A beginning..............

Last year, I watched my wife walk away to lead a separate life from what was once our family home. I was 57 years old, and 30 or more years on from my first foray into a form of Extremism.

Although I had, in my mind, left that form behind some 20 years previously, in reality I had spent the intervening time simply hiding from the true nature of that form with occasional confused lapses. Years of reputational damage took their toll on my marriage.

Finally, I was truly hit with the real consequences of my choices in life. I had a vision then of myself as an old man in my last years, alone, emotionally and materially destitute and living in a depressing bedsit, swallowed up in some city. I felt myself left only with a feeble belief that whilst everything else had gone, somehow I had managed to stay loyal to whatever it was I somehow believed I should be loyal to: some idea, some kind of ethereal, imaginary sacred cause.

I am notorious for realisations hitting me long after the event. Too late in some respects, I was forced then to seek to understand why I had placed this “ethereal loyalty” before my own family, before real lives in the real world for whom I as an adult was responsible.

I was 17 when I first ventured into the Occult. From a comfortable Middle-Class family, and counter-culturally very much a product of my age in the 1980s, I sought to rebel against all respectability. Short story is, I became involved with a philosophy which had an outer image as an organisation, one which, according to increasing information, most likely functioned as an Occult honey-trap to recruit/create nazis.

Consequently, I became involved in the Far Right in the late 1990s.

The details of this involvement could be left to some other article, but in undertaking such writings I am concerned not to be misunderstood as seeking to indulgently explain, elicit sympathy or exonerate myself.

Here I simply want to address the steps needed to fully accept and understand one’s choices in life and figure out a way forward that is of use to oneself and those around us.

Writing down an honest attempt at an account of such a “journey” is always a good place to start and I chiselled away at a document for several years. My aim was never to publish the document but rather allow it to function as a private means by which I could perhaps gain self-insight. It wasn’t until I – not entirely willingly, at first - embarked upon a correspondence with a relentless podcaster/researcher that I saw how I was attempting to justify and excuse, often casting myself as a victim of external narratives.

Here, I realised that I just could not entirely trust my own judgement and that an

experienced outside party was needed to help me see more clearly. This led me to seek therapy with a specialist in disentangling the individual from all manner of extremist and coercive systems. Although this is for most a rather privileged pursuit, I would recommend it, if even for just a few sessions. It helps kick-start a process of “reaching out” and realising that you cannot do this on your own.

At the same time, I discovered Exit Hate and made contact. Here was an organisation comprised of individuals from broadly similar experiences and who are thus particularly well-equipped to understand the complexities of involvement. Also, there was a basis of belief that no one is beyond redemption and that a life after Extremism can be made worthwhile and of positive help to the society one has caused harm to. There was complete acceptance and trust, and no suspicion that I might, for example, be somehow “working undercover” and using the organisation as insincere damage control or some sort of ruse, or simply as a way of making myself feel better about myself.

My correspondence with the aforementioned researcher led me to revisit some early published writings and statements archived online. This was a painful and sometimes shocking process, revealing how my memory had sanitised this chapter of my life, how I had blanked out the promotion of destructive and divisive ideas and ideologies to the extent that I genuinely thought critics were liars whenever I was accused of such things.

Again, facing up to one’s past and accepting responsibility is essential to transfiguring a mis-spent life into something useful for the world in which we all live. Again, in this, the support and guidance of others is essential.

I don’t know if it’s helpful to write this, but my own present feelings are that we who have been involved in such things have condemned ourselves, and that this condemnation must be carried for the rest of our lives: there is a forfeit to pay in respect of those who have been negatively affected by our choices and actions, and there is a respect that must be shown to those so affected. But as I have stated, this does not mean that the life of the former Extremist then becomes worthless.

Rather, that life can then become a force for good. You cannot undo your past, but you can from this present moment onwards work towards preventing those past things from flourishing any further and help those who are entangled in Extremist forms to leave, and to assist those who have left to cope with and understand the aftermath.

In this regard, a key turning point for me was when I was talking with a religious friend about my struggles and I stated that I was trying to find out who and what I was. She simply replied: “You are a child of God”. This made me realise that we are never too old to need guidance and as with children, we are always capable of evolving and changing for the better. But to repeat, that “change for the better” must be channelled in service of the society we sought to harm. To cease living in one’s own world in one’s own head and instead accept the world which we humans and non-humans all share is a key initial step.

In conclusion I would say try and surround yourself with people, symbols, “things” thatare Good, which nourish, bring together, and strive not to cause harm.

Do something practical to help others and your community. And “own” that side of you which once caused harm and talk about it so that others may avoid going down the same path.

We will all be judged, so why not try being judged on the facts rather than the lies we tell ourselves? It can only lead to some flowering of good in the end.

Edward.