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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Mr. Douglas
Sept. 18/23 e.v.
My dear Mr. D[ouglas].
I am v[ery] interested by your argument about the Chical [?]. It does, in fact, quite demolish the jerry-built argument of Huxley against Deism. Let me inflict my own ideas upon you in the modest form. To us, evil is a relative term—potassium cyanide is evil to the man who drinks it by mistake but invaluable to the photographer. On your own showing the sin on trial is useful. I concur entirely.
Sin is defined in the B[ook] of the L[aw] "The word of sin is restriction". This means, in part that any hindrances to proper development is sin.
It is to the universe somewhat as a member of an infinite series is to a whole. To the whole it appears infinitessimally small altho necessary and indistinguishable from any other member. How can it know itself being the only real it cannot be an object of knowledge and implies duality. In order to become conscious of its own nature it must define it in terms of its relation with the other members. (e.g. The no. 5 has no meaning in the absence of other numbers. It can only distinguish itself from 6 by saying I am half 10 while he is half 12. I am √[square root of] 25 while he is √[square root of] 36. It is infinite because it possesses an infinite no. or relations w[ith] the other nos.). These relations are all illusions invested by it with this object just as I might say "Am I honest? Let me find out by putting myself in a position where temptation is strong and opportunity plentiful." Phenomena thus belong to an imaginary world. They are metaphors chosen to illustrate moral ideas. All events are equally useful and necessary to the individual as completing his self portrait. A sketch without distinguishable colours would be a blank. Men call things evil which in their ignorance of the above explanation they take to be realities incompatible with the conditions which produce a feeling of satisfaction, that are good for health, wealth, pleasure etc. The self knowledge obtained from observing phenomena guides us in our choice of a career. Only when we know what career suits us can we judge what is good and what evil, even relatively.
Thus I hated to learn Latin my tutor was evil. But now I find Latin good as helping me in my struggle to learn the elements of English which I need as a means of expression and so on. Yet bad, as hampering me in business affairs. It is worse than useless to the stock-broker. Scholarship makes dollar chasing distasteful. The soul is immune to its experiences. Its conscious idea of itself is evidently partial and so more or less false.
By certain methods it can withdraw itself from its absorption in phenomena. In this state (Samadhi) all things merge into one. This unity is evidently of a different order to any conceivable object of sense or perception of anything capable of being expressed in terms of the intellect. In Samadhi one not only destroys the illusions of an external universe but realizes itself as identical w[ith] the totality of what lies behind manifestation and also its relation with the sum of possibilities. The antimony between its uniqueness and its identity with all other units, the antimony between its nullity and indistinguishability on the one hand and its infinite magnitude, the antimony [illegible], its positions as the sole centre of reality about which it has imagined the universe and its position as an imaginary point in the whole and as an illusion from the point of view of all units similar to itself: All such monkey puzzles become clear. In particular, whatever happens to it besides being a phantom projected by its imagination and a reality as a form of one aspect of its nature and is a decree of destiny irrevocable and ineluctable, at the same time, the destiny has been devised by its own Free Will. (Consider a dramatist. The death of Romeo is neither good nor evil—it must happen or the play becomes ridiculous. Yet he is the sole individual responsible for its occurrence.) Free Will is identical w[ith] destiny. Forgive the apparent rudeness if I suspect that you may ay first find it hard to assimilate these ideas but I know from my own experience and that of every one I have hitherto met that clear conscious conceptions of this order do not grow on every bush. I will go so far as to say that they cannot be understood intellectually without considerable training. People who say "Oh yes, thank you so much that makes everything quite simple", are either snobs or trying to be polite or coxcombs who acquiesce in confusion of mind and please themselves on their cleverness while in fact they are too stupid to perceive the logical difficulties.
I got these ideas not by thinking but by direct experience of Samadhi. Even so, one must acquire the habit of S[amadhi] and familiarize oneself with these ideas. I confess that I boast of being the first man to express them if terms of the intellect. For many years I have been trying to construct a language competent to convey thought of this order. Only by long practice have I succeeded in obtaining a clear cut consciousness of what I mean.
To return to "The word of sin is restriction . . .
[letter continues illegibly in the hand of Eddie Saayman.]
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