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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Jacintha Buddicom
14 Oct 46
Care Soror.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Thanks very much for your letter and the charming card. I do not however like Jamaica for some reason; they are the wrong type of black people. I adore the Martinique. I am sending you a copy of the Book of the Law with this. I thought you had one else I should certainly have given you one when you came to lunch, which is my hitherto invariable rule. I still can hardly believe that you have not had it.
Your mention of Betox reminds me that everything of this sort is made out of the most impossible kind of garbage. My father-in-law was Vicar of Camberwell and his wife devoted to good works. She thought it would be a most charmingly poetic idea to give a tea to the girls of Cross and Blackwell's and offer them all those exquisite delicacies which they were compelled to make but could never afford to buy. The trouble only arose when tea started: none of the girls would touch the filth. Are you aware that salmon and shrimp paste is made principally from calves which have miscarried? A friend of mine was offered a share in a hot dog business on Coney Island. In the course of the negotiations he found out the constituent: he went into the next room and was adequately sick, and the deal was off.
I can see that you will go a very long way in the Kabbala; you are most ingenious, as you do not cheat, which is of course a great temptation for most people. I entertain the highest hopes.
No, a motto is, as I said before, the expression either of your aspiration or of the means which you propose to attain it, but its chief use is to distinguish between the magical and the physical personality. I cannot say to Virtuti 'your stocking is laddered; because Virtuti has no stockings, and I cannot say 'Miss Buddicom'; will you now kindly move over to the sphere of Jupiter' because Miss Buddicom is an animal and incapable of any such manoeuvres.
I found it very useful myself for discriminating between my magical actions and my exploits in climbing or gambling, or whatever. I actually worked out a magical practice on the Jekel [sic] and Hyde principles. I had at that time a little rose and cross—five rubies and a five-petal rose with a cross of six squares with various inscriptions, and I arranged with myself that when I put this on I should act in one character, and when I took it off again in another. This was a great help to me in sorting out the various elements of my being. It was not a matter of the magical personality so much, I simply built up two people of entirely different characteristics. One, for example, might be a scholar, a mountaineer, and explorer, a person of great athletic achievements, generous in disposition, noble and so on. The other character had a whole lot of other characteristics, very distinct from those of the first, and I used to punish myself if when any one character I performed any action which was suited only to the other.
I am looking forward to your visit with great expectation. I hope it means that you will have some days to spend here, as you talk of clearing up the muddle. I simply must find my list of addresses in good time so as to circularise people about Olla.
Please congratulate yourself on having extracted such a long letter on such a busy day.
Love is the law, love under will.
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