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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Anne Macky
Aug. 20, 1943 e.v.
Cara Soror:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Let me begin with an apology referring to my letter about the motto; I was abominably tired when I made the fair copy and by mistake put FIAT IAO instead for Fiat YOD. Let me now make clear to you the working of this letter.
In this motto you have really got several ideas combined, and yet they are really, of course, one idea. Fiat, being 811, is identical with IAO, and therefore FIAT YOD might be read not only as "let there be" (or "Let me become"), the secret source of all creative energy, but as "the secret source of the energy of Jehovah." The two words together, having the value of 831, they contain the secret meanings Pyramis and Phallos, which is the same idea in different forms; thus you have three ways of expressing the creative form, in its geometrical aspect, its human aspect, and its divine aspect. I am making a point of this, because the working out of this motto should give you a very clear idea of the sort of way in which Qabalah should be used. I think it is rather useful to remember what the essence of the Qabalah is in principle; thus, in your correspondence for Malkuth, Yesod, and Hod you are simply writing down some of the ideas which pertain to the numbers 10, 9, and 8 respectively. Naturally, there is a great deal of redundancy and overloading as soon as you get to ideas important enough to be comprehensive; as is mentioned in the article on the Qabalah in "Equinox" Vol. I, No. 5, it is quite easy to prove 1 = 2 = 3 = 4, etc.
On the other hand, you must be
careful to avoid taking the correspondences given in the
books of reference without thinking out why they are so
given. Thus, you find a camel in the number which refers to
the Moon, but the Tarot card "the Moon" refers not to the
letter ג
which means camel, but to the letter
ק,
and the sign
In studying the Qabalah you mention six months; I think after that time you should be able to realize that, after six incarnations of uninterrupted study, you may realize that you can never know it; as Confucius said about the Yi King. "If a few more years were added to my life, I would devote a hundred of them to the study of the Yi."
If, however, you work at the Qabalah in the same way as I did myself, in season and out of season, you ought to get a very fair grasp of it in six months. I will now tell you what this method is: as I walked about, I made a point of attributing everything I saw to its appropriate idea. I would walk out of the door of my house and reflect that door is ד, and house ב; now the word "dob" is Hebrew for bear, and has the number 6, which refers to the Sun. Then you come to the fence of your property and that is ח—number 8, number of Tarot Trump VII, which is the Chariot: so you begin to look about for your car. Then you come to the street and the first house you see is number 86, and that is Elohim, and it is built of red brick which reminds you of Mars and the Blasted Tower, and so on. As soon as this sort of work, which can be done in a quite lighthearted spirit, becomes habitual, you will find your mind running naturally in this direction, and will be surprised at your progress. Never let your mind wander from the fact that your Qabalah is not my Qabalah; a good many of the things which I have noted may be useful to you, but you must construct your own system so that it is a living weapon in your hand.
I think I am fair if I say that the first step on the Qabalah which may be called success, is when you make an actual discovery which throws light on some problem which has been troubling you. A quarter of a century ago I was in New Orleans, and was very puzzled about my immediate course of action; in fact I may say I was very much distressed. There seemed literally nothing that I could do, so I bethought myself that I had better invoke Mercury. As soon as I got into the appropriate frame of mind, it naturally occurred to me, with a sort of joy, "But I am Mercury." I put it into Latin—Mercurius sum, and suddenly something struck me, a sort of nameless reaction which said: "That's not quite right." Like a flash it came to me to put it into Greek, which gave me "'Ερμης Ειμι" and adding that up rapidly, I got the number 418, with all the marvellous correspondences which had been so abundantly useful to me in the past (See Equinox of the Gods, p. 138). My troubles disappeared like a flash of lightning.
Now to answer your questions seriatum; it is quite all right to put questions to me about The Book of the Law; a very extended commentary has been written, but it is not yet published. I shall probably be able to answer any of your questions from the manuscript, but you cannot go on after that when it would become a discussion; as they say in the law-courts, "You must take the witness's answer."
II. The Qabalah, both Greek and Hebrew, also very likely Arabic, was used by the author of The Book of the Law. I have explained above the proper use of the Qabalah. I cannot tell you how the early Rosicrucians used it, but I think one may assume that their methods were not dissimilar to our own. Incidentally, it is not very safe to talk about Rosicrucians, because their name has become a signal for letting loose the most devastating floods of nonsense. What is really known about the original Rosicrucians is practically confined to the three documents which they issued. The eighteenth century Rosicrucians may, or may not, have been legitimate successors of the original brotherhood—I don't know. But from them the O.T.O. derived its authority; The late O.H.O. Theodor Reuss possessed a certain number of documents which demonstrated the validity of his claim according to him; but I only saw two or three of them, and they were not of very great importance. Unfortunately he died shortly after the last War, and he had got out of touch with some of the other Grand Masters. The documents did not come to me as they should have done; they were seized by his wife who had an idea that she could sell them for a fantastic price; and we did not feel inclined to meet her views. I don't think the matter is of very great importance, the work being done by members of the Order all over the place is to me quite sufficient.
III. The Ruach contains both the moral and intellectual worlds, which is really all that we mean by the conscious mind; perhaps it even includes certain portions of the subconscious.
IV. In initiation from the grade of Neophyte to that of Zelator, one passes by this way. The main work is to obtain admission to, and control of, the astral plane.
Your expressions about "purifying the feelings" and so on are rather vague to enter into a scientific system like ours. The result which you doubtless refer to is attained automatically in the course of your experiments. Your very soon discover the sort of state of mind which is favourable or unfavourable to the work, and you also discover what is helpful and harmful to these states in your way of life. For instance, the practice like the non-receiving of gifts is all right for a Hindu whose mind is branded for ten thousand incarnations by the shock of accepting a cigarette or a cup of tea. Incidentally, most of the Eastern cults fall down when they come West, simply because they make no allowance for our different temperaments. Also they set tasks which are completely unsuitable to Europeans—an immense amount of disappointment has been caused by failure to recognize these facts.
Your sub-questions a, b, and c are really answered by the above. All the terms you use are very indefinite. I hope it will not take too long to get you out of the way of thinking in these terms. For instance, the word "initiation" includes the whole process, and how to distinguish between it and enlightenment I cannot tell you. "Probation," moreover, if it means "proving," continues throughout the entire process. Nothing is worse for the student than to indulge in these wild speculations about ambiguous terms.
V. You can, if you like, try to work out a progress of Osiris through Amennti on the Tree of Life, but I doubt whether you will get any satisfactory result.
It seems to me that you should confine yourself very closely to the actual work in front of you. At the present moment, of course, this includes a good deal of general study; but my point is that the terms employed in that study should always be capable of precise definition. I am not sure whether you have my "Little Essays Toward Truth". The first essay in the book entitled "Man" gives a full account of the five principles which go to make up Man according to the Qabalistic system. I have tried to define these terms as accurately as possible, and I think you will find them, in any case, clearer than those to which you have become accustomed with the Eastern systems. In India, by the way, no attempt is ever made to use these vague terms. They always have a very clear idea of what is meant by words like "Buddhi," "Manas" and the like. Attempts at translation are very unsatisfactory. I find that even with such a simple matter as the "Eight limbs of Yoga," as you will see when you come to read my "Eight Lectures" [Eight Lectures on Yoga].
I am very pleased with your illustrations; that is excellent practice for you. Presently you have to make talismans, and a Lamen for yourself, and even to devise a seal to serve as what you might call a magical coat-of-arms, and all this sort of thing is very helpful.
It occurs to me that so far we have done nothing about the astral plane and this path of Tau of which you speak. Have you had any experience of travelling in the astral? If not, do you think that you can begin by yourself on the lines laid down in Liber O, sections 5 and 6? (See Magick [Magick in Theory and Practice], pp. 387-9). If not you had better let me take you through the first gates. The question of noise instantly arises; I think we should have to do it not earlier than nine o'clock at night, and I don't know whether you can manage this.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours fraternally,
Baphomet X° O.T.O.
Aug. 23. P.S.
Yours of 21st to hand this A.M.
I still think 10 days a better interval than a fortnight, as keeping us both up to the mark: still, as you prefer. I think we agreed on a "target" of 50 letters each way at £2.2.0. Wouldn't it be convenient for you to send me £26.5.0—in advance? I will get a formal contract drawn up to secure you the copyright. It will probably be desirable to have the book edited when the time comes. Edward Bryant would, I think, be very competent; and I am sure willing.
A.C.
Aug 26. P.S.
A million apologies for this wretched delay: also the bad typing—that I did not expect. I shall redouble my efforts to arrange things better in future. I suppose you don't know a girl who wants spare-time work?
A.C.
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which means fish, while the letter itself refers to the back
of the head; and you also find fish has the meaning of the
letter
נ.
You must not go on from this, and say that the back of your
head is like a camel—the connection between them is simply
that they all refer to the same thing.