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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Frank Harris
circa April 1924
My dear Frank Harris,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Yours just in—and I had feared your silence implied that you were annoyed with me for not making good that 500 francs! My God! what a facer for you! And what a 'stout heart' you put to the 'st'e brae'! The shocks of the past few days—my hotel is throwing me out on the 31st and I haven't even anything left to pawn!—have helped my health a lot. I dragged myself across Paris today to find you, and got back (all in!) to get your letter half an hour later.
Yesterday I decided to go the England the moment cash comes from Mudd [Norman Mudd], to attack the Sunday Express with my naked hands.
Do forgive me if I put before you once again the deepest conviction of my soul.
Rotten as I am in a thousand ways, I have been chosen by the 'Gods'—'Masters'—'Secret Chiefs'—'Guardians of Mankind'—what you will, the idea is the same—to bring to earth the Formula of the New Aeon, the basic Word in which Mankind will work for the next 2000 years or so—the Word 'Co what thou wilt' with all the implications given in the Book of the Law (dictated to me by an unseen personage in Cairo twenty years ago.)
I have been faithless in many ways: I have tried in particular to combine my mission with living the regular life of an English Gentleman. And the Gods won't allow it. They have checkmated my plans with ever-increasing severity, until I have been bludgeoned, stabbed, and starved into doing their work whole-heartedly the way they want it done.
Similarly with you . . . You must take my Mission seriously, and lend all your energies—which will then be renewed, like an eagle's—to establishing the law of Thelema.
To put it very crudely, Industrialism-Capitalism is heading for the cataract. The only alternative yet is Bolshevism, which won't do either.
Now, the Law of Thelema offers a third Way. These last years I have been training various people to act as a Brain for the human race. I have a number of people of some importance interested already; and the idea of my lawsuit [against the Sunday Express] is to give me the opportunity of proclaiming this Law in such a way that it will attract all those who are ready to cut the painter, and come out from the raving herd, and assume Kingship to rule the disorganized and bewildered mob.
I assure you the world is ready for this move. Even the 'successful' are sick to the heart of the hollowness of everything. My lawsuit will supply the necessary publicity; my opening and closing speeches will be prophetic—the Forth-Speaking of the Word of the Lord. With you to make practical use of the situation, to organize and distribute . . . Do this, and we shall not have lived in vain!
Please don't think my troubles have turned my brain! I am sending this through Frater O.P.V. [Norman Mudd] asking him to add a less prophetic explanation.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours ever,
The Beast 666 (in the mask, grotesque and worn of Aleister Crowley)
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