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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Gerald Yorke
The Bell Inn, Aston Clinton, Bucks.
November 2nd, 1944
Dear Gerald,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I have not had time till now to answer your letter of the 22nd. I am glad you had such a good time at Forthampton. You might have thought of sending me a brace of partridges while you were about it; but perhaps you did not have any to spare.
What you say is very interesting about the changes in what you call static headquarters. I wonder why all this is necessary. Anyhow, I think you are much better in England than in Germany. It was not such a wonderful place after all, even in the time when I was there. And I should think that conditions would be hellish for the next umpteen years.
That's a most extraordinary story of yours about the demand [among German Prisoners of War] for hymn books and the rest of it. I cannot make it out at all. The only conclusion I can come to is that they have got everything else in such abundance (at our expense!) that they can find time to cultivate their souls.
I don't think we can be using the expression "old school tie" in quite the same sense. What I mean by it is the tradition of decent behaviour, usually accompanied by good blood. I have always had this same idea; as you will see in one of the essays of Konx Om Pax which is to the same effect. That was written a very long time ago. I always thought your English Mistery (which I notice you spell Mystery, as I understand they didn't), was very much the same principle, except that they seem to regard the business as a closed circle. They seem to insist literally on Eton or some similar institution, whereas in my experience a great many O.E.'s have been very far from gentlemen. What it has to do with sleeping with your windows shut and incest I cannot imagine. You surely cannot be serious over that. I have to assume that you mean very close endogamy, mésaliance, or what the Germans call "race-pollution", being the greatest crime. Of course I don't agree with that. I think that from time to time the strictly aristocratic stock should be broadened and fortified by the admixture of sturdy peasant blood. If you would read over that Essay of mine in Konx Om Pax, you would see that that idea of service for privilege is more or less understood implicitly; but nowadays privilege is such a curious business; all blood, skin, and flesh seem to have gone, just naked bones of technical advantages. I think that what is really lacking is the romantic view of life. I have always felt at home spiritually with Dumas Pere and Walter Scott. I have always considered my own life in exactly those terms. I have, in fact, in my 70th year, preserved all the illusions of my 19th, and it really does seem to me that if a sufficient proportion of the people of this country had the same idea things would go a great deal more smoothly.
Your remark about Hitler and Aiwass amazes me a little, because I seem to remember telling you at Cambridge how Martha Küntzel thought him her Magical Son, had spoonfed the budding Hitler on the Book of the Law. I remember mentioning Rauschning's "Hitler Speaks", and your admitting you had read it and been struck by some of the parallelisms. But perhaps my memory is at fault.
The Brothers of St Raphael are surely no new thing in the church. I thought there had been Orders of this kind, or at least individuals with these ideas from time to time for a very long while. It seems to me that "touching for the King's Evil" is all part of the same business.
I, too, have no news, except that it seems that I may have technically infringed one of those foul regulations about sending out prospectuses free of charge, but luckily the "Book of Thoth" is No. 5 of Vol. III of the Equinox, which constitutes it a periodical and therefore not subject to the paper control at all. Of course it is very trivial and technical: but, considering how I have been framed up in the past, and how many wolves are out after my blood, I must confess to more than a little apprehension. If this matter turns out to be serious, I will write and give you further details.
I am doing anything but stagnate. I am getting on with this "Aleister Explains Everything" [Magick Without Tears], and the joke of it is that the letters seem to be turning into something very like that series of short pamphlets that you are always worrying me to write. Anyhow I seem to be making them quite interesting for the average reader. But I am sorely in need of an editor. I think they will have to be completely rearranged in order, and probably divided into two volumes, as there are now over 60 of them, and some of them are quite lengthy. I thought of having an elementary volume, and one a little more advanced, wherever I have dealt with technical subjects like the Qabalah. It should be easy enough to separate the letters of the first volume from those of the second: but I imagine that it is going to be a devil of a job to put the letters themselves in any order. Sometimes I have made in a letter some reference to a previous letter, and sometimes I have promised to elaborate some subject or other in a subsequent letter, so that it's going to be the very worst kind of Chinese puzzle to avoid snags. I don't know who I can ask to do it for me. I am sure I should not be any use myself, and the very thought of doing it drives me half crazy. The only people I can think of are yourself, who are probably much too busy, Louis Wilkinson, ditto, Robert Cecil, ditto. I believe the best plan would be to engage some man accustomed to that sort of work, but not knowing anything much about my particular subject; and I don't know where to look for him.
Of course the one great burden on my mind is the lack of a printer. I wish to goodness you would buy a small printer, or a share in a large one. I should not want any special advantages except that of priority. I have got at least six books ready for the Press, and I really should like to see them issued while my energy remains unimpaired. On this last subject I am comparatively happy, as I find myself seized by an inspiration to write one of these letters at any time of day or night: and I go right to it and carry it through just about as well as I did forty years ago.
Give my love to Angela and the offspring, and do cheer me up with another nice long chatty letter as soon as you can find the time!
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours ever,
Aleister.
P.S. It is going to be pretty cold here in the winter. I suppose you don't know a place on the south coast where I could get a breath of sea air, beginning as soon as possible after Christmas? If you do drop me a line right away.
A.C.
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