|
Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Norman Mudd
The Desert
Nov. 21/23 e.v.
Care Frater,
93
1. Don't call yourself my secretary except to Hotel People and the like where it may help my credit. Write as an officer of the Order—Acting Cancellarius.
Don't let people take you for a mere megaphone. Your independence makes your devotion to my work impersonal and evidence of its value.
2. Alma [Alma Hirsig] should certainly be in your hands for the present. I mention Cefalu in my letter as it meets all her conscious desire—opportunity to paint and the presence of Lea [Leah Hirsig] and Hansi. We must try to arrange for Lea to be there, at least for a time, to receive her. February seems to suit both.
3. I enclose brief note for Miss [illegible].
4. Yours of Nov. 17—
Procedure not ee [?] (So says 666)
Yesterday 667 [Leah Hirsig] had a sudden severe attack quite mysterious—violent pains in head almost driving her insane, vomiting ultimately relieved her. I suspect some form of poisoning. This coupled with bitterly cold nights makes me doubtful about the proposed journey. We can't start anyhow till we get cash for Alma's Money Order (416 fr[ancs]). I suspect the Gods of delaying us purposely. I feel as if some totally new current were on the way which we should be on the spot to pick up. I hope to try 2 or 3 days under canvas about full moon to see how she stands the cold at night.
I—Notes for 50 francs mailed as asked. II. If trial trip succeeds we will attempt this. III. Will deal with everything possible in this letter or anyhow before leaving Nefta. IV. Will do without any new purchases but regret not having Sweater asked for a month ago and supposed received by you. We expected it to arrive with the Ether—also some other minor things in particular some morphine (from Cefalu). V. The move to Paris must depend on Alma—clothes—and some other matters. When you reach London try to retrieve my stolen suits from Bickers and persuade Cutler and Rooke to let me have 1 of my 2 fur coats.
Your remarks in Arabic figures.
1. Glad my replies have helped. The way to get rid of your inhibitions and muddles is to force yourself to eliminate moral judgments. Think of yourself as, and all as pieces in a game of chess. Each moves in a limited way but it is useless to be angry about the limit—To wish a knight moved like a rook etc.—You must take the position as it is and make the best of it. All forms of emotion and passion are fatal to good play.
2. I will resolve your complexes [illegible]. Don't worry: Let me work.
I advise your avoiding brooding over special complexes as such. Apply to all the master [illegible] the three characteristics and similar considerations. The relation of O.P.V. [Norman Mudd] or N[orman] M[udd] in Tunis An XIX is, as it were, an eddy in the stream of event. (Reading The Golden Rose I had a very strange feeling, imagining Hilarion [Jeanne Foster] as she is to-day, the present is all important and each knot must be unravelled on its own plane but no knot matters save in reference to the G[reat] W[ork] which is free from time, space, the Khu and circumstances.
Your affair with 667 [Leah Hirsig] was specially designed to test you. Her own share shows this clearly. The Gods were obliged to blind her that that she might play her part.
3. I deliberately compromised you by sending letters signed by you committing you to deal with unknown situations not of your making, that you might learn to use your mind as a machine under alien control. You must not dodge the test but accept fully the awkwardness involved as if asked to carry on an unfinished game of chess begun by an [illegible] blunderer whose only link with you is the common will to give check mate.
4. IX°—hints on separate sheet. My record might help on some points but you must discover by yourself the best conditions.
Tunis is an admirable place for both IX° and XI°—Partners supplying indeterminate energy wherein with higher types they defile Lion or Eagle by producing them with motives other than physical.
5. α. Beware of jealousy. A.I.'s [Eddie Saayman] thesis is vitally important to his Magical Career. I urge you once again to study my Carnot essay seriously. The theory of AL about joy demands some such physical parallel. It is useless to push back the problem of sorrow to the higher planes where it would recur, as in the case of the explanation that God created the World—Who created Him? All events are caused by Love under Will and so there must be a cycle of joyous action—Equally, on the physical plane, there must be a cycle of exothermic reaction. (extending the meaning of thermic—the "waste" heat must become capable of highest physical potential. My essay tries to show one way in which this could take place. In any case, it is essential to prove that it takes place somehow and the basis of this again lies in 0 = 2. The point is that there is no final state or initial state, the last is bound to become the first. The crux of the problem is "what exactly happens at that moment?" All other "reactions are easy to understand. The question is "Why is the state of perfect balance and fulfilment of energy unstable?" This point is touched in my theory of the need of the soul to devise for itself a comedy of disguise. I look to your intellect to grasp my meaning perfectly and to state my views (which satisfy my intellect, are implied in AL, and checked by trance) in terms intelligible to modern thought. Bring out, in particular, that this one Law explains all types of problems. I look to you to help and encourage A.I. in every way. I want you to grapple with 0 = 2 until your mind assimilates it as the necessary basis of all clear thinking.
β. The vindication is me of the [illegible] I devised for you. Work as Zola did in Dreyfus. You must succeed for the obvious reasons but also as your Magical Task and mindful that success will lead to a new situation of the utmost Magical importance. One point is that the gold of Fuller [J.F.C. Fuller] and others must be tried in the fire. They must master their personal feelings of every kind and come out manfully for me, hating me if they must, for the sake of Truth and fair play.
γ. My will is abstract. 667 and you must give it form. Enclosed in Act of Truth Feature of the Ordeal.
6. Glad your health is better. On Nov. 14 667's revolt against G.W. reached a crisis. I made her renew the Oath which restored her to herself and no doubt sent a current to you. Your illness was perhaps in part due to her magical trouble.
7. Glad you raised the point. Following not quite accurate.
"She kissed him once, she kissed him twice That body was so brave The fouler grew his goblin hue The Darker grew the cave
She kissed him thrice, the spell dissolved He rose beneath her hand The noblest Knight on Scottish soil Her brother, Ethbert Brand.
Note legend of Beauty and the Beast. Note my title the Beast. The formula is to claim the highest Kingship so that men say "that's what I want" and approach. They must then be disappointed and repelled at every point. If their sense of truth avails they smile and proceed. Instantly the illusion vanishes and they see that the original claim is just.
Note H.P.B. [Helena Petrovna Blavatsky] who persuaded seekers that she was a cheat (having claimed to be sent by the Masters). She did this so well that I have to hang on like a bull-dog to The Voice of the Silence to prevent myself doubting the Adeptship.
This formula is ancient. In Egypt they took the Candidate in search of spirituality firstly etc to a goat and then said "This is our God and you have to kiss his arse." On his preparing to comply, he found the face of a young priestess awaiting his kiss. Note also the Questing Beast in the Arthurian Cycle and very many similar legends.
Fuller's Ordeal needs this key. When I read in his opening of the Temple of Solomon that his joining me was as he said "a quiet turning of a corner" I knew instantly that there was something wrong tho' I could not explain to myself what or how to act. All is now clear. He came to me in straightforward admiration of the poet, climber etc. and found me a gentleman with most of my tastes and views sympathetic with his. He thus missed the Goat Ordeal and so had to go through it in a deadlier form. He had to be repelled after thinking that he knew me and could judge.
Part of your Tunis Ordeal was due to a similar fact. You had never loathed me properly, so you had to suffer the vision of the Demon Crowley in a very acute form. I must have seemed base, brutal, selfish, false to my own word—a typical old husband and a dog in the manger at that. I encouraged this view as best I could. You became stone blind about me in quite petty trifles, e.g. the pawning watch episode. Your Act of Truth in S.A. pulled you through easily. Fuller failed chiefly because he had always played safe. He never offered help outside the work he did. His key is to say now "whatever 666 seems I know him to be the prophet of the Aeon and I hereby give up for him my career, my friends, my reputation, my cash, and my life." The more completely a man does this, the less he suffers (See Liber 418 [The Vision and the Voice] as to keeping back one drop of blood. It breeds scorpions and vipers and the [illegible] of slime. Cf. also The Story of Ananias.)
9. About Mrs. Clark's letter—you might add some reference to your own experience:—The virtue of the leap in the dark, how your first Act of Truth has made subsequent ordeals easy.
The Whistling Coon is good only as a smutty story. It does not exist outside that limitation.
Oath No. ? Dr. Sigmund Freud. Without one shred of evidence I'll Dishcush vat liesch behindt der Veil Vit mine Intelligence prehensile Exactly like a monkey's tail.
I more or less agree with your estimate of the B[oo]k. It should include numerous other Cefalù poems. But poetry is more than self-revelation. Beauty is of its essence.
Van Brunt—see separate sheet.
93 93/93
The Beast 666
per 667
Re Fuller—Note a previous mistake of Fuller's— Eq[uino]x I-VIII T. of S.t.K. [The Temple of Solomon the King]. I needed an oracle for the [illegible] and asked F[uller] to take one for me w[hich] I should open at midnight. He wrote a stupid and vulgar thing—I forget what—Of course I took it as an oracle, at the same time I was amazed that he should not have respected my Magick aspirations. It was a silly [illegible] fit for . . . [remainder missing].
Notes (yours)
I. Noted. II. Answered elsewhere. III. We have Alma's [Alma Hirsig] P.O. It must be cashed via Tunis. IV. Zero but hasten Dunhill tobacco and my sweater. V. Paris quite all right for climate given adequate funds.
My previous letter outlined various plans.
III. 1. No reply needed. 2. Your letter excellent. 3. With Act of Truth Essay and explanatory letter from you it should be all right. In such cases I should allow a period of grace for him to answer summons (with essay and covering letter) that he may clear up any obscure points. It must be shown that we offer an unique reward. 4. Noted. 5. Will send.
|