In my continuing research on fascism within the occult, I have come across a very well-written treatise advocating such views. The Order of Nine Angles’ Book of Wyrd, a zine-sized manuscript outlining rituals, runes, eugenics, and aeonics, with literary expositions on Nietzsche’s Anti-Christ and the Old Norse Poetic Edda, outlines the philosophy and methods of what transhumanists sometimes term provolution: the intentional, or pro-active, application of evolution upon a species. “Man need not be a passive spectator or a victim of the ‘gods’ or ‘fate’ but by understanding the laws of nature and the cosmos can, through his Will, be an active agent in the evolutionary process.”^1^ states the seventh point in their “Articles of Faith”. Within their doctrine of cosmology, the universe is cyclic – a continual oscillation between creative and destructive principles yields dialectical historical stages, the study of which is called aeonics. In this process of renewal, Nietzsche’s Übermensch is seen as a spiritually individualistic (i.e. satanic), space-faring transhuman, the next stage in the evolution of humankind.[]

In the Book of Wyrd, aeonics and its implications for future human cultural and biological manifestations are explained by a continuation of the ideas proposed by German historian and philosopher Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the West: “…while Spengler predicts the close of Western Civilization, [Stephen] Brown considers an option which goes beyond it. Spengler describes Western Civilization as ‘Faustian’. Its symbol is limitless space. This is reflected in its exploration and colonization, art, architecture (e.g. the Gothic spire), and a form of science that seeks to unveil the secrets of nature. Its reach is infinite. ‘Faustian’ is the ‘race soul’ of the West that makes it unique. As we’ve seen, while Spengler points to the conclusion of Western Civilization like others before it, Brown suggests what might come after it if the opportunities are seized by those few who have a sense of destiny. And what is this possible destiny? The logical outcome of the Faustian will: Space Colonization. […]Brown also points out the potential this would have for cultural variation (and by implication biological evolution). It would see the creation of a myriad of new, self-contained cultural laboratories throughout space, and the expansion of man’s destiny to infinity. Should we grasp the opportunities to build upon the ruins of the post-Western world, the destiny of mankind will be to play amongst the stars.” ^2^

The point to which I find this text and its doctrine interesting is its similar relation to tenets of various individualist anarchisms. These latter strive to emphasize the hegemony of the individual’s Will over the presiding external forces of collective groups, society, traditions, and ideological systems. Individualist anarchism commonly rejects romantic notions of revolution, which would require social organization to produce alternative systems, instead it often favors more evolutionary methods of social experimentation and education. Thus, fascism and anarchism can be seen to differ only in their means of producing a new society, not in that end thereof. That is to say, individualist anarchism and fascism both favor immediate methods of integrating the new society into the old one, resulting in the evolutionary displacement and eventual extinction of those who remain unable to adapt; the only divergence between the two ideologies is that anarchism retains romantic notions of a return to a fantasized state-of-nature, whereby improperly fitted individuals are culled by “natural” processes, and fascism often supports the “ethical necessity” of eugenics.

In The Order of Nine Angles doctrine, eugenics is seen as a necessary destructive principle emanating from the principles of aeonics. From an ecological standpoint, humankind’s speciesism and ecocidical disregard for biosystems (which, in turn, degrade human quality of life through rising occurrence of ecological disasters, and pollution, among other factors) can be regarded as a form of deliberate eugenics already in practice. It is unnecessary to recount here the numerous reasons why the term eugenics has negative connotations, what is more pertinent is an emerging requisite application of ethical philosophy to positive eugenics, or transhumanist provolution.

In ancient Greek ethical philosophy, there was the concept of eudaimonia, literally “good spirited,” the ways in which humans should conduct themselves in order to live happier lives and secure a better world for future generations. Eudaimonia is often connected to the term arete, or virtue. Virtue, here, does not carry the weighty and puritanical Christian connotations of charity, patience, and uprightness, since it also includes many non-moral individual objectives such as good health and beauty. It is, in fact, quite similar to the occult concept of Will. Stoic philosophy is ripe with eudaimonism: Cleanthes of Assos explained it as “living in agreement with nature”, while Chrysippus believed it was “living in accordance with experience of what happens by nature.” ^3^

As future eugenics, concerning the emerging technologies in nanotechnology, neurobiology, information technology, genetics, and cognitive science, is no longer a negative practice, that is to say, it is not concerned with taking away, culling, or cleaning the gene pool, but with adding to potentialities of individual enhancement, its corresponding ethics is no longer negative. It becomes a question of what one should not do, rather than the historical imposing regulations of authoritarian eugenics pertaining to what one should do. “[I]f…[the] methods [of genetic engineering] allow children to be produced with a higher intellectual level, in a democratic state, this will generate a new eugenic wave. This time, however, the task will be to help people with a low intellectual coefficient to raise this coefficient (the task of positive eugenics) in themselves and in their children rather than to prevent the appearance of children in such people (the task of negative eugenics).” ^4^As modern thought becomes increasingly non-dichotomous, the black-and-white of the weary old nature-versus-nurture argument fades to voluminous greys. Collimately, humans can no longer rely on a transparent definition of what is “natural” to define them. Most of us were not raised by wolves in the Ukraine; we are already the products of positive eugenic systems such as education and language. The modern human is already an “unnatural” creature. Environmental philosopher Mark Sagoff argues that the problem of engineering the human genome “is not so much that it will alienate or separate us from our human nature – from what is given or contingent – but that it will increasingly make us responsible for it”. ^5^

Full Text of ONA (The Black Order) - Book of Wyrd

Works Cited

1 The Black Order. The Book of Wyrd. Unknown: Realist Publications, 1993. p. 3. Print.

2 ibid. p. 15

3 Dirk Baltzly (Feb 7, 2008). “Stoicism”. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/stoicism/. Retrieved 2010-12-05. “But what is happiness? The Epicureans’ answer was deceptively straightforward: the happy life is the one which is most pleasant. (But their account of what the highest pleasure consists in was not at all straightforward.) Zeno’s answer was “a good flow of life” (Arius Didymus, 63A) or “living in agreement,” and Cleanthes clarified that with the formulation that the end was “living in agreement with nature” (Arius Didymus, 63B). Chrysippus amplified this to (among other formulations) “living in accordance with experience of what happens by nature;” later Stoics inadvisably, in response to Academic attacks, substituted such formulations as “the rational selection of the primary things according to nature.” The Stoics’ specification of what happiness consists in cannot be adequately understood apart from their views about value and human psychology.”

4 Yudin, B. G.“The Creation of a Transhuman.” Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences 77.3 (2007): 247-53. Web. 8 Dec 2010.

5 Sagoff, Mark. “Nature and Human Nature”. Is Human Nature Obsolete?: Genetics, Bioengineering, and the Future of the Human Condition. Boston, MIT Press, 2005. pp. 89-90.

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