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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to David Curwen
The Ridge, St. Leonards-on-Sea
14th November 1945
Dear Brother Curwen:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Thanks for your letter of November 9
I do not quite follow you paragraph 2. I understood you to say definitely that you were prepared to join, and in several ways the uncertainty makes things difficult. For instance you ask me a number of questions, the answers to which you are not entitled unless you are a full member. "How long halt ye between two opinions."
The other point is that there is a good deal to be learned about the amrita or Elixir, which can hardly be communicated by writing. The Rituals even of Initiation to the Higher Degrees have never been written down. The matter is so important and in some ways so dangerous that it cannot be treated as a routine affair. Some details might be suitable for you which would be of no use at all for anybody else, and vice versa.
Your para. 3: That is just the sort of question you must not ask.
Your para. 4: The letters are quite safe; in case of any accident happening to me they would be immediately transferred to my successor, or his representative. However, if you insist it shall be done.
I do not think that I can tell you any more than you already know about the Sovereign Sanctuary. It is like any other ruling body. These are branches in most of the important countries of the world, but the war has caused suspension of active and open work in many branches.
With regard to my reputation, the answer is very simple. I was born, as the saying goes, in the purple. Imagine the reaction of the average penny-a-liner, the high spots in whose life are the successful cadgings of a few drinks in a low pub. I am not worrying about such people. You know of your knowledge that I am taken quite seriously by your own teacher. Little as he knows about me, he is not stupid enough to pay attention to the guttersnipes that revile me.
With regard to Elizabeth Sharpe, I think it must be the same woman who did a little typing for me in 1919 in New York. She was at the time living with and working for a Japanese poet of considerable merit, Shigetsu Sasaki. She was a mean, mangy, snotty weasel-like creature, a mass of spite and envy, contact with whom was so unpleasant that I could not even bear the semi-secretarial relation which she had with me.
Of course I must say that throughout I have thought you a little too ready to believe things without sufficient evidence. This book which you have kindly sent me (I do not know whether as a gift or as a loan) is plainly nonsense. There is a regular type of cult thriller from Gus Boothby down to Alexander Cannon: all these underground temples and Tibetan acolytes are the veriest stuff that dreams are made of, and pretty poor dreams at that. You have only to talk with people who have really been to such parts of the world as Central Asia to know that there is as much truth in all these phantasies as there is in the typical wild West story with the Wicked Sheriff and the pure young Cowboy, and the terrible Gunmen, and the professional Gambler with the heart of gold. They are all dummies repeated again and again by people who have no brains or imagination or any capacity either for telling the truth or for inventing plausible fiction.
Let me assure you once and for all that in the whole compass of serious Magick there is none of this nasty nonsense. We are like other scientific men entirely pure in heart, at least with respect to our work.
There seems to be a great deal of misunderstanding still between us on even the simplest matters. For instance you do not understand why I cannot get my books printed in cheap editions. All right. Try and get a book of any kind printed anywhere and see what happens; sometimes they keep the manuscript, putting you off with excuse after excuse for months and then turn the whole thing down; sometimes they just laugh in your face at the start.
Why do you think I should have got the blocks for the Tarot I do not know. I have got eight out of seventy-nine. You cannot print coloured reproductions from collotype blocks. I daresay that some firms might offer to do the whole business for as little as £1,000, but the work would be inferior at that price and I do not believe either that one could find a firm willing to accept the order.
When I wanted those postcards, of which I sent you one, reproduced, and they asked me how many, I thought I would be moderate and suggested two hundred. There were loud jeers, and the maximum they agreed to do was one dozen!
You have evidently misunderstood moreover my tip. What you say about it makes it perfectly clear, when I spoke of an elaborate apparatus. I will ask you to consider the operation of seeing. Is not the arrangement of lenses and nerves and all the rest an elaborate apparatus? These things have all been put together with the object of permitting you to obtain knowledge of the outer world by sight. Make the proper analogies and it should be clear to you what I meant in my letter.
I, too, had a book whose name I now forget, with a number of yantras and instructions of doing similar rituals; I never tried to use it, it was not quite in my line and I had already a better way.
I cannot imagine what your teacher was about when he asked Elizabeth Sharpe to take the part of [. . .]. It was a wish phantasm on her part, I think—a more despicable female it would be hard to imagine.
I never got in touch with any Kaula circle, and never heard of it till your book arrived this morning. All that it says of me is the sheerest and most fantastic nonsense. I do not [think] I met her more than half-a-dozen times. This was in New York. I do not know if you are familiar with that city, but I think [you] might look a long while before you found any Tibetan Acolytes. [. . .] in that city I never performed any Rituals—for one the atmosphere is exceedingly antagonistic.
Of course the last two paragraphs are taken from "Liber Jugorum." The word "gash" is rather an exaggeration—a mere nick with a safety razor is sufficient. One doctor I knew who was afraid of germs used to replace this with hitting himself with a riding whip, but this is inconvenient from the point of view of the record. The importance of the practice is that it sets up a sentinel at the gate so that you do not think, speak or act without consideration.
It is a perfectly simple and harmless practice. I will go further and say that it is one of the most valuable I know for learning to control the mind.
I attach no particular importance to the black crown surmounted by a cross. It might come into almost anything and its meaning would depend a great deal on the context.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours fraternally,
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