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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Norman Mudd
Nefta
Nov. 5/23 e.v.
Notes
I. My idea has always been that we should rule by strictly magical means. i.e. I do a IXº to cause a revolution in Spain and it happens. The question is whether I have not throughout been doing this very thing. I want you ideas on the point and suggestions for improving the method.
II. War Engine—I want a ray which would dissociate any element which it met in its passage. Also one which would cause any elements to combine. (This a purely physical suggestion).
Sullivan suggested imprisoning Typhus light in small brittle glass globes and then dropping them over an enemy's country. I want your views on these two matters.
With regard to the ray, it should be manageable. One should be able to get a verendum say 8" long and point it at undesirable herd-men.
(Do you know a book by M.P. Shield in which a man (French, I think), chemist or physicist discovers a means of wiping out any thing that gets in the way of [illegible] that he has invented. It disappears rather like matter in Les Condamnes a'Mort of Claude Farriere. He introduces himself as "His Highness the Beast," and establishes his power by demonstrating his ability to wipe out people in this way. He falls in love with a woman which of course leads to his ruin. First he has an accident in which his forearm is destroyed by his own ray. Finally his power is challenged and he is helpless. His ray depended on some very rare element. He had used up the terrestrial supply in his early demonstrations.)
This book is badly written. I remember that there were 3 books by the author with either something like The Yellow, The Purple Cloud and ? Try and get it.*
III. The Lost Continent (in case you have a copy and didn't remember)
The herd couldn't get up the mountain where the Chiefs lived but there where boards giving instructions by which they could reach the governing classes: No one took any notice of it. This must be our arrangement. We give to every one (whether to dine or drink at them) and they abide at this [illegible] or no. Every human being is to have the right to accept AL and demand training. ["He must teach"] well knowing that the training involves risk to life and reason and demands complete renunciation of all previous moral and religious ideas.
It is impossible to conceal passages—and highly undesirable. If you conceal anything of that kind you run the risk of "exposure" which would lead immediately to revolution and anarchy at the best. Secrecy is guaranteed by the imbecility of the herd. They would believe themselves free and royal; the more evolved they were the more completely would they be fooled. (Note. How in the War everyone accepted Prussian regulations as safe-guarding democracy.)
Forbidden: Newspapers, advertisements, canned food (the last permitted by authority for special purposes such as exploration).
I have not made up my mind about the use of machinery. Generally speaking it must be forbidden; the problem is the definition of a machine.
IV—Should like attributions of the Enochian Alphabet, if you have it.
V. How to get the sympathetic stranger going. (see Nov. 6 paper)
VI. Absolute obedience to 666 regardless of result would be generally understood as a condition of training for [illegible].
VII. If we knew the real nature of numbers, sounds, forms, colours etc. we should find that there was a necessary connection.
I am proposing to write a book of questions each chapter to be something like "Does you mother know you're out?," "Where did you get that hat?" etc.
I will then put that question camouflaged in some highly poetic form. You might jot down any such insulting questions that arise in your mind when in need of complete repose and shove them along.
666
*i.e. just mention it to London to inquire in spare time.
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