Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Lt. L.J.N. Shephard, R.N.V.

3 January 1944

Dear Sir,

I am much obliged by your letter received yesterday. It pleases me very much that you should have realised the extraordinary importance of the unification of the Chinese with the Kabalistic system. I am sorry to say that my translation of the Yi is still in a state of complete fluidity, and I am afraid it is likely to remain so for an indefinite period. I have thought that the best plan is that I tell you what I have so far succeeded in doing. In the first place I have solved the problem which baffled Confucius. The reason why the Yi is divided as 30 plus 34 instead of as 32 plus 32 as one would have expected; the other point is that I have discovered why the perfection of the first two hexagrams should suddenly break down into the complete anarchy of the 3rd and 4th. To me it has always seemed an utter wrongness that it should depart so utterly from any ordered system.

In a letter it is difficult to do much more than indicate in the crudest terms that the order of the Yi is not as what at first seemed a disorder, but what I can only very lamely call a symphony.

The perfection breaks down and works through a system of successive imperfections only in Hexagrams 29 and 30. It recovers its balance although only to a partial extent. Hexagrams 31 and 32 start a new series of imperfections, and I am not really altogether satisfied with my reason as to why this particular couple should be picked out instead of any other couple, and on this problem I am still painfully toiling. However, what is so being so, things gradually pull themselves together until in the final resolutions the last four Hexagrams do recover the perfect balance not only on one way, but in all ways. The beauty and harmony of the system is simply perfect and unless you see the order set forth in a properly balanced form, you cannot hope to get any idea of what has been really happening.

To give you some slight idea of the matter, let me explain to you that I have set up a sort of musical annotation. Taking the Yang as masculine and the Yin as feminine, one denotes Mi as Chen Khien, Kwana F.I. Sol as M 2, Li and Kham F.2 Luna. Then we have Kan M.3 Fire, and F.3 Tui, Water; M.5 Sun Air, and F.4 Kan Earth. You will see immediately that this corresponds perfectly with the Kabalistic system. I don't know how far this is likely to help you. I am afraid not very far, but I think that I could help you a little more, if you would give yourself the trouble of coming out here to lunch at your convenience, when I could show you the system tabulated. From this you should be able to get some sort of idea of the Yi as a musical composition, which I am sure is its real interpretation. In my idea there are innumerable possibilities of symphonic representation of the 64 Hexagrams, and our present system in which the Lunar part of Fire is the third Hexagram is just the system which happens to be current in the present Maha Kalpa.

The question then remains where exactly are we in this Maha Kalpa, and if we knew that we ought to be able to get a very good idea of how the current of affairs is likely to turn in the next few hundred or thousands of years or whatever the unit may be. I hope you don't think this is all too hopeless/fantastic. After all I am only trying to interpret an alien philosophy.

It has occurred to me that you might be interested in my translation of the Tao Tai-ching which is actually ready for the Press, and if you would like to have a typescript of this it will be quite easy to have one made for you. There is a very close correspondence between the system of the Tao and the Yi, and you might find the one throw a good deal of light on the other. Would N. Legge Esq? It is really a little trying to the earnest student of Chinese philosophy. He is totally incapable of understanding the subject. The trouble with all these so-called scholars is that they have the fixed conviction that they are the men and that wisdom will not only die with them, but is born with them. I have really no patience with all these learned idiots that think that because they have h. and c. with the use of offices their great-grandfathers were b.f.'s.

I hope you will accept my humble invitation to come out here for lunch. It is always of the greatest assistance to my mind to make contact with a new intelligence.

Love is the law, love under will.

[8]