Dreamers of the Dark: Kerry Bolton and the Order of the Left Hand Path, a Case-study of a Satanic/Neo-Nazi Synthesis

Abstract

In 1990 a small self-published journal/magazine called The Watcher was distributed among New Zealand's occult underground. The Watcher described itself as 'the New Zealand Voice of the Left Hand Path', and was published as the journal of the Order of the Left Hand Path. The Watcher and the Order directed its attentions towards those occultists who identified themselves as Satanists and, as such, the journal articulated a distinctly Satanic philosophy and perspective. However, as the journal evolved and developed, renaming itself as The Heretic and The Nexus in later years, there arose alongside Satanic philosophy an increasing emphases on what could be called esoteric Nazism or esoteric Nationalism. Given that the editor of The Watcher was Kerry Bolton, a man who has been immersed in New Zealand's Nationalist/neo-Nazi movement since the early 1970s, such an increasingly political orientation was perhaps unsurprising.

This thesis examines the way in which the Order bought Satanic and neo-Nazi ideologies together and the resulting synthesis. It also looks at the transition from being a Satanic order led by a neo-Nazi to an openly neo-Nazi Order that uses Satanic philosophy to justify and popularise its conception of National Socialism.