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Correspondence from Charles Stansfeld Jones to Aleister Crowley
Box 141 Chicago. Ill.
December 15th 1922 E.V.
Beloved: 93.
Many thanks for yours of November 22nd just received. I regret that you did not get the copy of Q.B.L. I had reserved #2 specially for you. It will doubtless turn up in due course, but I am sending you another to make sure.
The Occult Review gave me a fairly gratifying notice in the Christmas Issue. I quote the beginning and end. "One is of immediately struck by the more than ordinary lucidity and sense of construction displayed in this work. . . . . . . . There is no escaping the depth and wisdom of the qabalistically concealed meaning, and of these Frater Achad gives many illuminating examples. It is, however, in the appendix to Chapters 3 and 4 that the most interesting discovery is made. We are asked how it was that the serpent who founded the paths by ascending the Tree could possibly have started at the top, and we are shown what would happen if we started on our upward journey by the Eleventh Path leading from Malkuth to Yesod and attributed to the Tarot Trump)—The Fool—i.e. following of course, exactly the reverse order of the Paths as they were numbered in the old way, but keeping exactly to the order of the Letters from Aleph to Tau. As to elaborate further would take up too much space, we can only advise those who are able to do so to study Frater Achad's essay. Their industry will be well repaid. F.F.W." I also had a full page Ad in that issue, which I trust will bring some results.
You may also be pleased to hear that I wrote a short book entitled "From Crystal Gazing to Crystal Vision" and that same was accepted by a Chicago Publishing House. It should appear in Jan. I have also written a brief Magical and Qabalistic treatise on Wagner's Parsifal [The Chalice of Ecstasy]. The correspondences are most extraordinary. I have not yet found a publisher, though the one above mentioned is going to insert a notice saying same is in Preparation. I may try to raise the funds by subscription as it is quite a small book.
All this sounds successful, but it is not so financially—so far—in fact, things are terribly restricted in that direction.
I have not had a copy of your D.D.F. [Diary of a Drug Fiend] but I did receive a copy of an English Paper which is trying hard to damn it. It was too scurrilous and petty. It is hard to foresee the effect on the Work in general. I am sorry it happened that way.
I am glad you feel your campaign was successful, you can of course judge best as to your methods of promoting your Work. Honestly, knowing so little of your work in Italy, and with only the case of C.F.R. [C. F. Russell] to go by I should feel gravely doubtful as to the advisability of suggesting that any of my little group of students sought advancement by that means. Our methods are evidently different, but I am inclined to think that a less strenuous course is suited to those who are attracted to my presentation of the Great Work.
I trust you will not misunderstand my statement. I
cannot and do not deny the great help I have received from
you, and the sound a practical advice you have given me from
time to time. Not am I at odds with your ultimate conception
of the Universe, as far as I understand and can interpret
them. Your remarks on the correspondences between the Atom,
Man and the Stars are wonderfully lucid. The great
difficulty seems to be in the manner of presentation. Your
policy seems to be to give people various kinds of shocks,
which seem to me to tend to a misconception of your purpose
and motives, and although the final issue may be well, in
the mean while much harm seems to be done by ignorant people
getting hold of wrong ideas and consequently doing you and
your Work damage. Since my mottos have always implied
"Unity" it has always been my desire to bring together
opposing factions and to show, both by precept and example
that the work of the New Aeon is the logical outcome of the
Old, that properly understood it is—as you stated—the
strictest possible bond, and far from leading to undue
license and an overstepping of the bounds of any natural
law, it serves to lead us to a better understanding, even of
the stupid and unnecessary restrictions adopted by the
ignorant, and to a realization that all things are right as
they are if we but look at them from a broad enough view
point. As soon as people realize the truth within themselves
they will automatically begin to act upon it, but the action
must come from within. I feel that the Current of the New
Aeon is apparent everywhere, that the type of children born
within the last 17 years or so is definitely different, and
that the new generation will be a distinct advance upon the
old, whether we preach the Law or not. That is of course no
excuse for inaction, but one cannot help feeling that if the
New Law is to be a success our lives are the best example of
the Truth we have received. The pendulum may swing back far
towards the other side, after the great restriction of the
old Aeon, but we, it seems, might as well try to exemplify
the Aeon of Maat—since equilibrium has been held up as the
basis of the Work.
Love is the law, love under will.
Ever Fraternally,
By the way. Read the end of the 17th Aethyr again. The reference to the number of Aiwaz evidently implies 93 since TARO is a "word" not a number.
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