Declaration of Frater Zeus

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law

In the spirit of this Watchword, we Children of the New Aeon acknowledge that Freedom is under attack throughout the world.

Your individuality is being challenged by governments that prefer you to remain humble, quiet, and undistinguished. Such persons are more easily governed. This same mediocrity also serves corporations which would control markets of goods at the expense of their customer's welfare. For a nation to enslave a people, or a large corporation to monopolize a market, they require the same thing: permanent uniformity.

What we are taught and what we read about world affairs is almost completely in the hands of our governments or media corporations. Safeguard the source of your knowledge. It is written: The great bond of all bonds is ignorance. (Liber CL, 1.) Neither nations nor corporations want you to evolve. They will enslave you if you let them.

As an alternate way of life to the emerging monoculture, The Society Ordo Templi Orientis exists as a system of Lodges, each with its own distinctive character, rites, culture, arts and sciences. Each Lodge is its own unique tribe of men and women, a singular culture fostering a people uniquely themselves. The flower of human genius, crushed by the foot of uniformity, is permitted to blossom, and their success permitted to pass on its fruits to successive generations. These Lodges are linked together in such a way that they establish their own network of informational exchange independent from the media conglomerates, so that art, science, and culture can flow freely among liberated men and woman, uncensored by the tyrants of the status quo.

Some Lodges will be bowers of Love, laboring to dissolve sexual restrictions and taboos, refining dances of delight, that their life may be one ray of joyous union.

Some Lodges will be conservatories of Art, where artists collaborate to produce sweeping masterworks together, reaping the fruits of their freedom for a feast of visions and songs to enrapture the world in Beauty.

Some Lodges will be libraries of Memory, where ancient arts and sciences, forbidden or fading archives will be protected and studied by their scholars and philosophers.

Some Lodges will be groves of Mystery, where their initiates labor to unlock the seals of darkness that encircle the boundaries of human understanding.

Some Lodges will be garrisons of War, where the martial arts are refined, and men and weapons honed against the days when freedom is threatened.

Some Lodges will be pavilions of Pleasure, where song and wine, dance and delight are celebrated continually, and toil is made to be more worthwhile by the refinement of raptures.

Some Lodges will be but brief reunions upon roads of Travel, where fellow scattered pilgrims reunite to recall their explorations of the frontiers of the world before continuing on their journeys. What difference does distance make, anymore?

There have been Lodges such as these, already, and will be more, like nothing We have ever seen. This motto, though, is understood by them all:

Every man and every woman is a star.

That is to say, each man and each woman is, in Essence, a creature of spiritual fire, and once free, is radiant, sublime, and perfect within the Universe. That this radiance may shine forth, the Society Ordo Templi Orientis calls upon all of those who acknowledge their unique place in the zodiac vault of the heavens, to break free, to distinguish themselves from the confines of uniformity, and to exceed the nations of earth in splendour & pride.

Love is the law, love under will