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Correspondence from Charles Stansfeld Jones to Frank Bennett
Apt. 10, 207 Howard St Detroit, Mich.
April 4th 1920 E.V.
Care Frater,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law!
Your letters of Feb 7th and 25th both to hand yesterday. I shall welcome Bro. David Ross III° on his arrival here and do all possible to see that he obtains instruction on the matter he wishes to obtain Light upon and the Work he desires to accomplish. I had a letter the other day from another friend of yours, J. Charters,1 which shows me that you are doing good work in spreading the Light out in Australia and that seeds are planted which bear fruit in due season.
In regard to your other letter of 25th enclosing the Neophyte's Oath,[1] I am glad of all you tell me. It seems to have been [your] fortune—as min—to be removed to far countries as soon as you have fairly got in touch with the Order in England. This at first may have appeared a handicap, but in reality, strength comes therefrom, and those, who like yourself, have been tried in this manner and stuck to the Work, are just the ones who are really doing something to help today while those who seemed to have more advantage have been silent like the man with the single talent who hid it away in a napkin. It does a man no harm to be left to himself and that is one of the best tests of his ability for this special Work, we may be scattered to the ends of the Earth, but each gives out his little bit of Light and that is better than all being coddled and protected in one place after all, with our light hidden under a bushel.
Don’t worry about Grades, Frater, in the A∴A∴ there are, fortunately, some definite rules, and one has to take each grade in the regular way, and wait the specified time between those which state such a time. It is very necessary that this should be so, also you have not fulfilled certain requirements as yet necessary before you can advance. For instance, one Bro. I know is still a Neophyte because he cannot master the Astral Plane, yet in other ways he is a great magician at least a 6º= 5o as far as some of his work is concerned.
I am not going to set you definite tasks because it is much better for you to continue to rely upon yourself, at the end of your Neophyte period you will be set an examination of a practical nature and have some definite Astral Work to do, to prove your proficiency on that plane. Also you must design your Pantacles etc.
I shall be glad to have your students Exam papers when completed.
Give my Love and Blessing to all Br[ethren]. of the O.T.O.
Love is the law, love under will.
[Elevenfold cross] Fraternally,
Achad Parzival X°
1—Frank Bennett signed the Oath of a Neophyte on February 25, 1920 taking the new magical motto of Progradior: a slightly clumsy attempt at the Latin for “I Advance.” There is a discrepancy as to the year in which Bennett signed the Neophyte Oath—in his letters it appears as 1920, whereas in his copy of Liber Collegii Sancti (now in the library of the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center), it is given as 1919. Given that the letters were contemporary, whereas the information was not entered on to the appropriate page of Liber Collegi Sancti until 1921, it seems reasonable to take the year as given in the letters as the correct one.
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