Order of Nine Angles - Beliefs

Beliefs

The Order postulates Satanism as an arduous individual achievement of self-mastery and Nietzschean self-overcoming, with an emphasis on individual growth through practical acts of risk, prowess and endurance. Rites of passage, often connected to promotion in grade level, include spending three months living rough in a forest bereft of human contact, and the assumption of difficult occupations to develop personality and leadership ability.

Therefore, "he goal of the Satanism of the ONA is to create a new individual through direct experience, practice and self-development the grades of the ONA system being highly individual, based on the initiates' own practical and real-life acts, instead of merely performing certain ceremonial rituals". Thus, true Satanism, the ONA assert, requires venturing into the realm of the forbidden and illegal, in order to make contact with the "sphere of acausal, sinister forces of the cosmos".

In addition, "one of the things that sets the ONA apart from other existing Left Hand Path groups relates to their idea of Aeons which naturally leads to long-term goals (meaning about 3-500 years), that go beyond the acts and lifespan of a single individual". Hence the ONA claims that its sinister tribes are an important part of its Aeonic strategy to build a new, tribal-based, more sinister way of life, and to disrupt and eventually overthrow the societies of what it calls "the mundanes".

Another difference is, according to Goodrick-Clarke, that "compared to the eclectic nature of American Satanism, many ideas and rituals of the ONA recall a native tradition of wicca and paganism. The frequent reference to wyrd, the Anglo-Saxon term for destiny, indicates a native pre-Christian tradition, while the rhythm of the seasons is upheld by holding ceremonies at the equinoxes, the rising of stars and other astronomical events."

Within the initiatory system of the ONA, "insight roles play an important part Undertaking an insight role means gaining real-life experience by working undercover for a period of six to eighteen months, challenging the initiate to experience something completely different from their normal life both to 'aid the Sinister dialectic' and to enhance the experience of the Initiate." Therefore, "through the practice of 'insight roles', the order advocates continuous transgression of established norms, roles, and comfort zones in the development of the initiate This extreme application of ideas further amplifies the ambiguity of satanic and Left Hand Path practices of antinomianism, making it almost impossible to penetrate the layers of subversion, play and counter-dichotomy inherent in the sinister dialectics."

In addition to insight roles and other occult training, the ONA initiate is also expected to study and practice The Star Game, a three dimensional system of Occult correspondences used as a form of aeonic sorcery, the advanced form of which is part of the training of what the ONA call the grade of Internal Adept and which three dimensional game for two players David Myatt invented in 1975 to be, according to Goodrick-Clarke, an esoteric part of "the graded hierarchy" of the ONA and the training for adeptship.

The ONA's writings condone and encourage human sacrifice. According to the ONA this "culling" serves not just a social Darwinian purpose, but is also connected to the promotion of a new Aeon: "The change that is necessary means that there must be a culling, or many cullings, which remove the worthless and those detrimental to further evolution." The presencing of acausal energies, such as through culling, is meant to create a new Aeon, whose energies will then create a newer, higher civilization from the energy unleashed.

Probably because of the ONA's highly radical stance, there is open animosity between the ONA and "mainstream" Satanists such as the Church of Satan. The ONA publicly disavows any connection to Church of Satan, claiming the Satanic Bible to be a "watered-down philosophy".

The Temple of Set proscribed the ONA in the early 1980s for its avowal of human sacrifice.

In recent years, according to Senholt, "ONA-inspired activities, led by protagonist David Myatt, managed to enter the scene of grand politics and the global 'War On Terror', because of several foiled terror plots in Europe that can be linked to Myatt's writings".