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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Bentelli
[Undated: circa January 1924?]
My dear Bentelli,
When I called this afternoon the spirit of Altruism, Progress, Christianity, and all those nice things, flowed up in my so fearfully that I quite forgot one important proposal.
I am admittedly knowledgeable beyond the common in matters such as are discussed in the synopsis herewith enclosed. I can promise you six fulminating articles. The matter will not stop with their publication. The present state of the law in England, France, America, Italy, is an outrage on decency and common sense.
Here is an instance. A French doctor, with a Johns Hopkins diploma, is actually so afraid of the law that, finding it necessary to prescribe Ether to pull a patient through a crises of dyspnoea he writes its prescription that the Ether is to be used for washing a wound. I do not think that any comment is needed; and I am sure you will agree with me that a series of articles exposing the extraordinarily scandalous condition [illegible] at present should create a perfectly delightful rumpus and incidentally help to relieve many unfortunate sufferers to whom life is only tolerable on condition of palliative treatment with forbidden drugs.
I may point out that perfectly healthy people who use these drugs for vicious purposes have no other difficulty in obtaining them than is involved in paying high prices to illicit traffickers, as is notorious. The law achieves precisely the opposite of its intended effect.
P.S. I hope your absence from the office yesterday does not imply ill-health.
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