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This is my Foreword to Edward Dutton’s biography of Jonathan Bowden, Shaman of the Radical Right: The Life and Mind of Jonathan Bowden (Imperium Press, 2025). A Spanish translation is available here.
***
Edward Dutton’s biography of Jonathan Bowden is a revelation. I thought I knew Jonathan Bowden. I even thought we were becoming friends. But the truth was, I hardly knew him at all. Yes, I knew his ideas. But I didn’t know the man or his mind.
After Jonathan’s untimely death just a couple weeks short of his 50th birthday, his friends began to compare notes. Soon it became clear that Jonathan was a liar. He lied about his occupation and income. He lied about his education. He lied about his family. He lied about where he lived.
Nobody blames Jonathan for lying about where he lived. That was simply a matter of security. Every dissident should cocoon his private life in disinformation.
But most of Jonathan’s lies were simply matters of vanity. His lies always magnified him. They never minimized him. He claimed to be wealthy, not poor. He claimed to have degrees that he didn’t earn, not that he was an omnivorous autodidact. He claimed to have a wife and four or five children, not that he was a bachelor.
I first met Jonathan on two occasions in October of 2009 when I was living in Atlanta, first when he came to give a speech, then when he returned from a visit to Florida before flying back to England. Jonathan was an early and enthusiastic supporter of my webzine and publishing house, Counter-Currents. In all, he wrote 35 articles and reviews for us between 2010 and 2012.
In January of 2011, Jonathan emailed me saying that his life was in danger. He was being stalked by antifa types. I was living in San Francisco at the time and had an extra room. I told him to pack his grip and fly to California. I was willing to put him up for a while. I thought it would be interesting. I also thought Jonathan might be more productive if he had a regular internet connection, a microphone, and access to my library. But I received no reply.
In February, Adrian Davies informed me that Jonathan had had a mental breakdown. The police had picked him up, semi-clothed, in the streets of Reading, carrying a samurai sword. (When I first met him, he was carrying a box marked “Samurai Sword, Made in Taiwan.” Inside it were two of his paintings that he sold to me.)
I felt I had dodged a bullet.
By March, however, Jonathan seemed back to normal. He began writing for Counter-Currents again. In February of 2012, he came to California for nearly a week to speak at a Counter-Currents retreat. His speech was excellent, and he was in good spirits throughout.
One of my fondest memories is of Jonathan walking through the streets of Santa Cruz, deep in a discussion of astrology with one of Charlie Manson’s old girlfriends. I thought to myself, “What an interesting life I lead.”
I also remember his childlike wonder as we wandered around City Lights Books, with its connections to the Beat movement and Leftist politics. I took to calling him “the inspector,” for when he wanted to read something, he would draw a magnifying glass from his trench coat pocket.
By the end of the visit, I felt we were becoming friends, that I was finally getting to know him. We made plans for him to return to California that fall. I looked forward to taking him to Robinson Jeffers’ Tor House near Carmel. But it was not to be. Less than a month later, Jonathan was dead.
Edward Dutton has done a great service to Jonathan’s friends and readers. He has recorded memories before death claims them. He has saved documents from the teeth of time. He has untangled the truth about Jonathan’s life from his web of fantasies and deceptions. He has sorted out the facts about Jonathan’s family, his education, and the many groups he was involved in: the Monday Club, Western Goals, the Spinning Top Club, the London New Right, IONA, the London Forum, etc. He has also thrown considerable light on Jonathan’s mind, including its eccentricities and illnesses. It all comes into focus. Thank you, Ed.
What’s the lesson? Jonathan Bowden didn’t tell the truth about his life. But that’s not a rare failing. Jonathan Bowden did, however, have the courage to tell the truth about the most important issues of our time, and he did so with eloquence and impact. For that, he will always remain a hero and a guide.
32 comments
The Shaman book just arrived and this is a very odd revelation about the man who, posthumously thru his youtube speeches, piqued my interest in the White Right. On a CC radio episode, Greg described Jonathan’s books as unreadable and I felt the same way about his early 90’s book Sade. It wasn’t bad nor devoid of talent by any stretch but read like the spawn of a sped graphomaniacal scribbler. I hope JB (as Adrian Davies called Jonathan in a video about his late friend) wasn’t lying when he devoted his work to Dorothy whom I assume was his mother’s name, and heard was severely mentally ill before her death in 1978. It just seems wrong, so unRightwing to deliberately lie about something like that but we all have our own secrets and reasons. I’ll always admire Jonathan’s oratory and wish I could have been in attendance. Looking forward to the read. Rest in peace and power. Sic semper tyrannis, pro patria.
Interesting stories. I’ve never really understood the cult of Bowden. I haven’t found his stuff interesting, but it’s strange because I like a lot of the people who seem to admire him. Maybe it has something to do with having known him in life.
As for lying, I used to lie about my BIPOC heritage, but I’ve given up on that at my advanced age…
Hey, would Bowden, azmador and Yockey all have something in common? Other than right wing lunacy? That question is esoteric, very Straussian.
The only truly esoteric voice I know of at the outermost frontiers is Miguel Serrano. Don’t know azmador but what is lunatic about Yockey or Bowden?
Being ironic.
Fascinating article about a fascinating man.
Well, I’m going to have to buy this book. Dutton is a great researcher and the perfect guy to write this, I think. Bowden is what made me discover Counter Currents. I was browsing 4chan /pol/ and someone posted a Pepe shouting with a strange medallion round its neck. Someone replied, “nice Bowden pepe” or something. A quick 4plebs search shows that that thread was on May 6th 2017 which sounds about right. I didnt know who Bowden was, despite that he’s briefly mentioned in Owen Jones book ‘Chavs’, which I actually have a signed copy of from back in my Tankie days. So I searched “Bowden far right” and got many CC links. I devoured everything available on the net about him, most of which is right here at C-C. I then discovered the rest of this site.
On the cult of Bowden : I think being British helps to “get” a lot of the stuff he talks about, which is very British. His points of reference are mostly very well known here and not so elsewhere. Also, his deep analyses of British politics requires a good knowledge of that subject to fully see what he means, and then the things adjacent to what he means. He’s also a good speaker, and has very good general knowledge. He can talk with expertise on art, history, literature, politics, philosophy, all effortlessly. The only other person I’ve seen who can do this like that is Greg Johnson.
also, Wasn’t Alex Kurtagic meant to be writing a Bowden bio? He had access to loads of material and knew him quite well, I gather.
I am glad CC helped you find Bowden.
Kurtagic seems to have dropped out of the “movement.” Yes, he has Bowden material. But he refuses to communicate with anyone. At the very least, he needs to return it to Bowden’s executor and heir, who legally owns it. At this point, I have stopped giving him the benefit of the doubt. He’s behaving in a dishonorable manner.
Dr Johnson, I’m profoundly sympathetic to these experiences with an old, psychotic friend. It seems like this they were a rough awakening, and hurt you.
I also had friends in my youth who seemed intermittently deeply insightful and deeply disturbed.
Many of us internet kids had a rough awakening ourselves, to right wing issues, through Mr Bowden’s speeches. Personally, I was an edgy black metal fan who discovered Mr Bowden bc I was a hardcore fan of Alex Kurtagić’s bedroom black metal project, Benighted Leams, and his amazing pro-white black metal label, Supernal.
Mr Kurtagić had done the cover art for a book of Mr Bowden’s essays in which Mr B was portrayed as Jack The Ripper. Mr K said at the time that “Jonathan relished villainous roles.”
I thought “OK, I have to get to know this guy”
I ended up watching many of his speeches on Youtube and being blown away by his rhetorical power. Almost as if the Little Corporal were reborn as a cockney maniac.
BTW, as someone who once lived in Santa Cruz, was Mr B talking to “Red” or “Blue” in the exchange you describe?
As always, victory!
Fionn
Yeah I don’t like Manson or Mason anymore bc romanticising mass murder is cringe high school goth shit. I believe in love now, even for non whites.
Still, I remember where I came from and how I got here. God bless you pal.
Charles Manson murdered no one, and the people he associated with who did the Tate-LaBianca killings, killed people who were deeply involved with Jewish and Italian organized crime and the drug trade in L.A. and they were very bad people. You state “I believe in love now, even for non whites.” This is pure cringe virtue signaling, and I would suggest that you still have a lot of growing up to do. Cheers, and good luck with that.
Agreed, very nicely put. According to Gary Lachman Rosemary LaBianca was a known methamphetamine dealer.
I used to feel like this, and then I decided that stabbing pregnant women to death was bad.
So some dude named Gary Lachman should be believed above all others?
I can’t say I know much about Manson and the Tate etc murders (even my aging self was only a little kid then), but they’ve been pretty well investigated over the decades. I’m sure Manson would have been long exonerated had he really been innocent.
More broadly, all this occult crap (and all of it is either simple crap, if atheism is correct, or evil garbage, if Christianity is correct) needs to be kept very far away from the White preservationist movement. Radical and dissident movements always must guard the purity of their causes against being mixed with the bizarre obsessions of cranks and marginal types inevitably attracted to the unconventional.
Our goals are straightforward: preventing White extinction, and advocating for White interests and protection when our people are forced to live under the oppressive condition of coercive diversification. There is nothing weird or eccentric or esoteric about either our diagnosis (race realism) or our prescription (racial separation and the Ethnostate). Associating our cause with anything unconventional apart from the cause itself (which is radical enough for the moment, but which we fully intend shall one day constitute the mainstream) only impedes our growth and ultimate supplanting of today’s “conventional unwisdom”.
This is why I so admire Jared Taylor. There is nothing ‘edgy’ about him (except the very truths he tells).
“all this occult crap (and all of it is either simple crap, if atheism is correct, or evil garbage, if Christianity is correct) needs to be kept very far away from the White preservationist movement”
Sure, yes, if you want to lose.
I’m still a black metal fan after all these years though I’ve ditched much of the typica anti-christian corpsepaint n’ spikes imagery for ‘edgier’ themes/lyrics (racialist, anti-islamic, NatSoc volkisch). I have Kurtagic’s Angel and a few non-fictions under his Palingenesis imprint but what is Alex up to these days? Still publishing, involved with music, or just left entirely? I first became aware of Jonathan’s madness in a short film he starred in called Venus Flytrap.
He has, last time I checked, a pretty funny X account where he mostly posts dumb memes. I think he’s an”apolitea” type.
And yes Black Metal is so much more than spikes and edgy Satanism. Check out Peste Noire.
I have known two people now who went mad. At least Jonathan had it under control at the end. Although the Risperidone might have killed him.
The lying, however, was not under control. Yes, Dutton is right. All people tell lies. But Jonathan really told whoppers. And there were decision points in our friendship when he could have been honest or not, but he chose to lie. Lying, however, puts up barriers between yourself and others. You might do it to magnify your virtues and minimize your bad traits. You might also do it to protect yourself in mundane ways. But it prevents you from developing real friendships with people. It must be lonely keeping up the front.
* * *
Not naming names here.
So Bowden was the “clear them out” guy in the video montage intro to Academic Agent’s videos?
Risperadone must have potentially serious long-term side effects: “Antipsychotic medicine-
Risperidone is an antipsychotic medicine that works by changing the effects of chemicals in the brain. It is used to treat schizophrenia in adults and children who are at least 13 years old, and symptoms of bipolar disorder (manic depression) in adults and children who are at least 10 years old. Risperidone is also known as a second-generation antipsychotic (SGA) or atypical antipsychotic. It can be taken either by mouth or by injection.
drugs.com+2”
It seems that we’ve lost many leading lights before their time. In the cases of Jonathan Bowden and Sam Francis, and some others whose names escape me, it seems that if they’d taken a normal interest in their health they might still be with us today. But they were not normal men, and in those early days of our movement, perhaps normal men, by and large, would never have been attracted to it. Only a few, the vanguard, had what it took – often including some degree of crankhood and esotericism – to become thought leaders on the far right.
I’m heartened by the younger, fitter, and better-rounded men joining our movement today. It means the vanguard did its job, and has pierced the enemy’s defences, allowing the next rank to enter the fray. And so I toast the men who came before, and have hope for the men who will come after. Let’s hope this genie never gets put back in the bottle.
Sadly, Sam Francis was trying to turn his life around when he died. The last time I saw him, in the fall of 2004, he had stopped smoking and was dieting. He lost a lot of weight. I congratulated him and said I was glad he was buckling down for a long fight, because we needed him. He was dead a few months later. He had an aortic dissection, I believe. I don’t know if that was caused by being overweight and having high blood pressure, or if it could have been caused by suddenly losing weight.
Jonathan was short. He was only slightly overweight. He had circulatory problems. But those might have been exacerbated by the Risperidone he took. A heart attack at 49 is much too young.
I don’t know anything about him. Maybe Counter- Currents could post a compilation of some of his best essays?
Jonathan’s speeches are still on YouTube as far as I know. Perhaps the enemy has let it be since too few know who Mr. Bowden even is.
Fred, we’ve published five books by Jonathan, and I have plans for at least three more.
Just go here then type in Bowden in the search bar: https://counter-currents.com/shop/books/
They are all good.
I always found it appropriate that a Nietzschean like Bowden would meet such a Nietzschean end. He is and will remain the person who awakened me, and I am staunchly indifferent to his purported lunacy or alleged lies. His legacy is ours to make, as well, and I petition those at CC to treat it with the dignity and care it deserves.
Some of the writing in this article reminds me that, no matter what generation you are, the 1960s were and continue to be an incredibly important time-period, which continues to influence the present day in various ways, both explicit and subtle.
This is because the 60s were the first time, since the end of the Second World War, that the occult doors (the “doors of perception”, if you will) were re-opened, allowing different kinds of forces (bad, neutral and good) to “re-enter” our corporeal world. This is why the time-period of the late 1960s/early 1970s is, simultaneously, a time of both bright sunlight (e.g., the Summer of Love) as well as of a frightening and, at times, disturbing darkness (e.g., Charles Manson, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc.). One could even say that the rays of the Black Sun started to reappear through the clouds of illusion for the first time during those days.
A time period like that, when the doors between this world and the next are blown wide open, is (regardless of what one may think about it personally) always a time period of great transformation and revolution. True White Nationalists, who should always be revolutionaries and NOT conservatives (especially not in today’s world, when there is so little left to conserve), should never forget this connection to the 1960s, and should not allow the left to hijack the fascinating legacy of that time period.
After all, White Revolution is inevitable in the near future, because forces which are greater than human have been pushing in that direction for decades. For, as Grace Slick from Jefferson Airplane says: ““No matter how big or soft or warm your bed is, you still have to get out of it.” And get out we shall.
I think someone once called them the 660s.
This is because the 60s were the first time, since the end of the Second World War, that the occult doors (the “doors of perception”, if you will) were re-opened, allowing different kinds of forces (bad, neutral and good) to “re-enter” our corporeal world. Ray Stantz and Egon knew this very well.
Good evening Dr Johnson,
I’m writing to you for the first time because I wanted to thank you for, well, a lot of things. First, before I get to Bowden, I wanted to thank you for Counter-Currents. I don’t even remember how I found it initially, as that recedes into the strands of time, maybe 10 years ago or even longer, but I remember you and Matt Parrott and others debating Amren conferences and other stuff that seemed pertinent back then. I always appreciated your approach to controversial subjects or personalities, and you never ran from controversy either, whether from Spencer or Anglin or TRS or others. I would always appreciate seeing your comments down on Hunter Wallace’s articles, always making pertinent points. You said something a long time ago that stuck with me, that this movement contains some of the best people you’ve ever met in the world, and some of the worst. I think I have observed you working through that these past 10 years.
What I loved above all was your highlighting of all of Jonathan Bowden lectures to me. You provided a platform for ideas and oratory that I had never seen before, of a man operating at a different level of experience, existence, and mastery than I had ever seen from a “man of the Right.” I always loved his quip that he was “too conservative to be a revolutionary and too revolutionary to be a conservative.” I downloaded all of them from CC and listened to them all many, many times. I don’t know how many others just like me were exposed to his ideas for the first time thanks to you, but it has to be in the thousands, perhaps tens of even hundreds of thousands. I also think your two-part aesthetics interview with him just before he died was the best he ever did, in no small part thanks to your line of questioning and his ease and affection for you.
More recently, I just received Ed Dutton’s “Shaman of the Radical Right” biography of Bowden, and just finished your introduction, and upon finishing I put the book down and drafted this email. Your honesty is bracing, your affection obvious, your perspective dialed in. I feel you get it, you got him. I feel the tension you write of about maybe becoming friends – I know nothing, obviously, since all I have is your interviews together – but there is a definite trust and undeniable connection you forged with him, it’s real. None of that is evident in his Spencer interviews.
I’ve taken enough of your time. I hope someday to complete my PhD as well, but for now, thank you, from all of us, and know you have so many more supporters than you realize. I just hope that by coming forward I can energize more to support the cause. Perhaps under Trump we will even be able to drop pen names and adopt the courage you and other doxed dissidents have faced across the board. Until then, my humble and sincere thanks.
Vale amicus,
B.L. Gildersleeve
Thanks so much. This was good for my morale.
Great fellow, great mind, a truly illuminating speaker. His definition of right and left are superb. I’m not sure how one is supposed to react to personal untruths. We tell the story we want to tell, sometimes the untruths become a terrible burden. Sometimes they are greatly liberating. Sometimes we are forced to tell them by circumstance.
I have mixed feelings about Dutton handling this subject, although I’m sure he is genuinely interested in Bowden. I groaned when I saw his summary on Unz, ‘studies say people with trait x are high in y..’. If the book is full of that, I’ll probably pass. I’m not sure Bowden is best understood that way and Dutton’s influence on our discourse has been a double edged sword.
Thanks for the good foreword. I’ll buy the book. I’ve been interested in the personality of Jonathan Bowden for some time. I hope Alex Kurtagic will publish more Bowden books and that he will write his own book about him.
I am saddened to hear all of this about Mr. Bowden, though not surprised. I do have to wonder, though: is there a connection to be made between simultaneous instances of undeniable madness and equally undeniably sane and upright ideas among some in our ranks? Another example of this potential trend (albeit not really a fellow-traveler) that comes to mind is Ted Kaczynski—a brilliant mind, though some would argue a deeply troubled one (others might say his actions were perfectly rational; note the similar debate on Aaron Bushnell).
Another commenter referred to the 1960s as a decade that opened the “Doors of Perception”; I wonder if the MK Ultra techniques employed on Kaczynski created or enhanced a kind of psychic “openness” to dark forces in the world, and if that openness is also valuable in generating insights about the nature of the reality in which we live. (Project Stargate, which is associated with MK Ultra, did spend a disgusting amount of tax dollars on its failed attempt to create “psychic spies”, after all…) I don’t mean to suggest that Mr. Bowden, a British citizen, was a literal victim of some American Cold War program (although many Canadians were indeed victimized by Ultra). More likely is that desired end state of a program like Ultra happens to bear resemblance to the state of mind engendered by psychosis.
This topic is understandably often treated as a no-go zone for our movement (how does it look if even we think we are “crazy”?), with the notable exception of Josh Neal’s American Extremist. But, at the risk of sounding like a mushy leftist, think of how much the movement would benefit today from Mr. Bowden’s continued insights had someone been able to point him in the right direction to get the help he needed to continue his valuable work. If this is indeed a problem in our circles, we should probably determine its extent and figure out a suitable way to help our friends safely course correct.
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