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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Jane Wolfe
[Paris]
Sun in Pisces [circa March 1921]
Metonith 93
Good But Feigel the Persian is in league with the Egyptian, Simpson.
I expect to leave Marseille April 2 or 16; but it isn't sure. "The Cloud" is the thing with a dark jiggle dancing among the blue messes with a red mop in r.h. lower corner.
I'm doing good work but am in very serious financial limbo. Everything promises well, and nothing happens, But I'm not really worried: it is only the bore of having to pay attention to worldly affairs at all. I took "The fairies" to a theatre two days ago: they seemed to like the impossible resumé I told them.
93 93/93
Thine, dearest girl.
666.
P.S. Lea's [Leah Hirsig] Rule should be in the spirit of my "instructions" thou snorter! Prison yard? Why not "training camp"?—to try to fix things so that each one of you may do his Will,—just as a boxer's coach cuts his smoking, orders his diet, sleep, exercises, etc. without one thought of his will of the moment, which might conflict with his True Will to knock the shit out of Dempsey. Do grasp this idea, Stephen and never mind the stones, and back up Lea all you can. Suggest improvements, yes; but keep absolute discipline, and the Vow of Holy Obedience which, if well done, frees you perfectly by taking the burden of judgement off your back, and makes you utterly superior to events, since you do anything soever that is ordered without caring what it is.
Visions. The difference between the amateur and the professional at golf is that the latter plugs along every day, rain or shine, sick or well; and so acquires a steady reliable game which nothing can upset very much. The amateur may beat him, on his "day" but the 'Pro' wins on average performance. One does a 74, three Eighties, and two Nineties; the other is never less than 76 and never more than 79. See?
So work at Visions as you would rehearse to play Lady Macbeth. Even your worst blunders ought to teach you something. I got my first Dhyana by months of constant practice, in all sorts of countries and conditions, loathing it (oh how I loathed it!) and fighting myself down (with my Guru's scornful severity to help me) 'till I nearly went mad with hate of it, and never missing a day.
I got my One Great Step by months of daily "invoking often"—across China, the Pacific, America, the Atlantic, in bereavement, in sickness, in domestic tragedy. I had to make a weekly renewal of my Oath, with physical punishment, but I did it.
Do thus about Visions. Get G ∴ [C. F. Russell] to copy Goetia sigils for you, and explore them one by one.
Don't shirk the boredom and bother; do two Visions daily.
Remember: once you are mastheaded on the Rock, there will be no shirking possible, whatever happens. Mere ennui will drive you to work, and you'll find you can't work! It's hell. Temptation will take a thousand forms. Time will betray you, minutes lag like a prisoner's weeks. Sleep will turn traitor, deserter, and torturer; insomnia varied by nightmare. Your body will nag like a drug-fiend's; your mind will act like a mad monkey in a forest fire, and a rat in a trap, to deafen you with shrieks of fear and rage and lust, and with demented gibberings. It will plead and cajole like a whore, and bluster like a bully. But all these—I have not told the tithe of a tithe of the troops in the enemy's advance-guard—will have one object, and one object only, to induce you to come down from the Rock. If they merely drive you insane, or kill you, they have lost; if you come down, however perfect the pretext, or stark the necessity, they win. And you won't be able to ask for aid or advice; you will be as desperately alone as in the hour of death, alone with Doubt and Devil, not a friend but your Destiny, your Determination, and your Diary. Hold fast on the Heights to your Flag, the plain Words of your Oath; and swing shrewdly your Sword, the unconquerable Law of Thelema!
Hold fast! Swing sheer!
666.
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