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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to David Curwen
The Ridge, Hastings
22nd January 1946
Care Frater,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I am now getting a little more leisure and hasten to reply to your recent letters
I hope that by now you have made contact with one or more of the people whose names and addresses I gave, and found that among them there were at least who could be useful to you.
I should like to point out that in the MS documents which I lent you was a great deal of technical information. I think I told you personally that my first reaction was rather sceptical and that I did not take it up seriously until my startling success with the method in Tunis in the Winter of 1913.[1]
But you can only get the full value from experience, and experience comes by practice. I hope that you have found a suitable partner for these experiments.
Immediately after you had left I myself began to make experiments on the lines which you suggested, though of course I did not begin with any sulfurous demonstrations. Do I understand that ordinary powdered sulfur in more or less continual contact with the skin is sufficient, and how long should this treatment be continued.
As to the experiment itself, I found, as I expected that experience confirmed many of your statements. What you said about taste in particular was perfectly accurate, and I do not think there was any autosuggestion in my feeling that a distinct stimulus was afforded it at the moment. I should compare it roughly as that of a small whisky.
On the other hand it is rather a bore, and I feel that I want a little more result for my pains. Perhaps the preliminary treatment with sulfur is what is wanted and I should be very grateful to you if you would let me have further details about this.
I was sorry that your visit the other day was so short. There is a great deal which I could tell you if we had more leisure. Perhaps you can arrange for another visit in the near future.
By the way it might interest you to meet some of the very young generation. I should perhaps have mentioned the man in my previous letter, but I was overworked and nervous. The name is
G. Kenneth Grant, 88 St. Andrews Road, Ilford, Essex.
I believe he works for a bookseller in the City and it should therefore be easy for you to arrange to lunch together. He is a very strange though decidedly interesting man, and I should very much value your opinion of him. Do you think in particular that he can ever develop into a responsible leader? He was down here for some weeks with me, but under rather trying conditions for him and I feel that I may have treated him too severely.
I think that is all that I have to tell you for the present. I could give you a number of names and addresses when I see you. I can also show you various documents and photographs connected with the Order.
For one thing, I feel that you do not understand our present position in England as I should like you to do. I feel that the somewhat unsatisfactory position of affairs in this country is largely my fault, and I should like to explain to you how severe have been many of the obstacles in my way.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours fraternally,
1—Crowley did not visit Tunis in the winter of 1913. It seems likely that Crowley is actually referring to Paris, not Tunis, where he prepared his first systematic exploration of sexual magic, which he commenced with Victor Neuburg on New Year's Eve 1913-1914.
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