This month’s Local Body Spotlight is inspired by Pan and Liber Oz as Knight’s Templar Oasis prepares to resurrect a long standing tradition that’s been dormant for nearly a decade.

The festival was manifested to give Thelemites the opportunity to celebrate and explore their Freedom and Will and this year will start with initiating candidates into our Holy Order, followed by rituals, panel discussions, performance art, and speakers.

Thrill with lissome lust of the light,
O man! My man!
Come careering out of the night
Of Pan! Io Pan!
Io Pan! Io Pan! Come over the sea
From Sicily and from Arcady!
Roaming as Bacchus, with fauns and pards
And nymphs and satyrs for thy guards,
On a milk-white ass, come over the sea
To me, to me

from Hymn to Pan by Aleister Crowley

About 18 years ago, Knights Templar Oasis created an event to celebrate Liber Oz. The Secretary of the Oasis, Robert, was inspired to create the festival because of his devotion to Pan and to Liber Oz. He had been invoking Pan for many years and was a fan and perpetrator of all things wild and debauched! They had an Oasis camping trip earlier that year and “sacrificed” some juicy steaks to the gods. Another Oasis member had contact with a witchy couple that had a woodland property and offered it for a weekend of ritual including the central ritual which was an invocation to Pan.

Over the years, the festival started to regularly include the Gnostic Mass and a Minerval initiation.

Early Liber Oz Fests included events like:

• Come as your favorite deity costume contest and cocktail party
• Rite of Mercury
• Fire circle
• Puppet show

The last time Liber Oz Fest was celebrated was about 9 years ago, but this year, our Sister, Jen Prestage, along with other members of Knights Templar Oasis, decided to resurrect it.

This year’s celebration will take place at a very special artistic venue and retreat, The Star and Snake.

“the law of the strong: this is our law and the joy of the world.” – AL. II. 21

This year, Minerval degree initiations will take place on Friday evening, in keeping with tradition. Initiations are tyled to initiates and those seeking initiation.

This year’s guest speakers include Lon Milo Duquette (author of more than 16 books, EGC ArchBishop, and talented musician), Richard Kaczynski (author Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley), Colin Campbell (author of Thelema: An Introduction to the Life, Work, and Philosophy of Aleister Crowley among other books), Natan Alexander (artist and initiate and visionary behind the magnificent Star and Snake venue), jean-Michel Cholette (a talented artist who has exhibited alongside H.R. Giger), Halo Ray (wedding the intellect with the body, to create art as an exercise in embodied, intimate communication), N.D.N.S.N. (an Autistic Thelemite who focuses their work on creating a more Thelemic society through disability justice), Mary Widow (an actress, singer and burlesque performerwho has decades of training in musical theatre and dance), and Frater xvarnah-Asterior (an attorney in Connecticut, and an avid reader in both the philosophy of law), and more that are TBA.