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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Montgomery Evans
Bankers Trust Company, Place Vendôme, Paris.
October 22, 1926.
Dear M. E. 2:
Yours of October 10th reached me this morning. Miss Olsen [Dorothy Olsen] crossed by the Leviathan, and will no doubt by now have seen you and given you all the news up to October 12th. Since that time a very good prospect has opened up which, although I cannot say anything definite about it for another week or so, has already operated to the point of relieving immediate necessities, and putting us more or less out of danger for the next week or two. This, however, is no reason for relaxing efforts but, on the contrary, for increasing them! We cannot really do anything until we have again a headquarters in a big centre. I am, however, starting a small publishing campaign, and I think you should be able to reckon on my bursting into print every six months for the future.
I remember Samuel [Samuel Aiwaz Jacobs] very well; of course. He is one of the most important links in the chain of evidence that Superhuman Intelligences really exist.
I never saw the Reviewer. I wish you could let me have a copy. I do not think, though, that I am likely to revise it. The theme is Cabell's [James Branch Cabell] epic, and an extra book or two makes no great difference.
777. I don't think $50 would cover the cost of printing per copy. $100 would be the minimum. You will have to work out a practical scheme with Germer [Karl Germer]. But I really can't see why a big publishing house should not take the book if properly presented to them. I find that when I show it to people, with explanations, they are all impressed; even if they are quite ignorant of the nature of the subject.
You mention Bianco, but I don't remember him at all.
Your suggestion that I should inscribe books to various people is ingenious, and impossible. I will never do anything even remotely approaching the borderland of fake. Incidentally, it would be the most idiotic thing I could do. It would discredit the whole of my output.
I see no objection to sending you a Rodin in Rime, with an inscription——and will do so when I have a copy available. There will be no fake about that!
About Krishnamurti. There is no objection on my part to paederasty as such. This is a totally different matter. It is the question of the following practice, which I class as black magical because it is unnecessary, uneconomical from the magical standpoint, and likely to arouse highly undesirable forces as being in opposition to the Law of Thelema.
The practice consists in hypnotising a boy and masturbating him when in that condition. He then becomes lucid.
You will find it broadly hinted at in the re-print of the Introduction by Wilmshurst to "A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery" by Mrs. Southwood.
I started an essay on Thelema with reference to Rabelais, but have not yet finished it.
Our position is that Rabelais was a great adept, a sort of prophet of Thelema. Note that in the description of the Abbey is an Oracle. In this he foretells an epoch when Church and Crown shall no longer count but the world be run by bankers. He also indicates Bolshevism and such things; and the last line is a plain reference to me personally. My first motto was PERDURABO, "I will endure to the end."
What you have to contact is the ignorant idea that Rabelais is just a naughty writer. He was a master of all the sciences no less than Dante and Leonardo, and like them achieved an extraordinary work for intellectual freedom.
Viereck [George Sylvester Viereck]. I should call on him, and sound his attitude diplomatically.
Our worries etc. Sorry you have made another mess of it, but the reason is plain. When people are picked by the Gods to do this particular Work of ours, they are not allowed to do anything else. Crede experto.
Your apologies for Seabrook [William Seabrook] are very loyal, but I do not see why he can't write himself.
With regard to your final paragraph. I sent you only a few days ago a statement for the New York papers. I hope to get The Heart of the Master printed at once. I wish you could arrange for simultaneous publication in New York. Surely Samuel Jacobs would do this. I think it a much better plan than the Cabell essay. For one person who is interested in literature, there are certainly a hundred who want to see the world saved, and believe (at least in the possibility) enough to take interest in any serious claim.
I do not know Denis.
I already wrote about Equinox III-2.
I know no one particularly to whom you could send quotations. General publicity is the best bet.
Equinox III-1. A number of copies were destroyed in Detroit, or so I am told. The successors of De Vinne may still hold a thousand copies in sheets.
Volume II. Was a volume of stainless silence. One of the best things I have done.
I have not seen the filmed "Magician," and will make immediate inquiries.
I may return to America when my path is made plain.
I shall be much obliged to you if you will not drop this correspondence, as in the past. We can only get on if we communicate frequently and usefully.
It is quite on the cards that I may be able to put the whole business on a satisfactory basis within the next few weeks.
Fraternally yours,
To Mega Therion 666
P.S. Has Germer shown you the photographic reproduction of the Book of the Law? He has a copy for sale at $418, and must be a proper stick-in-the-mud not to have sold it before now.
I have just dug out a copy of the Essay on Thelema, and enclose you a copy. Section VII is merely rough notes. Excuse the whole thing being so ragged, but I think it may be helpful.
PP.S. About Frank Harris. Do you know he is being prosecuted in Nice over Volume II of His Life. I think the British are behind it, owing to the Randolph Churchill story. I have not heard the result, and I have not heard from him for a year. I fear he is about finished. Anyhow, we cannot rely on him to write anything to order, and I doubt if it would do us any good.
Talking of critics; what is wrong with Mencken [Henry Mencken]? Our relations have been very friendly, but for some reason he never does anything. You might approach him. I think it is a question of catching him in the right mood.
The same remark applies to Knopf.
666
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