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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Charles Stansfeld Jones
Collegium ad Spiritum Sanctum, Cefalú, Sicily.
June 15, 1921.
My beloved Son,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
By the mysterious order of the powers, it happened to be my off day when I got your letter and the thirteen post cards, so that I was able to give a little time to their examination. I was particularly struck with the climax "In Detroit life is worth living." I confess freely, I should never have discovered it unaided.
What you say is, of course, extremely cheering. I should like, however, to warn you that you talk a little too loosely about Grades, and use the word contacted as though contact were a verb. The latter is inexcusable, but the former matter requires a few comments. No one is less a formalist than I, as you know very well, and it is perfectly true that people who have never heard of the Order may be in a spiritual state equivalent to any Grade you like to mention. But there is also such a thing as definition, and we have to work practically within certain limits which are no doubt artificial, but which are useful for those who are living in a Universe, the consciousness of which depends upon an arbitrarily self-imposed form. I think you make the mistake which has been my own worst drawback, of despising such restrictions as are involved in the regulations of the A∴A∴ and the O.T.O., of telling the truth on my own plane instead of that of the people to whom I'm talking. I remind you of Vancouver when you handed out nominal Rose Croix Degrees. The result was to break up the practical work of the Master Magicians. I naturally welcome news of people attaining a high grade, but after all a grade is only a name. Take the question of Knighthood. No power on earth can make a Knight of a successful grocer. Knighthood depends on two things: firstly, it must be conferred by authority of another Knight; secondly, the new Knight must be bound by certain oaths, to act in a certain way. The English Aristocracy has been brought into contempt by neglect of these considerations. I have been chosen as the representative of the A∴A∴ and my authority depends upon The Book of the Law no more and no less than any other statement in that Book. The Book of the Law is above me, which is not the case with any other book. Liber LXV, for example, is my inspired writing, but it is no more than mine, while the Book of the Law is the word of Aiwass, entirely beyond my criticism. That is the bed rock on which our work is founded. I am moved to re-state this because I notice that you omit to address me as always in recent letters. But if that relationship does not exist, you have no standing. My Grade depends on yours to a certain extent because of your action in claiming the M.T. [Magister Templi] Grade, which is part of my Magical History. Your grade depends on mine much more inalienably, because your claim to sonship identifies you as fulfilling certain promises in The Book of the Law Besides this, we are all Magically bound by our statements. I must also emphasize that in taking the Grade M.T. you did a very noble but a very terrible thing whose consequences cannot be evaded. You are, in a sense, artificial—none the worse for that of course, but yet very much hampered by your not having the experiences of the intermediate Grades. You have made very good indeed in your particular work and you have justified yourself by discovering the key of it all. Our position is unassailable because it is founded on The Book of the Law, but that Book says nothing about other people except the Scarlet Woman, so far as I am aware. I have been exceedingly strict in refusing to advance people in the Order unless they have complied with the most minute regulations laid down in Liber XIII and elsewhere. You are responsible not to relax those rules. We must work on the chain system and we must see to it that everybody masters every detail of his task before he goes ahead to the next grade. This absolute thoroughness of all-around attainment is what gives its dignity to the title even of Neophyte. I know, none better, how plaguey inconvenient these rules are, but we must not break them. To do so proves our work tainted by lust of result. I remember the case of Windram, who had all sorts of qualifications both for Major and Exempt Adept, but he could not master the Astral Plane; and I kept him back till he had done so.
I want you to look at this matter from yet another point of view; that of the Aspirant. We should only confuse him if we depart from the strict simplicity of the Hierarchy given in The Book of the Law. We have the three speakers: Nuit, Hadit and Ra-Hoor-Khuit, the last of these being a synthetic unity of the twins Horus and Harpocrates. Of these, the messenger is Aiwass. The human representatives of this force are the Beast and the Scarlet Woman with a child or children. All other human beings are to be initiated as may be right according to the regulations of the A∴A∴. That is a fairly simple creed. If we complicate it, without warrant, if we exceed the limits laid down by the Book of the Law, we shall muddle the Aspirant. The Law is full of practical good sense. Note III-22. Our exterior work should not go beyond the Establishment of the Crowned and Conquering Child as the Lord of the Aeon. I have been engaged recently in the criticizing my own disobedience to certain detailed instructions in the Book, and have been able to trace the bad effects of every deviation from my orders.
It is for this reason that I have been concentrating more and more on the absolute practical task laid upon me. I want you to do the same. I may be working through another body and mind; in fact, I am, through more than one, as you would see, if you could read my recent Magical Records. But we can't have a second 9º=2o independent of me, in the A∴A∴, because the essence of the Grade is the proclamation of a Word, and that word is Thelema, and it is a matter of history that I and nobody else proclaimed it. Another man might do infinitely more than I in any other respect, in all other respects, but not in that particular matter, and as the Work to which we are pledged is confined to this Word, we are ourselves confined to the strict letter of the doctrine. To go beyond this can only lead to misunderstanding and confusion. You cannot have two fathers any more than I can have two Holy Guardian Angels. Both on theoretical and practical grounds it would be absolutely fatal to try to better our instructions. There is great danger in our own advanced way of looking at things. We analyze and refine as we progress and that is all very well for us in our personal work; but this is our temptation—we are so anxious to bring others to share our illumination that we give them truths for which they are not ready. We must make a renunciation and attend wholly to the emancipation of mankind from the Slave Gods. We must impose the Law on the Mass of Mankind and leave it to them to make use of their freedom. I have resolved not to impart a great deal of what I have been getting since I came to Sicily. Our own freedom from illusion blinds us to the black darkness which wraps round our brother and sister stars. They are colliding disastrously and our work is to restore each one to its orbit.
I am in a position to attend to two things:—Firstly, the formulation in words of the Truth. I have been given the power of writing in English for this purpose. It is my personal work—no one else can do it. All I ask is to be allowed to do it and to be helped to put the said writings within the reach of students. In other words, I want leisure freed from anxiety, and a publisher who will issue my work as fast as I prepare it. Secondly, I can train officers—I have great experience in breaking up complexes and making "severe the Ordeals." All I want is a supply of raw material.
The Book of the Law suggests that there is yet another work peculiar to me—I'm doing that as best I can and waiting without anxiety the opportunity to enlarge its scope. I want you, as far as you can, to strengthen my hand. I have been going through some very severe tests in the last month or two, and you will be glad to hear that the result leaves nothing to desire. A conviction is growing on me that the time is at hand for some very remarkable developments in our Work, and your letter confirms it, to my great satisfaction. I hope you will not have been bored with the above long dissertation on the Great Hierarchy, but it is of the utmost importance that you should refrain from removing landmarks, because of the generations to come. I have been chosen to do a work unique in the history of the World: I have produced scientific proofs of the existence a discarnate intelligence. It is the beginning of rational religion. No other work can possibly compare with this one thing, and we have got to make the way of the Historian plain. The Establishment of this is the corner stone of The Book of the Law, and we have no reason for living except to Establish the Law. I am ready to die at any moment. I only consent to live in order that my life may bear witness to my work.
Love is the law, love under will.
Thy sire,
The Beast 666.
P.S.—I want you to answer this letter in detail, very clearly and simply. I need hardly say that I have the most absolute confidence in you; my only anxiety is that your spiritual attainments may be intoxicating you so deeply that you may forget about paying the bill for the dinner. The world id our Inn, and we must give the host and his waiters and cooks the hard cash that they need, not the fumes of our wine.
You earned the right to take the leap to 8º=3o by your acceptance of the responsibility of helping the folks in B[ritish] C[olumbia] at the cost of your personal progress. I earned my chance to be chosen by the A∴A∴ when I abandoned my Abramelin operation in 1900 for the sake of my B[lessed]. B[rethren]. in the G∴D∴.
Your letter of May 16 arrived belated 2 days after those of 25th all right: but you see how critically I care for your meaning!
I've answered yours of May 16 in the margin, and return the examination paper and inform you that I have never heard of the Open Tablets you mention. They sound very queer. Very glad to hear that Smith [Wilfred Talbot Smith] and you are out of jobs. There is strong evidence of a devastating current attacking our whole line simultaneously, which sounds like Ludendorf's last throw. We are near the end of our last week of half rations, and expect to begin fasting on Monday.
666
This morning your dateless note about V O V N—and commend your caution in not proffering the Latin equivalent. I suppose Velle Omnia Velle Nihil will do. I am naturally extremely glad of the news which I must take as an accomplished fact, but I hope you will urge our Brother to fill up the gap.
666
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