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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Tom Driberg
[circa December 1926]
Dear Brother,
Ghastly your tragedy indeed; with the comic relief of your calling yourself a communist. Normally, one slides imperceptibly into the slime of bourgeois ideas. But, in your case, your being chosen for the Work, and you having signed the pledge form, there will be a swift and devastating punishment which, "if it were graven with a needle upon the eye-corners would be a warning to such as would be warned."
I foresaw this booby-trap over six months ago and put you on your guard. As to your adviser, why should you respect the opinion of this anonymous person who urges you to play the coward and break your word? Also to listen to anybody is a mug's game; you should always see for yourself. I warned you about this too. Well, you have broken every magical law, and you must take what's coming to you. I suppose; but I wished you had come to me otherwise than as damaged goods.
P.S. Lest you should be in any doubt as to the issue, I invite you to inquire into the career of V.N. [Victor B. Neuburg] who left the Work 'for one Jeanne H. [Jeanne Heyes]'. Examine his poetry by periods, (1) before he met me; (2) while he worked with me; (3) from the time he met J.H. till she killed herself . . . and he wrote satires over her dead body; (4) after his partial and reluctant return to the Work; (5) after fading out altogether. This is but one of a dozen cases.
P.P.S. The people who have attacked me are to be found in three places; prisons, lunatic asylums, and cemeteries. If there are one or two still going about it is because I myself broke the Magical Law and forgave them. I am sorry I cannot reassure you in the ordinary sense of the term. All I can do is to assure you again that once any person has been chosen to take a prominent part in the Work he is kept on the straight path by just such severities as are necessary to enlighten him and to bring him back to his appointed course, if he persists in kicking against the pricks. If he continues to turn away deliberately after being warned, he can at last get himself given up as hopeless—in which case he is spiritually destroyed. The powers which he has failed to develop are taken away from him. See the case of Glindon in Lytton's 'Zanoni', and any number of examples in the last twenty years which I can tell you about when I see you.
A.C.
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