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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Tom Driberg
[circa November 1927?]
[First two pages of letter missing]
You say that it is a little hard to be warned of a certain fact, and in the next sentence you talk of threats. Is it really necessary for me to point out the difference between a threat and a warning? I only ask because almost everybody screams with terror and rage about this matter. If I say to you, if you drink tincture of iodine in large quantities, it is likely to disagree with you, you go a little far in assuming that I am the secret agent of a ring intent on lowering the price of iodine.
I mention this because, in order to establish proper relations between us, it is only necessary that we should meet face to face. The first time you got jaundice or something, and then thought it not worth while coming down to Tunic for only a few days. The second time you were stopped from coming altogether by events more serious than jaundice. The third time your will to meet me has been so weakened that you put me off with an obviously shallow excuse. But I want you to notice that the difficulty in our meeting increases with every failure to grasp opportunities. Your spiritual nature has been sapped by insidious methods until now, instead of a mere question of convenience, it has become a terrible ordeal.
In the beginning a trivial effort would have been sufficient to overcome the obstacles. At present you can find, no doubt, a thousand cogent reasons for postponing the interview. At this point I refer you to the Book of the Law: "Enough of Because! Be damned for a dog!"
In the beginning I was sincerely anxious that you should do nothing whatever to compromise your career. In all probability this was one more of my Magical mistakes. It is a relic of my Osirian upbringing that I should bother about my own career, or any one else's. Now at the present moment, no doubt, you have to make a very serious effort to overcome heavy chains in order to come over and see me.
Let this be a lesson to you. If you neglect doing the right thing at the first moment, it becomes progressively harder to do it. But what I want to say is, "The only really important thing is for me to hear what this man has to say, and to hell with everything else!" I remember a case of a similar, though not so important a character, where the man [Frank Bennett] wanted to see me and lived in Australia, and all I could say to him was, "If there is any difficulty about your passage, swim!" He said he would, and immediately the steamer took him, and he got in three weeks [at the Abbey of Thelema ] what he had been looking for for 17 years.
I notice that you are an extremely sensitive type, and sensitiveness is the passive half of genus. I want to develop in you the positive aspects of your character, for otherwise you will remain the prey of every casual impression, and fail to impose your personality on the world.
I should be glad if you would write to me by return of post, acknowledging receipt of this letter, and signify your acquiescence. After that, it will be as well to make your plans for joining me through Mrs. [M. Curtis] Webb.
I had better mention that my plan is to go to Egypt to complete the work begun in Cairo in 1904 e.v., and that the ideal arrangement would be for you to go with me. When does Term end?
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours fraternally,
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