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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Wilfred Talbot Smith
10 Hanover Square.
[Undated: circa March 1942].
My dear 132 or son or Smith or what-have-you,
I was rejoiced exceedingly to get your letter. "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth; and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth". I have certainly not spoiled you by sparing the rod. On the whole, you have taken it uncommonly well. But there is a strain of mulish obstinacy in you which does you all sorts of harm. Jane [Jane Wolfe] tells me that you have been trying to treat yourself for years. What an idiot! I suppose by now you realize that it's been pulling you down, sapping your energy, wrecking your nerves, playing hell all round with you. One of the many causes of your comparative failure all these years. Then I think Jones [Charles Stansfeld Jones] was a bad influence to start with. His callousness, his half-jeering attitude were bad; and then his shocking disloyalty, dishonesty, megalomania, and gradually infiltrating insanity must have harmed you greatly. Another influence more recent, has also been dreadful. A man with your physical qualities, and early 'education', needs first of all to be restrained, quiet, dignified. You lack tact, so do I, but I can take a special line—which you can't—to counterbalance this failing. Whenever you push yourself forward, you inevitably appear ridiculous: all your many fine qualities are masked. People take you for a clown.
I have great hopes of Helen's [Helen Parsons] influence. On what Jane tells me, she is the ideal for you, should train you to give the right impression. People should say of you: funny little fellow, Smith! Reserved, modest, even shy and timid; he must be pretty deep". But the boisterousness which sat well enough on Jones, most of the time, is the worst method possible for you. When you bluster and brag, you excite cacchination; a great guffaw blows you to Bagdad!
You will help me a whole lot, and thereby yourself, if you will send me as quick as you can, recent photographs of all the principal people in the Lodge. Any old snaps will do, at a pinch, but not passport photos, and, de Lawd-sake, not a group!
I wish you had sent me the long Ragman's Roll of which you write; your most discursive ramblings may serve my turn better than the most carefully worded thought-out letter.
It is perhaps, as well for you to leave the office. Obviously you were no good there, or by now you would have been a multi-millionaire director.
Don't use words unless you are sure you can spell them right. "Marvelious" for example: unless you wrote it like that on purpose.
Jane will give you my comminatory Phillipic against your Oz [Liber OZ] pamphlet. It's past my understanding how you can do these things! Can't you really see when a thing's rank bad? Any decent firm would have warned you that you can't reproduce from such an original. The only way is to have it redrawn, and this is impossible in the case of an artist's work. You should have cabled me to send you the copper plate, or zinc, or—A good firm would have guided you.
I'm afraid this letter doesn't read too "encouraging": but it isn't meant to dishearten you. I must put things plainly, or we'll never get anywhere.
The length of the letter—and I've been writing for 7 hours on end—I'm hellishly tired—ought to be the measure of my trust in you, and my confidence that you will make good.
The one important thing is to be yourself, and not to strut about with a false nose and a tin tiara.
Tell Helen to write to me direct what she feels, and thinks and plans.
Me to strike the dried grass! Your turn to stand and watch!
With love and blessings, and good hope to see a new 132 so well veiled as to shine only with the Inmost Light.
Yours
Aleister Crowley
666
This very last spurt for to-night. [This refers to an elaborately drawn signature in the original letter—G.J. Yorke.]
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