Overview#
David Myatt (born 1950) is a British writer who was active in neo-Nazi politics and later advocated militant Islamism. His subsequent writings promote a personal philosophy, the Numinous Way, and reject the extremism he previously supported.[1]
Myatt is also a disputed figure in the history of the Order of Nine Angles (ONA or O9A). Several scholars identify him with Anton Long, the name associated with the Order’s founding and much of its literature. Myatt denies that identification, and researchers differ over how conclusively the available evidence establishes it.[1][2]
History and context#
Early life and political activity#
In his memoir, Myngath, Myatt describes a childhood spent in colonial East Africa and later the Far East, followed by a return to Britain. He recalls early interests in the natural world, martial arts and classical languages. He dates his involvement in extremist politics to 1968, while still at school, when he supported Colin Jordan’s British Movement. These details come from his retrospective account of his own life.[3]
Historical research documents his subsequent activity on the British far right. He co-founded the National Democratic Freedom Movement in 1974, was associated with Combat 18 in the early 1990s, and founded the National-Socialist Movement in 1997. He also wrote as Wulstan Tedder, an invented aristocratic Englishman. Historian Clive Henry traces this persona through far-right publications and notes Myatt’s later acknowledgement of the pseudonym.[^4]
Myatt’s own account includes admissions of violence. In Understanding and Rejecting Extremism (2013), he acknowledges street fighting, imprisonment for racist and other violence, producing extremist propaganda, and supporting terrorism.[^5]
Conversion to Islam and rejection of extremism#
Myatt converted to Islam in 1998. Political scientist George Michael describes his adoption of the name Abdul Aziz and his public support for Osama bin Laden. During this period, Myatt urged neo-Nazis to make common cause with militant Islamists against enemies he believed they shared, including the United States and Israel. Michael discusses him as an example of attempts to connect the extreme right with militant Islamism.[^6]
Myatt subsequently rejected both political and religious extremism in his published writings. By 2013, he was presenting an extended account of that rejection, tracing the beginning of his reconsideration to a personal tragedy in 2006. He described a gradual process of reflection and regret, and advocated empathy, compassion and humility. His explanation of what brought about this change is autobiographical.[^5]
The Anton Long dispute#
The identification of Myatt with Anton Long is a significant scholarly claim. In his biographical entry on Myatt, historian of religions Per Faxneld accepts Jacob Senholt’s argument for the identification and describes Myatt as the probable chief ideologue of the Order of Nine Angles.[1]
Shanon Shah, Jane Cooper and Suzanne Newcombe take a more qualified position. Their study finds textual evidence supporting the identification but explicitly declines to settle Long’s identity. They also discuss the possibility that the name became a shared persona to which several people contributed. The researchers record Myatt’s denial, alongside his acknowledgement of contact with ONA adherents for political recruitment.[2]
Literary work#
Myatt’s bibliography includes translations of works by Aeschylus and Sophocles, the first three books of Homer’s Odyssey, and Greek Hermetic texts. His Corpus Hermeticum: Eight Tractates appeared in 2017 with translation and commentary. He has also published autobiographical poetry, including One Exquisite Silence, and essays on religion, ethics and personal experience.[^7]
The memoir Myngath brings together recollections of his political activity, relationships, travels and religious interests. Its introduction describes a selective account shaped by the limitations of memory.[3]
Beliefs or practice#
During his neo-Nazi period, Myatt connected racial identity with what he regarded as a natural and cosmic order. Henry’s research describes his proposals for rural Aryan communities, with honour, loyalty and duty serving a racial ideal. These writings included antisemitism and hostility towards people he excluded from that imagined community.[^4]
In his later critique of extremism, Myatt argues that political and religious causes become destructive when they place an abstraction above individual human beings. He describes a habitual division into allies and enemies that makes hatred and cruelty easier to justify.[^5]
His later philosophy gives particular importance to pathei-mathos, a Greek expression he takes from Aeschylus and understands as learning through suffering or adversity. He regards painful personal experience as a possible source of wisdom about the limits of one’s own judgement. Empathy, in this account, provides another way of understanding the lives of others.[^8]
The resulting ethic emphasises humility, compassion and personal honour. Myatt associates honour with fairness, tolerance and restraint in dealings with other people. He presents this philosophy as a fallible personal understanding, open to revision through experience.[^8]
His reflections draw on Greek literature and his accounts of encounters with Taoism, Catholic monastic life and Islam. His later metaphysical vocabulary also includes the acausal, discussed separately in The Acausal (David Myatt).[^8]