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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to William Sturgis Bigelow
The Adams Cottage. No. Bristol, N.[ew] H.[ampshire]
Aug. 8, 1916 E.V.
Dear Sir, and I presume Brother,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Thanks for your letter of the 7th. Yes; the red seal is super-Masonic, pertaining to a degree—the ninth—in an order of which the seventh degree corresponds to the 33 a. & a. [Ancient and Accepted]. I venture to enclose a pamphlet, as you appear interested. It is all part of a movement which promises to be very large. There are branches almost everywhere except U.S.A. where people don't want to be, but to have.
To get back to our lightning, it might interest you to know that I was struck by it once. I was about 18. I forget the exact year. I had been climbing the Pillar Rock of Emmerdale in Cumberland, got soaked in a violent hailstorm with thunder and lightning and set out to cross the Pillar Mountain in my way back to Was Dale. On the ridge of this mountain is a sheep fence of wire. I crossed it, and then turned to watch the lightning striking the uprights—quite small flashes, dozens of them one after the other. Jupiter (seeing my ice axe probably) made a dash at me. I felt a shock—luckily I was wet through—and sat down hard. Then I broke the world's record back to the hotel!
I remember about the lightning on board ships now you recall it. (I was a chemist with Murray Thompson, Herbert Jackson, Ramsen, Ramsay, Collie, Travers & others, whom you may know, and did a little general physics as well) I was really convinced that the ball formed in the room; it could hardly have travelled unseen. The chimney was quite the only other hypothesis; and even then—well, can a globe, as a globe, pass through matter as dense as brick?
Love is the Law, Love under Will.
Yours very truly and fraternally,
Aleister Crowley.
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