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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Her Majesty's Government
[Undated: circa September 1939?]
Sir.
I have the honour to submit the following propositions for the consideration of H.M. Government.
"DO 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 measures 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 judgement, 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 Excellency concerns the practically complete failure of the recent campaign for recruiting the regular forces of His Majesty's Army.
The considerations of religion, patriotism and morality urged upon the affected cases 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 emphasize 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 undisciplined rabble which now constitutes the bulk of out 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 forever 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.
5. I have the temerity to believe, and the presumption to submit, that your Excellency may find it possible to concur with the general tenor of the foregoing propositions.
On the other hand I am 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 principle of Liberty on which the greatness of our country has been founded, and which may indeed be said to be dearer to us each 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 caviar whose subtlety of flavour is repugnant to the vulgar taste, as in 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 in 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.
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