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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Gerald Yorke
Hotel Foyet Paris
Feb 1 [1928]
Care Frater.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I am very glad of the safe arrival of the third package. A great weight is off my mind.
The principal item apart from the Naples possibilities is now the very secret O.T.O. documents.
I confess that I am far from clear in my mind how to deal with these. Owing chiefly to the War, I find myself saddled with two conflicting responsibilities, that of keeping the knowledge secret and that of transmitting it to the right people.
It is true that I have a group of young men fairly well fitted; but (for one thing) they are widely scattered, and are tied economically. I can do nothing at a distance—unless in an emergency so serious as to be almost too bad to contemplate. You see: this knowledge concerns certain precise formulae of practical magick. An you (with the unerring eye of genius) have spotted already that the Mass of the Holy Ghost is in question. But also (with the erring nose of the untrained sleuth) you have spotted it all wrong, and that in a very dangerous way. You are likely to "eat and drink damnation to yourself" if you try any funny business in practice. For though I could write the whole main secret in less than half-a-dozen words, the right use of it implies a point-of-view as well, as an extended knowledge of, and technical ability in, Magick, etc, etc.
Now just at present the regular apparatus for teaching is out of order. We need a comprehensive scheme of reconstruction. This implies first of all a concentration of the persons whom I propose to trust with the gradual initiation of others. Therefore, a certain amount of capital. The business is self-supporting once it is started, as the lower grades and new members supply a steady income, and only a few get through the tests to the top.
It is the arranging for adequate leisure of the central initiate to start with that makes the difficulty. One full initiate in a good centre can take care of his sector from the start.
About your "mother and father". (Why this inversion, which is incorrect English unless there is some strong reason for choosing that order? I would like this analysed.)
Abramelin warns us about these family troubles.
In my own case I simply disappeared and lived under an assumed name. But then I had my own money—lots of it.
I do not see anything for you to do but to say plainly and sternly that you are "free, white and 21" (as they say in the U.S.A.) and that you have bought a hawker's license and a stock of matches, and propose setting up in business yourself next day unless you have an absolute pledge on the spot that all interference in any matter whatever is barred. By doing this as a matter of principle, not in respect of the rights and wrongs of any particular case, you are bound to win out. The alternative is a somewhat humiliating stern—chase of Liberty, dragged out over years with all sorts of unpleasant incidents and the constant temptation to concealment and falsehood for peace' sake.
All really successful men in business make a point of this attitude. They say to the employer or whoever it may be "If you can't trust me. I will have nothing to do with you".
And the opposite methods spreads like a leprosy, and contaminates one's every act. You begin by sparing the feelings of some one you love, and you end by being unable to look anyone in the eye.
Yes: I was rather depressed. I've an infernal cough and am perfectly broke! The Pickfords business stagnates. But I'm Satanically proud of the way the Work is going. Especially the new blood is blazing like sunrise.
In Germany the publication is going on splendidly, and in America there's a boy of 20 tackling the leaders of thought all on his own! And so on. If I could only get to Egypt and finish up that job!
As things are, I'm handicapped in the very means to attempt any constructive work. I really need about a tenner a week that I could rely on—as opposed to the present system, by which I get more in fact, but never know when it's coming, so that I can exercise neither thrift nor foresight.
Well that's neither here nor there.
93 93/93.
Fraternally,
T. M. O. 666.
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