Political
Liberty as a Spiritual Value
By
James Wasserman
Author
of The Slaves Shall Serve: Meditations on
Liberty
Ever
since I can remember, I’ve had an abiding sense of God in my life — an
unfathomable recognition of an Intelligence, Awareness, or Being that exists in
some proximity to my own self or apparent self. In two of my books, I quoted the
fourth century neo-Platonist Iamblichus who wrote, “An innate knowledge of the
Gods is coexistent with our very existence; and … subsists prior to reason and
demonstration.” Simply stated: it is self-evident that God exists.
I
also grew up with a sense of responsibility for the world. I have always felt
that I was part of humanity and our pathetic attempts to crawl out of the muck
of our predicament. Poverty, hunger, selfishness, war, hatred — all seemed
both of great importance and within my personal sphere of responsibility.
I
entered Antioch College in the summer of 1966. It was a school on the forefront
of the civil rights/anti-war movement, and the cultural revolution of sex and
drugs. Antioch had a work/study program in which students worked in their chosen
fields half the year. An activist lawyer with the cutting-edge SNCC (Student
Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) came to campus to speak. He was eloquent,
and his talk enticed me into working for him as a volunteer research assistant
that fall.
I
was immediately plunged into a central hub of the New Left movement. While I
remember Fannie Lou Hamer as a woman of particular warmth, nearly all the other
luminaries I met filled me with despair. I realized my political work, at best,
would merely substitute one group of power-mad neurotics for another. I mention
in my book that during a rare relaxed private conversation with my boss, I asked
his opinion about whether the anti-war movement was helping the communists, as
many people believed. He told me he didn’t care, that he didn’t reject
communism outright. I did, and departed soon after.
Meanwhile,
my experiences with psychedelics were turning me toward that childhood awareness
of a Higher Power whose presence was becoming increasingly palpable. I embraced
meditation after reading Alan Watts’ Way of Zen. I came to believe that a refining of my own character
was the first step in redeeming the world in any meaningful political sense (an
insight that hasn’t changed in more than three decades, although my
methodology has evolved considerably).
I
began to study the literature of spiritual wisdom. I felt increasingly at odds
with the demands of my college curriculum and left school in 1968. Thus began a
period of travel and seeking after teachers. I was attracted to Western
Occultism where I continue to remain firmly grounded as a student of Aleister
Crowley and Scientific Illuminism. I accept the Book of the Law as the sole rule and guide of my life, and Liber
Oz (the political program of Ordo Templi Orientis) as the most enlightened
expression of political philosophy ever penned. (Liber
Oz is included in my book. The Book of
the Law is available from New Leaf.)
In
addition to Western Esotericism, my spiritual quest has included fairly
extensive work with the disciplines of Surat Shabd Yoga and the Radha Soami
Satsang; the practice of zhikr with
the Sufis of the Halveti Jerrahi; and the taking of Refuge with Dudjom Rinpoche,
before whom I swore the Bodhisattva Vow.
Throughout
the decade of the 1970s, I remained heartily oblivious to politics. My life was
that of a student of the Mysteries and of a young man learning his way in the
world. I discovered my career path in the world of publishing and rose to become
general manager of Samuel Weiser’s. I left in 1977 to found Studio 31 Book
Production and Graphic Design.
In
1981, I developed an interest in firearms, occasioned by a series of unfortunate
events that befell the spiritual group of which I was leader. I determined the
best way to protect my family against certain credible threats was to invoke the
sacred right of self defense as enshrined in both the Second Amendment of
America’s Bill of Rights and Paragraph 5 of Liber Oz.
During
my research into deciding which firearm to buy, I encountered the passionate
concern of the gun culture for the rights protected by the American
Constitution. As I became more familiar with their literature, I recognized that
the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights had a profoundly
spiritual dimension of which I had been previously unaware.
Then
in August of 1992 I became ill and ran a high fever. Confined to bed, I saw a
small article in The NY Times
concerning Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Some 300 government agents were surrounding the
home of a fellow named Randy Weaver. His 14-year-old boy had been shot in the
back and killed by a U.S. Marshal, and his wife was shot in the head and killed
by an FBI sniper as she cradled her baby. The
Times printed a photo of some agents standing around Weaver’s property.
One agent‘s back was turned to the camera and displayed the letters ATF in
very large type. I realized immediately that such graphics were designed to
lessen the chance of them killing each other when shooting their fellow
Americans in the back. I searched for a clue to Weaver’s crime, and could only
find vague suggestions of “weapons violations.” He was described as a
neo-Nazi racist.
As
a Jew, with one child of mixed race, neo-Nazi racists are not exactly my cup of
tea. But I had this incredibly high fever. I lay my head down and closed my
eyes. My soul literally entered Randy Weaver's cabin, and my psyche became
conjoined with his for a time. I experienced his torture through every fiber of
my being. I came out of it and cried. I told my wife what a horrible thing it
was to have your son and your wife killed, and all those murderers outside your
home, publicly painting you as some subhuman scum.
The
world seemed very different when my fever broke. I immersed myself in an attempt
to understand what had happened to my country. After many months of sleepless
nights and many thousands of pages of reading, I was on the verge of a nervous
breakdown. I knew I had to stop, and began to pull myself out of it sometime
between mid-January and early-February of 1993. Then came Waco.
Now
here was something into which I could really sink my teeth — no more neo-Nazi
racists. The Branch Davidians were an offbeat group of religious people,
following an obscure and unknown doctrine. They were led by a charismatic and
inspired biblical scholar who played rock ‘n roll, loved firearms and custom
cars, and practiced a series of mysterious sexual teachings. I became fixated on
Waco.
Miraculously,
rather than going into a mental hospital during the 51-day siege, I was inspired
to reread Atlas Shrugged — a book I
hadn’t read since I was 14. It helped to contextualize the sense of extreme
alienation I was experiencing. I came at last to understand that the entire goal
of my spiritual quest was Liberty. I had used every technique I could find to
maximize my Liberty — from meditation, ritual magick, sex, drugs, and
sobriety, to personal economics, and career orientation. I realized I was now
being directed to explore political liberty.
I
began to study the American Constitution in some depth. I learned that it
contained no platitudes. America’s founders sought real world goals like
common defense, general welfare, and the assurance of unfettered individual
rights. I learned that under America’s constitutional system, our political
rights are God-given. They are “unalienable” —
incapable of being surrendered or transferred. They are protected from
the state by a series of restrictions on
the state. The Constitution and the Bill of Rights are essentially a series of “Thou shalt nots” directed at government.
“Congress shall make no law …”
I
saw that in both the Book of the Law
and America’s founding documents there is an implicit recognition of the
divinity inherent in each human being. The
Book of the Law states “Every
man and every woman is a star” — “thou hast no right but to do thy
will.” The Declaration of Independence says, “We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are . . . endowed
by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” The goal of a society
built on such principles must be the encouragement of maximum individual liberty
for the most unfettered growth of human potential.
Over
the years since 1992, I became increasingly aware of the antithesis to this
libertarian, individualist conception. I began to study the UN model of
political control, the collectivist vision of the nanny state epitomized by the
phrase, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.” The UN claims
that among its goals it seeks to eliminate war — for the first time since some
post-monkey grabbed a rock in anger. It further declares that it desires to help
people practice tolerance and learn to live together as good neighbors —
despite the millennia of religious and philosophical teachings that have failed
to achieve these utopian pipe dreams.
I
learned that the UN political model offers a series of “alienable” rights
— or privileges — that can legally be taken away whenever the state decides.
These so-called rights appear on the surface to be fairly civilized. After all,
they were modeled for propaganda purposes on the U. S. Bill of Rights. (Although
you can bet your blue helmet there’s no right to self-defense. Perfectly
embodying the police state or military dictatorship, the only armed people are
police, selected bureaucrats, and soldiers.)
There
are also no “Thou shalt nots” applied to governments that adopt the UN
agreements. Instead the language reads, “Everyone has the right …” But,
when you look more closely into those rights, every
single one is subject to the review and approval of the state. The UN
Universal Declaration of Human Rights goes on for 28 Articles that describe
everyone’s so-called rights. Then, toward the end comes Article 29, which
reads, “In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject
only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of
securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and
of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general
welfare in a democratic society.”
The
language of this caveat must be understood as the conceptual antithesis of unalienable rights. Here’s what I mean by
conceptual antithesis. Quoting The Slaves
Shall Serve:
“True
individual rights are inviolate. If I have the right to free speech, you have
the right to free speech. My rights do not lessen or negate your rights. If I
can be armed, you can be armed; if my house is secure from warrantless searches,
your house is secure from warrantless searches. Privileges are different. If I
have the privilege of free speech, you
can tell me not to say things that bother you. If you have the privilege
to bear arms, I can tell you not to own scary looking ones that make me feel
anxious. If I have the privilege to be
secure in my home against warrantless searches, you can perform “sneak and
peek” secret raids, or tell me that since I live in public housing, or am
driving my car on a public road, you can search my apartment or vehicle anytime
you decide.”
This
led me to ask the inevitable question:
“Who, in his right mind, would be supportive of a political system that intended to replace his unalienable rights with alienable privileges?”
My
book reproduces several of the founding documents of the UN and invites the
reader to compare their language with those of the American system and Liber
Oz, also included. It reprints a plan offered by President Kennedy in 1961
— and never refuted since — in which America’s military weapons are
pledged to be surrendered to UN control. This is not a paranoid fantasy. It is
the published policy of the U.S. State Department.
***
It
troubles me that many people following spiritual pursuits are guilty of burying
their heads in the sand. (I know the position well. I voted for the first time
at age 36.) However, it is not enough to be prancing around a Magical Circle or
meditating in a candlelit room. Just look at Tibet, an exalted spiritual culture
laid waste by Chinese communist genocidal hordes.
The Tyrants are silently erecting the walls of our cells and forging our
chains — while we stand lighting our incense. There have been many theories
advanced to explain the karmic workings of politics on earth, but slavery is
hardly a model to be embraced for either our spiritual work or political
aspirations.
I
believe the American Constitutional model offers the best hope of human freedom
on earth. It is the only political system — besides that proposed by Liber
Oz — in which the natural rights of the individual are recognized
as superior to either the will of the majority, or the whim of the state.
The
battle between the forces of tyranny and the legions of freedom is in full swing
today. Those of us who seek freedom are bucking a tide so enormous it seems to
be swallowing the entire world. However, I believe we will triumph. The desire
for freedom is perhaps the key spiritual component of our species. My book
offers a number of suggestions for further action in support of individual
liberty, along with an annotated list of the 50 best books I’ve found on the
subject. My fondest hope is that these ideas may find points of resonance within
readers sufficient to encourage each to meditate on the personal value he or she
places on freedom, and to act accordingly.