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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Charles Stansfeld Jones
The House of the Juggler [Adams Cottage]
An XII
[3 August 1916]
Care Frater,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I have your combination [illegible] of July 26 and 27. Good. I reply.
Your ‘formula’ re R.S.J. [Rubina Stansfeld Jones]. is excellent.
I understand pretty well everything now. I want you though to see a doctor about your heart. There may be some physical mischief.
Glad you went through ordeals of elements. You will be interested to learn that this, done physically in very much your way, is the 2nd essential lecture of the A∴A∴ neophyte ritual. The 1st Lecture is the [illegible] of LVX in The Pyramid. So you are a very real neophyte!
You assure me very much in one way! You think I don’t ‘get’ you on just the one point where I need no telling at all. Now lookee here young feller—me lad this is indeed Mara and Maya and Choronzon and all the rest of it.
Listen!
Listen!!
Listen!!!
I am going to write most seriously from a very great experience. (Hence extreme jocularity in manners). If you can’t conquer the sex-problem, you'll come to the most fearful grief, and you needn’t. It’s as simple as Gematria and a damn sight more amusing!
Let me first refer you to the Book of the Law.
First II. 24. means Enjoy yourself II. 52. means Enjoy yourself as you will. I. 41. means a. Let any who wants to enjoy himself do so b. Do not allow anyone to hold you to any compact.
There are other passages dealing with minor points; but the above is singularly complete.
The real secret lies in the Point of View. The Quarter Montparnasse has solved the sex-problem long ago.
Every act should be a sacrament to the performers; but it is the Comedy of Pain to the onlookers.
If R.S.J. falls in love with K. [Katherine Talbot] and they aspire one night in a mad moment to hold you down while Smith [Wilfred Talbot Smith] buggers you, every one will have something to laugh at for a week, when the general attention will be distracted by Mrs. O’Grady’s misadventure with her goat. (I refrain from the awful details of this affair.) You see, it’s all fun for everybody, and nobody’s being the worse. Also the great [illegible] of jealousy and so on are removed.
So, in the problem you offer for my solution, call a meeting, from A to H.
A. and D. copulate with C., while E. enjoys D. and F. H. and G. look on, get really excited, and retire to a corner. All breakfast together, and compare notes gleefully, and praise God. I should worry!
If they can really all acquiesce in this free and easy arrangement, and yet not lose the sense of sacramentalism, all will be well.
It’s all Point of View.
Please note that strict monogamy is not excluded. If any two people wish to form a closed chain, they can. Only, let all acts be held in equal honour! If A is in love with a kid glove, and B with a walking-stick, it doesn’t hurt you, does it? Respect the choice of the soul!
In your own case I suspected a lurking devil; but the fact of R’s history absolves you. But the point is, are you big enough to have K. without making any difference in your treatment of R.? You should be.
I’ll tell you a story. A certain brother known to us, though very slightly, had an affair with a certain sister. It was very passionate. Bye-and bye things cooled. What did they do? Quarrel? Not on your life! They made an offensive and defensive alliance, and played into each other’s hands. “Hullo, Arthur! I’ve got a lovely boy for you, gold hair, green eyes, slim as an absurd tee, lithe as a gazelle” could be a common greeting. And Arthur would reply “By Jove, Isabelle, that’s amusing. I met a ripping Spanish girl last night and had her and I’ll bring her round for you this afternoon.” (I beg you not to disclose that the parties are Waite and Mme de Steyer.)
So it’s not ‘the very devil’, but a perfectly simple matter which a sense of humour and a sense of sex will put straight in an evening.
The advantage of spinthriae and other complex arrangements is that it gets rid of the sense of shame and of sin which were the curse of the dead Aeon.
It is most fearfully based for us, obsessed as we are, all of us, by heredity, to get the proper attitude. I can only urge the cardinal importance of doing so. Observe the cry of “Beast” in its obvious sense, what an ingrained sense of sin it implies! You may have to go through the most unimaginable orgies to get right about this: public performances are helpful. The and is to be considered, acquisition of the Point of View, and the power to do what you will in this matter without shame, sorrow, or any other feeling but joy and pride.
Well, it’s up to you. If you can conquer the Great Snare as a community, you’ll have done more to bring the New Aeon to flower than any one else.
I think the ‘child’ means a real child. But of course you’re the first-born of the New Aeon, for I ate the pomegranate in Hell, whatever that means—at least I belong in part to the old Aeon since I began under it.
Your idea of ‘radiating Wills’ (may I call it?) seems admirable.
IX° exp[erimen]ts. I ought to mention that the Obligation of IX is to use power to help O.T.O.
If R. gives you K., let her be actually present; it’s a big test for all of you, and if you can do it without the slightest ill-feeling you’ll all be Powers.
You are quite right about Him who was Predestined to be a Butcher from the Beginning of Eternity. He was, and knowing it, becomes one with His own Purpose. Aumn!
No: O.I.V.V.I.O. should be your 8º=3o motto.
Your medium does seem to have
reacted to you well. The ‘[illegible] of sand’ is 333. The
handle of the Sword is
The writings. No 1. seems largely derivative (except Uribus, which is Quite Original!) I can’t understand the constant mistakes—gross mistakes—in English. It’s rather typical of a certain state familiar to me (though I never had it myself) both bad and good. It’s an elemental masquerading as אדני, but honestly doing his best!
The Golden Apple is much better.
So is the Pyramid.
Best of all the last.
How did you get those writings?
I have just written an ‘epistle’ re O.T.O. , why the high fees and so on. I think you should take it—I’ll send you a copy soon— to big business men and tell them to come in on purely commercial grounds. We need a big financier. I’m only half a man without, a secretary and stenographer, and power to print.
I like your way of interpreting microcosmos as macrocosmos. That’s the Trick. Carry out a magick formula in N.V. and the whole world follows. C’est âtre mage. Now make R. virgin, and K. like the heroine of a novel by Von Krafft-Ebbing, and you’ll get the Balance, and perform the miracle that most needs accomplishment.
My worry has been that I thought you might be ‘confounding the space-marks’ CCXX I 51-53.
There was an old Bey of Algiers Who said “I have lived fifty years. “I don’t wish to be blunt, “But—a cunt is a cunt “And fucking is fucking.” (Loud cheers.)
You see, all authorities agree!
You must perform every act unto Nuit, and you must not discriminate between various acts, saying “This is R.” or “This is K.” a cunt is a cunt.
I assure you that the ‘personal feeling in the matter’ is the root of all misery. I have been tried very hard in this way in my present situation. I was tested again and again: I kept on repeating, much to the annoyance of everyone concerned: “I have no personal feeling in the matter.” Through the Lord, it was true. They gave me a cunt, and I emulated successfully the Great White Spirit in the ‘Daughter of the Horseleech.’ They removed it, I smoked my pipe. I’ll enjoy anything I have; but I won’t repine over what I have not.
This shall regenerate the world, the little world my sister, my heart and my [illegible], unto whom I send this [illegible].”
You have the chance (perhaps denied to me) of making a magical operation of this; and I hope you’ll do it.
Understand, other that understandest, I am not counselling any definite course of action. You must understand how to break forever the Bondage of the slave-gods.
I have crucified a toad in this basilisk abode, and I expect to see Results. I expect Vancouver to shine as the precious jewel in its head.
It is getting late and the Dogs of Reason tell me that I ought to have spent the evening refuting Bernard Shaw’s preface to Androcles.
However, it is better as it is.
It is better that I should have written you these few brief words, for thereby may come the full establishment of the New Aeon of Horus. The Fulfilling of the Law of Thelema.
Love is the Law, Love under Will.
Fraternally,
ΤΟ ΜΕΓΑ ΘΗΡΙΟΝ 666
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