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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Frank Bennett
"Au Cadran Bleu"[1] Chelles, S. et N.
July 12/[19]24 e.v.
Dear Prog[adior],
I have seen some of your recent letters. I am slowly getting back to health and able to take a little more interest in things. We can't spare Jane [Jane Wolfe] at present, she is in fact for the moment our spearhead. You are not very complimentary, anyhow. You say that Dr. Bowe is a perfect ass. That is just why he has been able to make all that money. We have not got the psychology required, which is a mixture of extravagant bluff with subtle flattery.
You should arrange to give one hour daily to helping people, and the first thing is to offer something big enough for them to be ready to give up everything to achieve it; something too, which will impress their friends, so that you get a constantly increasing crowd. The whole secret of running a democracy system seems to lie in promising the children the moon.
You say your people are frightened. You must kill that fear. Get rid once and for all of all who won't come out wholly. O.P.V.'s [Norman Mudd] letter is admirable.
It is quite wrong for you to start to build any kind of home. That is the Oedipus Complex: the Will-to-die. Your home is the Abbey of Thelema. Live as cheaply as you can and send all spare cash to O.P.V., for the building of the King's Palace.
Do not fail to understand this:
1. Our eternal problem is immediate cash.
2. This cash is needed in order to work our gold mine. The moment we get past the critical point there will be ample money, more than ample, radiating from headquarters.
My advice to you, if you are on speaking terms with any one in command of even a few hundred pounds capital, is to put to him as a plain business proposition to invest that money in our work. O.P.V. can give you the details of the scheme.
(As a matter of fact, there is every reason to hope that we shall turn the corner in the course of the month. It is a question of forcing the issue with the enemy and I have given orders that no time be lost. All the same, do your utmost pending good news.)
I think you would do better to hire a female secretary to sell your booklets etc. It will cost less than maintaining Jane [Wolfe], to say nothing of the delays. The fact that your hireling would not understand the work does not matter. In fact, it is better that she should not. She will learn about the work in the course of her employment and pick out the bits that are fascinating to her and therefore to the people to whom she is trying to sell the stuff, in order to earn her commission.
You should of course arrange that her pay depends on her success. Most of my trouble has come from my feeling it my duty to initiate new comers. Result—they got personally interested instead of keen on their job.
Fraternally,
666
Much love to you, old Prog. Alostrael 31-666-31 [Leah Hirsig]
Me too: O eater of cakes! Estai, 516. [Jane Wolfe]
1—A small hotel in Chelles, Seine-et-Marne, in the outer eastern suburbs of Paris, where Crowley and Leah Hirsig sometimes stayed.
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