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Correspondence [draft] from Aleister Crowley to Sir Godfrey Collins
[Sent by Crowley to Norman Mudd to be edited and sent under Mudd's signature.]
Tunis.
May 8, 1923.
Dear Sir Godfrey Collins,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I am taking the liberty to address you personally as an elected representative of the nation to which I belong. My object is to induce you to intervene in the interests, not only of decency and justice, but of defenceless people who may find themselves at any moment in a situation similar to that of Aleister Crowley and his family and friends.
I begin by a memorandum of the facts of his case.
1. Since 1898 he has written many books of poems, stories, scientific and philosophical essays etc. besides numerous articles of literary criticism and the like. His published works have been in every case, received (whether with the highest praise or the deepest contempt) without a single objection to their character on the score of morality, or the past of any responsible critic. He is admired even by those who do not.
2. My father was a leader of the exclusive Plymouth Brethren. I was educated at Malvern and Trinity College Cambridge. I was never in trouble of any kind with the authorities.
3. At my majority I came into a fortune sufficient to render me independent of adopting a profession. I spent my life in exploring [illegible] and studying the religions of Asia, and Africa, and America on the spot of their classics, some of which he has translated into English.
4. I have embodied the results of my religious research and my personal endeavour to obtain immediate intuition of spiritual truth in a number of serious essays. My views, while not orthodox, have given no offence to even of other opinions being expressed responsibly in noble language and inspired by the most serious [illegible].
5. No reflection has ever been cast upon my moral character save in the matter of my divorce. In this case I voluntarily accepted the appearance of blameworthiness from motives of chivalry, and for the love which I bore my wife, with whom I continued on the most friendly terms during and after the action.
6. All my life I have been an absolutely fearless champion of truth and integrity. This led, in 1900, to my exposure of a gang of dishonest professors to Occult Science. It resulted in their dispersal. I have been pursued ever since by their implacable vengeance, as also by the envy of certain literary quacks who found my contempt intolerable. Their method has been to circulate the wildest and most absurd falsehoods to [illegible] discredit. My frequent absence from England on exploration facilitated their work.
7. I was never attacked openly till 1910 when two notorious blackmailing weeklies of the lowest class failing to abstract hush-money published various false and defamatory statements about my "Rites of Eleusis" and my personal character. I was advised not to take any notice, they being bankrupt concerns, and also on the ground that the average British jury might be prejudiced against a poet as such.
8. During the War I gave a hand to my enemies by publishing violent pro-German articles. I had failed after repeated attempts to obtain official employment in England and so conceived it my duty to countermine the German propaganda in America (1) by inflaming there a campaign of exaggerated malice which would defeat its own end and (2) by reporting such secrets of theirs as I could surprise to our Secret Service. (A detailed account of these matters is given in "The Last Straw" of which Beresford has a copy.)
9. I returned to England at Xmas 1919, but for the sake of my health proceeded shortly afterwards to make myself a home in Cefalù, Sicily. He suffers from chronic bronchitis and asthma, which make the climate of England impossible except in summer. He had also in mind to devote himself to [illegible] and literary work, which demand freedom from the distractions of life in cities.
10. I came to England in May 1922 and stayed there for over six months without annoyance.
11. During my absence in America practically the whole of my property had been stolen by the people to whom I entrusted it. This fact gradually became known, and my enemies took courage.
12. Knowing that my back was turned and my financial position precarious, advantage was taken of the publication of my book "The Diary of a Drug Fiend" by your firm, to denounce it as objectionable; but this contention being immediately seen to be untenable they changed their tactics and published all the false and ridiculous stories about me which they could rake up from my personal enemies or from the cesspools of their own imagination.
13. I took them, and maintain now, the position that a man who is wholly devoted to the service of humanity as I am, has no right to leave his work and spend incalculable time and money in law suits, even to clear his character. Time will vindicate him automatically, and his work will stand when the charges against his are forgotten.
14. I make no complaint of any injury to myself. The wise man profits by every thing that happens to him. But humanity has been injured (1) in the persons of those dependent upon me, (2) in [illegible] by being deprived of the benefit which it would have derived from your publication of my book "Simon Iff", (3) in the case of the lowest classes, by the corruption of their minds in reading the vilenesses of which they accuse me as a pretext for pandering to their salacious curiosity, (4) in the [illegible] of society itself, by illustrating the defencelessness of the artist or philosopher against Simian malice.
15. No reason having been assigned for the order or expulsion from Italy made against me. I must not presume the influence of any of the above. It may be a mere item in the hysterical campaign against progressive ideas of the reactionary rabble momentarily in power in Rome. For instance, he is known to be a prominent Freemason, and that Order has been declared illegal.
16. From the foregoing it should be evident that the English Law of Libel doubtless adequate to protect the business or professional man, to whom a law suit is no more than an annoyance, leaves utterly defenceless the absentee, the poor man, or the man wrapped up in creative work to whom a law-suit means financially or psychologically, means disruption.
17. In France, as you doubtless are aware, any man attacked in a newspaper has the right to reply in its columns to the extent of double the amount of the attack, free of charge, and further, if he so wish, by paying the regular rates of advertisement. To me this law seems admirably just. In practice, its [illegible] has been to put a complete stop to scurrilous defamation of the kind which, whether inspired by consideration of blackmail or not, are a disgrace to decency and fair play in England and the United States.
18. The purpose of this letter is to ask you to introduce a bill for the protection of those in a similar situation to myself in this recent outrage and indirectly to whose who are legitimately associated with them in business and social relations. I need only observe that your firm has itself been hampered in its beneficent activities by the pressure of these circumstance. Similarly, the highest class magazines, such as the English Review, while believing that my contributions would be of the greatest value to their readers are afraid to publish anything from my pen unless pseudonymously. The alteration of the law in the sense suggested by me would undoubtedly do much to free the consciences alike of the author and his [illegible]. As things stand the most prosperous and established thinkers fear to give offence to the most ignoble parasites of the Press. Even a writer like H. G. Well or Arnold Bennett fears, if not the expense of bringing a law suit and the uncertainty of winning of even the clearest case, at least the anxiety and distraction involved.
Love is the law, love under will, hoping that you will see your way to use me as an English Dreyfus to bring to nought the conspiracy of ignorance, prejudice and malice against genius, and even against educated thought as such.
I remain
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