Actual existence with northeast's ascetics (7)
I believe the answer is:
essenes
'ascetics' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I can't judge whether this works.
'actual existence with northeast's' is the wordplay.
'actual existence' becomes 'esse' (I've seen this before).
'with' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'northeast's' becomes 'NE's' (abbreviation).
'esse'+'nes'='ESSENES'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for essenes that I've seen is " Members of an ascetic Jewish sect around the time of Jesus".)