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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Gerald Yorke
The Ridge, HASTINGS.
27. 3. 46
Captain Gerald Yorke, 7, Selwyn Gardens, CAMBRIDGE
Dear Gerald,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I was very glad to hear from you the other day. I have not had time to answer your letter earlier, not only have I had to send out all these Words [Words of the Equinox]; but I have found a printer and I have had to get a copy of Olla ready for the Press. It has in fact gone this afternoon.
I think it is a unique publication: I doubt whether anyone else can boast (if it is a boast) of 60 years of Song. Of course I do not count school magazines and the like, but I had a poem printed in a nation-wide periodical in 1887.
I have picked out 54 poems, all as different as possible, and all written in as many parts of the Northern Hemisphere as possible. I wish to goodness I could get a publisher; there must be someone somewhere who would be interested. But, as you know, I am quite hopeless at dealing with this sort of thing.
I thought the "Occult Theocracy" book might amuse you, as an example of the degree of rubbish that you can get people to believe. Perhaps the finest idiocy of all is coupling my name with that of Wynn Westcott as the founders of the Stella Matutina. I only saw the old boy once in my life, and then merely on an errand from Mathers [MacGregor Mathers] to tell him he had incurred a traitor's doom. And I only wrote to him once, and that to demand that he should deposit the famous Cipher manuscripts with the British Museum as their secrecy was being used for purposes of fraud. He of course did not answer, and I of course published the affair in the Equinox. I am sure he had nothing to do with the Stella Matutina, I fancy he was dead before it started, and I certainly had hardly heard of it at all till quite recently.
I do not know who your Dr. Dingwal is; I should like to know more of him.
I seems very strange to think of you being back in Montague Square: I had hardly realised that you had kept it on; I got the idea somehow that it had been considerable damaged by enemy action.
I am rather surprised that the British Museum lacks copies [of Crowley's books]. I remember going through the catalogue very many years ago and finding it almost complete; but with regard to later works I daresay they have not got all that they should have. What is more, there are quite a number published under other names which are hard to dig out.
You ask about my health: I thought I had told you that I had put in about six months ago on a general extraction of roots which ought to have been taken out years ago, but I grudged the money because there was work to be printed. Now I have had it all done, and am just starting on getting a new set, and this is rather a blow. It appears that my mouth is shaped in various ways so as to make it very difficult to do a satisfactory job. I shall have to have gold bases, and it is going to run into a matter of £70 or more; so if you hear a loud shriek coming from this direction you will know what it is all about!
One trouble leads to another; taking out all these roots week after week put a great strain on my health, and that has tended to damage my eyes. I went to an oculist last week and he says that he thought it would be no good prescribing new bifocals, I might be disappointed; it was general health and age that was bothering me. The result is: he is going to give me reading glasses. This of course is very much less expensive,—including his fee a couple pairs will only come to less than £6, as I had old frames which can be used.
There is, I think some hope that when I am able once again to eat normal food (I haven't had a regular meal for pretty nearly a couple of years) the dimness and blurring may more or less disappear.
All the same it is not very promising. I should really like to have a second opinion. I am told that the best man available is called De Gelda (I don't know how to spell it). Do you happen to know the man? . . .
I must break off now as there is a lot of trouble (as usual) in America. We must however re-establish the Order in Germany. Martha Küntzel died in Dec 1941—apparently of old age, but considering the circumstances I think the brethren have managed extremely well to keep things going the way they have done. They see quite clearly that the Law of Thelema is the only principle by which the world can be put straight.
There is also a man in Ontario [Alexander Watt] who appears to be a member of the R.R. et A.C. I am trying to make out whence he derives his authority, but he certainly uses our symbols and our language, and I think it will be a very good plan for him to affiliate.
Please remember me to Angela [Yorke's wife] and to the youngsters if they have not altogether forgotten me.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours ever,
Aleister.
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