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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Karl Germer
[EXCERPT]
[31 May 1946]
Thanks for yours of May 23rd enclosing one from Frater Achad [Charles Stansfeld Jones]. It is very good that he should come crawling back to the penitent's form after thirty years, but I do not quite see how it is going to make up for the time he has wasted on his insane vanity, and you might let him know this view.
I am glad that his submission should have taken place at this moment, however, because his case serves as very useful to quote in discussing the business of Jack Parsons. . . .
The question of Frater 210 [Jack Parsons] seems to me very typical. He reminds me up to a point—though he is on a much lower plane than they of two men who joined the Order shortly after I took it over: both cases seem to me to have certain significance if applied to the present position of Frater 210.
Both cases [Charles Stansfeld Jones and Victor B. Neuburg] were alike in this—that after a very short period of training both had more than fulfilled their early promise; they could claim not only attainment, but achievement—and that in no small degree. I am sorry that there is no possibility of making any similar claim on behalf of Frater 210.
The elder of the two men [Charles Stansfeld Jones] rashly took the oath of a Master of the Temple. He must have failed to expel the last drop of blood into the Cup of Our Lady Babalon, for a comparatively few months later he got an initiation by his own account so marvellous that it superseded our own work altogether. It was, of course, much too sacred for him to give even the least hint of its nature.
What was the result? From that moment his attainment stopped; his achievement stopped; he never produced anything from that hour to this which was worthy of a moment's consideration. Now, after thirty years he has realized his mistake, he has come crawling back in penitence, but that will not do him the service of filling up the gap of thirty wasted years.
The second case was really much simpler. Now, his attainment and his achievement were on the whole of a higher class than that of the other man. But what happened to him? He got into the clutches of a vampire.
The result was identical; from that hour his attainment stopped; his achievement stopped; he lived a miserable life—the life of a slave under the influence of this appalling old woman, and some half-dozen years ago death relieved him from his sufferings; that is, sufferings of that kind.
It seems to me on the information of our Brethren in California (if we may assume them to be accurate) Frater 210 has committed both these errors. He has got a miraculous illumination which rimes with nothing, and he has apparently lost all his personal independence. From our brother's [Louis Culling] account he has given away both his girl and his money—apparently it is the ordinary confidence trick.
Of course, I must suspend judgment until I have heard his side of the story, but he promised me quite a long while ago to write a full explanation, and to date I have received nothing from him. . . .
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