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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Ben Stubbins
10 Hanover Square
19 Apr 42
Dear Sir and Brother.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Your unexpected visit was a great pleasure to me. Little do people know how deeply and sincerely such encouragement is welcome to the Pioneer. Because I am serious about Magick, because I am honest, because I refuse to splash the world with frothy phrases that sound splendid and mean nothing, because I do not want a herd of babblers to extol me over 'a nice cup of tea, dear'; that is why I am so lonely and hampered in my Work and that is why so strong a shaft of sunlight warms me and gilds me when I find that there are people (after all!) who read my work, and cherish it in silence. But there is more to this, a great deal more. Your surprise visit was not only comfortable to me, but (I sincerely believe) of great significance to you.
The Masters work in a manner altogether beyond our apprehension; They see the Universe from a totally different standpoint, and dispose of powers at whose nature we can only guess. We are like savages, who, ignorant of electricity, cannot understand how we transmit our thoughts almost instantaneously across thousands of miles of ocean. But to those who are conscious of their function as instruments in the Great Work it is possible to recognize Their presence and Their activity by sympathetic intelligence. In consequence I feel thoroughly aware that your appearance at this particular juncture is not to be dismissed as coincidence. The Oath of a Master of the Temple concludes: "I will interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul".
Obviously, this is the fantastic imagination of a light-hearted youngster: but that is just what I am. Look at the spiritual gaiety of my poems written in the last six months! Is that to be expected from a man whose whole career must appear to the world as a pitiful, even a grotesque failure? And a sick man at that! They seem more like the work of a boy in his teens, ablaze with physical energy, confident and happy in the glory of first love returned in full measure.
That is what initiation does to you! Nevertheless "the proof of the pudding is in the eating"; and my bubble will burst unless you too feel with utter surety that you were sent to me by Them to carry out a special Mission, that in these last few years you have been inscrutably prepared and chosen to fulfil this function in the Great Work.
I therefore expect that you will discover, and disclose to me in due season, the nature of your participation in the Work assigned to me, the foundation of the Principles of the New Aeon, the Aeon of Horus the Crowned and Conquering Child. Already the Book of the Law has subtly and imperceptibly determined the attitude and actions of innumerable "important people", even of whole nations, most of whom have not so much as heard of it! Read it through once again, taking special notice of the fact that it was given in 1904 e.v. Much of it is terrifyingly unthinkable for people of that period: yet to-day it is just those passages, at that time inconceivable, which are to-day commonplace.
How eagerly, therefore, do I await the further disclosure of your personal function in respect of that part of the Design of the Masters which you have been chosen to accomplish.
Your fraternally.
logos Aionos Thelema 93
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