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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Charles Stansfeld Jones
[Undated: circa May 1924?]
[beginning portion of letter is missing]
. . . of a poet does really involve refusing to admit certain facts. During this Work I have been reading "Main Street" by Sinclair Lewis. It has helped me greatly to understand your conditions. As Leah [Leah Hirsig] says, "You can't get away from Main Street". It's not a question of big cities and small towns it is the facts of life. My mission appears to be to show people by images of ideal beauty how to select and arrange those facts so as to make them more tolerable. 93 becomes a jig-saw puzzle. It's a question of fitness.
Hence I understand the sense in which I have been cast out into the heaven of Jupiter. I have perhaps thought too much of Jupiter as the ruler of the Seven inferiors. I now see myself as the fraternal and beneficent planet to which men may look for hope and guidance. (Note too that for all my brilliance my surface is always covered with clouds) I rejoice that I have a Son who is such a Fool that he says he does not know his own father when questioned by initiates. At the same time I am very pleased that you so frequently point the seeker to Jupiter. For in so misty a night as that wherein man moves, only the brightest planet may pierce the earth-born vapors.
Let me explain my position Qabalistically. As a personal adept, I am this poet and teacher in Chesed. Please hold that absolutely distinct from the impersonal Solar 666, connected with 9º=2o, the Word 93. As the Word, I am the heart of humanity itself, beating, suffering, and rejoicing with it and as it. It is this Sun which throws a minute fraction of His rays on Jupiter.
In a recent letter you spoke of "right relations", I presume between ourselves. I agree. Your book proves how perfectly you have understood and also advanced in understanding. There should be, besides the fraternal filial relation a just balance. Myself in Chokmah, Chesed, and the Path of Beth balanced by you in Binah, Malkuth, and the Path of Aleph.I the Logos informing Tiphereth through the Path of Hé (The Star XVII), the inspiration of Nuit; You, interpreting Tiphereth through the Path of Zain. To complete the equilibrium you should develop Geburah as you are evidently doing. I have already developed Yesod. We are united directly by Daleth. Let nothing tempt you to forget for one moment the selfless boundless Love which flows, under Will between us.
I write this partly because I feel that you have sometimes doubted not exactly my integrity, but the purity of my purpose. I, on my side, have feared that you were in a sense jealous or suspicious of me and ambitious to surpass me in attainment. Genesthai did endless mischief in reporting or mis-reporting remarks of yours on such points. You have certainly seemed to resent many of my suggestions; they were meant purely as fraternal advice. In many ways, I do know more than you. I am older both in years and initiation. On the other hand, you have vastly more experience of meeting ordinary people in ordinary [illegible]. I have enjoyed many opportunities denied to you such as study, travel in the East, and so on. In any case, for the common decency of the thing, there should be no difficulty about your recognizing me officially as your superior in the Order. You know perfectly well that I have never abused my leadership and it is quite a matter for your discretion whether you avow me openly on any occasion. (It is simply my personal character that makes me flare up and say "Yes, God damn you, this man is my friend" as I did when Spencer Lewis was arrested, though I disapproved of him strongly.) At the same time, I do think it a point of human and loyalty to avoid making what may be mistaken for an open denial of me, as in the case of the letter to Marky, from which it would certainly be concluded that we had quarreled badly. I had no idea that my letter would do anything but please you and will be more careful in future. It is partly your own fault for worrying about your independence, as if you had not got it.
I was very much hurt, humanly, by your letter to Marky, which read like downright Peter; and I thought you extremely wrong in not sending round the Word of the Equinox. It seemed to me an act of pique similar to your resignation from O.T.O. long since. It seemed that you had not reflected that souls of those people might be waiting eagerly for the Word. It was their right to have it and wrong in you to withhold it (The reason you gave was of course a mere joke) Let me beg you never to quote 220 other than most seriously. I also object to the use of texts to defend otherwise doubtful conduct. We are not Plymouth Brethren!
Your letter of Apr. 23—I am eager to hear about your scientific demonstrations but don't be annoyed if I implore you to submit your arguments to me and O.P.V. [Norman Mudd], especially O.P.V. before you print. Don't think me rude if I doubt whether you understand what trained students regard as scientific proof. I have had considerable training in ordinary science, O.P.V. is an expert mathematician, as far as I know your education in these matters stopped in your teens and you have had little opportunity to progress in that. Also, don't mind my saying that on several occasions you have exhibited ignorance, not of the matter of knowledge, wherein all men alike are paupers, but of the manner of knowledge, of the canon of certitude, a matter in which men differ vastly. It is just this that differentiates Conan Doyle and the quack . . .
[the next four pages are unreadable]
about my error in grouping Probationers and giving public rituals. I have admitted my mistake to him. Per Castra, I was right about not suing the "Looking Glass" and I thought it bad form for him to press the matter his brother being a partner in the firm of solicitors who advised me. Further, he certainly got swelled head about his ability as an author, and he gravely exceeded his powers in instructing probationers even in practices which he himself had never attempted. Witness your own case. He might have ruined your career. One thing he told you—I forget what now—would have smashed you. Please note, officially, that just as the main temptation of Neophytes courses from a woman, that of Probationers is to betray the Order (Zelators find greatest danger in yielding to the lower self. "Damn this bloody aspiration stuff" is the spirit.)
I admit that at the time of the breach with Fuller [J.F.C. Fuller], I was myself an unreliable Guru, being in the throes of my own 8º=3o. The M.T. [Magister Templi] had not full control of the Exempt Adept. But that was all part of Fuller's ordeal and I still think that he betrayed his genius. I want him back. In the social smash now imminent, there is a great part for him to play.
Do send me Seabrook's [William Seabrook] article. I can't understand you calling them dirty. He told me that he meant to print the worst he had heard of me, as lies, to be cleared up by what he knew of me, as Truth, adding that he knew more good of me than of any other man. I understand he was writing a serial. Perhaps the final chapter will make all clear. I cannot believe he would do a dirty trick, though Carrington, who he pays is helping him, is not a man I trust.
I am not yet well enough to start my book on the mind. No reason why you should worry your publishers about my work nor any why you should appear in the business, if you think better not to do so. Nor need my name appear. But I want my message got through to the U.S.A. somehow. You could surely sketch out some suggestions and put the whole thing in the hands of an agent. Aha, Adonis, and The Ship, with proper notes, a collection of Occult Essays, "The Camel", "The Soul of the Desert", "The Soldier and the Hunchback", "Eleusis" etc; another of such poems as "The Athanor", "The Sevenfold Sacrament", "The Rosicrucian", "The Palace of the World", "The Wizard Way",—hang it there are any number. You could even collect my Hymns to the Gods—Hecate, Dionysus, Hermes, Isis, Kali, Apollo, with other litanies and invocations. Then there is Sir Palamede, which would, I believe, 'move' very valuable if you explained exactly the nature of the ordeal in each section. Few people even understand that the Q.B. is his own Soul that howls and hungers within him, that mocks him, pursues him, eludes him, and attains him, when he has won to peace from passion. The sheer poetry, too, might do more to civilize Main Street, to prepare America for the Word than any direct religious appeal. The T.K. did nothing or worse. Shaw and Dunsany, James Branch Cabell and Mencken are our pioneers. Let them have my poetry to prepare them.
Part III of Book 4 [Magick in Theory and Practice] is now ready and is a complete Treatise on Magick with supplements giving actual rituals, especially Liber Sameck. I agree about changing the form and title. Try to get parts I and II, possibly cutting the nursery rime chapter, and if you wish, adding explanatory notes, especially to Part II under some such title as "The Elements of Spiritual Training". "Campfires on the Trail to Attainment", "The Blazed Pines on Man Soul Mountain".
About the stock of my books. My illness and exile have created a crisis which O.P.V. is handling with more capacity than cash or credit. Couldn't some big second hand book store be persuaded to take over say—half the stock and give us a bit on account? I saw in a letter the other day from a man who wanted Eq[uino]x I-VII, some U.S.A. philanthropist offered him one for £14. I appreciate the compliment but I want the man, indeed all men, to have that book. We should hold a reserve to scalp bibliophiles when the market opens and settles, but in the meanwhile help it to do so by broad casting the bulk of the stuff at reasonable process. (I suspect the booksellers themselves know more about the number originally printed than we think and are deliberately boosting the price) Turn our impotence to "bear" them. That was part of my plan to make my works artificially valuable. It was good strategy but the game now is to flood the world with reprints of the best parts of the meat at prices as low as are compatible with good production. Such a policy should not possibly overload the market and no one risks a smash but the publisher who knows his business better than we do.
"Your vision of what is before you" Can't you trust your dad with your dreams? It would help me if I knew your ideas. As to myself, I expect to die, or, go mad very soon, or else step suddenly into the limelight and have a spectacular public career of a new kind, possibly political. I may be thrown up, so to speak, when the European Volcano erupts finally. I trust you and love you perfectly and jot down on a separate sheet my ideas of "right relations". Please criticize and return draft amended if necessary. We can then make a formal (though private) declaration of our agreement.
Advise me politically, will you, son? Chi is one he-town, the hub with the hum, b'gosh, wot? I think Bolshivist economics plain idiocy, but Bourgeous ethic utterly damnable. I have a clear vision of the Thelemic State; but the point is, we are on the edge of a scrap in which I may have to choose between one of two parties—as follows.
Two days later. I am too ill to finish this letter. My brain has joined the I.W.W. I have cried for Mudd. I think my best chance of pulling through is for Fuller to take me a journey in the Desert. Hell! My mind is all at sea. Forgive me. Whatever happens, I have always loved you very dearly and been proud of you; however critical I may have seemed, it was anxious love that moved me.
Thy Sire,
The Beast 666.
There's so much to explain to you, and I can't systemize my thoughts. I'm wounded by my own Sword of Analysis. I've got to get back my Lance. Help on the miracle the Redemption of the Redeemer. It's all right: the Beast's "deadly wound" was healed! 666.
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