Right-Wing Extremism as a Strategy of Esoteric Spirituality in the Contemporary "Sinister Milieu"

Planning a terrorist attack on US military units, influencing a new wave of transnational neo-Nazi terrorism, and praising Muslim anti-Jewish violence. These are the phenomena which have been discussed in the last 10 years in connection with the esoteric subculture emerging from the British Order of Nine Angles, a subculture that researchers collectively refer to as the "sinister milieu". A number of commentators thus note the growing contacts between the sinister milieu and the extreme right. Security studies analyst Ariel Koch even claims that the philosophy of the sinister milieu "is no longer exceptional and marginal in the far-right extremist landscape." Despite the significance of this development, no research has yet been undertaken which would analyse the reasons that bring the sinister milieu to interact with the extreme right. Due to this deficiency, this topic is currently being investigated at Masaryk University. Mgr. Matouš Mokrý from the Department for the Study of Religions, FA MU, will talk about what the sinister milieu is and how it is relating to right-wing extremism. The lecture will be given in Czech language.

The lecture was supported by the European Regional Development Fund project “Beyond Security: Role of Conflict in Resilience-Building” (reg. no.: CZ.02.01.01/00/22_008/0004595). This lecture is a part of the lecture cycle “Law, Power, and Politics”.