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Correspondence from George MacNie Cowie to Aleister Crowley
14 Glenisla Gardens, Edinburgh.
26 July - 2 Aug. [1917]
Care Frater.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
As you are no longer G[rand] M[arshall] but my guru as of old, I preach from the text, "by means of trials and troubles a pathway is opened unto the light".
The extreme worry and perplexity I have been through has at least taught me that I must stand firmly on my own feet. There is no law beyond To What Thou Wilt,—and the will is free. I cannot longer be kidded into doing things against my better judgement. Nobody has forsaken you and fled, except a few who don't count. We are confident in your knowledge and genius, but we do not understand about your 'politics' and must wait. It is war time, the authorities are quite right, and we must bow to them. Any further explanation would look like an attempt at exculpation on, after what you say, and I am silent.
I have written to you in a certain way, as I know my letters pass through the hands of the authorities and I must make it clear for the sake of the others that the Lodge had no political object and that there is no reason for suspecting them of any assistance to the enemy—which would be contrary to the lines of our own Manifesto. Every kind of occult or other organisation is being suppressed or raided on the above account. I know you are working towards Universal Brotherhood, and to prevent discord later on, but I am hampered by very imperfect knowledge of what you have written and I cannot fully explain. To make ourselves look as if approving of the enemy would not merely be madness, it would be extreme bad form, and our people are not the sort to be mixed up in this even if I wished it myself. We could not even think of raising funds to bring you back, desirable as it is, when we are told you will certainly be arrested if you return.
I am free to say openly that 6 or 7 years ago, when I little knew what was coming, I said I would sink or swim with you, and that holds as good as ever. I am not the proverbial rat. But it doesn't matter whether you are right or wrong, I have no will towards politics and in war time we have no use for them in the Lodge. I thought you could see this yourself, and in how impossible a position we are placed. Your own resignation is an intimation that you do.
The 'scuttle' was better than letting the Lodge collapse like the original one, so very few of the members of which would return, the present B[rethren] will return when I say the word. But it's only in the last few days that I learned that an article you wrote re Nurse Cavell and which I never saw, except, as a bad joke I thought, you once mentioned it, is [as?] being shown to the B[rethren] to 'encourage' them! This won't help.
I have suffered sheer torture, such as a less sensitive man would not feel over the whole business. Common sense would let the whole business drop, and have a rest from worry till matters have cleared up. I have lost the illusion that you were coming back and that I was merely holding things together for your coming. My business position, on which my ability to help has depended is jeopardised, I am obliged to burn the candle at both ends, and one cannot struggle on like this for ever.
It is a constant worry that it takes 4 to 6 weeks to get a reply from you, and I have often to act instantly. It's merely putting an additional labour on me, and with the same result, to transfer things to S.J. [Charles Stansfeld Jones]. I must write you all the same, till this tangle is clear. And I have no real will, in spite of all I have suffered, to transfer my allegiance except nominally. It's sink or swim.
The worry from which I cannot escape for a day, even has produced dyspepsia and its horrors, and it's all about and perplexity to write at all. And the distance from London is another burden. The 'last moment of my time' has been pretty literal as well as he last shilling, and the ability to make shillings is now threatened. And there's the terrible isolation. The real difficulty is want of money and of the 'success' which is to be your proof.
I'm going through the grimmest of ordeals and trying to emerge with honour on both sides. I have taken the line that I think straight, and till I know better must stick to it. I leave it to your own comprehension to know on which side I'd rather be wrecked. I'm keeping on as well as I can, you need not shoot the man at the wheel, he's doing his best in mine-strewn waters, for the present, hoping for the best. It's very difficult to write at all, I am so tired, with one thing and another and perplexed as to what is right or wrong. I'm less irascible though.
I am writing to Parsval [Charles Stansfeld Jones] also, but in no hurry to transfer my allegiance which can only be in name as yet. Present circumstances are so abnormal that I must re-constitute the Lodge first. I have no reply yet, it's holiday time I suppose and lawyers etc not to be hurried.
I'm just going on as well as I can and trying to brace up. Dhyana is what I really need, but it seems beyond hope now.
Love is the law, love under will.
George M Cowie.
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