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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Karl Germer
12th May. 1930.
Dear Karl,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Thanks for your letter of May 11th. I received the Taggblatt. It is very good. Please send me half a dozen copies. I am arranging at once for a professional photographer to call and take a representative number of photographs.
My original arrangement with the Mandrake [Mandrake Press] though it never came to a written Contract was that they should finance the exhibition, but that I should re-pay whatever was spent in the way out of the profits of the exhibition.
I saw Thynne [Major Robert Thynne] for a long while last night. He is very keen on the merger, but his ideas of a merger seem to have been derived from those of an anaconda proposing similar operations with a rabbit. It is of most vital importance that we should be in a position to bargain to advantage with Thynne. It is really not his own interest to, because of the great importance of my Contract to him. The exhibition was originally designed, you remember, not for the profits to be made out of it directly but as part of the general campaign to put me over, i.e. the coat of the exhibition was really an advertising expense. But Thynne is very intractable. He always hopes to wear the other man's patience down. That is how he acted with Goldston [Edward Goldston], and very successfully. He even made difficulties about the transfer of the £500, saying that if he simply paid it directly to me he would still be responsible to you in case you wished to draw your investment after nine months.
Of course if you were with me in this matter your reply is simply to write Thynne that if he does not pay me £500 at once out of the Mandrake funds you will transfer the whole of the £1000 to me instead of to him. That I think will bring him immediately to reason, though of course he is putting up the whole bluff that he is only accepting the money as a great favour to you.
Business men are fairly backward schoolboys I think, in nine cases out of ten.
For the benefit of Cora [Cora Germer] I point out that as things stand the Aquila is in my opinion a much better proposition than the Mandrake. I will send you a copy of the balance sheet, and my agreement for purchase within the next day or so.
The two books now being issued seem to me extremely good sellers, so that there will be a very great improvement in the appearance of things. But it is important for me to get in as much capital as I can as quickly as I can.
Watson Turner wanted to see the place before he wrote another cheque, and he has no free time for three or four days.
I got a letter from Franke. If I read it correctly he signs himself as the Secretary of the almighty one. I am sending you a copy.
I imagine that there are a great many things that are somewhat of a strain on Birven's [Henri Birven][?] intelligence. In particular, if he thinks that the establishment of the Law of Thelema means that no one is to obey orders any more he is an unspeakable ass, and you might point this out to him with your customary suavity.
It is no use our having people as supporters if they are going to misunderstand the doctrine to that point. I am not discounting the letter myself. But I think you should point out these matters to Krummheller [Arnold Krum-Heller]. If he imagines we are a set of crazy [?] he will naturally become nervous. I think the most important thing to insist on about the Law of Thelema is its rigid code of discipline. Its almost chess like selection and concentration of energy.
Please give my very best love to Cora. I am so glad that she has got the apartment to her liking at last.
Love is the love, love under will.
P.S. I am proposing to sign the Contract with the Aquila tomorrow. You will notice Jupiter Trine to my radical sun, Saturn and Venus and Sextile to my radical Herschel.
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