades or centuries hence, he will be understood and celebrated as the human voyager he is: an example of one nexion of life seeking to understand itself within the infinite cold spaces of the cosmos. “

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These are the tears that I have cried, that I should have cried – tears which unbidden fall as I listen to Preco preheminencie by Dunstable; and tears which express my longing for that beauty, that love, that ineffable goodness which sometimes someone somewhere has presenced on this grieving Earth.

This is what I am – these tears, born of both suffering and joy, and bearing as they do in memories of light and dark the life which was, is, mine. This is what I am – that quiet look of love; that desire to transcend beyond the moment to where exists a purity of being.

Why has the learning not been learnt? Am I with my life an analogy, an answer? Seeking, questing, plunging often without any thought, reason or plan, into life, knowing thus that exhilaration of existence as when one early Winter’s morning I fastly cycled on roads of snow newly iced by a night of bright moon to give to she whom I then loved just one letter of love – one hour, one moment of existence, of perfect bliss, of perfect union of body, thought, spirit, soul, as when I stubborn beyond myself grimly bore my complaining body on through the stark deathly heat of the desert to reach just one more goal in two weeks of tortured goals whose ending left me briefly suspended between life and death, my being then transcending out as if I had become the desert, the Sun, the water that saved me, the people who in their simple act of kindness took me in and brought me even then to an insight of understanding of their culture, their Prophet, their God.

Seeking, questing, as when I gently cared for a patient, dying, and listened as he told of how he had endured years in those Trenches of stalemate war. There, in a bedside drawer were his medals, brought by his wife – and that last night I stood watching, unseen, as she briefly took them out as he rasped, to breathe his last breath of life.

Seeking, questing – as when I sat on the edge of the bed of she whom I loved who loved me, and held her as she drifted into that last and never-ending sleep. Seeking, questing., forgetting as when, less than a year later I was travelling, writing, speaking words of chaos and of hate, as if hoping such words might change what-was for what I hoped might-be, forgetting, forgetting the pain, the anger, the suffering, even the deaths, caused. Had she, my love, died in my arms in vain? Seeking, questing, as when years later I, grieving, sorrowed as my then wife became troubled, ill, and I knew my blame; forgetting – as when, less than six months later, in a land of hot Sun I was again preaching death, destruction, as if it might again change what-was to what I in arrogance believed should-be…

So much known, seen, felt – so many tears, insights along the Way, and so many times when those tears, insights, were lost. It was as if I had to start all over again, and re-learn what life, myself, in-between, had forced me to forget. As if my questing life each year had to shed its slowly learnt wisdom to vigourously grow, up, upwards to where the pain of remembering merged with the joy of passion; upward, ever upward beyond and between the light and the dark. And I am, was, like them – those who for thousands of years acted to strive to change what-was to what they believed should-be, who experienced, who learned, who forgot and who so acted again. I – the deed; the redemption and the blame. I, they, we – in our tears, our understanding a beginning of what we should and can be.

Seeking, questing, forgetting until I finally distilled the essence – which is of empathy and honour.

Yesterday – as I myself was held, touched, kissed by a woman – I was blessed through her, with her, by her, with another intimation of the divine, another presencing of the numinous, and all I can do to force myself to remember is create these words, only these words, born by tears; born of divine music, presencing: such a poor recompense for five thousand years of suffering, seeking, questing, forgetting, pain, and toil.

David Myatt

Source: Selected Letters of David Myatt, Part 1

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We Love Unsuspecting

A quite relaxing day, for me: a day of unexpected sunshine and September warmth after so many dull and rainy days, and I spent most the hours of the daylight morning in the fields, or sitting by the large pond listening to the song of the birds, watching the Dragonflies, the Butterflies and the pond life, with the afternoon spent in gentle gardening, and then just sitting in the warming Sun.

There has been thus moments of pleasure, peace and joy, as of those remembered times when one’s distant gentle lover comes, if only briefly, to stay with one, again. Thus was I, thus am I, brought back, or moved forward, to just-be in the flow of Life as Life flows, slowly, when we gently let-go of that perception which is our small and often selfish self: to feel, to be-again, not apart from Nature.

Hence I am again but one life slowly dwelling in some small part of a rural England that I strive to keep within me by the slow movement of only walking, or cycling, along the country lanes, and which never takes me far from the meadow fields or from the hills which rear up, wooded, less than half a mile away.

Thus has there been time for that calm thinking that arises slowly, naturally, as the Cumulus cloud arose this morning, early, to briefly shade the Sun before they, the clouds, changed so slowly to leave me where my horizon of sighted landscape ended, far beyond the farthest trees, hedge, and hill that I could see. And thus was there a slow thinking about, a dwelling upon, your question of balance…..

Do you find you are still unsatisfied as to path? Or did you find/are still finding, a synthesis between the many? It’s the Balance I find that I seek, and hope for.

…..and yet, for myself, I feel it is more a question of change than of balance, as if we, as a species, are poised, caught, between the past of our animal ancestral nature and the future that surely awaits us if we can change, evolve, into a different kind of being, perhaps into an almost new species. Thus do I sense us, now, as in transition and yet mesmerized, held-back, even imprisoned, by the things we in our hubris-like cleverness have constructed: by the words, the terms, the very language, we have manufactured in order to try and understand ourselves, others, and this world.

Thus do we now interpret others, ourselves, the world – Reality – by abstractions which we project: which we have mentally-constructed and to which we assign “names” and terms, thus obscuring, hiding, the very essence itself, and thus mistaking such manufactured things for this essence.

Thus have we and for example manufactured a concept called a “nation” and a “State”, and have theories of how to govern such constructs, and manufactured “laws” to ensure some kind of abstract “order” within such places, as millions have given their “loyalty” to such abstract things and fought and died and caused great suffering in order to “defend” them or bring them into-being. Thus have we given “names” to differences among and within ourselves – based on some outward “sign” such as skin colour or on some inner sign such as a perceived or assumed “religious” or “political” belief – and thus dishonourably, un-empathically, used such “differences” as a criteria of worth and judgement, and in the process often or mostly behaving in a quite inhuman way. For all such abstractions – however named or described – seem to me to obscure The Numinous: obscure the simple reality which is of the connectedness, the acausal unity, of all Life.

I am as guilty as anyone in having done such things, for – for nearly four decades – I believed in or upheld some such abstraction or other, and used such things as not only a measure of the meaning of my own life, but also as a criteria of judgement, just as I often used violence in pursuit of such abstractions. It did not matter that I sincerely believed my inner intentions were noble and “good”; what mattered was that all such abstractions caused suffering for someone, or some many, somewhere. For such suffering was a natural consequence of those abstractions, constructed and manufactured as such things were by us in our vain arrogance.

Of course, many have understood this, or felt this, over the millennia – as some Ways have been developed to try and move us back toward the reality of connectedness. But always – always, it seems to me – over causal time, the simple unaffected pure meaning, the suffering insight, becomes lost in the words and through dogma, especially through dogma, and in particular through our very need, our very desire, to strive to “attain” some-thing, or to follow some-thing, or someone.

Perhaps only in music, Art, literature, poetry, a personal loyal love, and such-like emanations – in those things which wordlessly capture if only for a moment the Numinous itself – there is and has been a reminder of what-is, of what can-be. Of what we have forgotten and what we have glimpsed or have the capacity to glimpse, to feel, to know.

It seems to me, finally, that there are no answers, because no questions exist; we only impose questions upon what-is. For we have this need to make complex what is simple; we have this Promethean irritation within us. Certainly, this inner irritation, this inability to be empathic with Life (except perhaps in moments) brings us or can bring us joy, ecstasy, and can move us toward a different and at times exhilarating existence – as I know from my own not inactive, woman-loving, and sometimes warrior-like, life. But such a living I sense and feel is only a stasis, a repeat of our often barbaric, animal-like, past, and not the change, the evolution, we need and which surely is possible now, from the understanding the past five thousand years or so has given us.

Thus, my Path now is my Path – which in my temerity I have called The Numinous Way, and which, as it exists now due to the metamorphosis of recent years, represents the results of my ponderings, my thinking, my feelings, and what little knowledge I have acquired from pathei mathos.

Have you found that the seekers path has brought you as much joy as sorrow?

“Always a dream or a memory
Lead us on
And we wait like children
Trusting in the spirits of the Earth.
We love unsuspecting
While they our lovers scheme,
Succour themselves on our blood
And bleed us dry…”

In truth I have found, over four decades of seeking, more sorrow than joy – and yet the sorrow now seems to have merged with the joy to become some-thing which is of both yet beyond both. A new way of feeling, perhaps; or a new way of being, far beyond any words I know, and certainly beyond any and all the various and many Ways and Paths I have experienced and lived. But, of course, there are times – many times – when the sadness seeps back to bring forth burgeoning tears.

All I have from four decades of strife, seeking, searching, questions – of a learning from my plenitude of mistakes – are some tentative scribblings of my own, manifest in The Numinous way, with its Cosmic Ethics, its emphasis on empathy, compassion and honour, and its understanding of how our manufactured abstractions cause and continue to cause suffering, re-enforce our hubris, obscure our connexion to the Cosmos, and distance us from The Numinous.

DW Myatt

(Taken from The Selected Letters of DW Myatt, Volume 1)

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