Given below is a link to a pdf file of the ONA MS The Black Book of Satan. A limited number of copies of a typewritten version of this Book were issued by the ONA in 1983 CE.
According to tradition, each Master or Mistress who was responsible for a particular Satanic Temple or group, was given on his or her assumption of that responsibility, a copy of the Black Book of Satan. The Black Book contained the basic Satanic rituals, instructions relating to ceremonial magick in general. It was the duty of the Master or Mistress to keep this book safe, and non-Initiates of the Temple were forbidden to see it. Copies were forbidden to be made, although Initiates above the grade of External Adept were allowed to see and read the Temple copy.
In traditional Satanism (i.e. those using the Septenary System: this system also being known as the Hebdomadry) this practice continued until quite recently when the Grand Master representing traditional groups decided to allow Initiates of good standing to copy the work. This decision was recently extended to enable specialist publication in a limited edition.
The whole text of the traditional Black Book is included in the present work, together with several additional chapters (e.g. Self-Initiation; Organizing and Running a Temple).These additions make this present work a concise practical handbook for those seriously interested in the Black Arts.
Naos
0
Given below is a link to a pdf version of the genuine ONA facsimile text of Naos, without the many errors and omissions in all other on-line editions of Naos in both pdf and other formats.
It is a facsimile of the original ONA documents, text, and diagrams, some of which documents and diagrams are handwritten/hand-drawn.
The text was first issued, in a limited edition, by the Order of Nine Angles in 1989 CE, and re-issued in 1990, 1991 and 1992 CE.
Note that the file is c. 47 Mb in size.
Naos: A Practical Guide to Becoming An Adept
This document will only be available, here, for a limited time.
“ [The] ONA was never meant nor designed to be dominated by thinkers and book thumpers. It is designed for the passionate youth who burns for a cause and ACT. Through their action is an end result manifested. Through their action they grow in experience, and with time, such experience becomes wisdom. A true undefiled wisdom not collected from any book of dead letters, but from the very living library of Nature Herself. In many of the vulgar satanisms the very power of youthful passion is rejected for meaningless teenrebellion. They glorify the passionless thinkers instead, as if these “Nodoers” were the apex of human evolution.
If Humanity relied on these passionless Nodoers, we wouldn’t be here today. The ONA is not a Nodoer religion. It’s not a book club or nerd gathering. It was designed to DO. We all by nature start off as not so bright teens ready to burn for something… anything. These are our warriors. Give them something to burn for and let them set the world ablaze. In their youth, they may not be interested in teachings or traditions, but let them be as Nature intended for awhile, to collect their experiences and grow mature. For in maturity, these same mindless, passionate warriors will mellow out and absorb the mysteries of the ONA in rippened age and become Dark Sages.
There is a time and a place for everyone and everything. And because this ONA is a living reflection of Primal Nature, there is within our dark Shadows a place for every age and kind… ” Saturnyanlodge352: Passions of Youth
Sorcery, The Sinister, Aeons, and The Psyche of The Folk:
Order of Nine Angles Esoteric Notes XXIXA
Essentially, sorcery (aka magick) – according to the Sinister tradition of the ONA – is defined as “the presencing of acausal energy in the causal by means of a nexion. By the nature of our consciousness, we, as human individuals, are one type of nexion – that is, we have the ability to access, and presence, certain types of acausal energy.” [See Footnote 1]
Thus, understood esoterically, an individual represents a willed-evolution: the potential to change and evolve by means of utilizing certain energies, with such change and evolution involving a bringing-into-being, or, more prosaically, a bringing-into-consciousness. That is, a making-conscious of what was hitherto “unknown”, hidden and latent, both within and external to the individual. This making-conscious is the first step – the beginning – of genuine individual magick; the first stage of that Sinister Way one of whose aims is the creation of a new, more conscious, more highly evolved, individual.
The psyche of the individual is a term used, in the Sinister Way, to describe those aspects of an individual – those aspects of consciousness – which are hidden, or inaccessible to, or unknown to, the individual. Basically, such aspects can be considered to be those forces/energies which do or which can influence the individual in an emotional way or in a way which the individual has no direct control over or understanding of. One part of this psyche is what has been called “the unconscious”, and some of the forces/energies of this “unconscious” have been, and can be, described by the term “archetypes”.
Understood esoterically, an archetype is a limited presencing (a manifestation) of acausal energy, which presencing is limited in causal time. [See Footnote 2]
Fundamentally, the basic task of an esoteric Initiate is to make-conscious – to experience, know and understand – their own psyche, and this, in the beginning stages of magickal Initiation, is done by means of symbols and rituals, both hermetic and ceremonial. That is, the forces/energies, both archetypal and otherwise, are objectified, experiences and experimented with – hence such symbols and tools such as The Septenary System (of correspondences, including the Tree of Wyrd), the Tarot, and The Star Game. To complement this, the individual undertakes “Insight Roles” where they identify with a certain symbolic aspect or aspects, or rôle – and/or a certain archetype or archetypes – and thus experience, in real life, such energies, and their causal effects. One particular aspect, of course, is The Sinister itself, which is manifest in archetypes such as “The Magickian”, The Mistress of Earth, and in Satan.
As stated in the MS The Five-Dimensional Magick of the Seventh Way:
“All magick – external, internal and Aeonic – is but a means to apprehend, experience and presence acausal energies, and thus create/provoke Change. That is, the conventional magick of the Tree of Wyrd, of books such as Naos, of rituals, is but a beginning – through such things, the individual Initiate acquires experience and knowledge, and also develops as an individual: in terms of character. In the simplistic sense, they move, through the Grades, beyond “The Abyss”, toward The Goal, which is the transformation of the individual and the emergence of a new type of being, beyond the Adept.”
Furthermore, the archetypal energies which affect and influence an individual – a non-Adept – are, according to The Sinister Way of the ONA, both personal/individual, and related to the Aeon during which the individual lives. In addition, some of the personal archetypal energies which are manifest, or which can be manifest, in the psyche of the individual, are related to the living-being which is the folkish culture of the individual. Thus, in order to properly progress along The Way toward Adeptship – in order to evolve as an individual – the individual needs to understand, and work with, such particular energies.
The Folk Psyche and Folkish Archetypes:
By virtue of being a nexion, an individual is connected to the causal presencing that is Nature, and to those living-beings which are manifest in Nature. One such living-being is the folkish-culture, the folkish-psyche, to which they may belong – and thus from which they have come-into-being, as an individual. [See Footnote 3] Basically, this is just a precise way of understanding that all non-Adepts are, or can be or will be, influenced by various unconscious archetypal forces deriving from their ancestors, and their ancestral culture (or way of life) – if they have one – and that, whether they know or not (and they mostly do not know) they are connected to such living-beings. Generally, such a connexion (both unknown and made-conscious) is positive: that is, it tends towards an affirmation of life, and provides the individual with access to certain energies which are beneficial to them.
Furthermore, it needs to be understood that sorcery as a Way is neutral – that is, it can be used (or more correctly can be assumed, by those individuals below the stage of Mastery, to be so used) to either aid or harm such connexions, such Earthly living-beings, as human beings are connected to and from which they have emerged, such folkish-culture and folkish-archetypes. It can also, and importantly, be used to create new connexions, new cultures and new archetypes, and thus can bring-into-being new, esoterically-derived (and thus sinister) folk-beings, unbound by older forms.
In practical terms of self-development and evolution, an individual can greatly benefit from knowing, and from direct involvement with, their folk psyche and folkish archetypes: and this is especially true when the stage of Adept is reached and Aeonic workings are undertaken.
However, this is only a a beginning: the making-conscious of what was or may be unknown to the individual; it is not the esoteric, sinister, essence itself. That is, the causal esoteric constructs of folk, the folkish psyche and folkish archetypes, of an individual belonging to a particular folk or culture, are only causal esoteric constructs, and do not pertain to the essence of either The Sinister Way, or impose boundaries, or limits, upon the individual striving along our dark path. Thus, when a certain level of knowledge and understanding is reached, by the Sinister Initiate, and when certain esoteric skills are developed, the individual has the ability, the freedom, to bring-into-being (by whatever means of sorcery) whatever changes, personal, and supra-personal, that they may desire; with such changes being limited only by the ability, the understanding, of the individuals themselves. One such change is the bringing-into-being of new collocations of individuals in the form of a new sinister tribe. That is, bringing-into-being, by whatever means, esoteric or otherwise, an entirely new tribe and thus an entirely new type of folk, and imbuing this new folk with a numinous mythos and thus new tribal (folkish) archetypes. Furthermore, such new tribes – being a conscious presencing by sinister Initiates and Adepts – are themselves not necessarily bound or limited or determined by “ethnicity” (which itself is only a causal abstraction); for there is the freedom to bring-into-being new alignments, new collocations of ethnically diverse individuals to form a new tribe, just as there is the freedom to do the opposite, to form a new tribe, a new folk, based on some already existing ethnicity. For the Sinister Way – being the Way of the evolved, free, individual – provides the individual with a genuine choice.
Aeons, Civilizations and The Presencing of Acausal Energy:
An Aeon – according to the Sinister Way of the ONA – is a particular presencing of certain acausal energies on this planet, Earth, which energies affect a multitude of individuals over a certain period of causal time. One such affect is via the psyche of individuals. This particular presencing which is an Aeon is via a particular nexion, which is an Aeonic civilization, which Aeonic civilization [See Footnote 4] is brought-into-being in a certain geographical area and usually associated with a particular people, or folk.
An Aeon can thus be considered to be a type of acausal being [See Footnote 5] manifesting in the causal, and, as such, has certain archetypal energies associated with it: that is, it can to a certain extent be “re-presented”, or apprehended, via causal-thinking, in terms of certain symbols, archetypes, abstractions, myths, rituals, and so on. The living-being which is an Aeon is thus “born”, lives for a specific period of causal time, and then “dies”, as, of course, do the archetypes associated with such an Aeon. Each Aeonic civilization can – according to limited causal-thinking – be described, or re-presented, by a particular mythos, which mythos is a limited causal apprehension of the life-force, of “the soul” or psyche, of the Aeon from which that civilization derives.
Hitherto, we human beings have lacked the ability to affect Aeons and thus Aeonic civilizations. That is, as stated in the MS Aeonic Magick – A Basic Introduction:
“All the individuals associated with a particular civilization – unless and until they attain a specific degree of self-awareness [variously called 'individuation' and 'Adeptship'] – are subject to or influenced by their psyche. This psyche draws its energy from – is determined by – the civilization and thus the aeon. In practical terms, the psyche is a manifestation of the acausal energy that creates/created the civilization…”
However, sorcery (magick) – correctly understood and correctly used – is a means not only of personal development and personal understanding (a freeing from psychic, archetypal, influences and affects) but also of evolving to the next level of our human existence where we can understand, and to a certain extent control and influence, supra-personal manifestations of acausal energies, such as an Aeon, and thus cause, or bring-into-being, large-scale evolutionary change. Such understanding, such control, such a bring-into-being, is Aeonic Magick.
Aeonic Magick is the magick of the Adept and those beyond: the magick of the evolved human being who has achieved a certain level of self-understanding and self-mastery and who thus is no longer at the mercy of unconscious psychic, archetypal, influences, both personal/individual, and of other living-beings, since as the folk, and Aeons.
According to the sinister tradition of the ONA, there have been five Aeons, including the current Thorian (or “Western”) one. The current Aeon is, however, unique – for it has, in the last hundred years or so, suffered from a distortion of its life-force, a distortion of its soul. This distortion has been somewhat simplistically and rather graphically described as akin to a “viral infection” which has modified the behaviour of the peoples of the civilization through changing, modifying, and in some cases supplanting, the natural archetypes of the Aeon. In the esoteric sense, this distortion, this infection, can be understood as a natural process affecting our evolution – a consequence of that evolution itself, and such an infection could have certain undesirable consequences for our evolution, and for our ability to free ourselves from those viral forces which are, in essence, de-evolutionary. That is, this distortion, this infection, represents a challenge to the Sinister Way – to magick, to the alchemy of evolution itself.
Thus, one aim of Aeonic Magick is to counter this Aeonic distortion through various sinister strategies; another aim is to consciously bring-into-being a new Aeon: one which will allow us, as human beings, to evolve and fulfil the potential latent within us.
There is thus a real war occurring at present, part of which is magickal, Aeonic and supra-Aeonic: a war, battles, between those who represent the genuine wisdom and understanding and freedom and life-enhancement which genuine magick (with its presencing of the acausal) brings, and those who represent what is fundamentally de-evolutionary, limiting, enervating and stiflingly causal, and who are manifest through and in the distortion of the Thorian Aeon. [See Footnote 6]
The Sinister Way and Our New Sinister Tribes:
In essence, all genuine magick, all genuine sorcery, is Sinister because it is Change: a move-toward a new bringing-into-being. A re-ordering in the causal. That is, it is a presencing of the acausal – from which all that is evolutionary and life-affirming arises.
However, to work - to affect evolutionary Change – such presencings have to be based upon, to manifest, to use, what-is acausal: that is, there has to be a knowing, an understanding, of the acausal as the acausal is; and this understanding depends on the understanding by the individual of they, themselves, as individuals, as they are, and in this self-understanding an awareness of their own ancestral cultures (or cultures) – if they have one – may be important. Without this knowing, this understanding, of the acausal as it is – in both its causal esoteric forms and in its formless, acausal, essence – there has been, is and will be only the delusion of self and at best a stasis and at worst a return to the thralldom of the past.
One new bringing-into-being is – as mentioned above – that of new tribes, unbound (or bound) by already existing causal constructs (such as ethnicity), with these new tribes becoming the basis for a new Aeon – the first ever Aeon unlimited by, and free from, the limiting causal abstractions of all previously existing Aeons.
Anton Long
Order of Nine Angles
118 Year of Fayen
Notes:
(1) q.v. the MS The Five-Dimensional Magick of the Seventh Way. For a basic discussion of causal and acausal, see Chapter 0, A Theory of Magick, in Naos and the MS Aeonic Magick – A Basic Introduction.
(2) It needs to be understood that the ONA uses such terms as psyche, and archetype, in a particular and precise esoteric way, and thus such terms should not be considered as being identical to those used by others and defined, for example, by Jung.
Thus, esoterically understood, an archetype is a particular causal presencing of a certain acausal energy and is thus akin to a type of acausal living being in the causal (and thus “in the psyche”): it is born (or can be created, by magickal means), its lives, and then it “dies” (ceases to be present, presenced) in the causal (i.e. its energy in the causal ceases).
However, it should be remembered that all archetypes are causal esoteric abstractions, which esoteric abstractions re-present or which manifest aspects of (to a greater or lesser extent) the acausal essence, but which are not the essence itself. That is, they are just useful forms, useful constructs, in the causal, which constructs enable us to apprehend, and to a certain extent, to manipulate, acausal energy.
(3) Such connexions, such living-beings as the folk and the folkish-culture which derives from the living of such a being, are only what-are, on this planet where we dwell. That is, they are aspects of Nature: they correctly describe the reality of how the acausal is presenced, in the causal, on this planet, through that living-being which is Nature. In a simplistic, descriptive and old Aeon anthropomorphic sense, such folk-beings are among Her descendants, her “sons and daughters”.
Furthermore, there is a symbiosis involved in such connexions – or, rather, there is now a symbiosis involved as a result of our natural evolution of will and consciousness; a symbiosis between us, our folk-beings, and with Nature, as well as with the Acausal beyond Nature.
However, the folk itself – like an archetype – is only a causal esoteric abstraction; a useful construct, in the causal, which enables us to apprehend, and to a certain extent, to manipulate, acausal energy.
(4) To be precise, this nexion is “a culture” which itself is a living-being, a spawn of a particular Aeon, with the Aeonic civilization itself being a by-product, a manifestation, a stage, of this new culture. However, the general term civilization will be retained, although such Aeonic “civilizations” such be understood in such a context.
Also, note that what is referred to is an Aeonic civilization – not just a “civilization”. q.v. Aeonic Magick – A Basic Introduction.
(5) For a basic introduction to “acausal beings” refer to the MS Advanced Introduction to The Dark Gods: Five-Dimensional Acausal Sorcery which explains the nature of the acausal-thinking (or, more prosaically, the “esoteric/magickal” thinking) that is required to begin to understand such beings: to apprehend Them as they are.
In addition, it needs to be understood that, as explained in many other MSS, there are many and varying types of acausal entities, or acausal beings or acausal forms of life. Some exist solely in the acausal; some can manifest in some ways in the causal, with some such causally-manifesting beings – or forms of life – being in symbiosis with the causal (or rather, in symbiosis with causal life-forms) and thus “dependant” on them to some extent. Some such dependant symbiotic acausal beings may cease to exist (in both the causal and the acausal) when their energy fades and “dies”, while others may return to the acausal to leave only a dead causal “shell” or “shells”.
Further, it should be obvious that the majority of such acausal life-forms cannot and should not be conceptualized in an anthropomorphic way, bound and limited as such conceptualizations are by causal Time and causal Space.
(6) The distortion has been, exoterically, described as “Magian”: as representative of a particular ethos deriving from the psyche of a certain people.
Esoterically, the essence of this distortion is the disruption, and the distorting, of the flow of acausal energy via nexions. That is, the Magian, and their servants and allies, have and are trying to constrain, to limit, individuals to only un-numinous (lifeless; non-esoteric) causal abstractions, many of which they themselves have manufactured as a means of control.
Thus, in place of the freedom of the individual to access acausal energy and use that energy to change, to evolve, themselves and others and the Cosmos itself, there is the tyranny of causal abstractions and thus the abject subjugation of individuals by the psychic chains (and psychic prisons) of such abstractions.
This freedom to individually so access such acausal energy and to thus invoke a conscious individual and supra-personal evolution – whose genesis is self-knowledge via practical experience – is manifest and always has been manifest in all genuine Sinister Ways; in all genuine Left Hand Paths.
Order of Nine Angles is as mysterious as the organization it takes it’s name from. Electro Acoustic percussion drives the track in an off the 4’s groove. Melancholic melodies that seem to be a Voidloss trademark drift into the mix, surrounded by fragile, collapsing synths and underpinned by deep bass, a very thoughtful journey.
Sheitan begins and is driven by a massive droning ambience combining Middle Eastern pipes, cavernous echoes, distorted guitars, factory sounds and deep bass. A massive analog kick drum provides the pulse as tribal machine percussion slowly builds to the peak.
Tree of Wyrd takes the darkest path, deep bass noise and a solid kick are matched with white noise hats and clunking industrial percussion. An inhuman voice runs under mix, speaking some dark ceremony in an ancient language. The tune builds into a disorienting, hypnotic shriek of demonic noises for an overall deeply disturbing techno workout. “
http://www.myspace.com/singularityrecordings
http://www.djtunes.com/release/the-journey-of-the-self-pt1/
An Introduction to Traditional Satanism
Essentially, the difference between the Order of Nine Angles and other groups which profess to belong to the ‘Left Hand Path’ or which claim to be Satanic is that the ONA seeks to realistically guide its members along the difficult and dangerous path of self-development, the goal of which is the creation of an entirely new individual. This path is fundamentally a quest for self-excellence and wisdom.
We believe that there is no easy way to real knowledge and insight of the ‘Occult’ kind – that each individual must walk this path and achieve things for themselves. There are no ‘ceremonies’, no magickal ‘rites’, not even any teachings which can provide the individual with genuine wisdom: real wisdom is only and always attained by the personal effort of the individual over many years. It is the result of a synthesis – a development of the dark side and an integration of that aspect of our being thus creating a complete, more evolved individual. Furthermore, the means to this attainment are essentially practical; that is, they involve the individual undergoing certain formative, character-developing experiences ‘in the real world’ rather than in some pseudo-mystical, pseudo-intellectual ‘magickal rite’ or sitting at the feet of some pretentious ‘master’.
For us, Satanism is a quest involving real personal danger where the individual Initiate undertakes genuine challenges which take them to and beyond their limits: physical, ‘mental’ and psychic. This quest, in its beginnings, involves the individual in exploring their ‘hidden’ or ‘dark’ side – and a part of this is participation in overtly Occult and magickal ceremonies and rites. This beginning – where the new Initiate participates in and later conducts Satanic rituals such as the ‘Black Mass’ – enables the individual to explore this dark side, to gradually understand it, make it more conscious, and thus control it. An aspect of this making-conscious, is symbolism – such as the ’septenary system’ – where various Occult/magickal energies are symbolised in certain ways via a system of correspondences. This symbolism enables the energies dealt with to be objectified and thus consciously understood – this in itself makes possible an integration of the ‘dark’ side. Thus, there is a synthesis – a dynamic, conscious, moving-forward by the individual: an evolution of personality. Insight is gained. In psychological terms, there is the start of “individuation”. This leads to a practical experiencing of the sinister, and thus further personal development, further building of character.
Because of the type of practical experiences, the type of challenges, the individual undertakes, the character so formed is – viewed conventionally – Satanic. There is a defiance of restrictions, a proudness, an experience and then understanding of those things that the religion of the Nazarene frowns upon. In Nietzschean terms, there is a practical living of a “master-morality”. The person created via these experiences is the type to inspire a certain terror/awe in the supine majority, weaned as that majority have been by the softness of the Nazarene ethic.
However, this individual has only begun the process. That is, the type of character so described (which results from these early experiences) is not even what we would call an Adept: of the seven stages of this sinister way (or practical alchemy), this practical involvement in the ‘Occult’ via ceremonies and such things as organizing and running a Satanic group, describe just the first two stages of the way. Furthermore, even this beginning takes some years – and this beginning requires the individual to succeed by their own efforts, by their own will and determination. That is, there are no ‘magickal grades’ or titles awarded for money or sycophancy [as in all other so-called 'Satanic' groups] – what the individual achieves, in terms of ‘magickal grades’, they achieve through their own toil, through undergoing the experiences which create the type of character appropriate to a particular stage of the way being followed.
Thus, each stage of this way has associated with it certain tasks, certain experiences, which the individual must undertake by themselves in their own time. It is these and these alone which bring self-insight, mastery, understanding and skill – both ‘occult’ and personal. All the ONA does, at each stage and for each member, is offer advice – based on experience. That is, the ONA guides its members – it offers a practical system whereby real wisdom may be attained. The onus is on the individual to achieve the goal.
For us, Satanism is all about the creation of proud, strong, characterful, insightful individuals – individuals who have gone beyond the majority and who thus represent a higher type. Genuine Satanic groups do not seek subservient, decadent, weak-willed followers. They seek to create a real elite – almost a new race of beings. Of course, this is not easy – it is really dangerous. Quite often, new Initiates fail because of the difficulty or because they lack the essential desire to succeed. But that is how evolution works – the strong overcome challenges and evolve; the others stay where they are, descend, or are destroyed.
Thus, Satanism is élitist – it does not compromise. It is not really for the majority. The tests, the ordeals, the methods of genuine Satanism are tough and severe because only such things will create the right type of person. These things cannot be made easier, less tough, less dangerous: to do so would destroy the essence of Satanism itself.
After the early stages of the way – which involve direct experience of the sinister both via rituals, magickal groups and undertaking certain sinister tasks – the individual moves on [if I said one such early task involved culling, or Satanic sacrifice, it is possible to appreciate the difficulty and danger]. That is, the Satanic novice gains more understanding of themselves, and the world, by more experiences – they move toward a real individuation, a synthesis of conscious/unconscious, light and sinister. Part of this involves them undertaking a specific task for some months, and it is this task – based on the foundations the previous, early, stages of the way have built – that creates a genuine Adept. This task requires the candidate for Adeptship to live alone, in an isolated area, for three months (usually from Spring Equinox to Summer Solstice) – to talk with no one, to live frugally, with no modern conveniences, no wireless, no modern ‘distractions’, in a shelter they have built [in recent years, the rules have been relaxed and a tent is allowed]. The aim of this is for them to experience themselves and Nature without any distractions – to really get to know themselves and the natural energies which exist, as those energies are (and not as books, or ‘teachers’ or theories describe those energies). This, of course, is very difficult. It requires real determination; it requires the individual to face themselves, and all their fears. It is a severe test of character – and of their Satanic resolve.
Most individuals who get this far (and that is not very many, over the past few decades) give up after a while – they find excuses to return to the world and its comforts. The classic excuse is the delusion that they have actually ‘attained’ Adeptship in a few days or perhaps weeks of isolation. And it is a delusion – for it is only by living in such a harsh, isolated way for at least three months that a real Adept is created. Naturally, other so-called Satanic or Left Hand Path groups award a spurious ‘Adeptship’ to their members/followers: or those members/followers award it to themselves, usually after some boring, pompous, totally meaningless ceremony.
The Adept marks the end of the third stage of our seven-fold sinister way – and to reach this stage usually takes three to six years, from Initiation. The task or Grade Ritual which creates the Adept also makes the Adept aware of their unique, personal Destiny – and the fourth stage is all about the Adept seeking to make that Destiny real. This involves a ‘return to the world’ – the gaining of more experience, the creation of new insights, new skills. This in itself takes some years. The character of the Adept grows and deepens – they achieve the beginning of wisdom. In magickal terms, they gain an understanding of ‘Aeonics’ – of things like sinister strategy (the use of acausal or supra-personal energies to change societies/civilizations over centuries). Hitherto, most of their experience/learning has been directly personal, relating to their personal development – now, aeonic perspective is gained, it becomes a part of them. That is, they develop still further, again via direct experience – this time, of the acausal itself.
From this, further personal development takes place – they become complete, highly developed individuals who possess skills and an understanding few possess. They fulfill the potential of genius which is latent within them. Thus, they move on to become genuine Masters or Lady Masters/Mistresses. But to reach this stage – the fifth – takes at least ten years (more usual is fifteen to twenty). And there is another stage beyond this.
Thus, it will be seen that our way is difficult and takes a long time. The journey of the initiate toward Adeptship and beyond has no mystery about it – it is actually very simple. Most people could do it – if they possessed the determination. But the majority are just too lazy or too weak. The same applies to most who apply to join Satanic groups or are interested in Satanism – they go for the easy option; they are not prepared to work at their own self-development. They prefer someone to do it for them. And, furthermore, they are not fundamentally prepared to go to and beyond their limits – to really experience the sinister in a practical way; they want to simply play safe, pseudo-Satanic games. Thus, they gravitate toward what we call the sham-Satanic groups, the poseurs – those who like the glamour associated with Satanism but are basically afraid to experience its realness within and external to them. Thus such groups issue – and believe in! – ethical guidelines as they constantly affirm that Satanism does not condone such things as ‘human sacrifice’.
We, on the contrary, are dark and really sinister – and propound culling. That is, we uphold human culling as beneficial, for both the individual who does the culling (it being a character-building experience) and for our species in general, since culling by its nature removes the worthless and thus improves the stock. Naturally, there are proper ways to choose who is to be culled – each victim is chosen because they have shown themselves to be suitable. They are never chosen at random, as they are never ‘innocent’.
Our affirmation of such things as human culling offends other so-called Satanic groups – which to us just re-affirms our assessment of those groups as pretend Satanic groups. Basically, such groups have little or no real understanding of Satanism, as evident, for instance, in the ‘religious’ approach of the Temple of Set – that is, their claim that Satanism is some sort of religion. To us, the religious attitude and mentality – involving as it does dogma, sycophancy, and subservience by the individual to some self-appointed authority – is the antithesis of Satanism.
In essence, we understand Satanism as the individual quest for self-excellence – to create an entirely new type. This quest involves practical experience – for only real experience creates character. The essence that Satanism leads the individual toward is only ever revealed by practical experience – never by books, never by someone else’s ‘teachings’, never by words. Words themselves can never really describe this essence – they can only point the way, hint at it, and usually serve only to obscure it. In the same way, ceremonies and forms such as rituals are only means – they are a means to experience, to symbolize things and thus apprehend what hitherto has been ‘hidden’ or unconscious or instinctive. Furthermore, this quest is and must be individual – it means the individual develops, via experiences (and sometimes by learning from mistakes) the strength of character needed. Or they fail – usually by deluding themselves about their real level of attainment, their real level of self-insight, their level of self-control and mastery. The aim is self-control, self-mastery, self-understanding – and then a moving-on to what is beyond even this new ’self’. The aim in not a wallowing in decadence, as it is not the encouragement of instinctive, sinister desires/pleasures as an end in themselves. Such things are means, a beginning – to be used, learned from, and then transcended via mastery of one’s self.
For us, Satanism is an individual quest because it aims to produce unique, strong, individuals who do not need the support of groups, of dogma, ethics, a religion, of some pontificating poseur of a ‘master’. Thus, the ONA exists to offer advice and guidance – to point the way. The individual must begin the quest, and they and they alone must continue with it.
Because of the difficulty of our way, few follow it. In some ways, this is unfortunate – for we believe the way offers anyone the opportunity to advance along the path to genuine Adeptship and beyond. It makes real, or can make real, the potential that most individuals possess – the latent genius within. However, given human nature the small numbers are understandable. What the ONA has done – over the past thirty years or so – is to create a simple practical system which works: which can produce genuine Adepts and Masters/Lady Masters. In effect, we have distilled the essence from thousands of years of conscious understanding, producing an elixir, an ‘internal alchemy’, which anyone can use.
We describe this system as Satanic, as Sinister because it is. It is a complete rejection of the philosophy/religion of the Nazarene. The philosophy/religion of the Nazarene is anti-life and anti-evolutionary, as Nietzsche, for example, understood. For us, Satan is both an archetype or symbol of our defiance, and some-thing real – the re-presentation of what we describe as ‘the acausal’. That is, we understand the ‘darker forces’ as not simply a part of our psyche (as most modern so-called Satanic groups do) – but as beyond our own, individual psyche. These darker forces – or the acausal – are beyond us, as individuals: they are beyond our conscious control (and even real understanding) until we become a part of them. This does not mean a submission to those forces – but rather an expanding of individual consciousness, a development of individual conscious, to include those forces. This expansion is what marks the genuine Satanic Master/Lady Master.
Other ‘Satanic’ groups – if they are serious and not just using the Black Arts for their own weak gratification – claim the darker forces are merely an aspect of the psyche, the unconscious or whatever. [Both the Church of Satan and the Temple of Set make this claim.] They do this for two reasons. First, they need to – because they want to feel safe; they want to be able to play their pseudo-Satanic, pseudo-intellectual, games in a mostly urbanized safety, because the members of such groups are not proud, characterful, self-aware individuals: they need the comfort of a group, of a ‘leader’, of ethical guidelines, of feeling that Satan can be controlled by some meaningless mumbo-jumbo. In effect, the members and leaders of these groups are weak – they lack self-discipline; they lack even the desire for real self-mastery, content as they are to continue with edifying their own weaknesses, with massaging their inflated egos.
Second, such groups and their members do not really understand the Sinister. They have had no real experience of the primal, numinous, supra-personal power of the dark forces – of how that power can destroy individuals. In effect, they have never really ‘tapped into’ the acausal itself – to what is really sinister. They have never really confronted Satan. They have never really striven to be like Satan – to become one with Him; to merge with the acausal itself; to become a ‘nexion’ for the acausal, for sinister energies. This becoming-one is what makes, what creates a genuine Satanic Master/Lady Master, as living alone like a hermit creates the Adept. It is dangerous, naturally – but the only means whereby that synthesis which is beyond the synthesis that is individuation can be achieved. There is thus a real, a genuine, transcending beyond ‘good’ and ‘evil’; beyond ‘light’ and ‘dark’. This achievement, as with all real achievements of an Occult kind, derives from practical experience – from a real personal knowledge. Anything else is mere affectation, mere pose.
Other groups have tried to ‘intellectualize’ Satanism – to take away the real experiences by which genuine Satanic character is formed. Or they wallow in the weaknesses of those addicted to impulses they cannot understand and do not have the strength to control. They have tried and continue to try and make Satanism respectable and safe – just another ‘religion’. They fantasize, and play games. They simply do not understand Satanism as a means to create new, more highly evolved, individuals. In reality, the genuine Satanist creates by participating in real life, the dreams, the standards of excellence, the élan which others often aspire to emulate. A genuine Satanist can be like a beast of prey – in real life. They can be and sometimes are, in real life, assassins, warriors, outlaws. The imitation Satanists pretend to be such things – usually by means of some stupid ‘ritual’. The Satanist is sinister and dark, in real life – and then they move on, to new experiences, to even higher levels of understanding until eventually they acquire real wisdom, or are destroyed. Whatever, they will have really lived, ‘on the edge’; they will really have achieved something with their lives. They will have inspired others. They will in some way by their living have ‘presenced’ the dark forces on earth. If they survive – their rewards are their achievements and the wisdom that awaits. If they do not survive, at least they will have done something with their lives.
Thus does the ONA way express and exemplify Satanism in action.
Anton Long (1994 e.n.)
What it is essential to understand is that the Order of Nine Angles is based upon several fundamental, and many unique, esoteric principles, which esoteric principles include the following:
(1) That we human beings possess the potential to consciously evolve to become the genesis of a new human species, and that genuine esoteric Arts – and especially and in particular The Dark Arts – are one of the most viable ways by which such a conscious evolution can occur;
(2) That genuine esoteric knowledge and insight – and thus genuine Occult advancement – requires both self-achievement through practical deeds and a self-honesty, a genuine knowing and understanding of one’s own self;
(3) That the Cosmos may be apprehended through a bifurcation of both Time and Space, described as such an apprehension is by causal and acausal Universes, and that:
(a) we, as living beings, are an example of acausal energy being presenced in our physical causal Universe;
(b) all causal life is life because there is an “intrusion” of acausal energy into the causal – that is, all causal life is a nexion to the acausal, with we human beings possessing the latent ability to not only apprehend the nexion we are but also to know and utilize certain acausal energies;
(c) magick is the presencing, by us, of certain types of acausal energy by means of a causal nexion, already existing or one brought-into-being;
(d) there exists, in the acausal Universe, certain types of acausal life, of diverse species, some of which species we can apprehend if we possess (i) the esoteric knowledge required to presence such acausal entities or (ii) the esoteric ability and skill to travel into the realms of the acausal;
(e) certain acausal entities have been presenced, in times past, on Earth – and thus become known to human beings, and these include entities known to us by their exoteric “names” Satan, and the Dark Goddess, Baphomet;
(f) certain causal – and Occult – symbolism and symbologies may be and often are useful aids and means for us as human beings to begin the process of acausal apprehension and the knowing and utilization of certain acausal (“Occult”/magickal) energies;
(g) our evolution has been, is and will continue to be – until we evolve to become a more evolved species – based upon what it is convenient to describe as the sinister dialectic;
(h) the sinister dialectic is a process of disruption, destruction, re-birth, renewal, heresy, and change; and on the practical level involves creating, fermenting, and aiding such causal things as strife, Chaos, revolution, heresy, and culling;
(i) to evolve into a higher species is to evolve toward, and into, the acausal Universe itself; that is, to become-like The Dark Ones, themselves; to become both a causal and an acausal species, existing in both the causal and the acausal.
Thus, two of the primary aims of the ONA are (1) to use The Dark Tradition to create Adepts and, over a long period of causal Time, aid and enhance and create that new, more evolved, human species of which genuine Sinister Adepts may be considered to be the phenotype; and (2) to use the sinister dialectic (and thus Aeonic Magick and genuine Sinister Arts) to aid and enhance and make possible our evolution toward the acausal. Furthermore, to achieve these aims will take a certain amount of causal Time, of the order of several centuries.
Hence, it should be clear – to those possessed of genuine Occult insight – that the ONA has both an outer (exoteric) and an inner (esoteric) nature and meaning. Or, expressed in a more truistic, and simple, way, the understanding and knowledge of the Adept (and of those beyond) is not that of the the novice and the Initiate. The exoteric aspect is re-presented in such works as The Black Book of Satan – and in the ceremonies and methods of traditional Satanism themselves (including the symbolism of the Tree of Wyrd) – while the esoteric aspect is re-presented in such ONA MSS as Mythos of the Dark Gods and The Five-Dimensional Magick of the Seventh Way, and especially in and by our Aeonic Magick and our practical deeds which presence the dark. For it is such Aeonic Magick, such practical sinister deeds, and the creation of genuine Sinister Adepts – over a period of decades and centuries – which re-present, and which manifest, the true nature of the Order of Nine Angles.
In addition, three further things about the ONA should also be obvious to those possessed of genuine Occult insight. First, that – in its esoteric essence – the ONA is not a mundane Occult Order of the Old Aeon type. For it is a particular causal nexion, brought-into-being for specific purposes; and thus is now a living-entity imbued with certain acausal energies; which entity now has life, a being, of its own, and which thus is immune to – and not concerned with – the inane criticisms of the inane, many of whom continue to delude themselves about their Occult knowledge and abilities.
Second, that by evolution we mean an increase in acausal energies both within ourselves, as individuals, and as presenced in our causal Universe (and thus presenced upon our planet, Earth). These acausal energies cause, provoke, and aid our own evolution, our own change, as individuals (toward, and beyond, Adeptship), and also cause, provoke and aid change within those constructs we humans construct, such as “society” and the “political” – and “religious” – causal forms (or abstractions) which we human beings (both Occultists, and otherwise) have used, do use and can use in the service of such evolutionary change, with such forms only being a causal means, and not representative of the acausal essence, which acausal essence can be, and has been, apprehended, and manifest, as Chaos.
Third, that the very purpose and meaning of our individual, causal – mortal – lives is to progress, to evolve, toward the acausal, and that this, by virtue of the reality of the acausal itself, means and implies a new type of sinister existence, a new type of being, with this acausal existence being far removed from – and totally different to – any and every Old Aeon representation, both Occult, non-Occult and “religious”. Thus it is that we view our long-term human social and personal evolution as a bringing-into-being of a new type of sinister living, in the causal – on this planet, and elsewhere – and also as a means for us, as individuals of a new sinister causal species, to dwell in both the causal and acausal Universes, while we live, as mortals, and to transcend, after our mortal, causal “death”, to live as an acausal being, which acausal being can be currently apprehended, and has been apprehended in the past, as an immortal sinister being of primal Darkness.
Anton Long
Order of Nine Angles
119 Year of Fayen
A New Imperium
The Imperium which Vindex will create will be different from previous Empires because it will be a conscious creation: the result of a reasoned, honourable, civilized, approach: that is, it will be based upon honour, and will be the result of the esoteric understanding we have achieved over hundreds, indeed thousands, of years.
This means it will not impose itself by force of arms upon others. Rather, it means it will be composed of thinking warriors who uphold honour and who prefer combat to dishonourable modern war. In particular, it means a federation of countries, or nations, who co-operate together in the pursuit of a numinous goal: not an Empire in the old sense of domination and conquest and occupation.
The old type of Empire belongs in the past: it is unsuitable for an honourable, rational, people. Furthermore, the old type of Empire is founded upon a basic error.
The basic mistake is to believe that war can solve problems or be of benefit. Thus to have war as a political policy is stupid. This mistake about war arises from two things: (1) a lack of perspective, and thus a viewing of events in current rather than historical terms; (2) failing to act in accord with the ethics of honour.
Every old type of Empire has a time of glory; as it has to maintain itself by occupation, war, and repression. Every such Empire declines, and is then destroyed. Sometimes an Empire may last a few decades; sometimes a century or more. Rarely, a few centuries. After the destruction of the Empire, there follows a period of chaos, of barbarism, of regression, with only a few positive attributes of the Empire remaining: some stories of glory, perhaps; or some literature; some monuments, or some technological or scientific achievement. But a great detail is lost.
What applies to an Empire applies to the results of terrestrial wars – such as the occupation of a foreign country after victory in a war or after an invasion. Such occupation may well last for a while: a few years; a decade; several decades. But it will inevitably end, through either a successful uprising (often after several failed attempts) or through the withdrawal of the occupiers, for military, economic, or political reasons, and while some elements of the occupying forces may remain (in terms of their culture, ideas, and so on), a great deal is lost. In the meantime, thousands upon thousands of people have been injured, killed, repressed or dishonourably confined in prisons. Furthermore, it is the honourable right and duty of those under occupation to resist, using lethal force – and to try and take away this right and duty, by making it “illegal”, as all occupying forces do, is dishonourable in itself, the act of the bully, the tyrant. It is also the right of individuals to possess weapons, and one of the many dishonourable things an army of occupation does is make possession of weapons illegal.
This old imperial process is incredibly wasteful, and stupid, because the positive, evolutionary, civilized, changes which Empires sometimes bring can be achieved in not only less wasteful ways but also in ways which can ensure much greater, and longer lasting, evolutionary change.
In brief, imperial conquest and colonialism are short-term solutions: in Aeonic terms – in the timescale of civilizations and Aeons – they are failures, detrimental to the long-term evolution that is required.
In terms of acquiring new living-space – often used as an argument in favour of Empires and conquest and colonialism – the honourable, futuristic solution is the colonization of Outer Space.
In terms of war, the new Imperium – or Stellar Federation or Cosmic Federation or Cosmic Reich or whatever we want to call it – would use force only as a last means of self-defence of its own territory or homeland, or when there needs to be an honourable combat between it and its enemies.
In addition, it needs to be understood that modern warfare is for the most part dishonourable, employing as it does cowardly methods – such as aerial bombing – which an honourable warrior would refuse to use, condone, or accept. The warriors of the new Imperium, the troops of Vindex, will seek honourable combat, a fair fight, rather than impersonal war. Honourable combat means personal fighting between groups of warriors, or armies. It means an end to the dishonour which has blighted armies for hundreds of years. It means a return to civilized treatment of captured or surrendering soldiers – allowing them to retain their honour, and go free. It means a conscious decision – based upon honour – to do only that which is honourable, and which befits an honourable warrior.
Honour, and Learning from History
I give one example of learning from history: NS Germany. One mistake was to initiate a war, and to seek new living-space in already occupied lands.
Of course, war against NS Germany was inevitable – just like the recent war against Iraq was inevitable. In the case of Iraq the cabal spent over ten years – from the time of the Gulf War – trying to starve the people into submission, and destroying the defensive capability of the Iraqi defence forces.
But Germany should have waited, and most certainly not launched offensives in other countries. The cabal would then have to had resorted to invading Germany, which would have taken perhaps a few more years to organize, giving NS Germany more time to create a genuine NS society, and prepare to defend Germany. More alliances should have been saught, and NS exported as a revolutionary creed. Had the cabal invaded Germany, they would have been on dubious moral ground, and effective resistance could have been undertaken against the occupying forces.
The effort that went into the war should have been directed toward building a stronger Germany, and showing, by example, that NS worked. In addition, scientific research should have been undertaken into spacecraft.
But this, of course, is hindsight. What happened, happened. We have to learn the lessons. One lesson is to evolve NS itself – which has been done, based upon the ideal of honour and the vision of a Galactic Empire or Federation, created by a NS homeland which seeks allies among the various peoples and cultures of Earth on the basis of honour and mutual respect (see, for example, the recent NS writings of Dave Myatt, such as The Meaning of National-Socialism (Third Edition, 115yf), The Theology of National-Socialism, and Why National-Socialism Is Not Racist).
In the recent case of Iraq, Saddam should have used that time to find allies, for example Syria and Iran, and done what was necessary to make such an alliance work. Preparation should have gone into creating effective resistance forces. [It may well be that this resistance work was done, judging by recent events in Iraq.]
Conclusion
It is to understood that the policies of Vindex, of the new Imperium, will result primarily from honour, and also from a rational understanding of those forces which have and do shape our history and evolution. In addition, the perspective – the motivation – of Vindex and the new Imperium is futuristic, of centuries, of evolution itself, and not the result of some short-sighted political opportunism or some unconscious instinct or desire.
One purpose of esoteric Orders such as the ONA is to understand these forces and to transmit this understanding via various means, which includes the Grand Master, or Magus, of the Order giving advice based on the esoteric understanding and the wisdom they have achieved.
In essence, the new Imperium will be a practical manifestation of the Law of the New Aeon, which is personal honour. That is, it will be founded by, and maintained by, thinking, honourable, warriors: who themselves will be a new archetype, a new type of human being. These new warriors will not compromise their honour to achieve temporary – and Aeonically worthless – gains.
ONA
114yf
Notes:
Vindex:
The name of the exoteric (or “outer”) nexion through which powerful acausal energies are presenced on Earth in order to destroy the current status quo (the Old Aeon, now manifest in the so-called New World Order) and prepare the way for – and inaugurate the practical beginnings of – the New Aeon. Like Falcifer (q.v.), Vindex can be presenced (“manifest”) in an individual (who may be male or female). If an individual, Vindex is the embodiment of The Law of the New Aeon, which is personal honour [See the ONA MSS The Law of the New Aeon and Tyrannies End: Anarchy, Magick and the Law of Personal Honour].
Used as the exoteric name of an individual, Vindex means “the Avenger”, and while it is traditionally (and semantically) regarded as a male name, with the Anglicized feminine form being Vengerisse, Vindex is now often used to refer to either the man or the woman who is or who becomes the nexion.
Falcifer:
The exoteric name given to the esoteric (or “hidden”) nexion which is opened by Adepts to prepare the way for Vindex. This nexion – like Vindex – may be presenced in a specific individual, or in a group of individuals. There is a symbiotic relationship between Falcifer and Vindex, who – if presenced in individuals – can be either male or female.
Hardcore Hate, Ultra-violence, and Heresy
Let it be understood, again – that we of the Order of Nine Angles revel and delight in genuine heresy, in a defiant individuality, and in being amoral. Thus, when we are criticized for inciting hate and violence, and for affirming human culling, we say: so what? For that is what we do, and we do what we do because we embrace the Dark; we desire The Dark; we seek to Presence The Dark – Chaos – upon Earth and in and through others. Thus do we willingly, gladly, laughingly embrace hardcore hate, ultra-violence, and heresy.
For we love to challenge “normals” and cause offence, for such things may be the genesis of a cathartic insight, for some.
Thus, when we are criticized for championing what is heretical in our societies, we say: so what? For that is what we do. Thus do we sometimes gladly praise in our Rites, our lives and through our actions, individuals such as Adolf Hitler and National Socialism itself: and each and every other heresy of our times – and if some shudder and direct epithets and “terms” at us, our response is to laugh and raise our arm in a fascist salute. For, unlike the shuddering ones, the normals, the mundanes, we revel in life itself: our blasphemies a liberation for ourselves and for others.
Thus do we seek to ignore, to transgress, the laws, the limits, that the mundanes set to protect themselves and their societies, for we are rebellion itself: outlaws who thrive beyond and in the margins that mark the boundary between The Light and The Dark.
Thus do we desire our name – as known in the world of the mundanes, and as known in the world of The Dark – to become a synonym for Chaos, liberation, culling, and revolutionary change.
Not for the ONA – or anyone connected with it – cosy intellectual discussions about obscure esoteric matters. Not for the ONA – or anyone connected with it – the scribblings of Occult internet forums where those who-do-not-know converse with those who-do-not-do. Not for the ONA – or anyone connected with it – any sincere affirmation of or any sincere identification with the ways, the politics, the religions, the world, of the mundanes. Not for the ONA – or anyone connected with it – some urban or suburban “Temple”. Not for the ONA – or anyone connected with it – ONA meetings, conferences and dialogues.
Instead, our way is the way of action, of deeds, of violence, terror, revolution, combat, war. The way of the defiant individual – the real heretic who leads and manipulates others, the human shapeshifter who plays, who acts, a rôle in the living game which is the life, the societies, of the mundanes.
Thus those who use our name in vain should beware: for we willingly, gladly, laughingly, embrace hardcore hate, ultra-violence, and heresy, dedicated as we are to bringing real Chaos to the lives of the mundanes, to disrupting and destroying their societies and all their ways of life.
We there is The Darkness, we are. Where there is Chaos, you will find us lurking, leading, manipulating. Where there is Heresy, you will find us as instigators, as champions of The Forbidden. And where there is a law, you will find us transgressing it…
Sortiarius
Order of Nine Angles
119yf
A Darkness, Curving
She was dead, and all he could do was hold her still warm hand while the cold wind outside rattled the sash-framed window and the bedside light spread its circle of dim light upon the bed. Outside, in the dark of that cloudy night, the Cockerel began to crow. There was an Owl, then and not far away, screeking for a while, and Oswald sat by old Oak bed – beside her now Earthly-lifeless body – hardly breathing, and he was still there as the dull Dawn broke beyond the window and his sister showed the Doctor into the room who, holding to his modern profession, pretended not to notice the folk-charms entwined around the headboard and the small glass bottles of home-made unctions on the dark, old, table where a faded sepia photograph in a tarnished silver frame showed a comely women in a bonnet holding what appeared to be Venetian full-face mask of unsmiling bearded man.
Oswald left them, then, to descend the steep stairs of the old, cold, stone-built Shropshire farmhouse, gather his tweed cap from the peg by the back door, and to wander into the old Dairy that abutted the back of the farmhouse. His three farm dogs were pleased to see him, and he let them out from their sleeping quarters where they fastly ran – as they always did each morning – into the yard and then into the meadow field behind the barn. Oswald himself – slowly now, like the old man he might be in twenty years – walked the short distance to the old Orchard of decaying Apple trees that held the wooden chicken coup, and he was unfastening that door, having removed the long bolt that held it in place – a defence against the Fox – when he remembered he had forgotten the Chicken’s feed.
This had been her job – except for the past weeks of her illness – and an early task she liked, and he returned to the old Dairy to gather a pail full of feed. Then, the chickens freed and fed, he leant on the wooden gate – one end tied to the sagging almost broken wooden post by bailing twine – to watch them as they spread out among the tufted field of grass, pecking, searching. For twenty-five years – for twenty-five years – she had brought love, companionship, and a mostly wordless esoteric understanding to his rural and rather taciturn life.
Slowly the low alto-cumulus cloud, westerly-wind-driven, broke to reveal patches of blue, and once, twice, one of the farm cats came to attract his attention, meowing – from a safe distance – in search of easy food. Then, disappointed, it sauntered off back toward the barn where during the day and sometimes at night it slept among the hay.
Oswald must have stood for a long time at the gate, for his sister came to stand beside him and place her hand gently upon his shoulder. “The Doctor’s gone, and I’ve made some breakfast. He’ll give us the Death Certificate in a few days.”
He turned, and briefly smiled a sad half-smile as the wind caught the blonde hair that has somehow escaped from his sister’s single rather old-fashioned plait. Years younger than him, she had been – was – married, but those recent and few childless years were not kind to her as he, her husband, squandered their meagre earnings every evening at the Inn in the village where they lived and his fists of paranoid jealous fury bruised her body, bleak week after bleak bruising week, while her plain soft beauty was beginning to become gradually broken down.
But here, there was a peaceful calm, and for a minute – more – they, brother, sister, stood together. No words could capture their sorrow, no gesture relieve the sadness and the pain, and so they walked slowly across the muddy yard to sit at the table in that large kitchen. Jane had made and lit a fire in the glass-fronted woodburning stove and they sat, at the Oak table, upon their worn Oak chairs, to eat – to be – in silence.
Their peace, the silence, did not last, and the loud persistent rapping on the front door roused Oswald from his remembering of times past so lovingly, so esoterically, shared.
“Where’s she?” Jane’s husband demanded, before pushing a surprised Oswald aside and rushing along the hall into the kitchen.
Jane sat there, at the table, unmoving.
“You slut!” He shouted, and went to grab her arm. He was a tall man of stocky build, his complexion ruddied by his outdoor working life, and he had hoisted her to his feet when Oswald intervened, grasping the man’s left arm.
“Keep out of this!” Jane’s husband shouted, easily freeing himself from Oswald’s grip.
Oswald took several steps back before saying, “Get out of my house, now.”
“Or what?” Jane’s husband said, turning toward Oswald and smiling, arrogantly sure of himself, of his physical prowess. “Come on then! You stupid little twat! You and your kind don’t frighten me!”
“You didna heed our warning,” Oswald hatefully said to him.
The scars on the man’s face were still visible, but the beating had done nothing to change his temper and he lurched toward Oswald. Jane tried to restrain her husband, but he shoved her violently away and she fell to the floor.
Suddenly, Oswald himself became enraged. This intrusion into his house, the assault on his sister, the man’s arrogance – but perhaps most of all the darkness, curving, growing, within him – combined to transform him in that instant and he became an instinctive animal rushing toward a menacing intruder.
Then they were on the ground, grappling with each other, overturning furniture and chairs, until Oswald with a dark growing strength pinned his adversary down, his fists pummelling pummelling the man’s head and face until his fury, his animal fury, subsided. He got up, then, as Jane embraced him, and they stood together – brother and sister – for what seemed a long time while, outside, the Sun of early October rose into a clear sky and a few cars passed along the narrow hedged-lined country lane that joined the hamlet of his farmhouse to the village that bore her loveless marriage-home.
It was the barking of the three returning dogs that roused them, and she went to kneel down to her husband as her brother stood, with bloodied knuckles, holding onto the back of a chair.
“He is dead…” her quiet voice said.
They sat there at their breakfast table, in silence, for nearly half an hour. He did not explain what he was going to do, and she did not ask, but she helped him lift the dead body of her husband into the hand cart that her brother brought to the back door of the Dairy and watched him haul it away, followed by his dogs, before she attended to the mess in the kitchen.
There was furniture to right; broken crockery to collect, dispose of; blood-stains on the tiled floor to clean and wash away. And she had restored the place to its former neat, clean, appearance – the table set again – when he returned, sweaty, muddy, bloody. She made a pot of tea, and they drank with no words between them until she said, “His car…”
He changed his clothes to leave to drive that car far enough away, and it was a long walk back, over hilly fields, a stream, from the place of its abandonment, so that by the time he returned there was an Undertaker’s van parked where the wooden lane-hedged gate led to the farmyard behind his house. But Jane had dealt with everything in his absence and he was left to stand, cap in hand, by his front garden fence, as the two sombre men discreetly completed the last part of their business, respectfully bowing their heads toward him before Jane handed each of them a gift, wrapped in hessian sacking.
“You must be hungry,” Jane said as she came to her brother to hold his hand while he watched the black van trundle away along the lane.
“No,” he sighed as a wistful desire to have his wife back, alive, assailed him.
“You really should eat something.”
“Maybe.”
And she went down to cellar darkness to fetch a special-something, glass-jar kept, that she with her old-knowing knew would aid him.
That day set the pattern for their lives together, for he would rise early – as he had done for decades – to begin the toiling tasks of his day while she busied herself with domestic duties. They seldom spoke – for there seemed no need – and he dourly went about his business on the farm, tending to his scores of free-range Tamworth pigs, until the funeral day arrived. It was a quiet affair, as he desired, at the village Church six miles distant, and of the seven mourners present he, in his one suit, of brown Tweed, spoke to only three: village ladies of elderly years who came, respectfully, dressed in black.
“Such a grieving you must have for your Rounwytha,” one of them whisperingly said after a sand-filled coffin had been laid in earth where the ancient Yew stretched forth its branches over old graves in a hedge-lined corner.
“Yes,” he mumbled.
“Come you now,” another said, and touched his hand. “There’ll be another, I know.”
He sighed then as she – outwardly elderly, frail, with a face of former youthful beauty – looked at him with esoteric smile. He felt the old strength there, within her, as it had been within his wife, and as she the elderly passed part forth to be again with him, he was again the land around. For there was a still warm Sun to breathe his – their – world with Life; a Buzzard circling in skies above; a breeze to break by sound of leaves such churchyard silence as then entwined them.
“Jane awaits,” the lady said, “she’s free, now,” and he – as if bidden – loped away to stand beside his fair young sister. The four coffin-bearers, mourners – tough, sinewed – bowed their heads toward him, and Jane acknowledged them with smile. For there would be gifts again for them, as when after one early night not long passed they had met to warn to beat her bully-husband.
It was weeks later on one dry Sunny cold morning day when, after such premonition as awoke her, they had their only reason to return, placing fresh flowers on that empty grave as two un-local men approached them.
“I’m sorry to trouble you,” the taller and older of the men said to Oswald’s sister. “I’m Detective Constable Judd.” He fumbled in the inner pocket of his suit for his Warrant Card. “Shrewsbury CID. Would it be alright if I asked you a few questions? About your husband.”
Jane politely smiled at him.
“When did you last see your husband?” he asked.
“A few weeks ago – on the morning that my brother’s wife died. Why?”
“His employer reported him missing. We found his car, abandoned. You’ve not heard from him since then?”
“No.”
“You’re staying with your brother, I understand?”
“Yes.”
“She has been,” Oswald interjected, “since before when my wife was ill.”
“Did he arrive by car?” the Policeman asked Jane.
“Yes.”
“What time did he leave?”
“Some hours before the undertakers arrived at noon.”
“Would you mind telling me why you left to stay with your brother?”
Oswald interjected again. ” ‘Cos he was bad news, that’s why. The drink. The gambling. Not to mention the beatings. Cowardly bastard.”
“I see,” Judd said, revealing no emotion.
“Best thing she ever did,” Oswald continued, “leaving him. Didn’t want go back, neither.”
“You didn’t like him?” Judd asked Oswald.
“Made no secret of it. Anyone from round here tell you that. Many people round here didn’t like that one – always fighting, riling people he was. Came see her that morning – told him to go.”
“And he did?”
“He did. I said to him: my wife’s just died – he knew she was ill, dying, that Jane was looking after her – and he must have had some heart in him somewhere I suppose, for he just up and left, went away, not saying a word.”
“You have not heard from him, since?”
“No, I haven’t,” Jane answered.
“You’re not concerned?” Judd asked her.
She shook her head, but it was Oswald who said, “Why would she? Better off where she is. Should ‘ave left him long time ago.” Then, turning to his sister, “Never knew why’s you married him.”
“I loved him. Least ways, I did, once,” she replied.
“Thank you, thank you,” Judd said to both of them, meaning it. “If you hear from him, I’d appreciate it if you would let us know.”
“Yes, yes of course,” Jane said.
Then they were gone, walking back to their car parked by the low stone wall that bounded the South side of that Churchyard.
“Routine,” Jane said to him, and they did not speak of the matter again either as they walked the miles on footpath and over hill back to the farm, or as they resumed their daily routine, nor at night, their day of tasks complete, when he – tired – went to his room, and she to hers.
So October gave way to cold, damp, sunless November where their trees became barren of leaves, apples were stored away, hedge berries picked for jam, early darkness descended, and there was need of an evening fire in the stone fireplace of the sitting room where they would sit, each in their own worn familiar chair, in silence: she, more often than not reading by dim light of nearby lamp, and he staring into flames. Each Friday would find him alone in daylight hours, for she left to leave him alone with his work, driving his rust-stained car to town, ten miles distant, to buy whatever supplies they needed, while Sunday Dawn would find them together in their silence – in whatever weather – in large-pond field by old Albert-Oak whose fulsome branches thickly sheltered grave of Oswald’s wife. Jane would scatter flowers then upon the leaf-littered grass to say her ancient intonations, grand-mother given, for they and she were of that ancient way which grieved them with that scent of Earth and bade them welcome warm Spring as time to grow and darkening Autumn as time to store, when perchance a certain sacrifice was due as turned that Earth of theirs past seventeen seasons of each life-bearing Summer.
Thus did their routine continue until that late evening three days past the fullness of the moon when such a storm as brought some tree branches down in old Orchard swept across the hilly border land with beating rain. He had been out, securing, checking, fences, pens, pigs, and returned soaked, his left hand gashed by wire. She came to him then, as he – boots, torn waterproofs, divested in the Dairy – stood by wood stove in that kitchen. There was bandage, for his hand, warmth of female fingers gentle on his wrist, and he turned to look at her, holding softly her by arms.
She was smiling as a young girl, nervous, and he so close he could smell her lavender scented freshly bathed body wrapped in flannelette nightdress patterned by small pink flowers. So he yearning moved closer until their bodies touched to feel her breasts slightly lightly pressing against him. He kissed her then, very gently, on her lips, and she did not flinch nor move away and so they walked, bodies touching, yearning, those steep stairs to her room where she helped him, and slowly, remove still wet clothes, as he helped her free her body from warming long nightdress.
No words spoken when he kissed her breasts and when they lay, side by side and naked, for a while, tenderly touching, kissing, before he moved to lie above her to ease her legs apart with his to place his straining erection inside her warm welcoming vagina while rain made sounds upon the panes of bedroom window and wind creaked trees and she eagerly held him, wrapping her legs around his back, and his thrusts sweated them until after long-lasting rhythm they groaned to spasm in an almost mutual ecstasy of pure lascivious joyful-delight.
He did not leave her then, but slept – as he knew she wished as storm outside gave way to peace – in her arms under a warming duvet until the light of day awoke them.
There were no words between them, then that Dawn, only kisses, with she kissing him until he aroused again let her lie upon him and guide his erection into her. He held her breasts to feel their warmth and softness, to kiss each nipple. And when he stopped, she with silent gestures urged him on until his teeth massaged each now protruding nipple in turn harder and harder as her rising and then descending quickened in pace until her own shuddering desired ecstasy came when he madly-desiring turned her now relaxing body to be below him and he thrust ecstatically into and out of her until that moment of arching back and straining body when all the seed left within him was joyfully drained away to be with her.
They needed no words and none were said on that morning or on those that followed each of their then every shared night together, and in the days after they began again to be at peace, joyful, slowly at first, and then when – three weeks later – she quietly suggested they be joined on-ground in hill-top field, trees-around, he, sombrely, remembering, agreed. And so they did, on coldish full-moon night when body of naked sister warmed naked brother while they entwined brought forth such a wrydful knowing as filled them both to overflowing to bring a warmth to rouse trees from beginning Winter sleep and even soil itself, promising fruitful growth when Sun-warmth came forth next Earthly-solar-cycle, while – nearby as Buzzard fly – a lady with a face of former youthful beauty before wood-fire sat, wrydful, knowing, smiling, knitting baby-clothes.
Winter saw them together, happy, keeping that their silence, until that morning when she awoke, late, long after he had departed to his work. She was uneasy, then, for a while, feeling as she had for days how her body had changed even before the nausea made her, briefly, stand to steady herself. She went to him, then, dressed, as he toiled away, cleaning out one of the many breeze-block pens which at night and during hardy stormy weather held his porcine stock.
“I’m pregnant,” she directly said.
He was pleased, elated, and went to embrace her – but desisted, given his smelly dirty working clothes.
He came in then to kitchen, following her, and – dirty clothes changed for ones of sister-cleaned – sat with her by lit and warmful stove.
She did not have to ask that obvious question, for he rose to stand beside her to place his hand gently over her womb and kiss her on her lips.
“We’ll be alright,” he said.
“I know, for she – them three – are watching over us.”
He, understanding, smiled, bowed, to return to his toiling pleasing work.
The day was unusually warm, even for that blossoming time of year, and they were in old Orchard sitting Sun-shaded eating Jane’s prepared luncheon spread when he leant over to kiss her fully, longly, on her lips and briefly fondle her body and her breasts, and it was only the barking of the dogs that warned them.
“I’m sorry,” the youngish stranger man said, “to disturb you.” And he smiled a wryful smile as dogs growled and barked and he walked up muddy path from still-open gate.
“Yes?” Oswald gruffly said rising to his feet while his sister – not quite at pregnancy full-term – rested her back against that friendly tree.
“Hi, I’m Jonathon. Jonathon Wistman?” He waited for recognition, and when none came, he added, “The writer. I wrote you a letter some weeks ago.”
“Don’t read letters.” His three dogs came to sit down beside him, baring their teeth at the intruder.
“Perhaps,” Wistman said, turning to Jane and smiling in a knowing city-kind of way, “you may have?”
“Folk-lore of Shropshire?”
“Yes, indeed! Research for my book.”
“Not interested,” Oswald said.
“Perhaps, your sister – ” Wistman began to say.
“Neither is she.”
“But you must know the legends surrounding this place – that wood,” and he pointed to where hill-top field hid, by trees, that sacred clearing.
“I’ll bid you good-day, then,” Oswald said, turning his back on the man and holding out his hand for Jane, who he helped to her feet. She whispered to him then and he – momentarily startled – stole a scything-look at the man, steadied, calmed, himself enough to say, to Wistman, “Join us for some tea, inside, would you?”
Pleased, Wistman said, “Yes, of course. Thank you! That would be jolly nice! It’s been a long walk.”
Jane – as befitted her stage of bearing – slowly led him toward the farmhouse while Oswald followed behind, and the youngish man from the city did not notice him palm a rock from stony path as he did not see Oswald raise his arm to smash the rock down upon his head. The body fell, limply, to the ground where puddles met a few tufts of feet-worn grass, and Oswald struck again as dogs howled and the hot Sun bore hotly down amid the song-bird broken-silence where a Cockerel crowed as a Cockerel crows, and a woman, with a face of former youthful beauty – not far as Buzzard fly – smiled her smile of relief. For there would be no telling now of brother-sister story, rending such darkness as cloaked them.
Oswald did not explain what he was going to do, and Jane did not ask, but she helped him lift the dead body into the hand cart that her brother brought, and watched him wheel it away before she got water to wash away the few stains of blood and bury the rock in the front flower-full pleasing garden. And when he returned – sweaty, muddy, bloody – she made a pot of tea and they sat, in silence, together in their coolful kitchen.
There would be no telling, now, she knew, and they would be free, with others of their kind, to celebrate special rouning when her water-brake and she squatting brought forth from womb that daughter-heiress, there where hill-top field hid, by trees, their sacred ancient clearing.
Anton Long
Order of Nine Angles
119 Year of Fayen
