William Gayley Simpson (1892 – 1991) was an American Presbyterian clergyman and lecture-circuit speaker, in latter days associated with William Luther Pierce and the National Alliance.[1]
The eldest of three children, he was born July 23, 1892, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He attended Lafayette College and graduated in 1912 with Phi Beta Kappa standing and as valedictorian. He attended Union Theological Seminary, graduating in 1915, magna cum laude.
From the fall of 1918 until the spring of 1919 he was associate director of the National Civil Liberties Bureau, now the American Civil Liberties Union.[2] After living in a small religious community for over 10 years, a period of his life he would come to refer to as his "Franciscan" days, Simpson repudiated his previous Christian moorings and embraced the philosophical worldview of Friedrich Nietzsche. Simpson believed that the teachings of Jesus were completely out of step with nature, and that only a few exceptionally zealous men could ever come close to implementing them. Simpson discussed the importance of distinguishing between subjective religious feeling and "scientific reality." He came to believe that much of human behavior is rooted in the innate biological makeup of individuals and their race, and that one's spirituality comes from within.
His 1978 book Which Way Western Man? was republished by National Vanguard Books in 2003. Some quotes from this book include:
His seven-part autobiography titled "One Man's Striving" was originally serialized in 1983 and 1984 issues of National Vanguard magazine, published by the National Alliance. It is a radical right version of Somerset Maugham's "soul voyage" classics such as The Razor's Edge (novel) and Of Human Bondage.