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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to David Curwen
The Ridge, Hastings
23. 10. 45
Dear Brother Curwen:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
As I promised you in a note that I wrote to you yesterday, I am now going to deal with yours of the 20th October.
There is one point about your Elixir. As it is a question of progressive concentration of virtue, I suppose it is not important to imbibe all that is produced by your chemical reaction. Is this the case? I suppose also that one would need special mantras and secret medicines.
You know, what rather puts me off the whole business is that when one arrives in India one is immediately flooded with a mass of cheap pamphlets, ill-spelt with bad grammar, ill-written with a display of gross ignorance and superstition in every sentence which advertise all these mysterious concentrations, especially of gold, sulfur and mercury.
To answer your three questions: of course there are quite a few people in possession of the full secrets. One of the advantages of signing on is that you automatically become a member of the Sovereign Sanctuary and a participant in the real estate appurtenant.
There are also a great number of other privileges which are recounted in the various publications of the Order, especially "Liber CI."
2) Regardy [Israel Regardie], whose real name is Regutny or Regudny, is one of those Jews who are the best boost for Hitler's theories. I befriended him in America, and paid his fare over here. He was a very diligent and efficient secretary, but behind this façade his idea was to steal all the secret stuff which of course he didn't succeed in doing. I finally got rid of him after giving him board, lodging and clothes as well as a salary, in return for secretarial help, by getting him a good job. I then lost sight of him for a little and found out that he was living off elderly women whom he robbed shamelessly. In one case he stole a large number of secret manuscripts and published them. Of course what you refer to in his writings comes practically unchanged from The Equinox.
I wish you would not jump to conclusions about other people's knowledge. If you had ever been to India you would know very differently. I was simply overwhelmed with all kinds of teachers and systems and books and mantras, and shastras, etc. most of it utterly worthless superstition, and I cannot help adding in many cases peculiarly disgusting, at least to me, and I feel quite sure to the average civilized human being. After a time one learned to recognize this sort of stuff at a glance and reject it, perhaps with undue haste without further consideration.
You have been asking for something very much like the Crown Jewels; the knowledge of the Elixir has actually within the past fifty years been refused to crowned heads.
I think this is all I can say usefully at the moment. This afternoon I am frightfully busy. I wish you had had the sense to send along that £10 as I suggested, because I have now had an urgent demand for another book to be typed and one which is of much more practical importance. If I had not given you my word I should certainly have side-tracked Liber Aleph until it was done. As it is I have to get another typist entirely separately and unless you implement your request I shall hold myself free to put Liber Aleph on one side and get the other done, and you will have to wait.
I am asking Miss Kingston [Crowley's secretary] to sign this letter for me so that you may make up your great mind without further delay.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours fraternally,
pp. Aleister Crowley
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