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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to David Curwen
Aston Clinton, Bucks.
October 19th, 1944
Dear Mr. Curwen:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I was very pleased to get your letter of October 13th, and I am glad that you have taken my remarks in the right spirit. You must NOT, however, assume that I necessarily agree with the opinions of others that I happen to quote to you. I only wished to point out that your method of expression presented certain unfortunate features which might lead to misunderstanding. I am sorry that you should have been more exasperated than I am at not being able to have them put in hand. If I were one of the swindlers that masquerade in the occult world as teachers I should have plenty of money. That half-educated crook, Spencer Lewis, was raking $350,000 a year.
His methods have been closely copied by that group of persons calling itself OHM of whom so many independent complaints have been made to me. This is apparently a very different group from that with which you have been in touch.
"The loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind" is the natural reaction of the detected swindler who knows that some people at least see through him. The gang of which I speak carries on a completely dishonest and dishonourable business, that of peddling so-called occult secrets. All this business of secrecy is humbug with hardly any exception. If one is proposing to give instruction on any subject one must have the first principles, one must have proper definitions of the terms employed, one must have an organized system and a clear conception of the scope of the teaching. The people of whom I have written possess none of these qualifications. They simply bubble and issue a high-falutin' piffle, big sounding words and no coherent meaning.
Besides this, the group to which I refer are engaged in a type of blackmail which is puerile enough in all conscience when it is tried on educated people, but it is doubtless very efficacious with the class of mug whose money they are out to get. That is, they utter the most terrific threats of vengeance. Anyone who disagrees with them or speaks lightly with them is liable to "fall slain or paralyzed, as if blasted by the lightning flash. (I quote from an ancient ritual of another Order genuine enough which fell into bad hands at one time.)
I hope you will have no difficulty in agreeing with me, but behaviour of this kind is that of the lowest type of scoundrel and blackguard. Why does not the genuine OHM come into the open, announce its principles and disassociate itself from these rascals?
To get back to the main subject of our correspondence. I am under a solemn obligation to give my assistance without reward of any kind to any person who appeals to me. Of course I reserve the right to judge what course of action on my part will be the most helpful.
Here we come to a very serious difficulty. I cannot get over the fact that you have asked me to tell you which are the elemental, planetary, zodiacal trumps when the attributions are plainly printed on the reproductions of these cards and fully explained in every case at the beginning of the description of the card.
I am going to appeal in this matter to the judgement of my secretary. She knows nothing of these subjects, or very little, since she is quite new to the work, but she had not a moment's difficulty in recognizing that the attributions were plain and obvious. How than am I to explain further to you? Unless you can clear up this matter I have really no hope of communicating my meaning to you on any subject whatever.
However, let me go on as if it had not happened, while awaiting your explanation. (Though I should just like to say further that someone dropped in for tea this afternoon, also very uninitiated, and I showed her the book. She, too, quickly grasped the explanations about the cards.)
I do now see that there is a certain seriousness in your application, but I do notice that several times over you are worrying about your wasted years. Self-pity is one of the most miserable qualities that any man can possess. Let me, however, reassure you that no serious and honest aspiration is ever wasted. I have pointed out in several places that it does not matter so much whether your teacher is a good one or a bad. The point is that you should carry on with your work. In course of time your aspiration itself will take charge of the proceedings and everything will straighten out itself automatically.
There is, however, another point. This is you seem to suffer from the delusion that secrets can be communicated to you by other people. This is altogether contrary to the principles of the Order which I represent. Practice counts for everything. Information in nothing. At the most it serves as a guide to help you to choose the practices which will be most suitable for you. You will never get anywhere unless you have constantly performed one or other of the prescribed practices and made a careful record of the same with their results.
If anyone comes to me he has to begin by writing what we call his magical record. This includes his origins, his race, parentage, circumstances, education, everything that helps us to place him. He then chooses such practices as he sees fit to choose and records them daily. At the end of a year we people help him by examining his record, finding out what suits him and what does not and why. It tells us whether he has been going wrong and enables us to correct his faults. This is an essential preliminary to any more spiritualized guidance.
You will notice that we do not believe in guesswork and we do not pretend that any one system of instruction is suitable for all alike.
Thank you for the date of your birth, but I want the place and the hour, and as nearly as possible the minutes. If you don't know the hour I can do it with a couple of photographs, full face and profile. Those taken at the time of your last conviction will do admirably. I hope you will find this letter more satisfactory then my previous effort. There is no reason why you should not get on all right, but for heaven's sake clear up the difficulty about your asking me the question of which the answer is actually under your nose.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours sincerely.
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