15 July 1929 - Crowley to Unknown Correspondent

Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Unknown Correspondent

11, Abercairn Rd,

Streatham, S.W.16, London.

July 15th, 1929

Cara Soror:

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

I have your letter of June 14th, in which you state that you are "not writing at length."

I have nothing to do with your private family affairs and your quarrels with your brothers and sisters. But I get the impression that you feel yourself to be a very ill-used person, and this is a complete bar to your getting what you want. As Shakespeare remarked "If we got our deserts which of us would escape hanging," or words to that effect.

Thanks very much for the press cutting. If you want to be of any use, you will get an agency to supply cuttings of all the stuff that has appeared since the very beginning about me (it goes back to 1908, I think). These cuttings are wanted to republish in a book called "The Legend of Aleister Crowley," which is part of an important publicity scheme.

We will, of course, pay for these cuttings.

I rather doubt whether Beaverbrook [Lord Beaverbrook] is a Jew, being the son of a Presbyterian parson of Scotch extraction. But as people say that I am a Jew, it does not seem to me to matter much—probably we are all Jews.

I am not feeling particularly persecuted at the present moment. My return to London was in the nature of a triumph, and everything seems to be going ahead splendidly.

At the same time, it is no use to assure you of anything because I don't know the future unless I ask about it, which I rarely do. What you have got to do is to do your day's work every day and leave the rest to come along as it will.

I don't see how I can help you to get away from your conditions. Your conditions are very largely created by your own unaided efforts. I found them so in my own case. There is no blame attached to any given attitude of mind, but there are certain types of thinking which may bar one's progress. I do not mean only on the occult plane, but on every plane. If you start arguing as to whether it is right to cross the street, you will never get to the other side.

The best address for me at present is the above.

I agree with what you say about the general political situation. We are all of us tied up in an absolute net of petty formalities, and the general principles of justice and common decency are practically forgotten. We do require something in the nature of a royalist revolution with a bad king . . .

[remainder of letter is lost]

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