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Review by Spartacus

The Slaves Shall Serve:  Meditations on Liberty
By James Wasserman

Sekhmet Books February 2004 Paperback, 224 pgs $19.95

In 1941, Aleister Crowley wrote to Karl Germer:  “There is a vile threat to the ‘rugged American individualism’ that actually created the U.S.A. by the bureaucratic crowd who want society to be a convict prison...The danger is very real, very imminent, very difficult to bring home to the average citizen, who sees only the immediate gain, and is hoodwinked as to the price that must be paid for it.” This book is a valiant attempt to “bring home” the nature of that threat to those who identify with the uniquely Thelemic nature of that “rugged American individualism.” 

The introduction is a detailed and sympathetic account of the author’s personal spiritual journey that led him to the writing of the book itself.  The rest of the book is an in depth discussion of the common themes behind many of the political, moral and ethical dilemmas facing our community today. It pokes holes in the simplistic standard ideologies of both the left and the right. Nonetheless, it shines forth as a virtual confession of the author’s conversion from one of those apathetic types to a virulent defender of freedom. It is a no-holds-barred indictment of the bury-your-head-in-the-sand, run-around-in-circles-in-dark-rooms, political apathy of many occult circles, as well as of the common political bias which claims that America and the “right-wing conspiracy” are the source of all evil and hardship in the world today. It instead points the finger at more insidious culprits, such as the United Nations, judicial activism, and the erosion of individual responsibility inherent in the creeping socialism and totalitarianism disguised as “democracy” coming soon to yet another nation or state near you. It draws essential parallels between the founding documents of the United States of America, such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and the rights they were drafted to enshrine, and the spirit of Liber Oz, a more concise but no less thorough recitation of those same rights, inherent in each and every man and woman.  Juxtaposition of these “Charters of Liberty” with the analogous yet antithetical U.N. “Declaration of Human Rights,” reveals the undeniable antipathy between the God-given, inalienable nature of the rights recognized (though not created) by both our nation’s Founding Fathers and Aleister Crowley, and the transitory, revocable-at-will, “rights” (actually privileges) of food, education, and medicine (as well as freedom from nasty things like hate and war) fabricated by the latter documents. 

The author, James Wasserman, a lifetime NRA member, (and a 25 year veteran of O.T.O.) reminds us that the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms it protects, are co-equal with and complimentary to the First Amendment freedoms of the press, religion and speech it preserves the right to defend, if necessary, by force. The Slaves Shall Serve is a wake-up call to all those “slaves” who would glibly don the chains of security rather than take up the sword of liberty in their own defense. It is reminiscent of O.M.’s warning in the Introduction to the 1938 edition of Liber AL that, “Every new measure of the most democratic and autocratic governments is Communistic in essence,” and the complimentary observation that “Evolution makes its changes by anti-Socialistic ways.”  It is a book that helps prove the O.T.O. worthy of the announcement, included for the first time in over 50 years in the Centennial edition of Liber AL: “If you want FREEDOM, you must FIGHT. If you want to FIGHT, you must ORGANIZE. If you want to ORGANIZE, contact Ordo Templi Orientis.” If Mr. Wasserman can help but a few aspirants unto the Law of Thelema awaken to the nature of truth and justice, and take up the sword of liberty in its defense, this book will not have been written in vain. I recommend it to all true soldiers of liberty, all enemies of tyranny and superstition.