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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Charles Stansfeld Jones
The Blackstone, Chicago.
Nov 21 [1915]
V.[ery] I.[llustrious] Sir Knight & Very Dear Brother,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I was very glad of your letter of the 9th inst.
The Chinese person was intended as half a letter: Soror H.[ilarion] [Jeanne Foster] to write the other half. But she has really been in prison ever since. The luck has been shocking all round; so bad that one thinks it must turn soon. At least, there seems hope of a crisis; we have an ally who appears even more like a steam-roller than the Russians'.
Very glad the L∴ is going so well. Numbers are everything. Sooner or later you're bound to strike the really useful people.
Knock off of P and
IV°
By the way, about 'patients', as you amusingly call them: whatever you do, avoid L∴ members. Get on the proper terms first & let them join the L∴ after. This is frightfully important; a mistake can smash up the whole movement in a day!
It's also rather a point of honour; in deed, very much so, in my view. It's not so important for others as for the head man; but it's undesirable in any case. This only applies below VII°; in that initiation you are taught to be sensible.
Of course, when you find really good patients you can begin talking sense in a cautious way from the start, and in certain cases you can hint that the VII° is very well worth taking.
Re the 'dreams'. Apparently it has all gone well, taken as a joke. But these phenomena are damnably dangerous, V.I. Sir Knight! Between dreams & visions and divinations and oracles the Occult Life is not worth living! You must be tremendously on your guard against any tendency in anybody to take such things seriously. Sometimes they go on awhile, and apparently no harm is done; then some fool springs a vision on you that breaks up your whole work. (These are words of gold, V.I. Sir Knight!) Check everything of the sort at the start.
I shall hope to find your Essay when I get to N.Y. You may rely on me to put you wise to the right dope. You're not to be confused of frightened, and you take all I say in the right spirit.
Only observe; no more IX° will be given on theoretical grounds. I refuse to encourage the Professional Spirit. You've got to make gold yourself, not merely to tell me how you think it might be made. I know already. But (between you and me, very private) there are some things I don't know! It's like this: when I want to make gold, I put seven things into the crucible and heat it up, and out it comes. But this does not happen all the time; sometimes I fail. And it is not always convenient to get all the seven things together; and I am not sure which are necessary, and which are not.
In other words, I'm an empiric. And I want to do for this Work what I did for meditation: i.e. to discover the exact scientific causes of the phenomena observed. The Fra Superior has theories which, if not exactly opposed to mine, do not coincide in all points. E.G. I am inclined to believe that weather conditions, light conditions, and astrological conditions, count for something. He says no. On the other hand, he says certain things are absolutely essential which I find unimportant. When I began I was criminally careless about keeping a proper record. In, fact, I have only about 150 experiments carefully recorded in the last 2 years. I am very very anxious to collate my results with other people's. And my fellow-initiates of this Sovereign Sanctuary of the Gnosis—at least those who are directly under me—confine themselves to 'bookish theories'. You butt in, please, and hard.
Yours in the Bonds of the Order
[eleven-fold Cross] Baphomet X° O.T.O.
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