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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Jane Wolfe
c/o Cook, 245, B'way, N.Y.C.
Aug. 20, 1919
Best beloved,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I think the business about your brother utterly stupid, and the explanation beneath contempt. Fee Wah talks like an American medium, not like a Chinese. I am quite ashamed of you. But so long as you WON'T use critical methods, you must expect it. Your own purity of soul enabled you to turn the matter to account, but that doesn't make it any better in itself. Do please believe me that the Masters do not do this sort of thing. Masters do not talk English, much less American, and there is no cant. Masters always prove their words; the atmosphere of the 'explanation' is that of Mr. Sludge the Medium. If you have not read that, sell your rubbishy Tennyson, and buy a Browning, and learn that poem by heart. Damn you (darling!) you do make me mad) I want you so badly to do the Great Work; your dope is right so far, that you have got it to do; and I think I may be the one to show you how. I wish you were over here. I hate the way F.[ee] W.[ah] speaks of your sister. A Master wouldn't do that. Why is it better to ease a man's pain in one way than another? I bet your master knows her own business. All nurses are vampires; it's part of the general Sympathy. Oh dear, I do wish I could talk to you for a few incarnations. But I'm tied by both legs just now. The situation as to Equinox 2 [Volume III, No. II] is terribly critical. The Detroit publishers have left me flat on No. 1 [Volume 3, No. I]; they owe me over $4000.00, and I don't collect a cent. The result is that I need about $2000.00 to pay for the printing of No. 2. By far I haven't got a publisher to take it off my hands, and I'm in despair. Luckily, experience tells me that the Gods always play that little joke on me, and clear things up, often in the most unexpected and phantastic way, at the very last minute. But it serves to shew me the human side of me, in case I should get too gay; for I cannot be insensible to anxiety and distress. I have to do definite work to put myself right.
This explains why I have been lax in writing to you. I haven't been in the right mood, and I've been cudgeling these mouldy brains to find a way out. There seems to be one, but it's a devil of a way. There seem to be great changes pending. I had a wild hope when your second letter turned up this afternoon that you were coming east.
I was very amused at your symbol; you might read The Interpretation of Dreams, by Freud. Sancta Simplicitas! You are certainly the right Woman for the Work; that is the tragedy of the Devil, that all his lies turn out to be true, when they get into the right hands. I love you for your sweet and saintly innocence; it is what I most need to find, especially just now. Well, never mind the why, enough of Because!
Love is the law, love under will.
Ever yours devotedly,
666.
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