One Man Above Time

David Myatt, Reichsfolk, Esoteric Hitlerism, and Savitri Devi

In a 2003 article published in Das Reich - the internal bulletin of Reichsfolk Myatt stated that
"In the terms of Savitri Devi, my way of Folk Culture {1} is a
philosophy manifesting what is 'above time', while the ethical
National-Socialism of Reichsfolk and other groups is 'against time',
that is, imbued with both Lightning and Sun: a necessary precursor
of that future when the empathy and compassion of the way of Folk
Culture is a reality for more than just some small isolated
communities of mystics dwelling on planet Earth."
The article coincided with Myatt's plan - a plan described in detail by
Professor Michael in his 2006 book The Enemy of My Enemy - to bring
National Socialists and radical Muslims together so that they could, in
practical ways, ght those he regarded as "their common enemy". To wit,
Zionists.
In this article Myatt states that the non-racist 'ethical National Socialism' he
had developed in the late 1990's was "a numinous option for individuals who
are so inclined to engage the Magian" and that
"the ethical National-Socialism of Reichsfolk [is] the required and
necessary prelude to the emergence, some time in the still distant
future, of a numinous way of life for the majority of human beings
expressed as that is by the rather mystical way of Folk Culture."
It seems particularly relevant that Myatt then described his 'way of folk
culture' in reference to the term 'above time', a term rst used by esoteric
Hitlerist Savitri Devi in the 1950's.
To place this in perspective, I shall quote at length what was the gist of his

argument:
"I see no ultimate contradiction between the way of Folk Culture
and National-Socialism, or between those and the Muslim quest for
a new Khilafah. For the operative word here is ultimate: that is, in
the Cosmic scheme of things, although there is perhaps the illusion
of contradiction, the illusion of causal forms. Yet there is a
numinous (acausal) presencing or rather, numinous presencings,
in causal Space and causal Time; which change or which can
change by a process of numinous symbiosis and over long
durations of causal Time the life-forms living in the causal.
I regard such ethical National-Socialism, and the emergence of a
Khilafah in Muslim lands, as a possible prelude indeed, as
possibly the required and necessary prelude to the emergence,
some time in the still distant future, of a numinous way of life for
the majority of human beings, as expressed by my mystical way of
Folk Culture.
That is, this Folk Culture is currently not a practicable alternative,
for a majority of human beings who live in oppressive, Magiandominated societies, or who live in poverty, or for whom day to day
practical survival is more important than some mystical philosophy
propounded by some relatively auent Gnostic living in the
relative comfort and stability of the West.
In essence, the way of Folk Culture is both of now, and of our
human future the preferred ethical choice, now, for those who
resonate with it while ethical NS and a Muslim Khilafah are the
necessary and numinous choice of those who honourably resonate
with them due to their current conditions, their culture, and their
personality.
That is, there is and should be a free choice; and a choice which
devolves around the reality that exists now on planet Earth, and the
reality of human beings, as they are now not as I or some other
mystic might prefer human beings to be and not as I or some other
mystic would like the Earth to be: replete with empathic,
honourable, compassionate, human beings. Our current reality,
sadly, is of a world increasingly dominated by the sly profane
Magian and their un-numinous causal abstractions which include
both usury and the tyranny of an abstract law which is anathema to
all noble human beings possessed of an instinct for honour, for
fair-play.
There is, and should be, a mutual respect and tolerance between
those who have opted to follow the way of Folk Culture, and those
who have for whatever practical or personal reason opted for
the more temporal (against-Time) way of ethical NationalSocialism, in the lands of the West and elsewhere, or the way of the
Khilafah, in the lands of the Muslims. Just as there was, for

example, a respect by Adolf Hitler for the Wandervogel, those

German youths who followed a dierent way. Indeed, many years
ago I remember being shown a photograph by a decorated
German soldier who had pledged his loyalty to Adolf Hitler and who
bravely fought for NS Germany of Hitler warmly greeting some
Wandervogel at Berchtesgaden.
My vision is of Aeons; of centuries, of millennia, and thus in a sense
is quite pragmatic: of the means required to bring-into-being new
ways of numinous living for human beings, on this planet Earth,
and of the means required to enable us to leave this Earth and so
grow to maturity among the star-systems of our, and of other,
Galaxies.
Viewed in such an Aeonic such a Cosmic perspective both
ethical National-Socialism and a Muslim Khilafah are or could be
means to such numinous futures. Steps along the way, and, for now,
a practical means, in causal Time and causal Space, of replacing
the current material profanity of the Magian ethos with something
numinous. For if this replacement does not occur, within the next
century or two, then our prospects, as human beings, are in my
view decidedly unfavourable, for the world-wide triumph of the
Magian, and of the Magian ethos, will mean a rapid descent into
abject tyranny and then a return to primitive barbarism with a
suering which will far surpass all the horrid suering human
beings endured during the past thousand years."
Savitri Devi and The Lightning and The Sun

It appears that in the Das Reich article Myatt is linking his apolitical mystical
'way of Folk Culture' philosophy with the esoteric National Socialist tradition
that Savitri Devi helped to create by her seminal work The Lightning and The
Sun, rst published in Calcutta in 1958.
Since Myatt writes that his way of Folk Culture is a philosophy 'above Time'
and that his ethical National Socialism is 'against Time', it is pertinent to
quote some relevant passages from Chapter 3 of the aforementioned book by
Savitri Devi:
But there are also men 'outside Time' or rather 'above Time'; men
who live, here and now, in eternity; who (directly at least) have no
part to play in the downward rush of history towards disintegration
and death, but who behold it from above as one beholds, from a
strong and safe bridge, the irresistible rush of a waterfall into the
abyss and who have repudiated the law of violence which is the
law of Time.....
But the salvation which the men 'above Time' oer the world is
always that which consists in breaking the time-bondage. It is
never that which would nd its expression in collective life on earth

in accordance with Golden Age ideals. It is the salvation of the

individual soul, never that of organised society.....
Men 'outside Time' or 'above Time,' at the most saviours of souls,
have, more often than not, disciples who are denitely men 'against
Time.'
No organisation can live 'outside Time' 'above Time' and hope
to bring men back, one day, to the knowledge of the eternal, values.
That, all men 'above Time' have realised. In order to establish, or
even to try to establish, here and now, a better order, in accordance
with Truth everlasting, one has to live, outwardly at least, like
those who are still 'in Time'; like them, one has to be violent,
merciless, destructive but for dierent ends.
Knowing this, the real men 'above Time' are the rst ones to
understand and to appreciate the wholehearted eorts of their
disciples 'against Time,' however awful these might appear to
ordinary people.... The fallen world can never understand them.
Importantly, these quotes from Savitri Devi do indeed appear to place Myatt,
and his work, into a particular perspective, that of National Socialism - for
his way of Folk Culture philosophy, with its emphasis on empathy,
compassion and the cessation of suering, is certainly, judging by what Devi
writes, 'above Time' while his ethical National-Socialism, his Reichsfolk
group, his inuence on many contemporary National Socialists, from Russia,
to Finland, to Serbia, to America - and even his then support for a new
Muslim Khilafah in Muslim lands - does seem to be, as Devi expresses it in a
quote above, a man 'above Time' understanding and appreciating "the
wholehearted eorts of their disciples against Time, however awful these
might appear to ordinary people."
Myatt, certainly, expresses such an understanding and appreciation of those
'against Time', for he wrote that:
"Viewed in such an Aeonic such a Cosmic perspective both
ethical National-Socialism and a Muslim Khilafah are....steps along
the way, and, for now, a practical means, in causal Time and causal
Space, of replacing the current material profanity of the Magian
ethos with something numinous."
As Devi also, perhaps poignantly, writes of the men 'above Time' - the fallen
world can never understand them. Which possibly explains why Myatt is so
mis-understood, and so maligned, even by many individuals who deign to
describe themselves as 'National Socialists' but who seem to fail to apply the
ethic of honor which Myatt has placed at the heart of his Reichsfolk National
Socialism.

Toward The Cosmic Reich

Myatt's essay is also noticeable for the theme of Galactic colonization which
runs through it, as well as for Myatt's emphasis on the long-term nature of
his work - that is, what he calls his Aeonic vision and perspective.
Hence, he views his own mystical Folk Culture philosophy as the way of only
a few enlightened individuals, at least until the ones 'against Time' represented by those promulgating his ethical National Socialism and by
those Muslims violently seeking to create a new Muslim Khilafah - have
replaced "the current material profanity of the Magian ethos with something
numinous."
Myatt's Cosmic vision is of,
"the means required to bring-into-being new ways of numinous
living for human beings, on this planet Earth, and of the means
required to enable us to leave this Earth and so grow to maturity
among the star-systems of our, and of other, Galaxies."
Which rather neatly returns him to much earlier, 1980's, National Socialist
works of his where he wrote and spoke about a Galactic Imperium and a
Cosmic Reich.
It seems to me especially relevant that Myatt, in the Das Reich article, writes
that, "in the Cosmic scheme of things", there is no contradiction between his
compassionate ethereal Folk Culture and National Socialism, nor between
these and the Muslim quest for a new Khilafah. For, as he admits, he was
being pragmatic - considering such things, as one might expect someone
'above Time' to do, with an almost cosmic detachment.
In particular, this cosmic detachment - which seems to so enrage Myatt's
enemies - places Myatt's decade long support for violent Jihad into the
correct perspective. For he is, and has been, in the words of Savitri Devi,
accepting of those 'against Time' who have "to be violent, merciless,
destructive," regarding such Jihad, as Myatt does, as one practical means to
defeat his life-long enemy, the euphemistically termed Magian, in preparation
for Myatt's New Golden Age of Galactic exploration and colonization when
his mystical Folk Culture, or something similar, will nally enlighten
humanity, or at least a signicant number of them.
That the nature and relevance of Myatt's support for and tolerance of such
diverse violent means has not been understood, except by a few individuals and is especially misunderstood by many who describe themselves as
'National Socialists' - is surely yet more proof of just how well David Myatt
now ts Savitri Devi's label of a man 'above Time'.

Arete and Hubris

In his Das Reich article Myatt described National Socialism as a combination

of arete and hubris:
"While National-Socialist Germany did manage to move toward
creating the beginnings of a new type of society which was more
noble and more numinous than those of its contemporary States
(which exposes the reality of those States), it was inherently
awed, and transient, due to the use of abstractions, such as race,
State, abstract laws enforced by threat of imprisonment, that of a
supra-personal and somewhat arrogant destiny, and of war as a
means of trying to resolve conicts and implement that destiny.
Hence, it was an unstable amalgam, a curious mixture, of
and , as for example were many Greek heroes of myth,
literature and legend, such as mighty Agamemnon, that son of
Atreus: which possibly explains why NS Germany continues to
fascinate and enthrall certain people, and why as a way of living it
engaged so many good, honourable, and indeed cultured, Germans,
with many of these admiring it even after its defeat."
Nearly ten years later he was, however, to write:
"I do not support these particular causal forms or Ways [National
Socialism and Islam] - only understand them, or more correctly, I
have only saught to understand them in the context of honour and
its presencing. Support implies some-thing I have, as a result on my
, abandoned - directed activity, belonging-to, and
organizations, in the causal. That item, that dialogue, which you
refer to, was only an attempt to place such forms in their correct
perspective. My view, my perspective, now, is that of the
compassionate way of The Philosophy of The Numen - not of the
National-Socialism of Reichsfolk, and not of the Way of Ahlus
Sunnah wal-Jammah."
Nonetheless, despite this later detachment - culminating in his post-2012
'philosophy of pathei-mathos' - Myatt retains a certain inuence - and even
followers (what Devi call disciples) - both 'in Time' and 'against Time', in
National Socialist circles since he expresses a particular type of knowledge
that some people nd interesting if not fascinating, involving as this
knowledge does not only his particular cosmic vision of human evolution, but
also a type of millennialism which writers such as Savitri Devi and Julius
Evola also tried to express in their own ways.
Except in Myatt's case it is not a theoretical, an academic, knowledge, but a
knowledge born from his own rather extraordinary, varied, practical
experiences, and, as he writes, his interior reexion upon those often
extreme and violent experiences. Which may indeed mark him as not only
interesting and misunderstood but also unique, since he has developed his
own mystical - 'above Time' - philosophy, that of his ethical Numinous Way,

which has taken him far when where he began, as a violent and fanatical
neo-nazi thug.
JRW,
Oxford
February 2011
(Updated August 2012)

{1} Myatt initially formulated what he called his 'numinous way of folk culture' between
1997 and 1999, later styling it simply by the term Folk Culture, dropping the term 'numinous
way'. It was mostly - but not always - just his 'ethical National Socialism' - of Reichsfolk with the term 'folk culture' replacing the term 'national socialism' and with references to
Hitler and the Third Reich removed. That he later, post-2006, at rst used the term
'numinous way' to describe his apolitical, compassionate, world-view based on pathei mathos
was initially most confusing, which was perhaps one reason he, post-2012, adopted the term
'philosophy of pathei-mathos' instead.

Addendum, 2015:
Notes On A Forgery

In 2011 the website of the Aryan Nations faction led by a certain August Kreis - an American
subscriber to the Das Reich bulletin - published an article allegedly by Myatt under the title
David Myatt On National-Socialism and a Muslim Khilafah .
It subsequently, in 2012, was revealed that the Kreis article was a forgery. His forgery
contained extensive quotations from Myatt's 2003 Das Reich article as well as from other
Das Reich articles between 2003 and 2005 written by Myatt and by others on the subject of
neo-nazi and Jihadi cooperation. Kreis had added some paragraphs of his own and
substituted the term 'numinous way' for 'folk culture' in an attempt to make it appear
contemporaneous since Kreis dated his article 2011 and styled it as a recent "interview" with
Myatt.
That several people - myself included - were initially taken in by this forgery is a reminder
that vigilance is required in this internet age in respect of authorship, attribution, and
content. It subsequently transpired that Kreis himself had a history of fraud, for which crime
he spent time in jail, and that he is currently serving 50 years in jail for a variety of other,
quite despicable, crimes.