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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to J.F.C. Fuller
[21 Warwick Road, Earl's Court]
[Postmarked 28 December 1908]
My dear Fuller,
As you justly surmise, your well-driven remarks come some 3 weeks too late. By a curious lapse in memory, I cannot help thinking that it was you—or Sim-Lacra of you—that chose the present page as against both Old Face English and Bourgeois. But enough: [illegible] that spirit which loves to make its neighbours smart be unknown! Of course I considered all this at the time. We decided to give Weight for Money; and this is right. The composition charge is no heavier for 100,000 words; 'tis but the cost of paper and a shade extra for presswork. The type won't look so thin when printed on more absorbent paper with proper printer's ink. Compare your proofs of Konx Om Pax with the Volume to see what I mean.
Don't worry: I bet you (and everybody) will be very well satisfied with the result. I am taking endless trouble to get everything quite A1.
Opening Buer—we got Buer to buck up Allan's [Allan Bennett] health.
Typhon Seth—used to bewitch Gardner [Frederick Leigh Gardner] and Galacre. The former by a 0 = 0 adaptation the latter by raising the Sight of Typhon to the grade of 1 = 10.
Gardner (De Profundis Ad Lucem) was worrying Mathers [MacGregor Mathers] about the financial aspect of the Abramelin book. He went half crazy and nearly committed suicide; also he lost his action!
Demons of Beelzebub seen by Rose [Rose Kelly] at Boleskine May or June 1904. They were worked against G∴D∴ hands. Result: "Magic Clasp" case and the highly mysterious affair of Paris, Mathers being reported on such good authority as that of William Archer and S.S.D.D. [Florence Farr] to have attacked a printer in his office and to have been put in an asylum. This I could never confirm or definitely disprove. Anyhow, he was forced to fly from France, and on arriving in England was met by the 'Weekly Dispatch' exposures.
Ask Mr. Simpson and the flying
The Horos case is certainly obscure, to me also. I have nothing to go on but the statements of expert liars. I'd better put them down à la Browning.
Mather's statement. (Probably half conscious lie)
S.V.A. (Madame H. [Madame Horos]) can be overshadowed by H.P.B. [Helena Petrovna Blavatsky] and S.D.A. [Anna Sprengel] 8 = 3; has told me details of very private conversation I had with H.P.B. at Denmark Hill.
Can do miracles.
May try and take over command of G∴D∴ in London.
Use cold steel against her! Also [illegible]!
Has stolen my rituals and portmanteaus.
Is a financial fraud; vampires her husband, who is a sort of soulless maniac, possessing unexpected and demonic strength when inspired by her.
Her motive is hostility to G∴D∴ and me, i.e. to "Current sent at end of a century to regenerate a planet."
Nisbet's statement (Probably true as far as he knows)
S.V.A. came suddenly to Paris and told S.R.M.D. [MacGregor Mathers] that she was S.D.A. 8 = 3 who had not died as reported but lived on like Elmen Zata the Arab and Co, and James IV—St Germain—Mathers himself.
S.R.M.D. kow-towed to her. Promised S.R.M.D. large sums (I think £2000 mentioned) to build a Temple of Isis. [Note. S.R.M.D. was starting the "Mysteries of Isis" at this time. They had a public [illegible] etc by V.N.R. [Moina Mathers] at the Bodinière theatre. S.R.M.D. was at this time frequented by half the beau [illegible] of Paris; every Sunday there were 40 or 50 well-dressed folk at his cottage. a.c.]
Now she has turned out to be a fraud and an enemy, it proves that S.R.M.D. is a fraud [So much for Nisbet's logic! It only proved that S.R.M.D. believed in an adept called S.D.A. or pretended to. Of course, if it was her promise of money that made S.R.M.D. pretend, he was a fraud. a.c.]
Jones' [George Cecil Jones] argument.
If S.R.M.D. was diddled by S.V.A. he had lost the power of divining spirits that he certainly once had.
If he acted as he did with his eyes open, he was a fraud.
Ergo, he is fool or fraud.
[Against this, is the case where a man claims to be a big boss, one may argue that he wished to put his followers to this natural dilemma, to see if they could transcend reason. a.c.]
The upshot of the whole affair seems to be this; that if you like to put S.R.M.D. down as a low swindling hypocritical blackguard the facts fit in beautifully. Just so, if you assume that Allan's one desire is to live comfortably without working for it, you can make the facts fit with very little trouble—enough to satisfy anyone with the mind of a tipstaff.
But to me spiritual facts are just as true and important as police-court facts.
I quite believe S.R.M.D. to have been a 6º=5o and that his discovery of Abramelin's MS dished him. Whether before this he had 'fallen' by pretending to be an 8 = 3 or the messenger of one, I can't say. Just compare me for a moment! If you ask the normal Crowley about the A∴A∴ his answers will be as unsatisfactory (to himself also) as Mathers' answer to the Theonici in London.
You see, one is transcending rules of evidence and such things. You can't know an 8 = 3 as you know a pump: the pump must go before the 8 = 3 comes. Yet the same line of argument that destroys the 8 = 3 destroys the pump.
I feel I'm far from clear. When I become 8 = 3 myself I may be able to explain better. But remember this—I don't (at present) believe in the 3 men in the Bois de Boulogue and the nose-bleeding. I don't expect to shake hands with an 8 = 3; but to communicate with him very much as I should with the H.G.A. [Holy Guardian Angel].
Both your sceptical criticism and Mathers' Bois de Boulogue story appear to be merely Chas. Welts.
I hope this is clearer now. If not, ask again!
Best wishes to all down there from both of us.
Yours fraternally
a.c.
Captain J.F.C.Fuller 7 Sydenham Hill London, S.E.
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ritual of Neophyte is all my very own. I was thinking we
might edit and use it vice the G∴D∴
[
I think she was present. It only made them muddle-headed and
[illegible]—which they would have been in any case, I
guess.