Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Gladys Mitchell[1]

 

     

 

The Bell Inn

Aston Clinton,

Bucks

 

 

Dec 3. [1944]

 

 

Chère Madame,

 

(Not knowing your honorific appellation, I am compelled, like Gibbon, 'to take refuge in the decent obs [ . . . ])

 

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. [ . . . ] I am so accustomed to being denounced as Head of the International Drug Traffic, White Slave Traffic, German Spy System, Fourth Division of the O.G.P.U, and so on. A busy lad.

 

[ . . . ] about it. I feel sure that you would find ample colour, and the subject has surely a strong psychoanalytic appeal. Mrs. Bradley is shown in the very first Trump, both the smile and the crocodile.

 

As you seem to have a mystic turn, I wonder if you would honour me by accepting a copy of my "City of God".

 

Love is the Law, love under will.

 

Aleister Crowley

 

 

1. Gladys Mitchell was a detective fiction writer. Among her work, she wrote 66 novels featuring "Mrs. Bradley", as mentioned in Crowley's letter.

 

 

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