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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to David Curwen
The Ridge, Hastings
5th December 1945
Mr. David Curwen
Dear Brother,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Thanks for yours of December 1st. It is no use telling me that you believe in Magick as long as you continue to advance the arguments which might just as well be put p by the Revd. Judas McCabbage, or any other bright light of the R.P.A.
I am taking the opportunity of having my secretary here to complement my last letter written by hand very fully.
But first let me tell you, if I have not already done so, that you ought to choose a Motto by which you may be known in the Order. This motto, in Hebrew, Greek or Latin, should not contain more than three or at the most four words. It should express your highest aspiration, your true Will, the purpose for which you chose to come to dwell on this planet for a season.
Now let me tell you a singular anecdote. I had been working for some time with Captain (now Major General) J.F.C. Fuller, who was writing a book on my poetry [The Star in the West], and I told him that it was incomplete without any reference to the Magical side of my career.
This got his goat; he was a friend of the late Saladin (Stewart Ross) and disbelieved most heartily anything connected with the occult science. We were both very stubborn about it and ultimately I lost my temper—one day I sent him a typescript of The Book of the Law which had at that time never been printed, with a rather sharp letter, with the deliberate intention of breaking off relations with him. My idea was that that book would disgust him with me so completely that he would send me to hell.
What was my amazement when he replied a couple of days later "Then there are Masters after all, there must be for these are the words of a Master."
Naturally that upset everything and we renewed our friendship more firmly on that basis.
I will now explain the story of 718; see Liber AL, chap. 3, verse 19. It was about 1922 when I was at the top of my form Qabbalitically, and was busy writing the Commentary. The riddle of this verse was beyond me. Every time I started—and I had become very skillful at manipulation—I was always brought up by the words "Count well its name." How can I, I said, it never had a name?
Well, through the long watches of one starlit night, I was trying it over again for the umpteen thousand time. Suddenly the light appeared to break. I said, let me subtract the value in Greek of the word Stele from 718. To my amazement the answer is 666. Hurray, I shouted, it is my Stele after all. That will do.
Something deeper told me that it would not do. "Count well its name." It never had a name. Yes, I suddenly shouted, it has had a name once but only once; it was listed at Stele 666 in the Catalogue at the Booulak Museum.
I now turn to the Omnipresence of my Body story.
I had just come back from the United States—these are the early days of 1920—I was completely frustrated in every sense of the word I appeared to be down and out. I began to doubt was I really the chosen of the Masters and all the rest of it. I put up the question to the Yi King, and the answer indicated that I should look for a sign. I put up another question "What sort of sign?" And this time the answer was a hexagram which perfectly represented the Stele of Revealing.
Yes, I said to myself, well I suppose I know all that, but I want something definite.
As you know, I had been away in the U.S. for some five years and had lost touch with my old friends in Paris, though I had picked up one or two old links on my way through to Moret where I got this period of doubt and these divinations.
One of these old friends had been a very dear friend indeed, though after our parting she had been taken up more or less permanently with a very famous journalist whose name I will tell you any time you wish. He was away at the moment and she said to me "Come next time you are in Paris when he will be back. I have something to show you."
This I did a few days after I had done the divinations. She went away to make tea, and he told me something of what had happened during my absence. They had been very keen on Opium smoking, which is why I did not mention his name in this letter, and they had pushed it a bit too hard. They made up their minds that they would go into a remote country place and break themselves of the habit. These people had the excellent custom of acting quickly once they had made a decision. They threw a few things into a couple of suitcases and went off. At the last moment my friend exclaimed "We must have something to read, and one of the two or three books he picked out was The Equinox Vol. I, No. 7.
After they went the abstinence from opium began to be a bit hard on their nerves. She found that it helped her to keep her hands constantly busy and took up embroidering.
A few minutes after he had said this she came in with tea and in the course of conversation, I said, "By the way, you promised that you had something to show me." "Oh, yes," she said, "I will go and get it." She went out and came back with a roll of some material like rough canvas. "Shut your eyes" she said. I did so. "Open them," she said. I did so, and spread out before her was an embroidered reproduction about seven feet high of the Stele of Revealing. I said nothing.
I should have been a fool to doubt the facts. Three years before that moment, in the course of a chain of circumstances of the most extraordinary character, the precise answer to my demand for a sign had been prepared. I think I may say that since that moment I have never doubted again.
My last story is about Martha Küntzel.
I shall have to go a little into the history of the Order to make this clear. In June 1925 I was invited to the Headquarters of one of the Secret Brotherhoods in Germany. About a fortnight later the secret heads of other bodies joined us. The genuine representatives of H.P.B. [Helana Petrovna Blavastky] were Otto Gebhardi and Martha Küntzel. There were in all eight of us excluding myself who represented the Secret Councils of all the important Orders which are branches of the great White Brotherhood.
Various discussions took place, mostly behind my back, but at the end a General Counsel was convened and what is known as a Zeugnis was prepared. This summarized the situation and its effect was to elect me as the Secret Head of all these bodies.
The Chiefs dispersed, but I at the conclusion of my visit to the Headquarters in Thuringia went to stay for a short time with Otto Gebhardi and Martha Küntzel. It was now autumn and I went off to Turin for a Magical retirement.
Shortly after this Otto Gebhardi and Martha Küntzel was left to carry on as the secret head of the T.S. [Theosophical Society]. (one result of these manoeuvres was the issuing of the "Mediterranean Manifesto" and the digging out of Krishnamurti to be the puppet head of the T.S. by the usurping black magician A.B. [Annie Besant].)
In the course of her work she became convinced that Adolph Hitler was her Magical Child and she proceeded to instruct him as such. I had given her a copy not only of the book but of the enormous three volume Commentary on it, to be translated into German. She accordingly sent her translation of the book to Hitler what at that time, as you remember, was obscure, and indeed for part of it in prison. He selected portions of the Commentary as she translated them. There was, apparently, quite a long correspondence extending over years. Her actions were not reported to me till some time later and I urged her to explain to him (quite uselessly) that the Herrenvolk were not to be distinguished by race but by individual merit. It was surely quite clear that Masters had arisen in every part of the world irrespective of their national or racial characteristics. This was in fact the fundamental error of Hitler, that he would not see this, although he himself was certainly of mixed blood.
If you will get a copy of Dr. Rauschning's book on Hitler at Home, or whatever the title was, you will be surprised to observe how much of Hitler's private remarks might have been taken directly from The Book of the Law.
That is enough, and more than enough. Why should I be so foolish as to enfoncer une porte ouverte. Any psychoanalyst will tell you that your violent resistance to The Book of the Law is the best possible evidence that it is working on you. You are surely not such a fool as to resist when nobody is pushing. Believe me, there is nothing new to me in this. I too, went through a period of many years of the most violent antagonism to the Book, and the best evidence of that is my action described at the beginning of this letter with regard to Fuller.
Another reason perhaps is that all along I have taken pains with you such as I have hardly ever taken with anyone else. I should have got rid of you long ago if I had not been certain—I cannot tell you why—that you were destined to play some very important role in this extraordinary drama.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours in the bonds of the Order.
P.S. Liber Aleph is finished and is being sent to you under separate cover. I must apologize for the delay.
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