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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Montgomery Evans
Tunis. December 26, 1923. e.v.
Montgomery Evans 2nd, 900 Dekalb Street Norristown, Pennsylvania.
Dear Sir,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I have just got your letter which Professor Mudd [Norman Mudd] has answered in past. I hope the sale of John Quinn's library does not mean that he is dead, though I am rather afraid it is so. Before I left America he was already in the hands of the surgeons, and I have not heard from him for years.
Let me answer your three questions as definitely and fully as I can.
1. As Professor Mudd has told you, I understand, there is a large stock in Detroit and Chicago, in the charge of Mr. C. Stansfeld Jones [Charles Stansfeld Jones], P.O. Box 141, Chicago. There is specially a parcel of first editions, proofs, Mss, and other rariora for which we have been asking $17,000. The vellum "Sword of Song" which you have, and the vellum "Konx om Pax", which I think Quinn had, would come near to completing the collection, and anyhow I could make up a practically complete set from my own sources.
There is also a stock in London to the value of some $20,000. The Chiswick Press was sold some years ago, and the present managing director is a mixture of crank and crook. He refuses to hand over my property on the pretext that some of the imprints are missing or irregular.
The persecution which I have endured for some time past has reduced me to absolute destitution. I have been living literally from hand to mouth for I don't know how long. This fact is well known to my enemies who do not scruple to attack my honour and my property in every base way, knowing that I cannot take the proper legal action.* If we had a business partner with a few thousand dollars, I and my secretary could put everything on a sound business basis very quickly, and incidentally vindicate my reputation against the creatures who have been vile enough to publish all sorts of idiotic falsehoods about me.
2. I find it very hard to answer this. The scope is very wide. Roughly speaking, the O.T.O. is a system of group working which I reconstructed with the idea of building up an entirely new social system, authoritative and hierarchical, free from all the temptations to blackguardism which makes the present situation impossible. The main idea is to dissociate wealth and political power.
The Abbey of Thelema is quite a different idea. It is really a training college for people who want to attain to initiated wisdom under my personal supervision.
3. I expect to be anywhere between here and London for the next two months. Unfortunately, my extremity is such that I cannot make plans of any kind; the problem is simply how to keep myself and my helpers from actual starvation. This has hitherto been fended off by a series of miracles which alone constitute the most astonishing record that you can imagine. I will let you know in case of any change of address.* I assume from your 3rd question that you are yourself likely to be in Europe next summer, and I should be very glad to have the opportunity of meeting you.
I hope I have never failed, and am not likely to fail in courage; but the infernal wear of the situation which has continued unabated for years is beginning to tell on my nerves, and I find it difficult to write calmly about a future which is so tragically uncertain. It is a most valuable lesson in the possibilities of life. I had to go through the mill in order that, when the time comes for me to rule, I may understand from personal experience the condition in which the vast majority of civilised people have to live.
One of my great difficulties is that I have gone so far on the path that almost everything I say is liable to be hopelessly misunderstood. I am asking Prof. Mudd to write a sort of covering letter to this in case I have said anything likely to produce a false impression.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours truly
Aleister Crowley
*See covering letter.
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