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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to H.M. Government
[27 January 1937]
Sir,
I have the honour to submit the following propositions for the consideration of H.M. Government.
"DP WHAT THOU WILT SHALL BE THE WHOLE OF THE LAW".
1. The above, called the Law of Thelema, is an universal philosophical principle, self-evident when properly understood, upon which it is feasible to erect an entire system of government—as in the case of the principles of Lao Tze, Moses, Plato, Hobbes, Hegel, and others—which will obtain the general assent of the instructed.
2. It is necessary to adopt some measure of this sort because the ancient traditional sources of authority are to-day everywhere challenged with increasing confidence and success.
The result is a wide-spread confusion of thought and judgment, with a tendency to anarchy thinly veiled by fanatical empiricisms such as Fascism and Communism.
3. The particular case of the above general propositions which I have the honour to lay, however timidly and tentatively, before your Department, concerns the practically complete failure of the recent campaign for recruiting the regular Forces of H. Majesty's Army.
The considerations of religion, patriotism and morality urged upon the affected class have only too often been received in a spirit of scepticism, conjoined (it is to be feared) with expressions of mockery and even ribaldry.
The unfortunately common spectacle of the destitute ex-service man, and the general feeling that the Army leads nowhere but to the Workhouse, merely emphasizes the devastating results of Compulsory "Education".
4. In my humble submission, it is extremely urgent to introduce a modified form of universal military service, to include women and children.
In the event of frequent air-raids, however futile they might prove from the technical military standpoint, it is certain that the indisciplined rabble which now constitutes the bulk of our citizenry, would be seized with panic, and thrown into complete and irretrievable confusion.
Starvation and epidemic disease would follow hard upon the interruption of the public services, and it would then be for ever too late to adopt remedial measures.
The nation must be a disciplined organisation before the beginning of hostilities, and its existence would be the most potent conceivable factor in their indefinite postponement.
Citizenship should be a privilege earned by services to the State. At present, because it is free, it is not valued by a large and increasing class of the community.
5. I have the temerity to believe, and the presumption to submit, that your Department may find it possible to concur with the general tenor of the foregoing propositions.
On the other hand, I am not blind to the fact that they must appear at first sight impracticable, if not actually chimerical.
For it is evident that, if we are to preserve the noble principles of Liberty on which the greatness of our country has been founded, and which may indeed be said to be dearer to us each one than Life itself, any such revolution in the whole temper and habit of the people may only be effected by the general consent; for otherwise the defects inherent in every theory of Tyranny would destroy us no less surely than the disasters to avert which it was conjured from Orcus.
6. We are thus thrown back upon the necessity of presenting to the general, no caviare whose subtlety of flavour is repugnant to the vulgar taste, as is the case with our well-tried, but now in many ways outworn grounds of appeal to their 'voices', in the days of Coriolanus already resurgent against authority, but an universally palatable and digestible nourishment whose properties are undeniable by any.
In brief, we must base our proposals for the regeneration of the nation upon that which, though so few understand it, yet all believe and acquiesce: that is, upon Science.
7. But in the introduction of proposals of this kind, it will be insufficient to advance the mere technical banners of Instructed Knowledge, as can be done in such partial revolutions as were accomplished by the Vaccination Acts and their like.
The reforms above outlined will affect profoundly every individual, and that in his most intimate daily life.
The ground must therefore be carefully prepared by thorough propagation of the philosophical principle aforesaid, with wise explanations of its applications to the various political, social, economical, and moral problems involved in language suited to the intelligence of the hearers.
It might be expedient to counterbalance the apparent restriction upon Liberty involved in these measures towards attaining a greater Freedom with Security by certain relaxations of existing regulations which really interfere with the natural rights of the citizen, and whose enforcement is an intolerable burden to the Exchequer, a continual source of irritation to the people, and a distraction from the proper duties of the police.
8. Should your Department deem it expedient to enquire further into the plan here submitted, I should solicit the honour of an interview, hoping that it may become my humble duty to offer my services in the exposition of the Law of Thelema to the experts appointed by Your Excellency to study the question.
9. I have two tentative proposals to submit which could be adopted at ease, and serve as a test of, and if satisfactory, a preparation of the thorough adoption of the plan which I have ventured to outline in the above paragraphs.
a) I should like to discuss the question of propaganda with your Publicity Experts, with a view to issuing a new series of posters based upon the Law of Thelema.
b) I most urgently submit to your most serious consideration the thesis that the Law of Thelema is an altogether new instrument of Government, infinitely elastic, in the proper hands from the very fact of it scientific rigidity. I offer this Law to His Most Gracious Majesty in my duty as a loyal and devoted subject; and I suggest that it be adopted secretly by His Majesty's Government, so that I may be supported by the appropriate Services in my efforts to establish this Law as the basis of conduct, to the better security and more acceptable because more natural government of the Commonwealth.
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