Freedom Is a Two-Edged Sword
By John Whiteside Parsons
"A Sword Is Drawn For numberless centuries society unquestioningly
accepted the proposition that certain men were created to be slaves,
whose natural function was to serve priests and kings, nobles and
great lords, men of substance and property that were appointed
slavemasters by almighty God. Further, this system was reinforced
by the established doctrines that all men and women were owned,
their minds by the church, their bodies by the state. This convenient
situation was supported by a considerable body of authority,
morals, religion, and philosophy.
Against this doctrine, some two hundred years ago, was openly
raised the most astonishing heresy the world has ever known,
the principle of liberalism. In essence, this principle stated that
all men were created equal, and endowed with inalienable rights.
The words inalienable rights mean rights which cannot be
taken away, which belong to a man, as his birthright.
This principle appealed to certain intractable spirits, heretics, atheists
and revolutionaries, and has since, in spite of the opposition of the
majority of organized society, made some headway. As a doctrine,
it has become so popular that it is rendered lip service by all the
major states.
But it is still so distasteful to persons in authority and seeking authority
that it is nowhere embodied as a fundamental law, and is continuously
violated in letter and in spirit by every trick and expedient of bigotry
and reaction. Further, absolutist and totalitarian groups of the most
vicious nature use liberalism as a cloak under which they move to
reestablish tyrannies and extinguish the liberty of all opponents.
Thus religious groups seek to abrogate freedom of art, speech, and
the press; reactionaries move to suppress labor; and communists
to establish dictatorships, all in the name of freedom. Thus, because
of the peculiar distinctions given to freedom by some of these
camouflaged tyrants, it seems necessary to redefine freedom in
terms in which it was understood by that depraved cynic Voltaire,
the dirty atheist Paine, the traitor Washington, the radical
revolutionary Jefferson, and the anarchist Emerson.
Freedom is a two edged sword of which one edge is liberty
and the other responsibility, on which both edges are exceedingly
sharp; and which is not easily handled by casual, cowardly or
treacherous hands. For it has been sharpened by many conflicts,
tempered in many fires, quenched by much blood, and although
it is always ready for the use of the courageous and high hearted,
it will not remain when the spirit that forged it is gone.
Now since all tyrannies are based on dogmas, that is, on
fundamental statements of absolute fact, and since all dogmas are
based on lies, it behooves us first to seek for truth, and freedom
will not be far away. And the truth is that we know nothing.
Objectively, we know nothing at all. Any system of intellectual thought,
whether it be science, logic, religion, or philosophy, is based on
certain fundamental ideas or axioms which are assumed, but
which cannot be proved. This is the grave of all positivism.
We assume, but we do not know, that there is a real and objective
world outside our own mind. Ultimately, we do not know what we
are, or what the world is. Further, if there is a real world apart
from ourselves, we cannot know what that is; all we know is what
we perceive it to be."
Jack Parsons was a rocket scientist, an occultist and a
member of Aleister Crowley's magical order. He died in 1952 in
a mysterious laboratory explosion. His eloquent writings on the
human condition convey passion, intelligence and deep conviction.
