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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Jane Wolfe
London, W.1.
16th February, 1943.
Dear Jane,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
You people are absolutely beyond my comprehension! Never in my whole life have I put such implicit trust in any person as I have in you. Never have I given any other person such responsibility as I have given you. I made you sole arbiter of the destinies of the Lodge. Yet you begin your letter by saying that you have "fallen so far short of my confidence, trust and belief."!!! It just baffles me. Considering that I had a telegram from you in which you appear to have understood my letter, and to have been taking the measures I suggested, how is it this seed of doubt has now arisen in your mind? Believe me, if I had a moment's hesitation about your integrity I should never have dreamed of putting you in this responsible position. The only question that arose in my mind was whether you were sufficiently independent and strong-willed, and whether you might not feel so arduous a task with such great issues depending upon it, was putting too great a strain upon you.
I may as well say here that I have never for one moment had any doubt as to your complete loyalty both to the Order and to myself. You are, in fact, the only person in your part of the world whom I feel that I know at all. I suppose I only saw Smith [Wilfred Talbot Smith] two or three times in my life; and never for as much as half an hour was I alone with him. You are in a totally different position. In particular, I can never forget how brilliantly you carried out the really appalling ordeal which I imposed upon you in Sicily. I have met very few people in my life who would have tried it seriously at all; and I doubt if there are half a dozen who would have come out of it as well as you did.
At the same time I want to say a few things which will clear up any possible difficulties between us. I want to point out that it is quite a long while since we met face to face. In all these years I have turned into a very different person from the one you knew. But even him you only knew very slightly, because of my invariable custom of wearing a mask. I always behave to people as much as possible as they expect me to behave, and it is a fatal error to base any conclusions upon such observations. The only real knowledge of me that you have, or ever had, was on the highest plane—as your physician. I saw what your trouble was; and I have always been very proud of your testimony that I understood your difficulties, and found the best way out of them.
Of course, I have had one complaint to make; and that is that you did not bully me sufficiently after your return to America! You ought to have made my life a burden to me with requests for instruction on all sorts of matters; and above all, records of your practices. Now this is my general complaint. Every member of the Order has no raison d'être unless he is doing practices and recording them and sending them in regularly for criticism and advice, but nobody ever takes the trouble to do that. So, from one point of view, it would not be unfair to say that they do not seem to be taking the Order seriously, and that is they are not taking themselves seriously. They are not devoted to the work of initiation, and consequently they do not make any progress.
In the case of Smith in particular, his conduct is entirely unspeakable. He has done nothing whatever to justify his position except the mere performance of the Mass [Gnostic Mass]; and this, I gather, cannot have been done any too well, or we should have raised a great many storms of one kind or another long before now.
What is more, his conduct has been actually dishonest. Everything that you have out there comes from, or through, me. Rituals, books, everything else are mine and mine alone. I am actually the author of every one of them, with the single exception of the Book of the Law. But I find in him no integrity, no common honesty. This I could understand, if I could not excuse, if only he were somebody. If he were starting something of his own, but he has absolutely no capacity for leadership, no initiative, nothing at all; and yet from time to time I get a casual note from him or some photographs or something totally unimportant, just as if we were not trying to do anything at all. Spencer Lewis was really a much superior specimen. He did at least steal to some purpose, whereas Smith has not the brains to do so.
I hear that he is making all sorts of extravagant claims about his advancement in both Orders. I gather that he claims to be a Magus! But he seems to be a little premature by about 2,000 years. In any case, if he is a Magus, what is his WORD? Then again, where is the Book which he must have published if he were even an Adeptus Exemptus 7º=4o, a book summarising the results of his life's work? He has produced absolutely nothing, not as much as a pamphlet; and I am sure that he is quite incapable of doing so. I wish you would write and tell me at once what is his position in the business world. I am prepared to bet the shirt on my back that he is a mere hack wage-slave. The position is one neither of dignity, responsibility or emolument. If I am wrong in this, please let me know.
I gather from various reports that he is thinking of running a Church of Thelema of his own personal manufacture. But he cannot do anything with it, because he has no material. It always comes back to me.
Jack [Jack Parsons] wrote to me that he owed a great deal to Smith; and I have written to Jack asking why? My own impression is that Smith feels his inferiority so intensely that he devotes the whole of his energies to hanging on to people, appealing for their devotion and adherence, in order to give himself a little bit of confidence. I think, for one thing, that he has been vampirising you. I look to you to call his bluff completely, if necessary by a circular letter asking what are his achievements, where are his records, where are his diplomas, what grades in the O.T.O. has he actually taken, who initiated him and when? The answer to all this is easy enough—complete blank.
But you must not allow him to undermine the loyalty of others in his neighbourhood. In particular, Jack appears to have some excellent qualities; and it will not do at all for Smith to lead him away from the principles of the Work on account of any personal ties. You know, of course, that as far as the A∴A∴ is concerned, communication between Members is sternly discouraged; and with regard to the O.T.O. there is no getting behind the Constitution of the Order. I do not even know what books you have out there; but I suppose there is a Blue Equinox somewhere, and the Constitution is quite easy to find pp. 197 - 206. I call your attention in particular to Clause VI.
I think it will be necessary to make all this clear to everybody connected with the Order by making their receipt of the Password [Word of the Equinox] at the Equinox conditional on their signing a declaration of loyalty to the principles and constitution of the Order.
You have one very great advantage in the presence of Germer [Karl Germer] in New York. That man is a rock. I think he has dealt with your matters very wisely, temperately, moderately and yet firmly, but apparently greater firmness is needed, and I shall write to him tomorrow in that sense, asking him to forward a copy of my letter to you with instructions as to how you are to act in order to reconstitute the whole system. It is quite clear that there must be a complete shake-up, and that everything must be under a single a capable control. I call your attention to Liber AL, III, 41.
Your letter goes on to tell me a lot of household gossip, which is quite impossible to use to get an idea of who you all are, and why. What Germer wants, and must have, is a list of all the people concerned; and what the capacity, ability and function of each one is.
Helen [Helen Parsons] wrote me a long letter some months ago—pages of irrelevant and incoherent details. It is simply maddening for anyone who is trying to get an organisation into shape to have all these disconnected details thrown at him. I don't know how you can fool yourself about it. Read through your letter again, imagining yourself to be a stranger to all the people whom you mention. The total impression that I get is that there are a number of people somewhere who are more or less connected with something or other (it is not quite clear what) and that they are living the lives of more or less human beings, but there is absolutely no work being done, and no attempt to do any work. I cannot see why you bother with the Order at all. I really find it difficult to interest myself in the character of the view from various points of the surrounding countryside. I have seen quite a lot of views in my life; but there is no point in a view unless it hangs on to something. You all seem to me in a state of the most complete distraction. I do wish you would realise that I have all this work very much at heart, and I appreciate the people who are working, or rather not working, for the Law; but it is really heart-breaking that in a quarter of a century or so I can get absolutely nothing that I can take hold of.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours ever,
Aleister.
P.S. Those trumps [Tarot cards] of yours should be on the way next; but Lady Harris [Frieda Harris] may have gone crazy again—who knows? A.C.
P.S. I remember "I flung afar the stone, my heart" vaguely: but not another word of it. Lost, I suppose, like much of my best work—through the carelessness of people who pretended to treasure it!
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