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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Elihu Thomson
Bristol, N.[ew] H.[ampshire]
Aug 23. [1916]
Dear Professor Thomson,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I feel like the chief of sinners at the Day of Judgement in addressing this letter to you; but you have only to tell me to start again with some scraps of paper, and sealing-wax in my coat sleeve.
I have done no electricity since 1898, and all I remember is to distinguish between Kelvin, Sylvanus (with a "p") and yourself. But I am mightily intrigued over the globular lightning, and I should like to put forward a theory, probably absurd, which lends itself to possible reproduction of the phenomenon in the laboratory.
I assume that you have seen my letter to Prof. W. S. Bigelow.
We have (a) a very wet cottage (b) a very dry chimney. (I am aware that wet only means more water, and dry less water; but I have been reading alchemy & such stuff, and I still conceive of "fire" and "water" in the curious old sense. Norman Collie, of all people, by the way, was very keen on alchemy in the days when we climbed rocks together.) We have (c) an atmosphere charged with electricity of enormous voltage.
Now this electricity in (a) gets comfortably to ground. In (b) it does not quite know what to do. Wet clothes and legs come into (b). It can't exactly spark—no conductor available; so it forms a globe about a drop of the newly introduced moisture.
I have put this in lay language; but you will understand the idea. Is it quite mad?
Love is the Law, Love under Will.
Yours very sincerely
Aleister Crowley
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