Dreamers of the Dark: - Research Commons - The University of ...

with their own journal.
In the early numbers of The Watcher, there is a sense of Bolton, to some extent,
floundering and trying to find his ideological feet but by the end of 1992 his
direction had become clearer and more focussed as he was increasingly influenced
by ONA writings. Bolton began to articulate a coherent and integrated conception
of Satanic politics which was agreeable to his already established Far Right
political views and his periodicals began to reflect his newfound confidence as an
ideologue. It was as an author and editor that Bolton was to wield the most
influence, not as the Grandmaster of a Satanic Order, and while the deeper reasons
why Bolton resigned as Grandmaster in 1994 are not known, there is a sense that
Bolton felt that his energy and influence was more effectively applied to literary
endeavours. Certainly Bolton the writer and publisher far outlived any of the
Satanic order’s he was involved in and even Bolton’s own Satanic identity.
As an institution, after Bolton’s resignation as Grandmaster the Order went into a
decline. Thorsten Moar attempted to develop the Order along the lines suggested
by Bolton’s leadership and the material that was coming in from the ONA, but
there is a sense that while Bolton was a pragmatist and, at heart, a political
thinker, Moar had more of a mystical sympathy understanding of Satanism.
Ironically, having a Satanist at the head of a (nominally) Satanic organisation
weakened it and in part this was because the relationship between the Satanic
elements of the Order and the neo-Nazi elements had changed from its inception.
Originally the Order was a Satanic organisation that dabbled in neo-Nazi thought,
but by the mid 1990s the Order was a neo-Nazi organisation that justified its
politics by reference to Satanism, and as such there was an ambiguity of purpose
under Moar which wasn’t there when Bolton was leading it. The reasons
occasioning Thorsten Moar’s resignation as Grandmaster are not known, but his
successors in office, Jovis Draco and Fenris Wolfe, could not sustain the Order’s
momentum in any direction except down and it was Wolfe who finally laid the
Order to rest in 1997.
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