Liber Oz Fest is being held August 10 – 12 at Star & Snake, located at 41 Kelsea Ave, Center Harbor, NH 03226. The event page explains:
“Liber Oz Fest exists to promulgate the law of Thelema, specifically as it pertains to the rights and privileges we share with our fellow free men and women. But what does this mean to each of us? In what ways do we love as we will, speak as we will, move as we will, etc? What does it mean to live by the law of the strong? To live by our own law?
“In modern society this can seem like a daunting task. Indulge in a weekend in the company of those who are seeking and those who have found their way through the labyrinth.
“The first Liber Oz Fest at Knights Templar Oasis was in 2000, and about 12 people attended. The original inspiration by the architect of the event was his devotion to Pan and Liber Oz as well as an Oasis camping trip earlier that same year which proved to be a wild success. The first event was held on a wooded property in Western Massachusetts where everyone camped out and performed multiple rituals around a blazing fire, invoking Pan, like some scene from Faust. An interesting note, this festival was referred to as Oz Fest, and as it turns out the original creator didn’t realize that name was being used already. Or course, we can’t prove who discovered it first!!! According to schedules from past Liber Oz Fest’s found in the KTO archives, these events included such things as Come as Your Favorite Deity Costume/Cocktail Party, Rite of Mercury, Fire Circle, and even a Puppet Show
“One year the theme was Babalon and the Beast Whereon She Rideth, another Nuit and the first Pan and Lilith. This event has usually included a Minerval initiation, at least one Gnostic Mass (I’ve been told at one event an impromptu Mass was performed in the middle of the night), and a grand feast.
“This festival was manifested to give Thelemites the opportunity to celebrate and explore their Freedom and Will, in 2018 we affirm that this original vision is identical. Knights Templar Oasis hasn’t hosted a Liber Oz Fest in a handful of years. On the 18th anniversary of this event, we will take the original intention and magick from events past and integrate them into this event. We start by initiating candidates into our Holy Order. Then we will learn from our Brothers and Sisters, enjoy some performances, a Gnostic Mass, and celebrate with food and drink. See you there!!”
The schedule is:
Friday, August 10
Welcome to Oz Fest Meet and Greet 2:00pm Main Hall
Minerval Preparations (O.T.O Initiates Only) 2:00pm Main Hall
Minerval Inititations 9:00pm – 12:00am Main Hall
Minerval Initiations are open to initiates only. Candidates for initation will receive further instructions via email.
Saturday, August 11
Breakfast Provided by Knights Templar Oasis 9:00am – 10:00am Main Hall
Opening Ceremony Performed by Knights Templar Oasis 10:00am – 10:30am Main Hall
Grand Bazaar 10:30am – 12:00pm Main Hall Thelemic art, books, jewels, and other sundry items (Bring Cash).
Man has the right to live by his own law… Jean Michel Cholette 10:30am – 12:00pm Nymph Garden
Workshop: Meditation and vibrational chanting, inspired by Tuvan polyphonic throat singing. All who attend will be encouraged to sing along or contemplate in silence and complete freedom. The polyphonic chant produces simultaneous sound frequencies, allowing to focus the mind in a common group inner flight.
Oz Origins Richard Kaczynski 12:00pm – 1:00pm Main Hall
Oz Origins tells the story of the creation and publication of Liber Oz, through passages from Aleister Crowley’s diaries and letters exchanged with people in his inner circle, who had extremely mixed reactions to the document. What were Crowley’s magical considerations around its publication? What did the different editions of Liber Oz in Crowley’s lifetime look like? Who did Crowley send them to? And why?
Lunch Provided by Knights Templar Oasis 1:00pm – 2:00pm Main Hall
Art is Magick Natan Alexander 2:00pm – 3:00pm Main Hall
In this discuss we will touch upon the ways in which artistic practice may be consider magickal practice. It is my deeply held belief that all humans are artists and that the knowledge and conversation of our HGA is also the most intimate love affair with our greatest muse. With an alchemical description of the secret cipher of the art card, included for your consideration, we will discuss the rights of Man to create art as he will.”
Babalon in the Age of #MeToo Mary Widow 3:00pm – 4:00pm Main Hall
Man has the right to live by his own law. Man has the right to think, dress speak and love as he will. We see the use of “Man” in those words, and understand grammatically that Women are included in it, but, historically, socially and culturally, these are the exact topics women are consistently persecuted, shamed and violated for. This lecture will highlight the way that we may learn from history, move into the future, and do better by our Sisters. How to honor Babalon in every women and support “the women girt with the sword” as she shapes the future of the world.
Shame and Sex Magick Soror Ouroboros 4:00pm – 5:00pm Main Hall
This class isn’t here to teach you how to have shame or how to do sex magick, instead it focuses more on how to incorporate doing magick and sex magick when there may be elements of shame within ourselves. While the O.T.O may be a sex-positive culture, we happen to live in a culture that can be extremely sex-negative. As a result of living in a sex-negative culture, many people deal with elements of shame related to sex and sexuality. This workshop focuses on how to begin to work on shedding shame with yourself. When in an Order with some sexual elements and a level of sexual freedom, issues can arise, especially if shame is carried over from childhood. Liber Oz declares, “take your fill and will of love as ye will, when, where, and with whom ye will.” In today’s world, in which an immense amount of people are fighting with the shame of their sexuality, how can we as Thelemites address that shame in order to incorporate these rights into our sex magick practices?
Dinner Provided by Knights Templar Oasis 5:00pm – 6:30pm Main Hall
Holy: A Performance Art Working Halo Ray and Mary Widow (Music credit: Zolita) 6:30pm – 7:00pm Main Hall
“Freedom is a two-edged sword of which one edge is liberty and the other, responsibility. Both edges are exceedingly sharp and the weapon is not suited to casual, cowardly or treacherous hands.”- Frater Belarion
In proclaiming our inherent rights as individual Stars in the body of Nuit, Liber Oz also silently implies the price which must be paid in order to secure and protect true freedom: The responsibility of undertaking the Great Work. We are all ultimately to be held responsible for attaining our own liberation, and it will not be achieved easily. Through original poetry and dance, this work of performance art portrays the aspirant’s lustful yet perilous journey toward the ultimate liberation.
Break 7:00pm – 7:30pm
Lon Milo DuQuette 7:30pm – 8:30pm Main Hall
Party 8:30pm Main Hall
Sunday, August 12
Breakfast Provided by Knights Templar Oasis 8:00am – 10:00am Main Hall
Using Force in the Name of Freedom Frater xvarnah-Asterion 10:00am – 11:00am Main Hall
Armed rebellions have killed individuals in the name of liberty – however, liberty can be understood in two competing ways. Does Liber Oz only advocate a right to kill to defend one’s “negative liberty” (freedom from external restraint), or does it announce a right to create “positive liberty” (freedom to conditions to exercise self-sufficiency and achieve ideals). From Jacobins using the well-intentioned ideas of French philosophes of the Enlightenment, to modern armed conflicts in Southeast Asia using Marxist Ideology, we will explore how different groups have exercised a right to kill in order to force people to be free. This lecture will argue that Liber Oz’s fifth enumerated right to kill (and its “decorative elements” of Liber AL quotations), do not extend to a reorganizing of society, but instead rally us around the individual and the particular, over the universal and abstract.
Liber XV: Gnostic Mass Performed by Knights Templar Oasis 11:30am – 1:00pm Main Hall
Lunch Provided by Knights Templar Oasis 1:00pm – 2:00pm Main Hall
Do Not Go Gentle: Eugenics, Euthanasia, & Liber OZ N.D.N.S.N 2:00pm – 3:00pm Main Hall
In this session, we will example the policy and practical ramifications of euthanasia and from a Thelemic viewpoint, especially how policies that appear to enable free will fail to function in a society that creates restrictions on choice. We will explore the history of eugenics in the West, up to the present, and how euthanasia operates in the US and abroad, in ways that defy the spirit of Liber OZ. In the words of disability activist Harriet McBryde Johnson, if “choice is illusory in a context of pervasive inequality,” then how to fulfil Liber OZ in a non-Thelemic society?
Chokmah Days: Aleister Crowley, True Will, and the Wilds of New Hampshire Colin Campbell 3:00pm – 4:00pm Main Hall
Did you know that Aleister Crowley spent four months in Bristol, New Hampshire, in the summer of 1916, just twenty miles away from this event? This presentation will cover some of the history surrounding that time, what brought him here, and more importantly focus on what he was doing here as he sought to fully integrate the Grade of Magus and personally identify himself with the Logos of the Aeon. Described in his Confessions, as well as in other works of greater scarcity, Crowley would undergo a number of magical experiments, and ultimately re-dedicate himself to his True Will.
Break 4:00pm – 4:30pm
Panel Discussion and Q&A Lon Milo DuQuette, Richard Kaczynski, and Colin Campbell 4:30pm – 6:00pm Main Hall
Closing Ceremony 6:00pm – 6:30pm Main Hall
For more information and to register visit: https://liberozfest.com.
