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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Karl Germer
London, W.1.
15.11.43 e.v.
Dear Karl:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
What with the dentist and an accident and chills and fever on the top of great secretarial shortage, I have got everything hopelessly behind. Even now things are far from right, but on the other hand a great deal of the tangle seems to be straightening itself out. I had the advantage of a long talk or two with McMurtry [Grady McMurtry] who knows all the people, or nearly all, concerned with a fair amount of intimacy and everything that he was able to tell me has confirmed my opinion that your judgment was in all respects admirable. The one person that he does not know is Max [Max Schneider], and that is the one unsolved problem. What is there in him which inspires such insensate hatred? The alley-cat actually sent me a drunken scrawl abusing him. Even from such a lamentable specimen, it was really too fantastic. What could she hope to get at a distance of 6000 miles and a couple of months? At the same time I feel that there must be some quality in him which upsets a certain type of person.
I am dealing with Miller's [Joe Miller] Qabalistic stuff. It is, of course, all nonsense. He should have taken the analysis one step further and proved that I was Francis Bacon!
I am sending you under separate cover to save probably a week in time, copies of my correspondence with Jack [Jack Parsons], Smith and others. I got some very nice letters from Jane [Jane Wolfe] and answered them appropriately. I was very insistent that she must quit trying to play both ends against the middle. Smith has got to disappear once and for ever. As to the alley-cat, any attack on her would stiffen Jack's feeling for her. These nonentities are always the most difficult because there is nothing on which one can get a grip. At present she goes off from time to time when she feels like some other man, and Jack gets some other girl and presently they come together again; but that will soon wear itself out. There is only one solution, and that is to train Jack to have a little sense of dignity and decency, to acquire a some sort of a will of his own. At present he is a straw, blown about by conflicting breezes.
McMurtry has some way of getting correspondence to you within five days. I have asked him to convey the substance of this letter; and when I next see him will try to arrange things so that I can use this channel regularly.
Your suggestions of September 18th are quite good. I think the Lodge should be officially dissolved, and that new pledges should be exacted from any one who wants to continue with the Work. It seem incredible tat Jack should have deliberately broken the pledge only a month or so old, and this must be investigated. I think Sara's [Sara Northrup] lunatic hatred of Max is perhaps at the back of this. What she says may in a fashion give you a line on the situation. She writes to me (why in Heaven's name to me!) "Why did you inflict Max on us, with his senile wit and his middle-class bitches?" (This from such a very low-class bitch as Sara!) "The old fool even wants to move in on us; can you imagine a dinner party with scientists from the Institute and Max at the table, pompous little Max, with his complete lack if subtlety and humour. Those easy-going men would probably tease him." "What right has that ass got to say malicious little bits about Wilfred [Wilfred Talbot Smith]? TO think that Max, who isn't a quarter of Willy should put in his petty two cents when W.S.'s back is turned". And again: "That bourgeois simpleton."
Georgia [Georgia Schneider] writes to me that Max "was not a very agreeable person to live near. Your intuition will tell you why . . . I am a bit intoxicated with the exhilaration of my freedom". My intuition doesn't tell me anything at all, but as he was her lawful wedded husband for umpteen years, I find it difficult to understand her writing that. It is indeed a pity that I never met Max; one-half hour with him, and I should have known all about everything. As it is I simply don't.
Roy's [Roy Leffingwell] letter. I quite agree about the extravagance of maintaining 1003 [1003 S. Orange Grove Avenue]. I thought it was to be a worthy temple where the Mass [Gnostic Mass] could be performed with dignity. I don't consider anything of any importance at all except the proper performance of the Mass. If that were established with really good officers, devoutly intent upon producing a worthy ceremony, I believe all the other troubles would straighten themselves out. Even the sexual masses that they were always making would disappear. It is Smith's insane obsession with the subject which I believe is at the bottom of nine-tenths of the trouble. His influence is naturally very strong with young healthy men, who really need no encouragement; and if they had a little better education would be disgusted by Smith's obsession.
I wish you would point out that the most severe penalties are prescribed in the Book of the Law for sexual frivolities—Chapter I, Verse 51—note the 'but' in "But always unto me" and the continuance: "If this be not aright . . . if the ritual be not ever unto me, then expect the direful judgments of Ra Hoor Khuit". (I am writing an essay on this.)
They seem altogether to have forgotten this or to ignore it willfully. They must be got to understand that our freedom depends entirely on self-discipline, on the proper understanding and performance of every act of life. Compare also Chapter II—Verse 70: it says in the plainest terms "Be not animal", but Smith and Co. haven't been anything else. It is Smith who has degraded the Order in the eyes of everybody. It was bad enough when people said things of this sort against us when there was no truth in them whatever, but now that Smith has given every reason to the enemy to blaspheme, we must maintain our integrity in the most emphatic terms, backed by the most resolute action.
When I look through your letters, I hardly know what to answer; a good deal of it is out of date, and has been answered directly or indirectly already. I think that if you will found a new Lodge in a very quiet and simple way, everything will clear up automatically, but it really does depend. I think, upon getting Jack's full co-operation; he is a "good mixer". In fact, he has nearly every good quality, and it is all brought to naught by this shocking weakness. I ran into a man in a club here a month or so ago who happens to know Jack in Washington D.C. I asked him for a description. He, after several drinks, replied: "A yellow pup, bumming around with his snout glued to the rump of an alley-cat". I told McMurtry this and he laughed and said: "Yes, that's pretty well one view of the matter", or words to that effect. Fortunately, there is more than that in Jack; and we must get him to take the Order seriously. He must learn to be absolutely ruthless in resisting temptation, in not allowing himself to be led by the nose by everyone that comes along. But work this in quietly; I daresay the Masters may have their word to say in the matter. If he is going to be our chief prop out there, let them do their stuff!
I don't know what it is about Max, but it does seem perfectly clear that he is not the type to run an Order of this sort. You would find out in ten minutes if you could see him face to face. By the way, please read my letters very carefully. Sometimes you seem to misunderstand; for instance, you complain that I "pestered" you; but no letter of mine intended anything of the sort. When I have written about conditions here, it is simply in order that you might have a clear view of the situation—perhaps in the case of enquiries being made by others. But nothing that I write is intended to influence you or your actions.
I was reminded of this by your saying: "Now you propose Smith for priest again." That was merely a reaction to Frederick's statement that he was so wonderful a priest. My idea was merely that he should come in from some hermitage when required to conduct the ceremony, and then disappear again.—just as in Section Gamma of [Liber] 132.
You ask why I hate the word "sacrifice"; to me it implies a deprivation. If I buy you a cigar, I don't say I am now sacrificing a dollar or whatever the damn thing costs, and yet it can be described in that way; but Liber AL I, 58 deals with that. What is wrong is the idea that one is performing a virtuous act by self-mutilation.
As I said above, I have been out of touch with things for the last couple of months, but I hope now to be on the job all the time, and hope that you will have made a clean sweep of everything, and started the new seed properly planted in fertile ground.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours ever,
Aleister.
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