Reflections on OZ

Preamble 

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. 

OZ camp OTO formed as a body in October of 2024, as a part of our continued growth we have made the exciting decision to open the discussions of our Body to the public in our publication “Ruby Slipper.”

As our inaugural post we have reflected upon our namesake, Liber OZ, and mined the short and deceptively simple text for new perspectives. 

We hope you enjoy and invite you to join our discussions by following us on our social medias and by joining our discord for our virtual and in person meetings.

Love is the Law, Love under Will.

Reflections 

Sor. Rosario Aurelius - OZ

Sometime last year I returned to a personal examination of Liber Oz. Liber Oz is a Thelemic book that focuses on the rights that ideally ought to belong to every individual. Aleister Crowley grew up in the turn of the 19th century and much of his poetry was an act against the repression of Victorian England. Once we understand that, it then makes sense to see this kind of writing come from him. 

Liber Oz serves to remind us that we are sovereign in ourselves and have every right to express ourselves in the ways that we are able, but also that we have the right to choose specific patterns of behavior. Though we cannot control the actions of others, we can respond instead of reacting to the actions of others. Second, that we have every right to thwart another person’s will if they decide to direct their anger, hatred, vitriol, and contempt our way. This does not give us carte blanche to do whatever we want to other people. This isn’t a document that supports abusive or narcissistic behavior. This isn’t a document that violates consent. 

A few years ago I was in a very bad situation with another Thelemite. I reached out to other Thelemites for advice on how to approach the subject of Liber Oz, and posed the question: 

What is my recourse if another were to attack me without quarter, what rights do I have to defend myself against their onslaught?

We had been friends for a long time, and I didn’t want to pursue any major action against him for what he did to me, even though I could and I probably should. I decided instead to define the last line of Liber Oz in my own terms. The last line of Liber Oz will never hold up in a court of law, and because of that it warrants some consideration as to how each of us feels we can best implement into our lives by considering our needs and our lifestyles. 

The answer I arrived at was “Love under Will”. Love under will is often misused for personal attacks and personal gain. Love under will, in my opinion, should be used to check oneself to prevent passions and desires from getting out of control. Once we have lost control to our anger, jealousy, rage, contempt, etc., it entices us to hasty actions that could have long-term consequences. If we reach that point, we fall into the “pit of because”, followed by countless excuses that may satiate our ego, and though some of them may sound convincing, it reveals that the Choronzon we are facing is ourselves.  

When I first read Liber Oz, I had introduced it to my partner at the time, who identified politically as a Constitutionalist. He knew nothing of Thelema but read it and we had a good debate on the potential pitfalls of trying to uphold this in a court of law.  Choosing to look at whether it would stand on its own merit in a legal precedent is important because standing your ground is not just a philosophical concept, it’s a practical one. 

The time we spend genuflecting on how we would behave in a hostile scenario doesn’t always hold up either, because its impossible to know how we are going to respond to any potential situation we haven’t been in before. Fight, flight or freeze impulses kick in when we are faced with different kinds of situations, and sometimes the slightest event has the potential to trigger a trauma response in people who are survivors of abuse, let alone people who aren’t. 

 

Like all of the Libers, many people have a range of emotional and logic-based responses to it. I will be ending this short essay with an analysis that I performed recently on Liber Oz. 

 

An analysis of the letters

This is an analysis I have undertaken also with Liber Liberi. It involves looking at the capital letters and interpreting them through their Hebrew equivalents. I first started experimenting with this method having the understanding that Crowley implemented codes in his work in other ways. Looking at the capital letters in the document, excluding the resource references at the end of the lines we find the following: 

Daleth – Daleth – Heh – Tav – Mem – Mem – Mem – Mem – Mem -Lamed

By doing this, it tells us that the star is compassed by two gates (beside or as the hermetic axiom goes “that which is above and that which is below”), and it is these gates that serve as a signature of the hidden law. Presumably relating back to the Book of the Law, and also the Law of Thelema. The five capital M’s may relate both to Mem as a place of water, of blood, of darkness, of a place of occult or hidden mystery. Its frequency relates to Geburah on the tree of life, signifying that the Law spoken of in Liber Oz is also related to the mysteries of Geburah.

Geburah however also shares the same root with the word Gebirah, or queen. Though this is not written about in Liber Oz, I feel its important to reference here as it relates back to the core of this essay: sovereignty. 

Reading Liber Oz does not mean adopting its tenets verbatim, as it was written. Its about taking time to understand and absorb it in a way that we can truly implement it within the structure of our lives, taking it out of the realm of theory, and putting it into practices that work for each of us.

 Sor. Ma’at ra / Mara  - Sekhet Bast Ra

First I would like to share a short little poem of mine to set the scene:

Hail unto Thee, O wandering knight in fields far from home,I see the Sun shining through your helm of dinted chrome,A welcome sight to a fellow knight in this battlefield of Bliss,To see another Do their Will on the path through the abyss.

If the word of sin is restriction, then verily this devilish little text is our Salvation. Liber Oz feels to me to be the most self explanatory Libers in the“Thelemic Corpus”. It is the through declarations of the Rights of Man. Simple,Rhythmic, and Unrelenting.Also known as Liber 77, it has a special significance to O.T.O members, and a fascinating political history, which I will be leaving that for more scholarly brothers and sisters to explore, and direct anyone interested to the book: On the rights of Man by Frater Orpheus. Instead, I would like to focus on what I feel to be Oz’s Sentimental Heart, “The Liberty of Radical Acceptance”. Radical acceptance is True Love, and the Love of Oz is the Bursting-forth of Being left unhampered as it screeches through the Night. Who am I to stand against the World’s flowering into fruition?

Radical acceptance is a two-way street. When I declare that man has the right to dress as he will, to speak what she will, and to die when and how they will, this applies equally not only to me and mine, but also to my political opposites, to the lady at the library that screamed at me in the other day, and to the Christian who so desperately wants to save my soul. But there is a point I feel the need to emphasize. To Accept does not equal, To be subject to. A point Oz’s Tyrannical safeguard so elegantly puts to words. I am not subject to the world, and the world is not subject to me. “We” are an equal match in the blur of battle, like pillars poised to support the becoming of Naught. Without which, how could we ever bear the Infinite?The book of the Law tells us, “There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt”.It tells us we are free to Love and clash, to fly and smite, so long as we follow the inner-stirrings of our Hearts unto Nu. It warns us against “Professional soldiers”, I.e. against selling out and fighting for Wills not our own. “The slaves shall serve”.

We have a duty, and it’s best we get to it. In a sense, Liber Oz is a sort of “Cosmic Grease" applied to universal friction. The engine of the world’s dynamism is hot and violent, and Oz does not as much oppose violence, as Repression. It asks us to look our brothers, sisters, and siblings in the Eye, to let them be the God we are, to give them space and opportunity to express themselves. Never to encourage shame. Never to relegate them to stagnate sequestered from the light of day. For after all, Their Life’s Blood is the Truth, Let them spill it where they may. The world will be all the more fertile for it, and we all deserve a chance to stand up and fight. This I declare is the liberty of Oz, that Sovereignty is not two.

The Star-seed of the universe has never known an “Other”. It is unique and self-existent, in which we interpret a “Togetherness” in which my life is yours, and yours is mine. Like how cancer is lost from the interconnection of its organism, our sense of separateness is cognitive, not essential, and as we are “Enswathed” in the glory of “Ravening storm”, liber Oz demands mindfulness. That with every interaction of our lives, we recognize our Love and act accordingly. To live by the words of Liber Oz is to take a step on the path of understanding, to reach out from within to without, and expand our sense of self. Its plain language illustrates its “catholic” aims, and I do hope that it spreads far and wide, and that those who heed its declaration raise themselves up in the pride of being the Child of Divinity, and to treat all accordingly.

I leave you now with another song/poem of mine that I feel poetically illustrates some of my feelings on the essence of Oz. Thank you dear reader for taking the time to read this sister’s thoughts on Oz. Many Blessings upon you. May rapturous days and delightful nights inspire your season on this beautiful earth. May you come to radically accept the Glory in your Heart.

Love is the law, love under will

Dancing On:

O what a joy it is to know that we all coexist,

dancing on this earth around the Sun.

O and heavens be remiss,

if my eyes left your countenance,

Like a serpent like a dove,

when we are lost in love,

That which is below is that above.

And though I might cry,

at the sight of thy empty space,

when I feel death is nigh,

still I fall into you,

and with the first kiss of love I find,

that progress is progress, that progress is rapture,

constant dazzling waves of light dissolving

My Mind,

cannot conceive of two,

so why is it that I love you,

when verily there is no thing at all?

Some cosmic truth that it must be,

shrouded in such a mystery,

Dancing to and fro,

That we might always know,

That which is above, is that below.

Forming over endless years,

bathed in blood in heaven’s tears,

there is an endless desire.

Piercing through the endless night,

reposing in ecstatic flight,

Resonant through all, issuing a call,

to come forth, that love is the law.

O what a joy it is to know that we all coexist,Like the vault above the starry blue.

I feel thy shadow over me,

With responding songs of ecstasy,

Dancing all about,

whether I laugh or pout,

I'm shining within and without.

And if I might fail,

To glimpse beyond the veil,

Still there pulses this heart with great wails,

And with the first kiss I find,

That there is an omnipresent drone that haunts the depths of my spine,

Vibrating my skull with agony and my eyes with

Fire,

within me ever burn,

So long as my heart ever yearns,

For that which cannot be attained.

O to the secret joy,

To thee I cannot be but coy,

Dancing all about,

Whether i laugh or pout,

I'm shining within and without.

Fr. Veritas Lux Mea  - OZ

Oz is a difficult document to read for anyone, when I first read it I agreed, but certain lines bugged me. I first encountered this document as a chaote, trying to learn and figure out the systems I was seeing, it was a good idea but makes people wary, and I get it.

The first I was able to clear up easily, "the rights of man" is the title, he does say every man and woman is a star, so this isn't referring to only the rights of those who identify as male, but as all mankind regardless of gender. The list of rights given are pretty basic, and should be everyone's prerogatives if we were all equal. But as we see in the world, allowing people to be on their own and not interfering with others rights is not a state we are in in the world. We as Thelemites have this as one of our goals, to fight for everyone's right to self determination. 

The second hard line is "the slaves shall serve", Crowley speaks of slave morality as those who choose their masters and their yoke. Alcohol, organized religion, jobs, money, etc. Are all our slavemasters, and if someone doesn't desire freedom from their yoke, then who are we to impede their will? I have tried personally to help my father get rid of his hoard, and he refuses...we all have those things that rule us and keep us slaves. We have the right to fight against them and to make ourselves free. This document is built on the Book of the Law (Liber AL vel Legis), and the quotes are from it, it also is a difficult book to accept or read, but it explains and expands on the quotes used in this document, it lays out that we are all stars, all gods; every man, woman, and child. And that we all have rights to love or not love those at our will. But we should always fight as brothers, as related equals.  

A note on some of the wording in the clauses, certain oaths out restrictions on what you can and can't write, Crowley seems to want to fight against this in one of the clauses.

Sor. Cherubim - OZ

Originally named “War Aims of the new Aeon” the stated goal for the writing of LiberOZ was propaganda. It was one of Crowley’s final attempts before the end of his life to perfuse the influence of the Law into the institutions and individuals he assumed would carry it out. On Dec 21st of 1941 at 9:45am he mailed the first 11 copies to heads of industry, culture, church, and state. Much in the same way that, mythically, Crowley used the “V” for victory to set against the magical force of the Nazi swastika, this simple and deliberate tract was to set the seeds of revolution in society writ large.

I encourage you to read Liber OZ again, carefully and deliberately slow. Mind the meter and trace the shape of the words. The writing is rhythmic and percussive. Liber 77 is a declaration of war against the institutions of a dead aeon, and the cry of a new era of liberation dawning. It is musical. Its beauty and its careful balance of simple words and revolutionary aims points to its true purpose. Liber OZ it is a talisman for the aeon, its 160 words contain the whole formula of attainment. 

“The law of the Strong: This is our law and the joy of the world.” This is our first line, here it serves to firmly ground what follows, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” Its meaning is undeniable. Will, as in True Will, is exacting in its demands, and yet it is also the perfect refuge, alignment with Will uplifts all planes as it uplifts the individual. “Thou hast no right but to do thy will, do that and no other shall say nay.” These are our consecration, a dedication of the messy and distracted dualized self to the singular and the incorruptible Will. In writing it dedicates what follows to a single purpose, in reading aloud it is a benediction to attainment, in living it is the Great Work. 

“Every man and every woman is a star.” is Liber OZ’s invocation, as in ritual where a magician would speak to the true nature of the thing she wishes to invoke, OZ calls out to the God elegantly identified as “Every man and every woman” to appear as they are, “a Star.” The power of the work originates here, and is brought to bear in the following line. “There is no God but Man”  is OZ’s assumption of the Godform, where we triumphantly announce the vital truth of our nature. Just by having read the words, even if you are unaware at the moment of reading them of their full meaning, you (the reader) have invoked Will and called upon your godhood to present itself. 

Once it has assumed itself as God, in following Crowley's understanding of and instructions on ritual, OZ speaks with divine voice. “Man has the right to live by his own law” This is a reiteration of the previous words, now written/spoken with the force of realized Will behind them. To Live, Work, Rest, Play, and Die are all enumerations on the same. All of life, in all aspects, is to be in service to Will. It is a magical commandment both to the reader, and to any construct of mind or material that would impede them to submit to the God that is every man and every woman. 

The next three sections function in the same way. 

“Man has the right to eat as he will:” 

commands physical, mental and spiritual nourishment in alignment with Will.

“Man has the right to think what he will” 

commands the labor of the mind and body into alignment with Will. 

“Man has the right to Love as he will”

Commands union with anything, in any context, unto Will.

Oz, in this divine voice, recognises these rights as absolute truth, as obvious observations of its existence, and at the same time speaks them into reality. These actions are one and the same, in the same way as love with any who you will is the same as love with the HGA  and with Nu.

“Man has the right to kill those who would thwart these rights” OZ continues speaking with the divine voice. It is a necessary constrainment of the forces that seem to oppose Will; “The slaves shall serve” in this way serves similarly to the ending of the Benedictine exorcism, “ipsae venena bibas” or, “drink the poison yourself”. Those who seek to trap are caught in their own machinations, those who seek to blind others are blinded to their own divinity; it is both a curse and a call to freedom for the accursed. Will cannot be opposed, and those who would pretend otherwise are willingly blinding themselves. 

“Love is the law, love under will” is OZ’s final and satisfied statement, both a closing of the mouth of the divine to delight in silence, and a final echo of the freedom available in its recognition.  By this point, OZ has subtly carved the essential freedom and divinity of man into everyone that reads it and therefore into any anyone who meets them (since no one could meet God on the street and walk away unchanged). As the conclusion of the work it reiterates what we have known from the start of the text. This law, this work, and this text are for the uplifting of the world in love.