Pathei-Mathos – Genesis of My Unknowing
There are no excuses for my extremist past, for the suffering I
caused to loved ones, to family, to friends, to those many more,
those far more, 'unknown others' who were or who became the
'enemies' posited by some extremist ideology. No excuses because the
extremism, the intolerance, the hatred, the violence, the
inhumanity, the prejudice were mine; my responsibility, born from
and expressive of my character; and because the discovery of, the
learning of, the need to live, to regain, my humanity arose because
of and from others and not because of me.
Thus what exposed my hubris - what for me broke down that
certitude-of-knowing which extremism breeds and re-presents - was
not something I did; not something I achieved; not something related
to my character, my nature, at all. Instead, it was a gift offered
to me by two others - the legacy left by their tragic early dying.
That it took not one but two personal tragedies - some thirteen
years apart - for me to accept and appreciate the gift of their
love, their living, most surely reveals my failure, the hubris that
for so long suffused me, and the strength and depth of my so
lamentable extremism.
But the stark and uneasy truth is that I have no real, no
definitive, answers for anyone, including myself. All I have now is
a definite uncertitude of knowing, and certain feelings, some
intuitions, some reflexions, a few certainly fallible suggestions
arising mostly from reflexions concerning that, my lamentable, past,
and thus - perhaps - just a scent, just a scent, of some
understanding concerning some-things, perfumed as this understanding
is with ineffable sadness.
For what I painfully, slowly, came to understand, via pathei-mathos,
was the importance - the human necessity, the virtue - of love, and
how love expresses or can express the numinous in the most sublime,
the most human, way. Of how extremism (of whatever political or
religious or ideological kind) places some abstraction, some
ideation, some notion of duty to some ideation, before a personal
love, before a knowing and an appreciation of the numinous. Thus
does extremism - usurping such humanizing personal love - replace
human love with an extreme, an unbalanced, an intemperate, passion
for something abstract: some ideation, some ideal, some dogma, some
'victory', some-thing always supra-personal and always destructive
of personal happiness, personal dreams, personal hopes; and always
manifesting an impersonal harshness: the harshness of hatred,
intolerance, certitude-of-knowing, unfairness, violence, prejudice.
Thus, instead of a natural and a human concern with what is local,
personal and personally known, extremism breeds a desire to harshly
interfere in the lives of others - personally unknown and personally
distant - on the basis of such a hubriatic certitude-of-knowing that
strife and suffering are inevitable. For there is in all extremists
that stark lack of personal humility, that unbalance, that occurs
when - as in all extremisms - what is masculous is emphasized and
idealized and glorified to the detriment (internal, and external) of
what is muliebral, and thus when some ideology or some dogma or some
faith or some cause is given precedence over love and when loyalty
to some manufactured abstraction is given precedence over loyalty to
family, loved ones, friends.
For I have sensed that there are only changeable individual ways and
individual fallible answers, born again and again via pathei-mathos
and whose subtle scent - the wisdom - words can neither capture nor
describe, even though we try and perhaps need to try, and try
perhaps (as for me) as one hopeful needful act of a non-religious
redemption.
Thus, and for instance, I sense - only sense - that peace (or the
beginning thereof) might possibly just be not only the freedom from
subsuming personal desires but also the freedom from striving for
some supra-personal, abstract, impersonal, goal or goals. That is, a
just-being, a flowing and a being-flowed. No subsuming concern with
what-might-be or what-was. No lust for ideations; no quest for the
violation of difference. Instead - a calmful waiting; just a
listening, a seeing, a feeling, of what-is as those, as our,
emanations of Life flow and change as they naturally flow and
change, in, with, and beyond us: human, animal, of sea, soil, sky,
Cosmos, and of Nature... But I am only dreaming, here in
pathei-mathos-empathy-land where there is no past-present-future
passing each of us with our future-past: only the numen presenced in
each one of our so individual timeless human stories.
Yet, in
that - this - other world, the scent of having understood remains,
which is why I feel I now quite understand why, in the past, certain
individuals disliked - even hated - me, given my decades of
extremism: my advocacy of racism, fascism, holocaust denial, and
National-Socialism, followed (after my conversion to Islam) by my
support of bin Laden, the Taliban, and advocacy of 'suicide
attacks'.
I also understand why - given my subversive agenda and my amoral
willingness to use any tactic, from Occult honeytraps to terrorism,
to undermine the society of the time as prelude to revolution -
certain people have saught to discredit me by distributing and
publishing items alleging I am or was a 'satanist'.
Furthermore, given my somewhat Promethean peregrinations - which
included being a Catholic monk, a vagabond, a fanatical violent
neo-nazi, a theoretician of terror, running a gang of thieves,
studying Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism; being a nurse, a farm worker,
and supporter of Jihad - I expect many or most of those interested
in or curious about my 'numinous way' and my recent mystical
writings to be naturally suspicious of or doubtful about my
reformation and my rejection of extremism.
Thus I harbour no resentment against individuals, or organizations,
or groups, who over the past forty or so years have publicly and/or
privately made negative or derogatory comments about me or published
items making claims about me. Indeed, I now find myself in the
rather curious situation of not only agreeing with some of my former
political opponents on many matters, but also (perhaps) of
understanding (and empathizing with) their motivation; a situation
which led and which leads me to appreciate even more just how
lamentable my extremism was and just how arrogant, selfish, wrong,
and reprehensible, I as a person was, and how in many ways many of
those former opponents were and are (ex concesso) better
people than I ever was or am.
Which is one reason why I have written what I have recently written
about extremism and my extremist past: so that perchance someone or
some many may understand extremism, and its causes, better and thus
be able to avoid the mistakes I made, avoid causing the suffering I
caused; or be able to in some way more effectively counter or
prevent such extremism in the future. And one reason - only one -
why I henceforward must live in reclusion and in silencio.
David Myatt
May 2012 ce
In Loving Memory of Frances, died 29th
May 2006
In Loving Memory of Sue, died 4th
April 1993