Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Anne Macky

November 10–11. 11 pm–2 am

Cara Soror:

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Yours of yestere'en came to gladden me just when the whole evening lay blank before me: the one job such a big job that I simply can't get down to it until I get help: How annoying! Still, yours the gain!

1. That verse (AL I 44) condenses the whole magical technique. It makes clear—when you have understood it—the secret of success in the Great Work. Of course at first it appears a paradox. You must have an aim, and one aim only: yet on no account must you want to achieve it!!!

Those chapters of The Book of Lies quoted in my last letter do throw some light onto this Abyss of self-contradiction; and there is meaning much deeper than the contrast between the Will with a capital W, and desire, want, or velleity. The main point seems to be that in aspiring to Power one is limited by the True Will. If you use force, violating your own nature either from lack of understanding or from petulant whim, one is merely wasting energy; things go back to normal as soon as the stress is removed. This is one small case of the big Equation "Free Will = Necessity" (Fate, Destiny, or Karma: it's all much the same idea). One is most rigidly bound by the causal chain that has dragged one to where one is; but it is one's own self that has forged the links.

Please refrain from the obvious retort: "Then, in the long run, you can't possibly go wrong: so it doesn't matter what you do." Perfectly true, of course! (There is no single grain of dust that shall not attain to Buddhahood:" with some such words did the debauched old reprobate seek to console himself when Time began to take its revenge.) But the answer is simple enough: you happen to be the kind of being that thinks it does matter what course you steer; or, still more haughtily, you enjoy the pleasure of sailing.

No, there is this factor in all success: self-confidence. If we analyze this, we find that it means that one is aware that all one's mental and physical faculties are working harmoniously. The deadliest and subtlest enemy of that feeling is anxiety about the result; the finest gauze of doubt is enough to dim one's vision, to throw the entire field out of focus. Hence, even to be aware that there is a result in prospect must militate against that serenity of spirit which is the essence of self-confidence. As you will know, all our automatic physiological functions are deranged if one is aware of This then, is the difficulty, to enjoy consciously while not disturbing the process involved. The obvious physical case is the sexual act: perhaps its chief importance is just that it is a type of this exceptional spiritual-mental condition. I hope, however, that you will remember what I have said on the subject in paragraphs 15–17 of my Third Lecture on "Yoga for Yellowbellies" [Eight Lectures on Yoga]; there is a way of obtaining ecstacy from the most insignificant physiological function. Observe that in transferring the whole consciousness to (say) one's little finger or big toe is not trying to interfere with the normal exercise of its activities, but only to realize what is going on in the organism, the exquisite pleasure of a function in its normal activity. With a little imagination one can conceive the analogical case of the Universe itself; and, still less fettered by even the mildest limitation which material symbols necessarily (however little) suggest, "Remember all ye that existence is pure joy." (AL II 9)

Is it too bold to suggest that the gradual merging of all these Ways into an interwoven unity may be taken as one mode of presentation of the Accomplishment of the Great Work itself?

At least, I feel fairly satisfied the meditation of them severally and jointly may help you to an answer to your first question.

2. Most people in my experience either cook up a hell-broth of self-induced obstacles to success in Astral traveling, or else shoot forth on the wings of romantic imagination and fool themselves for the rest of their lives in the manner of the Village Idiot. Yours, luckily, is the former trouble.

But—is it plain obstinacy?—you do not exercise the sublime Art of Guru-bullying. You should have made one frenzied leap to my dying bed, thrust aside the cohorts of Mourning Archimandrites, and wrung my nose until I made you do it.

And you repeatedly insist that it is difficult. It isn't. Is there, however, some deep-seated inhibition—a (Freudian) fear of success? Is there some connection with that sense of guilt which is born in all but the very few?

But you don't give it a fair chance. There is, I admit, some trick, or knack, about getting properly across; a faculty which one acquires (as a rule) quite suddenly and unexpectedly. Rather like mastering some shots at billiards. Practice has taught me how to communicate this to students; only in rare cases does one fail. (It's incredible: one man simply could not be persuaded that intense physical exertion was the wrong way to it. There he sat, with the veins on his forehead almost on the point of bursting, and the arms of my favourite chair visibly trembling beneath his powerful grip!) In your case, I notice that you have got this practice mixed up with Dharana: you write of "Emptying my mind of everything except the one idea, etc." Then you go on: "The invoking of a supersensible Being is impossible to me as yet." The impudence! The arrogance! How do you know, pray madam? (Dial numbers at random: the results are often surprisingly delightful!) Besides, I didn't ask you to invoke a supersensible (what a word! Meaning?) Being right away, or at any time: that supersensible is getting on my nerves: do you mean "not in normal circumstances to be apprehended by the senses?" I suppose so.

In a word: do fix a convenient season for going on the Astral Plane under my eye: half an hour (with a bit of luck) on not more than four evenings would put you in a very different frame of mind. You will soon "feel your feet" and then "get your sea-legs" and then, much sooner than you think "Afloat in the aethyr, O my God! my God!" . . . . . "White swan, bear thou ever me up between thy wings!"

3. Now then to your old Pons Asinorum about the names of the Gods! Stand in the corner for half an hour with your face to the wall! Stay in after school and write Malka be-Tharshishim v-Ruachoth b-Schehalim 999 times!

My dear, dear, dear sister, a name is a formula of power. How can you talk of "anachronism" when the Being is eternal? For the type of energy is eternal.

Every name is a number: and "Every number is infinite; there is no difference." (AL I 4). But one Name, or system of Names, may be more convenient either (a) to you personally or (b) to the work you are at. For example, I have very little sympathy with Jewish Theology or ritual; but the Qabalah is so handy and congenial that I use it more than almost any—or all the others together—for daily use and work. The Egyptian Theogony is the noblest, the most truly magical, the most bound to me (or rather I to it) by some inmost instinct, and by the memory of my incarnation as Ankh-f-n-Khonsu, that I use it (with its Græco-Phoenician child) for all work of supreme import. Why stamp my vitals, madam! The Abramelin Operation itself turned into this form before I could so much as set to work on it! Like the Duchess' baby (excuse this enthusiasm; but you have aroused the British Lion-Serpent.)

Note, please, that the equivalents given in 777 are not always exact. Tahuti is not quite Thoth, still less Hermes; Mercury is a very much more comprehensive idea, but not nearly so exalted: Hanuman hardly at all. Nor is Tetragrammaton IAO, though even etymology asserts the identity.

In these matters you must be catholic, eclectic, even syncretic. And you must consider the nature of your work. If I wanted to evoke Taphthartharath, there would be little help indeed from any but the Qabalistic system; for that spirit's precise forms and numbers are not to be found in any other.

The converse, however, is not so true. The Qabalah, properly understood, properly treated, is so universal that one can vamp up a ritual to suit almost "any name and form." But in such a case one may expect to have to reinforce it by a certain amount of historical, literary, or philosophic study—and research.

4. Quite right, dear lady, about your incarnation memories acting as a "Guide to the Way Back." Of course, if you "missed an Egyptian Incarnation," you would not be so likely to be a little Martha, worried "about much serving." Don't get surfeited with knowledge, above all things; it is so very fascinating, so dreadfully easy; and the danger of becoming a pedant—"Deuce take all your pedants! say I." Don't "dry-rot at ease 'till the Judgment Day."

No, I will NOT recommend a book. It should not hurt you too much to browse on condensed hay (or thistles) such as articles in Encyclopedias. Take Roget's Thesaurus or Smith's Smaller Classical Dictionary (and the like) to read yourself to sleep on. But don't stultify yourself by taking up such study too seriously. You only make yourself ridiculous by trying to do at 50 what you ought to have done at 15. As you didn't—tant pis! You can't possibly get the spirit; if you could, it would mean merely mental indigestion. We have all read how Cato started to learn Greek at 90: but the story stops there. We have never been told what good it did to himself or anyone else.

5. God-forms. See Book Four Part III [Magick in Theory and Practice]. Quite clear: quite adequate: no use at all without continual practice. No one can join with you—off you go again! No, no, a thousand times no: this is the practice par excellence where you have to do it all yourself. The Vibration of God-names: that perhaps, I can at least test you in. But don't you dare come up for a test until you've been at it—and hard—for at least 100 exercises.

I think this is your trouble about being "left in the air." When I "present many new things" to you, the sting is in the tail—the practice that vitalizes it. Doctrinal stuff is fine "Lazily, lazily, drowsily, drowsily, in the noo-on-dye shaun!" An ounce of your practice is worth a ton of my teaching. GET THAT. It's all your hatred of hard work:

"Go to the ant thou sluggard!

Consider her ways and be buggered."

I am sure that Solomon was too good a poet, and too experienced a Guru, to tail off with the anticlimax "wise."

6. Minerval. What is the matter? All you have to do is understand it: just a dramatization of the process of incarnation. Better run through it with me: I'll make it clear, and you can make notes of your troubles and their solution for the use of future members.

7. The Book of Thoth Surely all terms not in a good dictionary are explained in the text. I don't see what I can do about it, in any case; the same criticism would apply to (say) Bertrand Russell's Introduction to Mathematical Physics, wouldn't it?

Is x an R-ancestor of y if y has every R-hereditary that x has, provided x is a term which has the relation R to something or to which something has the relation R? (Enthusiastic cries of "Yes, it is!") He says "A number is anything which has the number of some class." Feel better now?

Still, it would be kind of you to go through a page or so with me, and tell me where the shoe pinches. Of course I have realized the difficulty long ago; but I don't know the solution—or if there is a solution. I did think of calling Magick "Magick Without Tears"; and I did try having my work cross-examined as I went on by minds of very inferior education or capacity. In fact, Parts I and II of Book 4 were thus tested.

What about applying the Dedekindian cut to this letter? I am sure you would not wish it to develop into a Goclenian Sorites, especially as I fear that I may already have deviated from the dia pantos Hapaxlegomenon.

Love is the law, love under will.

Fraternally,

666

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