The Jonathan Bowden: The Messiah, the Chosen One?

“Execute, burn, kill the heretic!” In Monty Python’s The Life of Brian, this is the reaction of one of Brian’s zealous followers to a hermit, whose vow of silence was broken by Brian landing on his foot, dissenting from the view that Brian is “the Messiah, the chosen one.” When religions of this kind, based around the worship of an individual, begin then we normally refer to them as “cults” or, less pejoratively, as “New Religious Movements.” It is telling that the John Cleese character who condemns the hermit earlier informs Brian, who declares that he is not the Messiah, that, “I say you are, Lord, and I should know. I’ve followed a few.” This man is the archetypal “seeker” — he is searching for someone to follow, for somebody who will provide his life with eternal meaning — and, as I will show, there is a specific kind of psychology associated with being a “seeker.”

Now, you might be asking why I am writing about this in a nationalist webzine. How can New Religious Movements, let alone a minor character in The Life of Brian, possibly be relevant? Well, having gone off on a tangent, allow me, like Jonathan Bowden, to bring everything back to the key point: Jonathan Bowden himself. I recently published his biography — Shaman of the New Right: The Life and Mind of Jonathan Bowden. In this book, I directly stated that, for some people on the right, Bowden has become imbued with something of the holy. Well, I have now become a heretic for writing a biography rather than a hagiography.

I actually pre-empted this reaction in the book. Bowden’s good friend Adrian Davies, whom I interviewed about Bowden on The Jolly Heretic in 2022, was as shocked as I was when someone in the live stream accused him of creating a “Bowden hit piece” simply for recounting his own experiences of his friend. Davies and I later discussed how there was clearly, “The Bowden of History and Bowden of Faith.” When I interviewed former British National Party chairman Nick Griffin — he knew Bowden well because he appointed him the party’s Cultural Officer — Griffin warned me off writing the biography at all, informing me that a truthful account of Bowden’s life would subtract from the mystery that is so attractive to his followers, would inevitably upset these people and, anyway, they are the kind to become upset because Bowden “sold impossible dreams to people . . . and is popular among Incels.” Incels have been shown to be high in mental instability and Dark Triad traits, such as psychopathy and Narcissism; hence their being unattractive to girls.

With these remarks, Griffin was extremely prescient. Many of Bowden’s friends, including the sole beneficiary of his will, asked me to write the biography. I thought I would be attacked as blasphemer for so-doing and this is precisely what has happened. It began last week with an Amazon review of the book, which has since disappeared for some reason, but of which I kept a screen shot. “Ian Thompson” described the book as “Nonsensical” and continued:

Did the author even talk to Bowden’s best friend and beneficiary of his Will [sic.]. Did he even look at his Last Will & Testament [sic.]. Thought not. How you write a biography on a man you never met, never spoke to his family or close friends is beyond understand [sic.]. Just a money making exercise in self promotion on the author’s part [sic.]. Far too expensive, don’t waste your money. I haven’t. I knew the man, one of the few who was invited into his home, so won’t read the book [sic.]. One more thing. If Jonathan created a myth around him, he had a very good reason.

This is obviously a reflection of extreme emotion, leading to impulsivity and a lack of logical thinking: Can we not write Plato’s biography because we haven’t met him? Had “Ian Thompson” read the book, he would know that I did interview Bowden’s beneficiary (Michael Woodbridge), I did obtain his will, and I did speak to his close friends, including one who was invited into his home. Mysteriously, the same reviewer then completely changed his review — presumably because he read a summary of the book somewhere; he was not a “verified purchase” — and altered his method of attack. Alas, I did not keep a screen shot and he seems to have deleted it, but, in essence, he declared “shame” on all those who were prepared to be interviewed; they weren’t Bowden’s true friends and that the book is “a character assassination of a good man.”

When I remarked on the first review on Twitter, someone called “Julius” exclaimed, “You piss on the graves of better men in order to get attention from left wing media. You should die of shame” while the “Traditional Britain Group” remarked that, “Yes, when Gregory a TBG VP made some relatively mild criticisms in an interview a year back, based upon his personal recollections a bunch of groupies here became both spiteful and hysterical. I blocked them all. They obviously operate under a very simplistic and comic book view of human nature.” They were referring to Gregory Lauder-Frost, whom I interviewed for the biography and who knew Bowden.

Beneath my interview about the book on the podcast “History Sessions,” someone called “Jackdoe4632” declared, “Perhaps Jonathan gave his reasons to his genuine friends (not Renouf or Woodbridge who crave attention and notoriety). His loyal friends, those whom he trusted and have not betrayed him in death, are keeping his confidences and protecting his memory. . . . The people you spoke to were merely acquaintances.” So, the sole beneficiary of Bowden’s will and Lady Renouf, to whom Bowden fled when he went mad and thought people were trying to kill him, were “merely acquaintances,” but this internet anon was Bowden’s true best friend?

On the podcast “Scrumpmonkey,” where I was interviewed about the book, I was attacked with fallacious arguments continuously by a troll called “Jo-os3vp” who, in particular, asserted that: “Bowden would have hated this disrespectful and exploitative ‘biography’ with a passion. I don’t expect its zero-empathy author to understand that. Some people can’t just listen to a man’s words, they are more interested in deconstructing his character and digging up dirt on his private life.” The implication seems to be that Bowden is so holy that an accurate biography simply shouldn’t be written at all. As with Incels, studies indicate that trolls are high in sadism and psychopathy: The “empathy” remark is clear projection, as was much else.

As a person who is interested, as I hope my readers are, in finding out the truth about how Bowden became an oratorical genius, I find this attitude beyond comprehension. But it makes sense if we look into the psychology behind New Religious Movements, which crosses over with aspects of the extreme “far right.” As I explore in Shaman of the Radical Right, such people are, on average, highly mentally unstable. They experience negative feelings very strongly, including low self-esteem, predicting periods of religious or political fervour.

To deal with this, they sometimes latch on to charismatics who seem to make their cold world feel warm again. These charismatics become an extension of themselves; a central component to their identity: “Bowden is brilliant and I am brilliant because I follow him.” When people are stressed they instinctively think in a black-and-white fashion; they lose nuance and either love or hate. They also create a kind of false self, via this method, where they suppress their negative feelings and see themselves as superior to the herd: they are purer, more intelligent and more moral.

If you criticise Bowden in any way, then you are attacking them; you are taking away that which allows them to suppress their intense negative feelings, and you are confronting them with the black-and-white, low-intelligence manner in which they think. They have been gulled by Bowden, in a sense. Hence you are creating Narcissistic injury and cognitive dissonance. This leads to negative feelings which must be dealt with by attacking the messenger.

It may also be, if Nick Griffin is right, that some of Bowden’s followers identify with Bowden, even if only unconsciously, because he’s rather like them. I don’t mean in the sense that Bowden was an amazingly talented and highly intelligent charismatic, but that he was evidently unsuccessful in many aspects of his life: never had a job, was a university drop out, never really had a serious relationship, didn’t have any money and told lots of lies. Some of his followers may realise that this is true of them — which is incongruous with their false self — but may cope with that by telling themselves: “At least I’m super-red-pilled.”

In being confronted with the truth about Bowden, they are being confronted with the truth about themselves, and this is most unpalatable to mentally unstable types who cope by developing Narcissistic traits. Bowden understood that geniuses are “like specials needs but the other way round” and will inherently be flawed in “normal” aspects of life, as Bowden knew he was. But unlike with Bowden, there is no “genius” dimension to these people, so all they can do is bitterly attack the messenger in order to try to claw back a modicum of self-worth by experiencing the power that you may feel when you are unpleasant to someone.

But unpleasant as they may be, they are fascinating. It is cliché, in right-wing circle, to talk of the posthumous “Cult of Jonathan Bowden” and the very word “cult” has long been employed beyond the religious realm, as in Monty Python having a “cult following.” But with some of the people I have encountered of late, we are able to watch a far more literal “personality cult” develop in real time; a “Bowden of Faith” is coming together before our eyes.