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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Karl Germer
[EXTRACT]
[22 June 1930]
What you say about Leadbeater [Charles Webster Leadbeater] is very interesting. Of course, the whole business is a bore, and only very stupid people would have anything to do with it. If they want all this Christian nonsense, they had better get it from the genuine people instead of playing around with this cheap sham. But Krumm-Heller [Arnold Krumm-Heller] acts after his kind. Anything which seems to him a little mysterious is meat for him. He has no understanding whatever of any real principles.
He has no comprehension of the incompatibility of acids and alkalis. As long as he can fool about in a robe with a lot of symbols adorning it he is happy. It is no use being angry with him or disgusted with him. He is like that, and we have got to use him as he is. There are many shallow people in the world, and he is no worse than the rest. He would gladly join both the Fascisti and the Communists at the same time if they had some appeal to his vanity.
I am glad you saw Adler [Alfred Adler], but I have heard nothing of it from Thynne [Major Robert Thynne]. As long as he consents to write that book, I am happy. Now for your letter of the 19th. Marie [Maria de Miramar] did not quarrel with Grete [Karl Germer's sister] at all, and is very good friends with her. But your father was coming back to live with Grete, and so Marie thought she would come home.
I am really disheartened that you cannot understand the proper attitude toward life. You seem to think that the only plan is to take shelter from circumstances. You seem to think that it is wrong to adopt the attitude of arranging your circumstances to suit your own plans. This is the essential difference between the attitude of Master and slave. How can anyone hope to rise in the world if they assume that the pressure of circumstances upon them is inevitable and inexorable? You are really funny in your last sentence in your second paragraph. You say that Fortune has only favored you once or twice in ten or fifteen years, and you conclude "so she cannot disdain or kick me." But, my poor friend, what you say means that she has disdained to kick you for ten or fifteen years, except once or twice when she was busy with somebody more important. There is a Latin proverb, which may be translated "Fortune favors the brave." But it requires more than a purely passive courage. It requires the confidence of one who measures his Fate and is equal to it. I cannot understand how you fail to see that this policy of retiring into your shell like a snail at the approach of danger makes it impossible for you to proceed. How are you ever going to get on in the world without meeting proper people? And if you never go out to parties and give them, how can you get into connection with anyone that may be useful? You only acquire for yourself the reputation of a surly person.
I notice that you are never in this attitude at all when I am with you. It is not natural to you. It is your reaction to the association with unsympathetic people. If what I said about Grete refers to you, take it to yourself, and snap out of it!
P.S. Your emetic of 20th just to hand. Will reply at once.
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