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Correspondence from Grady McMurtry to Jean Sihvonen
[EXTRACT]
[19 April 1958]
We have all been sitting around waiting for Karl [Karl Germer] to act, and Karl has no intention of acting. Karl does not consider himself to be a teacher. He has no interest in group work or in demonstrating 'ritual practices, or yoga techniques, etc. etc.' So far as he is concerned we can sink or swim on our own which is, you will have to admit, a perfectly justifiable attitude for a Thelemite.
. . . there is no reason why we cannot work together and help each other develop on a number of factors many of which remain unclarified. One of these factors is as to whether any of the 'old Thelemites' of the California group wish to participate with me in forming a new Thelemite community. I think you should realize that Karl would probably not look with too much enthusiasm on the 'scattered fragments' of former groups getting together. He would probably think that we were 'conspiring against him,' or something equally fantastic.
We should aim for greatness . . . We must go into the world where there are thousands of people asking the same questions we have asked and we must bring this world to us. Create the conditions of Thelema, and Thelema will take care of itself. Set in motion the right process and it will generate a spontaneous and accelerating enthusiasm of its own as it spreads from person to person and from group to group. In a world where the individual has been depersonalized into a mechanistic organization man, what can be more real than the Gnosis? In an age where the bureaucratic secret has resulted in such quaint touches as strontium 90 in the salad, what can be more important than the Thelemic individual and his total commitment to freedom! Begin with debate teams, discussion groups, seminars, conferences, lecture tours, a discovery workshop for ideas. In short, we must make up our own minds to act. Once we have done that the rest is merely a matter of working out the details. We must each of us promulgate Thelema in our own way.
Foxie [Marjorie Fox] has decided, at this late date, that she will have nothing to do with Thelema. I cannot say that I was not warned, but I find it no less tragic for all of that. I knew that she had never committed herself, but I had just presumed that this was a difficulty that would be overcome in time. All she would have to do would be to try real hard and all would become clear. Now I awake, rather belatedly, to the realization that she doesn't want to try to understand, that she is not interested in learning, for learning implies change, and she does not want change. When she was a little girl all the baby sitter had to do was draw a circle around her and she would stay in it. Now I discover, and I have no excuse for not having realized it earlier, that she wants me to stay in that little circle with her, and this, of course, is impossible. I must go on. She will not go with me. Therefore I must go on without her.
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