The Sinisterly-Numinous Occult Tradition

Preface

In our recent essay Another Academic Misunderstanding? {1} we discussed three 2023 academic items about the Order
of Nine Angles (O9A, ONA, Omega9Alpha, OmegaNineAlpha) noting that each of those item {2}{3}{4} did not address
the most fundamental aspect of O9A esoteric philosophy, 'the sinister-numinous' and the associated praxises such as
The Seven Fold Way, the fluidic alchemical Star Game, and the rites of Internal Adept and The Abyss. Instead, they
concentrated, as did previous academic items, on what was perceived as the satanism, the extremism, and the neo-
nazism, of the O9A.

In this essay we discuss 'the sinister-numinous' in detail and how it places those aspects into the necessary esoteric
perspective.

Morena Kapiris
September 2023
°°°

1. Another Academic Misunderstanding? https://www.scribd.com/document/671400110/Another-Academic-Failure.

2. The Order of the Nine Angles: The Black Book of Satan, in Satanism: A Reader. Edited by Per Faxneld & Johan
Nilsson. Oxford University Press, 2023, ISBN 9780199913534
3. The Order of Nine Angles: Cosmology, Practice & Movement, https://doi.org/10.1080/1057610X.2023.2186737
4. Occult Beliefs and the Far Right: The Case of the Order of Nine Angles, https://doi.org/10.1080
/1057610X.2023.2195065

°°°°°°°

Naos And The Seven Fold Way

The Sinisterly-Numinous Occult Tradition, also known as the Sinister-Numinous Tradition, is a central part of what has
come to be called the Longusian {1} Seven Fold Way; a practical hermetic quest developed by the pseudonymous
Anton Long in the 1970s and 1980s and described in the 1989 collection of typescripts (with many hand-drawn
illustrations) published under the title Naos - A Practical Guide To Modern Magick. {2} While the author is given as
Thorold West it was generally assumed this was Anton Long, a fact he acknowledged in 2021 interview. {3} A copy of
the 1990 printed version by Coxland Press is in the British Library, General Reference Collection RG.2021.a.13 (BNB
GB9328754) as is a copy of a spiral bound version issued in 1992, General Reference Collection YK.1994.b.12331 ( BNB
GB9328754) where the author given as Anton Long. The Longusian Seven Fold Way became the basis for the
development, in the 1990s and the 2000s, of what is now described as O9A subculture. {4}

The name Naos refers to one of the boards of The Star Game, {5} itself named after a star in the constellation Zeta
Puppis. Part One of Naos is titled Physis Magick: Practical Guide to Becoming an Adept and includes the following
content:

O A Theory of Magick
I The Seven Fold Way
II Stage One: Initiation
III Tarot
IV Stage Two: Second Degree Initiation
V Stage Three: External Adept
VI The Star Game
VII Star Game: Esoteric Theory
VIII Stage Four: Internal Adept
IX Stage Five: Entering the Abyss

As the author writes:

"The purpose of the present work is to provide a self-contained and practical guide to esoteric magick based
upon the septenary traditions This hitherto secret tradition (also known as hebdomadry) is here published for
the first time."

Satanism And Naos

The Seven Fold Way as described in Naos is devoid of satanism both theological and ritual. Satan is mentioned in Part
Two, Esoteric Sorcery; that is, in regard to the practical 'External Magick/Sorcery' associated in the Seven Fold Way with
the second stage, that of External Adept. The context is the Occult vibration of names "to create or 'draw down' a
particular force or entity in a magickal working," with satan thus associated with the second septenary sphere,
Mercury, with other spheres associated with other names:
In this guise, 'satan' is one of many archetypes - or supernatural entities - employed in External Magick. As an
archetype associated with the sphere of Mercury it - he/she/they {6} - is/are linked to an alchemical process, and as a
'dark god' - Shaitan - to one of the paths linking the seven spheres:

Septenary Pathways
(The heading 'Image' refers to the Major Arcana of the Tarot, as described in Naos)

°°°
 °°°

Satan/Shaitan is thus conceived as a type of energy associated with, or which symbolizes, human lust and indulgence
and does not have any superiority among the 'dark gods' described in Naos, with Atazoth described as the most
powerful of the Dark Gods and Shaitan stated to be 'an' - not 'the' - Earth bound representative for the Dark Gods. All
of which entities are used, evoked via sorcery, in a practical way, as a learning experience by an External Adept. The
External Adept is then expected to leave such external sorcery behind and advance toward the next stage, that of
Internal Adept the crux of which is the learning experience of living alone in a wilderness area for at least three
months. {7}

As the author of Naos states:

"The essence of the genuine LHP - and this includes the Dark (or sinister) Tradition and traditional Satanism -
is the use of magickal energies to enhance the evolution of the individual. Such evolution cannot exist
outside the LHP as a willed act. Evolution is willed, as a magickal act, via experience: by revealing the
acausal, by confronting it (usually via symbols) and finally by integrating it."

As we noted in our Another Academic Misunderstanding? {8} the much vaunted 1984 Black Book of Satan is therefore
just something temporarily used by an O9A External Adept as part of their training; just one aspect of their sinisterly-
numinous pathei-mathos; one part of their novitiate 'rite of passage' and thus used by them when they organize and
run a 'satanic temple' for between six and eighteen months. They then move on to the other tasks of the Seven Fold
Way.

The Sinisterly-Numinous O9A Tradition

The sinisterly-numinous is a world away from the egoism implicit in the modern satanism of Howard Stanton Levey,
Michael Aquino, and their followers, with the essence of the sinisterly-numinous explained by Anton Long in two
articles written between 2011 and 2012. The first quotation is from Discernment, Pathei-Mathos and the Initiatory
Occult Quest,

[We] are not concerned about mundane matters such as being 'popular' nor about being understood by
mundanes. Our nature is to discover, by experience of the sinister-numinous, the Reality hidden by
abstractions, beyond the illusion of opposites.

This discovery involves an esoteric - a living - alchemy, given that we, as human individuals, are nexions, a
nexus between causal and acausal, with a living (a sinister-numinous) psyche capable of change and
development. An esoteric alchemy - an initiatory Occult quest - where we become a new type of symbiotic
life, part of a living cosmic matrix, and which symbiotic living, far beyond the ego, the unbalanced hubris, of
mundanes, can, through our discovery of Lapis Philosophicus, gift us with our aims of wisdom and perchance
the possibility of an existence beyond the causal death of the mortal self [...]

The term sinister-numinous is used to describe the living unity beyond the abstract, the lifeless, division and
dialectic of contrasting/abstractive/ideated opposites. A division most obvious in the false dichotomy of
'good' and 'evil', and a division not so obvious in denotatum.
 The Dark Art of pathei-mathos is one means to know, to experience, the sinisterly-numinous, and thus to
discover the Reality beyond the illusion of opposites. What is uncovered is The Sinister-Numen, which is the
genesis of that which, and those whom, re-present certain types of acausal energy in the causal. Certain
archetypes, and archetypal forms, are - exoterically - sinisterly numinous, and hence have the ability to
influence and inspire human beings - as well as, in some cases, having the ability to direct certain individuals
beyond the ability of those individuals to control such direction. {9}

The second quotation is from The Adeptus Way and The Sinisterly-Numinous,

"The Adeptus way – the way of our adepts – is manifest both in our newer Seven Fold Way and in our more
traditional Way of the Rounwytha. The Adeptus way is a distinct way of life, involving a life-time commitment,
so that our Adepts often feel and know how different they are from most other humans. Different in terms of
personal character; in terms of faculties; in terms of knowing; in terms of experience; in terms of feelings,
aims, and goals. And also in terms of how – even now in this Aeon where most human communication is still
by words, written and spoken – they are able to communicate with their own kind and often with other
humans sans words.

This communication of ours is not only the use of ONA-speak and of an esoteric langage or two {a}– such as
The Star Game – but also the result of using and developing Occult faculties and skills such as esoteric-
empathy and thus becoming empaths, and possessing talents such as foreseeing. Which skills and talents
and faculties are muliebral and which developing and possession and use of such muliebral qualities are one
presencing of the numinous within a human man, with such a presencing necessary for that sinister-
numinous balance which it is one of the aims of an Adept to cultivate and to live.

It is these qualities – and the type of character, the type of person they breed – that manifest the Adept and
marks us as markedly different from the majority who apply to themselves, or to their beliefs, terms such
sinister, satanist, and Left Hand Path, even though we ourselves are all those things and in many ways by
our living define or redefine such terms.

For our Way is primarily esoteric and therefore is concerned with all of the following: (i) wyrd – the
numinously archetypal; (ii) with a type of learning that involves the arts of human culture, the Occult arts,
and the pathei-mathos of Occult and exoteric experiences; (iii) with developing certain faculties, such as
esoteric-empathy; (iv) with the sinisterly-numinous [...]

In terms of the way of the Adept, an experience and thence a wordless personal knowing of this living unity
[the sinister-numinous] is the purpose of the Camlad Rite of The Abyss and of the living that precedes it, and
forms part of the training of the Adept. Part of this personal knowing is of Wyrd, and thence of the Aeonic
perspective beyond a personal destiny; a knowing, experiences, that move – that develop – the individual far
beyond the attempted deification of the ego, the self, and beyond the hubris, arrogance, posturing, lack of
self-honesty, and self-delusion, that are the basis of all Magian occultism, whether such occultism be
described as RHP, LHP, or satanic.

This can be expressed in a simplistic, exoteric way, and which exoteric expression gives an insight into how
those using the way of the clan or the way of the independent O9A operative might discover and then live
the sinisterly-numinous. In brief, our Occult kind, our Adepts, have: (i) a type of pagan knowing and
understanding of the natural world; {b} (ii) a certain sensitivity and empathy; appreciate such muliebral
qualities in others, and thus appreciate, understand, women and their potential; and (iii) a certain culture,
where by culture here is meant the arts of life made manifest by living by our code of kindred-honour, having
a living (and thus numinous) tradition, having self-control, self-honesty, having a certain learned knowledge
of the Arts, literature, and music of their own ancestral culture, and having the all-important knowing of
themselves as but one nexion between a causal past, their present short-lived life, and the wyrdful futures
that will exist after their causal death." {10}

{a} Editorial Note. The older form langage is used to distinguish such an esoteric langage from ordinary language using words; with
an esoteric langage generally employing symbols, as in The Star Game. As Anton Long noted in Some Notes Concerning Language,
Abstractions, and Nexions,

"By the term adunations is meant some-thing which when placed in its correct relation to other adunations reveals the unity, the
whole, of which it and they are a part. From the Latin adunatus - ad+unare, to unite, make whole.

Adunations are sinister-numinous symbols (symbols/representations with a sinister-numinous dimension, i.e. having/representing
acausal energy) which may be temporarily assigned certain meanings or associations or correspondences. For example, the nine basic
adunations (pieces) of TSG [The Star Game] are: a(a) a(b) a(c) b(a) b(b) b(c) c(a) c(b) c(c) with each adunation being a
combination/amalgam of two sinister-numinous elements. Thus, in Alchemical terms, a is the Alchemical symbol for Salt, b is the
Alchemical symbol for Mercury, and c is the Alchemical symbol for Sulphur. Abstractly, a is the Greek letter alpha, b the letter beta,
and c gamma. In terms of the Dark Tradition, a is causal space-time; b is where the acausal is present or manifest in the causal (a type
of nexion), and c acausal space-time.

The term adunations is used here in preference to ordinary terms such as 'pieces and symbols' in order to express their sinister-
numinous nature. It should be noted that the temporary meanings assigned to the individual elements and thence to each adunation
are for comparison and learning only - for such assigned meanings are only exoteric, causal, reflexions of their wordless, symbol-less,
acausal essence. An essence discovered by using the adunations as language: that is, by using, 'playing', TSG." {10}

{b} By pagan here is meant the knowing and the appreciation of the natural world that is germane to the Rounwytha.
Furthermore, as Anton Long wrote in 2011 in reference to abstractions,

"understood exoterically, an abstraction is the manufacture, and use of, some idea, ideal, 'image' or
category, and thus some generalization, and/or some assignment of an individual or individuals to some
group or category. The positing of some 'perfect' or 'ideal' form, category, or thing, is part of abstraction.
Esoterically, an abstraction has only a causal being and therefore is not a nexion; not a presencings of the
sinister-numinous - the unity, the connexions - that sentient life re-presents. Exoterically, an abstraction is
neither living nor archetypal; not imbued [with and] does not and cannot presence the acausal/the sinister-
numinous." {11}

In his last pubic writing, dated 2012, Anton Long explained the essence of the decades-long hermetic quest that is the
Seven Fold Way, which is the quest by the individual for Lapis Philosophicus {12}.

"Lapis Philosophicus – the jewel of the alchemist; the goal that the alchemist, through alchemy, seeks.
Possession of this jewel is, according to aural tradition, sufficient to gift the alchemist with both wisdom and
the secret of a personal immortality.

Let me begin the story – of the secret of lapis philosophicus – at the end, and which writing about this
particular story will be the last writing of mine on any Occult, esoteric, matter, and thus the end of my
chatter. The story ends with an anticipated discovery: that the penultimate stage (however named: Magus,
GrandMaster, GrandLadyMaster) of that life-long genuine Occult journey which begins with initiation (of
whatever kind: hermetic, ceremonial, self) is the same whether one began on, and thence followed, what has
been described as 'The Left Hand Path', or whether one began on, and thence followed, what has been
described as 'The Right Hand Path'. For in the context of beyond The Abyss, such designations based on such
a dichotomy become, and are, irrelevant because without sense and meaning.

That is, the 'outer secret' of the inner, the real, the living, alchemy is that the end and the result of both our
apparently separate journeys is the same; the same place, the same understanding, the same knowledge.
For wisdom is undivided, the same for all of us, whatever we believed or assumed when we began. Or
expressed another way, lapis philosophicus is what it is, and always has been, and does what it does, and
always has done, in terms of how it affects and changes those few who have succeeded in their decades-long
endeavour and thus discovered it, and discovered it where it has always been hidden." {13}

The Seven Fold Way And Lapis Philosophicus

The goal of the Seven Fold Way, and thus of the O9A, is for the individual Adept to discover Lapis Philosophicus. It is
not, as academics and others seems to believe, to overthrow the existing status quo by revolutionary or unlawful
means. Which discovery is the balancing (ἀρρενόθηλυς) in the individual of the masculous and the muliebral via the
enantiodromia that is the Seven Fold Way and thus betakes them to a wordless knowing of the unity - of The Acausal,
of The One-The Only (τὸ ἓν), of The Monas (μονάς) - beyond causal abstractions and beyond the dialectic of opposites.

Hence,

"Our real work, both as individuals and as an Order – our Magnum Opus – is genuinely esoteric and Occult,
and thus concerned with lapis philosophicus and not with some purely causal self-indulgence, or some
ephemeral outer change in some causal form or forms, or with using such forms to try and effect some
external change. For it is this esoteric, this Occult, work which will, affectively and effectively, introduce and
maintain the Aeonic changes we desire and plan for – in its own species of acausal Time." [14}

Despite this, the O9A has been accused of propagating the urban myth of 'the great replacement' and what has
become known as 'accelerationism' whereas the O9A has always had an Aeonic, a Millennial, Perspective based on an
understanding of causal abstractions and the dialectic of opposites. An understanding based on the esoteric knowledge
of metamorphosis which in non-philosophical terms is the axiom that all supra-personal ideated constructs
manufactured or described by humans, being supra-personal and solely causal in nature, are not only subject to
change over causal time but have a limited life-span, just as the living organisms of Nature, presenced on Earth, have
a limited span of life. Such supra-personal human manufactured constructs include States, nations, cultures, and
Empires; and also ideas, legends, myths, philosophy and even religions and archetypes, all of which, over periods of
causal time, are subject to revisions, meliorations, varying interpretations, schisms, reformations and counter-
reformations, and thus, in Aeonic terms, they all decline, are replaced, and eventually die.

There is thus no need to seek to overthrow the existing status quo by revolutionary or unlawful means. For what
academics and others seem to have done is mistake the time-limited practical learning experience, or experiences, of
an External Adept for an aim, or more usually for the aim, of the O9A; as they do and have done, for example, in the
case of satanism and the Black Book Of Satan, and in the case of a suggested External Adept "insight role" of a year to
eighteen months involvement with neo-nazism.

This mistake is because they have ignored or have not studied the most fundamental aspect of O9A esoteric
philosophy and praxis, 'the sinister-numinous' which is the quintessence of the Seven Fold Way and thus of the
decades-long individual quest for Lapis Philosophicus.
 °°°°°°°

URL's valid as of September 2023

{1} Longusian after the Latin for 'Long'. The 2023 text Anton Long And O9A Primary Sources provides a definition and
overview of Longusian esotericism and of primary sources in general. As noted there:

An esoteric philosophy is a philosophy that describes, or seeks to describe, the hidden or inner - the esoteric
as distinct from the exoteric - nature of Being and of beings including we human beings. A fundamental
axiom of most if not all esoteric philosophies is that the inner nature of Being and of beings can be
apprehended, or represented, by a particular symbolism or by various symbolisms and also by the
relationships between symbols, for such esoteric philosophies are based on the Aristotelian principle that
existence/reality is a reasoned order capable of being rationally understood. Most esoteric philosophies also
posit that this reasoned order (κόσμος) has an ordered structure and that human beings, by virtue of
possessing the faculty of reason, are - in their natural state of physis (φύσις) or fitrah - an eikon (εἰκὼν) of
that ordered structure [...]

The primary esoteric symbolism employed to describe the O9A Seven Fold Way is the septenary Star Game
of which it is said in the 1989 collection of texts titled Naos: "The Star Game contains, in its symbolism and
techniques, all the esoteric wisdom of alchemy, magick and the Occult." It is also described there as "a nexus
between the causal and the acausal".

https://web.archive.org/web/20230726071440/https://sevenoxonians.files.wordpress.com/2023/06/longusian-primary-
sources.pdf

{2} A facsimile of the Naos collection of typescripts is available (43Mb pdf) at https://web.archive.org
/web/20230524234742/https://gawathan.files.wordpress.com/2022/10/naos-practical-guide-to-modern-magick.pdf

{3} An Aristocratic Ethos, https://web.archive.org/web/20230725221720/https://gawathan.files.wordpress.com

/2022/10/o9a-interview-2021a.pdf

{4} O9A subculture is described in https://gawathan.files.wordpress.com/2022/09/o9a-subculture-complete.pdf.

{5} An illustrated guide to The Star Game is available at: https://web.archive.org/web/20230725221813/https:

//gawathan.files.wordpress.com/2022/10/the-star-game-101.pdf

{6} There is an interesting discussion in Anton Long's Some Notes Concerning Language, Chants, and Acausal Entities
(2011) about human gender in relation to acausal-entities/dark-gods:

"[When] we consider a matter such as entities – living beings – existing or dwelling in what we term the
acausal continuum, then it is to be expected that they will exist, and will behave, in a way different from such
living beings that we normally interact with in our own causal continuum. That is, that they may possess
qualities which beings living in our causal phenomenal world do not.

For example, do such acausal entities as the ONA esoteric tradition mentions possess the quality, the
behaviour, we describe as biological gender, and which gender we ascribe to most living beings in the causal
(with some exceptions, such as monomorphic life). Or is our biological notion of gender irrelevant to such
acausal beings? Also, do such acausal entities have the quality, the behaviour, we describe as discrete
singularity so that, for example, they have a distinct body separate from other bodies and thus occupy a
finite Space at certain specific moments of causal Time?

These questions further raise the issue of language – of how we describe them or denote them by some
name, and whether the grammar we have developed is apt in the case of such acausal entities. For instance,
is a word such as Noctulius a male or a female name? Ditto with Satanas. Or is a name such as Kabeiri that
of a single entity or of a plurality of such entities? Is Satanas, for example, even a name in the normal
grammatical sense – that is, a proper name? If so, is it singular or plural?

Thus, is it correct or necessary to apply the rules of ordinary grammar – such as declension – to such a
descriptive word? If not, what does that mean in respect of how the name is used, for instance in some chant
to esoterically invoke such an entity?

This raises general questions about the nature of both language and grammar."

https://web.archive.org/web/20140113001600/http://omega9alpha.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/concerning-esoteric-and-exoteric-languages.pdf

{7} The neglected text The Diary of an Internal Adept is a transcription of the handwritten journal of one candidate
and is an honest and revelatory narration of the rite undertaken in the 1990s in the Outer Hebrides. It is available at
https://web.archive.org/web/20230913060118/https://theo9away.files.wordpress.com/2021/12/diary-internal-adept-
v1.pdf

{8} Another Academic Misunderstanding? https://www.scribd.com/document/671400110/Another-Academic-Failure.

{9} Discernment, Pathei-Mathos and the Initiatory Occult Quest, Included, pp.8-12, in https://archive.org/download
/o-9-a-website-archive-2012/O9A-Website-Archive-2012.pdf

{10} The Adeptus Way and The Sinisterly-Numinous, https://web.archive.org/web/20170710191726/https:

//omega9alpha.wordpress.com/the-adeptus-way/

{11} Some Notes Concerning Language, Abstractions, and Nexions, https://web.archive.org/web/20140113001600

/http://omega9alpha.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/concerning-esoteric-and-exoteric-languages.pdf

{12} Footnote to Some Notes Concerning Language, Abstractions, and Nexions, qv. https://web.archive.org
/web/20140113001600/http://omega9alpha.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/concerning-esoteric-and-exoteric-
languages.pdf

{13} As described in Julius Evola, The Seven Fold Way, And The Corpus Hermeticum:

As a term Lapis Philosophicus means the "jewel of the alchemist", since the term Philosophicus means an
alchemist and not, as is commonly said, a philosopher, just as lapis (qv. λίθος τῶν σοφῶν) when used in
Latin alchemical texts means "jewel" and not "stone".

For Hermetic tradition relates that λίθος as a jewel, or precious stone, was attested by Herodotus, who in The
Histories, Book II, 44, wrote, in reference to "the sacred Temple of Heracles", ἣ δὲ σμαράγδου λίθου
λάμποντος τὰς νύκτας μέγαθος.

It was possibly used in the same way by Aristotle who wrote, in reference to the Nine Archons, ἀναγράψαντες
δὲ τοὺς νόμους εἰς τοὺς κύρβεις ἔστησαν ἐν τῇ στοᾷ τῇ βασιλείῳ καὶ ὤμοσαν χρήσεσθαι πάντες. οἱ δ ̓ ἐννέα
ἄρχοντες ὀμνύντες πρὸς τῷ λίθῳ κατεφάτιζον ἀναθήσειν ἀνδριάντα χρυσοῦν, ἐάν τινα παραβῶσι τῶν
νόμων: ὅθεν ἔτι καὶ νῦν οὕτως ὀμνύουσι. Athenian Constitution, 7.1

Also, as noted in English–Greek Dictionary: A Vocabulary of the Attic Language by S. C. Woodhouse,

published by Routledge & Kegan Paul in 1910, the term λίθος describes a jewel, as in Plato: ὧν καὶ τὰ ἐνθάδε
λιθίδια εἶναι ταῦτα τὰ ἀγαπώμενα μόρια, σάρδιά τε καὶ ἰάσπιδας καὶ σμαράγδους καὶ πάντα τὰ τοιαῦτα:
ἐκεῖ δὲ οὐδὲν ὅτι οὐ τοιοῦτον εἶναι καὶ ἔτι τούτων καλλίω. Phaedo 110 δ-ε

https://archive.org/download/evola-7fw-v3/evola-7fw-v3.pdf

{14} The Enigmatic Truth, 2012, https://web.archive.org/web/20230917145049/https:

//lapisphilosophicus.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/esoterikos-the-enigmatic-truth.pdf

This item is in the Public Domain