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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to David Curwen
Aston Clinton, Bucks.
September 23rd 1944
D. Curwen, Esq. 156 Marylebone Road, NW1
Dear Sir:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Antares is of course a Greek or Latin modification of the original Arabic name. However, you must allow me my little joke. Also it is difficult for you to understand the reason for doing a good many things that are done. Let me, however, give you one hint. If I sign OM 7º=4o it means that the work as a scholarly production has no claim to any higher authority. If I sign Baphomet with a lot of figures over it, it means that what goes under that signature is semi-official with the O.T.O and so on.
About The Equinox of the Gods I hope I shall be able to show you the importance. We have plenty of evidence of discarnate forces in the last hundred years. Any number of quite unsuspected forms of energy have been discovered, measured, controlled and employed. But there has never been any evidence whatever of a discarnate intelligence except in the old childish argument that evolution knocked silly—that a beautiful created thing argued the existence of a creator with a sense of beauty. The Book of the Law does prove the existence of an intelligence possessing knowledge and power quite beyond anything we know of as human. That is the only reason why I say that for all men without exception it is a document of supreme importance. The evidence for this knowledge and power is internal. It does not depend on a statement of any person.
I am afraid I do not altogether understand your question about the counting. In the lay out that you give if you were starting at the 7 of cups the next card will be the 2 of cups and the one after that the Magus, and the next one the 9th from him, namely, the Emperor. The purpose of the counting is to make a coherent story, that is a 7 of cups, followed by a 2 of cups might mean disappointment cured by love and so on. You choose the significator from your knowledge of the person concerned. It is, of course, always from one of the sixteen Court cards. If you know his rising time you might chose the card which includes that in its sphere. For the Yi-King I use tortoiseshell sticks, one side representing the Yang, the other the Ying. I arrange these in a certain magical manner so as to form one of the sixty-four hexagrams.
I notice that you return to the Tarot, and the going round and round. I should think that it was obvious sooner or later you must come to a card that you have had before, and that, of course, closes the operation.
I may say that it is only with the greatest reluctance that I put anything about Divination into the book at all. If you read Chapter XVII of Magick [Magick in Theory and Practice] you will perhaps understand why.
At the same time I may say that I am not optimistic. There is something querulous and hostile in your attitude which tends to make people dislike you. It is no use in this world going around with a chip on your shoulder.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours Sincerely,
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