CHAPTER LXX

                         MORALITY (1)

Cara Soror,

          Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

"Tu l'as voulu, Georges Dandin!"  I knew from the first that your sly,
insidious, poisoned poniard, slipped in between my ribs, would soon
or late involve a complete exposition of the whole subject of Morality.

Of we go!  What really is it?  The word comes from Mos, Latin for
custom, manner.  Similarly, ethics: from Greek ESOC custom.  "It
isn't done" may be modern slang, but it's correct.  Interesting to
study the usage of "moeurs" and "maniŠres" in French.  "Manner" from
"manus" --- hand: it is "the way to handle things."

But the theological conception has steered a very wrong course, even
for theology; brought in Divine Injunction, and Conscience, and a
whole host of bogeys.  (Candles in hollow turnips deceive nobody out-
side a churchyard!)

So we find ourselves discussing a "palely wandering" phantom idea
whose connotations or extensions depend on the time, the place, and
the victim.  We know "the crimes of Clapham chaste in Martaban," and
the difference between Old and New Testament morality in such matters
as polygamy and diet; while the fur flies when two learned professors
go down with a smart attack of Odium Theologicum, and are ready to
destroy a civilization on the question of whether it is right or wrong
for a priest (or presbyter? or minister?) to wear a white nightie or a
black in the pulpit.

But what you want to know is the difference between (a) common or area
morality, (b) Yogin -- or "holy man's" morality, and (c) the Magical
Morality of the New Aeon of Thelema.

1. Area Morality:  This is the code of the "Slave-Gods," very thor-
ougly analysed, pulverized, and de-loused by Nietzsche in Antichrist.
It consists of all the meanest vices, especially envy, cowardice,
cruelty and greed: all based on over-mastering Fear.  Fear of the
nightmare type.  With this incubus, the rich and powerful have devised
an engine to keep down the poor and the weak.  They are lavish alike
with threats and promises in Ogre Bogey's Castle and Cloud-Cuckoo-Land.
"Religion is the opium of the people," when they flinch no longer
from the phantom knout.

2. Eight Lectures on Yoga gives a reasonable account of the essence
of this matter, especially in the talks on Yama and Niyama.  (A book
on this subject might well include a few quotations, notably from
paragraphs 8, 9 and 10 in the former).  It might be summarized as
"doing that, and only that, which facilitates the task in hand."  A
line of conduct becomes a custom when experience has shown that to
follow it makes for success.  "Don't press!"  "Play with a straight
bat!"  "Don't draw to five!"  do not involve abstract considerations






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of right and wrong.  Orthodox Hinduism has raped this pure system, and
begotten a bastard code which reeks of religion.  A political manoeuvre
of the Brahmin caste.

Suppose we relax a little, come down to earth, and look at what the
far-famed morality of the Holy Man was, and is, in actual practice.
You will find this useful to crush Toshophist and Antroposophagist1
cockroaches as well as the ordinary Christian Scolex when they assail
you.

In the lands of Hinduism and (to a less extent) of Islam, the Sultan,
the Dewan, the Maharajah, the Emir, or whatsoever they call "the Grand
Pandjandrum Himself, with the little round button on top," it is almost
a 100 per cent rule that the button works loose and is lost!  Even in
less exalted circles, any absolute ruler, on however petty a scale, is
liable to go the whole hog in an unexceptionably hoggish fashion.  He
has none to gainsay him, and he sees no reason for controlling himself.
This suits nearly everybody pretty well; the shrewd Wazir can govern
while his "master" fills up on "The King's Peg" (we must try one when
champagne is once again reasonably cheap) and all the other sensuous
and sensual delights unstinted.  The result is that by the time he is
twenty --- he was probably married at 12 --- he is no longer fitted to
carry out his very first duty to the State, the production of an heir.

Quite contrary to this is the career of the "Holy Man."  Accustomed to
the severest physical toil, inured to all the rigours of climate,
aloof from every noxious excess, he becomes a very champion of virility.
(Of course, there are exceptions, but the average "holy man" is a
fairly tall fellow of his hands).  More, he has been particularly
trained for this form of asceticism by all sorts of secret methods and
practices; some of these, but the way, I was able to learn myself, and
found surprisingly efficacious.

So we have the law of supply and demand at work as uncomplainingly as
usual: the Holy Man prays for the threatened Dynasty, blesses the
Barren Queen; and they all live happy ever after.  This is not an
Arabian Night's Tale of Antiquity; it is the same today:  there are
very few Englishmen who have spent any time in India who have not been
approached with proposals of this character.

Similar conditions, curiously enough, existed in France; the "fils …
papa" was usually a hopeless rotter, and his wife often resorted to a
famous monastery on the Riviera, where was an exceptionally holy Image
of the Blessed Virgin Mary, prayers unto whom removed sterility.  But
when M. Combes turned out the monks, the Image somehow lost it virtue.

Now get your Bible and turn up Luke VIII, 2!  When the sal volatile has
worked, turn to John XIII 2,3 and ask a scholar what any Greek of the
period would have understood by the technical expressions there unambigu-
ously employed.

1^  WEH NOTE: This is a reference to the school of thought of Rudolf Steiner.
By the time of this writing, Steiner's students were being taught that Crowley
was a "bad man".  Tit for tat.  Anthroposophy presents a merging of several
branches of mysticism with dance and movement.  It rewards study, but one
shouldn't mention A.C. at the Steiner schools until one has acquired what
one wants!







2


Presently, I hope, you will begin to wonder whether, after all, the
"morality" of the middle classes of the nineteenth century, in Anglo-
Saxon countries, is quite as axiomatic as you were taught to suppose.

Please let me emphasize the fact that I have heard and seen these condi-
tions in Eastern countries with my own ears and eyes.  Vivekananda ---
certainly the best of the modern Indian writes on Yoga --- complained
bitterly that the old greymalkin witches of New York who called them-
selves his disciples had to be dodged with infinite precaution whenever
he wanted to spend an evening in the Tenderloin.  On the other hand,
the Sheikh of Mish --- and a very holy Sheikh he was --- introduced his
"boy friend" as such to me when I visited him in the Sahara, without
the slightest shame or embarrassment.

Believe me, the humbug about "morality" in this country and the U.S.A.,
yes, even on the Continent in pious circles, is Hobgoblin No. 1 on the
path of the Wise.  If you are fooled by that, you will never get out
of the stinking bog of platitudinous mouthings of make-believe "Masters."
Need I refer to the fact that most of the unco' guid are penny plain
hypocrites.  A little less vile are those whose prejudices are Freudian
in character, who "compound for sins that they're inclined to, By damn-
ing those they have no mind to."

Even when, poor-spirited molluscs, they are honest, all that twaddle is
Negation.  "Hang your clothes on a hickory limb, and don't go near the
water!" does not produce a Gertrud Ederle.  Thank God, the modern girl
has cast off at least one of her fetters --- the ceinture de chast‚t‚!

Perhaps we have now relaxed enough; we see that the "Holy man" is not
such a fool as he looks; and we may get on with our excursions into
the "Morality" of the Law of the New Aeon, which is the Aeon of Horus,
crowned and conquering child: and --- "The word of the Law is Thelema{this
word in Greek caps}."

3. So much of The Book of the Law deals directly or indirectly with
morals that to quote relevant passages would be merely bewildering.
Not that this state of mind fails to result from the first, second,
third and ninety-third perusals!

           "When Duty bellows loud 'Thou must!'
            The youth replies 'Pike's Peak or Bust!'"

is all very well, or might be if the bellow gave further particulars.
And one's general impression may very well be that Thelema not only
gives general licence to to any fool thing that comes into one's head,
but urges in the most emphatic terms, reinforced by the most eloquent
appeals in superb language, by glowing promises, and by categorical
assurance that no harm can possibly come thereby, the performance of
just that specific type of action, the maintenance of just that line
of conduct, which is most severely depreciated by the high priests and
jurists of every religion, every system of ethics, that ever was under
the sun!

You may look sourly down a meanly-pointed nose, or yell "Whoop La!" and
make for Piccadilly Circus: in either case you will be wrong; you will
not have understood the Book.

Shameful confession, one of my own Chelas (or so it is rather incredibly






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reported  to me) said recently: "Self-discipline is a form of Restric-
tion."  (That, you remember, is "The word of Sin ...".)  Of all the utter
rubbish!  (Anyhow, he was a "centre of pestilence" for discussing the
Book at all.)  About 90 % of Thelema, at a guess, is nothing but
self-discipline.  One is only allowed to do anything and everything so
as to have more scope for exercising that virtue.

concentrate on "...thou hast no right but to do thy will."  The point is
that any possible act is to be performed if it is a necessary factor
in that Equation of your Will.  Any act that is not such a factor,
however harmless, noble, virtuous or what not, is at the best a waste
of energy.  But there are no artificial barriers on any type of act in
general.  The standard of conduct has one single touchstone.  There
may be --- there will be --- every kind of difficulty in determining whether,
by this standard, any given act is "right" or "wrong": but there should
be no confusion.  No act is righteous in itself, but only in reference
to the True Will of the person who proposes to perform it.  This is the
Doctrine of Relativity applied to the moral sphere.

I think that, if you have understood this, the whole theory is now
within your grasp; hold it fast, and lay about you!

Of course, there must be certain courses of action which, generally
speaking, will be right for pretty well everybody.  Some, per contra,
will be generally barred, as interfering with another's equal right.
Some cases will be so difficult that only a Magister Templi can judge
them, and a Magus carry them wisely into effect.  Fearsome responsibility,
I should say, that of the Masters who began the building-up of the New
Aeon by bringing about these Wars!

(I do wish that we had the sense to take our ideas of Peace conditions
from the Bible, as our rulers so loudly profess that they do.  The
Enemy knows well enough that there is no other way to make a war pay.)

Now then, I hope that we have succeeded in clarifying this exceptionally
muddy marish water of morality from most of its alien and toxic dirt;
too often the Aspirant to the Sacred Wisdom finds no firm path under his
feet; the Bog of Respectability mires him who sought the Garden of
Delights; soon the last bubbles burst from his choked lungs; he is
engulfed in the Slough of Despond.

In the passive elements of Earth and Water is no creative virtue to
cleanse themselves from such impurity as they chance to acquire; it is
therefore of cardinal importance to watch them, guard them, keep their
Purity untainted and unsoiled; shall the Holy Grail brim with poison
of Asps, and the golden Paten be defiled with the Bread of Iniquity?
Come Fire, come Air, cleanse ye and kindle the pure instruments, that
Spirit may indwell, inform, inspire the whole, the One Continuous
Sacrament of Life!

We have considered this Morality from quite a number of very different
points of view; wrought subtly and accurately into final shape, you
should find no further difficulty in understanding fully at least the
theoretical and abstract aspects of the business.

But as to your own wit of judgment as to the general rules of your
own private Code of Morals, what is "right" and what is "wrong" for
you, that will emerge only from long self-analysis such as is the






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chief work of the Sword in the process of your Initiation.

                  Love is the law, love under will.

                                 Yours fraternally.

                                         666

P.S.  Most of this is stated or implied in AHA!

MARSYAS    . . . . . . . . . . . Be ever as you can
           A simple honest gentleman!
           Body and manners be at ease,
           Not bloat with blazoned sanctities!
           Who fights as fights the soldier-saint?
           And see the artist-adept paint!
           Weak are the souls that fear the stress
           Of earth upon their holiness!
           They fast, they eat fantastic food,
           They prate of beans and brotherhood,
           Wear sandals, and long hair, and spats,
           And think that makes them Arahats!
           How shall man still his spirit-storm?
           Rational dress and Food Reform!

OLYMPAS    I know such saints.

MARSYAS                               An easy vice:
           So wondrous well they advertise!
           O their mean souls are satisfied
           With wind of spiritual pride.
           They're all negation.  "Do not eat;
           What poison to the soul is meat!
           Drink not; smoke not; deny the will!
           Wine and tobacco make us ill."
           Magic is life: the Will to Live
           Is one supreme Affirmative.
           These things that flinch from Life are worth
           No more to Heaven than to Earth.
           Affirm the everlasting Yes!

OLYMPAS    Those saints at least score one success:
           Perfection of their priggishness!

MARSYAS    Enough.  The soul is subtlier fed
           With meditation's wine and bread.
           Forget their failings and our own;
           Fix all our thoughts on love alone!

CHAPTER LXXI

                           MORALITY (2)

Cara Soror,

          Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

The contents of your letter appalled me.  I had hoped that you had






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left behind forever all that quality of thinking.  It is unclean.  It
is stuffy and flabby.  You write of a matter about which you cannot
possibly have information, and what you say is not even a good guess;
it is simply contrary to fact.  It shows also that you have failed to
grasp the nature of the O.T.O.  Its main raison d'etre, apart from
social and political plans, is the teaching and use of a secret method
of achieving certain results.  This secret is a scientific secret; it
is guarded against betrayal or abuse by a very simple automatic arrange-
ment.  Its guardians cannot be "dying" any more than electricians as
a class can be.

It is really difficult to answer your letters.  You have got things so
higgledy-piggledy.  You write of the constitutions of two orders, the
A.'. A.'. and the O.T.O.; yet you ignore the printed information about
them which you are supposed to have read.

I have to answer each sentence of your letter separately, so incoherent
have you become!

You are a "student" of A.'. A.'., and become a Probationer as soon as
you take and pass the examination.  (This is intended mostly to make
sure that you have some general idea of the principal branches of the
subject, and know the more important correspondences,)  The rest: ---
please read One Star in Sight again, and do for God's sake try to
assimilate the information there very clearly and very fully given!

It is terrifyingly near the state of mind which we symbolize by Choron-
zon, this hurrying flustered dash of yours from one point of view to
another: a set of statements all true after a fashion, but flung out
with such apprehensive agitation that a sensitive reader like myself
comes near to being upset.

You say that you must tread the Path alone: quite true, if only because
anything that exists for you is necessarily part of yourself.  Yet you
have to "go to others", and you become a veritable busybody.  You quote
odd opinions at random without the means of estimating their value.

Cannot I ever get you to understand the difference between an honest
and dishonest teacher?  I have always made it a rule never to put for-
ward any statement of which I cannot produce proof; when I venture a
personal opinion it is always Marked in Plain Figures to that effect.
(I refer you to Magick p. 368: p. 375, paragraphs 1 and 2:. and p. 415,
paragraphs 000 and 00.  We insist from the beginning on the individual
character of the work, and upon the necessity of maintaining the objec-
tive and sceptical standpoint.  You are explicitly warned against
reliance upon "authority," even that of the Order itself.)  Consider
my own assets, personal, social, educational, experiential and the
rest: don't you see that all I had to do was to put out some brightly-
coloured and mellifluous lie, and avoid treading on too many toes, to
have had hundreds of thousands of idiots worshipping me?

Please get a Konx om Pax somehow, and read p. XII:

           "It's only too easy to form a cult,
           "To cry a crusade with 'Deus Vult' . . . .
           "A pinch of Bible, a gallon of gas,
           "And I, or any otherguess ass,
           "Could bring to our mystical Moonlight Mass






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           "Those empty-headed Athenians."

and so on.

But I never forget that I am working on the 2,000 year basis; my work
will stand when all the pompous platitudes and pleasant pieties have
withered for the iridescent soft-soap bubbles that they are.

Soap!  yes, indeed.  I work on gold, and gold must be cleansed with
acid.

I really cannot understand how you can be so inaccurate, with the very
text before your eyes!  You write --- "you write that in Jan. 1899 etc."
But I don't.  Captain J. F. C. Fuller wrote it.  A small point; but
you must learn to be careful about every tiniest detail.

Then you go on about "not only invisible chiefs2 of the A.'. A.'. . . . . .
but also the Chiefs of the Golden Dawn . . ."  The Golden Dawn is merely
the name for the Outer Order: see Magick pp. 230-231.  You have never
been taught to read carefully.  You write of Theoricus as the grade
following Neophyte:  it isn't.  Back to Magick pp. 230-231!  You have
never taken the trouble to go with me through the Rituals of O.T.O.,
or you would not ask such questions.  The O.T.O. is a training of
the Masonic type; there is no "astral" work in it at all, nor any Yoga.
There is a certain amount of Qabalah, and that of great doctrinal value.
But the really vital matter is the gradual progress towards disclosure
of the Secret of the Ninth Degree.  To use that secret to advantage
involves mastery both of Yoga and of Magick; but neither is taught in
the Order.  Now it comes to be mentioned, this is really very strange.
However, I didn't invent the system; I must suppose that those who
did knew what they were about.

To me it is (a) convenient in various practical ways, (b) a machine
for carrying out the orders of the Secret Chiefs of A.'. A.'.  (c) by
virtue of the Secret a magical weapon of incalculable power.

You are not "stuck."  You can use your Astral Body well enough: too
well, in one way.  But I think you need a few more journeys with me:
you ought to get on to the stage where the vision results from a
definite invocation.

Do please forget all these vague statements about the "clarification
of one's dream-life" (meaning what?) and "shadow-thinking" (meaning
what?)  These speculations are idle, and idleness is poison.  In your
very next paragraph you give the whole show away!  "Artistically it
appeals to me --- but not spiritually."  You have been spiritually
poisoned.

What blasphemy more hideous could be penned?  What lie so base, so
false, so nasty, what so devilish and deadly a doctrine?  I feel con-
taminated by the mere fact of being in a world where such filth is
possible to conceive.  I am all but in tears to think of my beloved
sister tortured by so foul a denizen of the Abyss.  Cannot you see in
this the root of all your toadstool spawn of miseries, of doubts, of
fears, of indecisions?
2*  How do you know They are "invisible?"  I foresee that sooner or later
you will be asking for more information about them, so I am planning a
separate letter to supply this.  (See Letters IX, L and LXXVII)






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 As an Artist you are a consecrated Virgin Priestess, the Oracle of the
Most High.  None has the right to approach you save with the most
blessed awe, with arms outstretched as to invoke your benediction.

By "spiritually" you mean no more than "according to the lower and
middle-middle-class morality of the Anglo-Saxon of the period when
Longfellow and Tennyson were supposed to be poets, and Royal Academi-
cians painters."

There is a highly popular school of "occultists" which is 99 % an
escape-mechanism.  The fear of death is one of the bogeys; but far
deeper is the root-fear --- fear of being alone, of being oneself, of
life itself.  With this there goes the sense of guilt.

The Book of the Law cuts directly at the root of all this calamitous,
this infamous tissue of falsehood.

What is the meaning of Initiation?  It is the Path to the realisation
of your Self as the sole, the supreme, the absolute of all Truth,
Beauty, Purity, Perfection!

What is the artistic sense in you?  What but the One Channel always
open to you through which this Light flows freely to enkindle you
(and the world through you) with flowers of inexhaustible fervour and
flame?

And you set up against That this spectre of grim fear, of shame, of
qualms and doubts, of inward quakings lest --- --- you are too stricken
with panic to see clearly what the horror is.  You say "the elemental
spirits and the Archangels are watching." (!)  My dear, dear, sister,
did you invent these beings for no better purpose than to spy on you?
They are there to serve you; they are parts of your being whose func-
tion is to enable you to reach further in one particular direction or
another without interference from the other parts, so long as you
happen to need them for some service or other in the Great Work.

Please cleanse your mind once and for all of this delusion, disastrous
and most damnable, that there can be opposition between two essential
parts of your nature.

I think this idea is a monstrous growth upon the tetanus-soaked soil
of your fear of "the senses."  Observe how all these mealy-mouthed
prigs develop their distrust of Life until hardly an action remains
that is not "dangerous" or in some way harmful.  They dare not smoke,
drink, love --- do anything natural to them.  They are right!!  The Self
in them is Guilt, a marsh miasmal of foul pestilence.  Last, since
"nature, though one expel it with a pitchfork, always returns,"  they
do their "sins" in secret, and pile hypocrisy upon the summit of all
their other vices.

I cannot write more; it makes me too sad.  I hope there is no need.
Do be your Self, the radiant Daughter of the Muse!

With that command I turn to other tasks.

                  Love is the law, love under will.







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                            Fraternally yours ever,

                                     666
CHAPTER LXXII

                             EDUCATION

Cara Soror,

          Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Education means "leading out"; this is not the same as "stuffing in".

I refuse to enlarge on this theme; it is all-important.  To extract
something, you should first know what is there.  Here astrology ought
to give useful hints; its indications give the mind something to work
on.  Experience makes "confirmation strong as Holy Writ;" but beware
of … priori.  Do not be dogmatic; do not insist in the face of dis-
appointment.  Astrology in education is useful as geology is to the
prospector; it tells you the sort of thing to look for, and the
direction in which to explore.

There are, however, two main lines of teaching which are of universal
value to normal children; it is hardly possible to begin too early.

Firstly, accustom his ear from the start to noble sounds; the music
of nature and the rhythm of great poetry.  Do not aim at his understand-
ing, but at his subconscious mind.  Protect him from cacophonous noise;
avoid scoring any cheap success with him by inflicting jingles; do not
insult him by "baby-talk."

Secondly, let him understand, as soon as you start actual teaching, the
difference between the real and the conventional in what you make him
memorize.  Nothing irritates children more than the arbitrary "because
I say so."

Nobody knows why the alphabet has the order which we know; it is quite
senseless.  One could construct a much more rational order: e.g. the
Mother, the Single and the Double letters, all in the natural order of
the elements, planets and signs.  Again, we have the "Missionary" Alpha-
bet, arranged "scientifically" as Gutturals, modified ditto, Dentals,
Labials, vowels and so on; a most repulsive concoction!  But I would
not accept any emendation from the God Thoth himself; it is infinitely
simpler to stick to the familiar order.  But explain to the child that
this is only for convenience, like the rule of the road; indeed, like
almost any rules!

But when your teaching is of the disputable kind, explain that too;
encourage him to question, to demand a reason and to disagree.  Get him
to fence with you; sharpen his wits by dialectic; lure him into think-
ing for himself.  I want tricks which will show him the advantages of a
given subject of study; make him pester you to teach him.  We did this
most successfully at the Abbey of Thelema in Cefalu; let me give you an
instance: reading.  One of us would take the children shopping and bring
up the subject of ice-cream.  Where, oh where could we get some?

Presently one would exclaim and point to a placard and say, "I really
do believe there'll be some there" --- and lo! it was so.  Then they






9


would wonder how one knew, and one would say: Why, there's "Helados"
printed on that piece of card in the window.  They would want to learn
to read at once.  We would discourage them, saying what hard word it
was, and how much crying it cost, at the same time giving another demon-
stration of the advantages.  They would insist, and we should yield ---
to active, eager children, not to dullards that hated the idea of
"lessons."  So with pretty well everything; we first excited the
child's will in the desired direction.

But (you ask) are there any special branches of learning which you
regard as essential for all?

Yes.

Our old unvalued friend St. Paul, the cunning crook who turned the
Jewish communism of the Apostles into an international ramp, saw in a
vision a man from Macedonia who said "Come over and help us!"  This
time it has been a woman from California, but the purport of her plaints
was identical.  Much as I should like to see my Father the Sun once more
before I die, nothing doing until --- if ever --- life recovers from the
blight of regulations.  Luckily, one thing she said helps us out: some-
one had told her that I had written on Education in Liber Aleph --- The
Book of Wisdom or Folly --- which has been ready for the printer for more
than a quarter of a century --- and there's nothing I can do about it!

However, I looked up the typescript.  The book is itself Education;
there are, however, six chapters which treat of the subject in the
Special sense in which your question has involved us.

So I shall fling these chapters headlong into this letter.

                          DE VOLUNTATE JUVENUM

     Long, O my Son, hath been this Digression from the plain Path of
     My word concerning Children; but it was most needful that thou
     shouldst understand the Limits of true Liberty.  For that is not
     the Will of any Man which ultimateth in his own Ruin and that of
     all his Fellows; and that is not Liberty whose Exercise bringeth
     him to Bondage.  Thou mayst therefore assume that it is always an
     essential Part of the Will of any Child to grow to Manhood or to
     Womanhood in Health, and his Guardians may therefore prevent him
     from ignorantly acting in Opposition thereunto, Care being always
     taken to remove the cause of the Error, namely, Ignorance, as
     aforesaid.  Thou mayst also assume that it is Part of the Child's
     Will to train every Function of the Mind; and the Guardians may
     therefore combat the Inertia which hinders its Development.  Yet
     here is much Caution necessary, and it is better to work by
     exciting and satisfying any natural Curiosity than by forcing
     Application to set Tasks, however obvious this Necessity may
     appear.

                        DE MODO DISPUTANDI

     Now in this training of the Child is one most dear Consideration,
     that I shall impress upon thee as is Conformity with out holy
     Experience in the way of Truth.  And it is this, that since that
     which can be thought is not true, every Statement is in some sense
     false.  Even on the Sea of Pure Reason, we may say that every






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     Statement is in some Sense disputable.  Therefore in every Case,
     even the simplest, the Child should be taught not only the Thesis,
     but also its opposite, leaving the Decision to the child's own
     Judgment and good Sense, fortified by Experience.  And this Prac-
     tice will develop its Power of Thought, and its Confidence in
     itself, and its Interest in all Knowledge.  But most of all beware
     against any Attempt to bias its Mind on any Point that lieth with-
     out the Square of ascertained and undisputed Fact.  Remember also,
     even when thou art most sure, that so were they sure who gave
     Instruction to the young Copernicus.  Pay Reverence also to the
     Unknown unto whom thou presumest to impart thy knowledge; for he may
     be one greater than thou.

                DE VOLUTATE JVENIS COGNOSCENDA

     It is important that thou shouldst understand as early as may be
     what is the true Will of the Child in the Matter of his Career.
     Be thou well aware of all Ideals and Daydreams; for the Child is
     himself, and not thy Toy.  Recall the comic Tragedy of Napoleon
     and the King of Rome; build not an House for a wild Goat, nor
     plant a Forest for the Domain of a Shark.  But be thou vigilant
     for every Sign, conscious or unconscious, of the Will of the Child,
     giving him then all Opportunity to pursue the Path which he thus
     indicates.  Learn this, that he, being young, will weary quickly
     of all false Ways, however pleasant they may be to him at the Out-
     set; but of the true Way he will not weary.  This being in this
     Manner discovered, thou mayst prepare it for him perfectly; for
     no man can keep all Roads open for ever.  And to him making his
     Choice explain how one may not travel far on any one Road without
     a general Knowledge of Things apparently irrelevant.  And with
     that he will understand, and bend him wisely to his Work.

           DE ARTE MENTIS COLENDI, (1) MATHEMATICA.

     Now, concerning the first Foundation of Thy Mind I will say
     somewhat.  Thou shalt study with Diligence in the Mathematics,
     because thereby shall be revealed unto thee the Laws of thine own
     Reason and the Limitations thereof.  This Science manifesteth unto
     thee thy true Nature in respect of the Machinery whereby it worketh,
     and showeth in pure Nakedness, without Clothing of Personality or
     Desire, the Anatomy of thy conscious Self.  Furthermore, by this
     thou mayst understand the Essence of the Relations between all
     Things, and the Nature of Necessity, and come to the Knowledge of
     Form.  For this Mathematics is as it were the last Veil before the
     Image of Truth, so that there is no Way better than our Holy
     Qabalah, which analyseth all Things soever, and reduceth them
     to pure Number; and thus their Natures being no longer coloured
     and confused, they may be regulated and formulated in Simplicity
     by the Operation of Pure Reason, to their great Comfort in the
     Work of our Transcendental Art, whereby the Many become One.

                  SEQUITUR  (2)  CLASSICA

     My son, neglect not in any wise the study of the Writings of
     Antiquity, and that in the original Language.  For by this thou
     shalt discover the History of the Structure of thy Mind, that is,
     its Nature regarded as the last Term in a Sequence of Causes and
     Effects.  For thy Mind hath been built up of these Elements, so






11


     that in these Books thou mayst bring into the Light thine own
     sub-conscious Memories.  And thy Memory is as it were the Mortar
     in the House of thy Mind, without which is no Cohesion or Indi-
     viduality possible, so that it is called Dementia.  And these
     Books have lived long and become famous because they are the
     Fruits of ancient Trees whereof thou art directly the Heir, where-
     fore (say I) they are more truly germane to thine own Nature than
     Books of Collateral Offshoots, though such were in themselves
     better and wiser.  Yes, O my son, in these Writings thou mayst
     study to come to the true Comprehension of thine own Nature, and
     that of the whole Universe, in the dimensions of Time, even as
     the Mathematic declareth it in that of Space: that is, of Exten-
     sion.  Moreover, by this Study shall the Child comprehend the
     Foundation of Manners: the which, as sayeth one of the Sons of
     Wisdom, maketh Man.

                  SEQUITUR  (3)  SCIENTIFICA

     Since Time and Space are the conditions of Mind, these two
     Studies are fundamental.  Yet there remaineth Causality, which
     is the Root of the Actions and Reactions of Nature.  This also
     shalt thou seek ardently, that thou mayest comprehend the
     Variety of the Universe, its Harmony and its Beauty, with the
     Knowledge of that which compelleth it.  Yet this is not equal
     to the former two in Power to reveal thee to thyself; and its
     first Use is to instruct thee in the true Method of Advancement
     in Knowledge, which is, fundamentally, the observation of the
     Like and Unlike.  Also, it shall arouse in thee the Ecstasy
     of Wonder; and it shall bring thee to a proper Understanding
     of Art Magick.  For our Magick is but one of the Powers that
     lie within us undeveloped and unanalysed; and it is by the
     Method of Science that it must be made clear, and available to
     the Use of Man.  Is not this a Gift beyond Price, the Fruit
     of a Tree not only of Knowledge but of Life?  For there is that
     in Man which is God, and there is that also which is Dust; and
     by our Magick we shall make these twain one Flesh, to the Ob-
     taining of the Empery of the Universe.

I suppose I might have put it more concisely:  Classics is itself
Initiation, being the key of the Unconscious; Mathematics is the Art
of manipulating the Ruach, and of raising it to Neschamah; and Science
is co-terminous with Magick.

These are the three branches of study which I regard as fundamental.
No others are in the same class.  For instance, Geography is almost
meaningless until one makes it real by dint of honest travel, which
does not mean either "commuting" or "luxury cruises," still less
"globe-trotting."  Law is a specialized study, with a view to a career;
History is too unsystematic and uncertain to be of much use as mental
training; Art is to be studied for and by one's solitary self; any
teaching soever is rank poison.

The final wisdom on this subject is perhaps the old "Something of
everything, and everything of something."

                 Love is the law, love under will.

                                     Yours ever,






12

                                          666

P.S.  Better mention, perhaps, that literacy is no test of education.
For ignorance of life, the don class leaves all others at the post;
and it is these monkish and monkeyish recluses, with their hideous
clatter and cackle, "The tittering, thin-bearded, epicene," "Dwarf,
fringed with fear," the obscene vole, dweller by and in backwaters
that has foisted upon us the grotesque and poisonous superstition
that wisdom abides only in dogs-eared, worm-eaten, mule-inspired
long-forgotten as misbegotten folios.

I like the story --- it is a true tale --- of the old Jew millionaire who
bought up the annual waste of the Pennsylvania Railroad --- a matter of
Three Million Dollars.  He called with his cheque very neatly made
out --- and signed it by making his mark!  The Railroad Man was naturally
falbbergasted, and could not help exclaiming, "Yet you made all those
millions of yours --- what would you have been if only you had been able
to read and write?"  "Doorkeeper at the Synagogue" was the prompt
reply.  His illiteracy had disqualified him when he applied for the
job after landing.

The story is not only true, but "of all Truth;" see my previous letter
on "Certainty.

Books are not the only medium even of learning; more, what they teach
is partial, prejudiced, meagre, sterile, uncertain, and alien to
reality.  It follows that all the best books are those which make no
pretence to accuracy: poetry, theatre, fiction.  All others date.
Another point is that Truth abides above and aloof from intellectual
expression, and consequently those books which bear the Magic Keys
of the Portal of the Intelligible by dint of inspiration and suggestion
come more nearly to grips with Reality than those whose appeal is only
to the Intellect.  "Didactic" poetry, "realistic" plays and novels,
are contradictions in terms.

P.P.S. One more effort: the above reminds me that I have said no
word about the other side of the medal.  There are many children who
cannot be educated at all in any sense of the word.  It is an abonin-
able waste of both of them and of the teacher to push against brick
walls.

Yet one last point.  I am as near seventy as makes no matter, and I
am still learning with all my might.  All my life I have been taught:
governesses, private tutors, schools, private and public, the best of
the Universities: how little I know!  I have traveled all over the
world in all conditions, from "grand seigneur," to "holy man;" how
little I know!

What then of the ninety-and-nine, dragged by the ears through suicide
examinations, and kicked out of school into factory in their teens?
They have learnt only just enough to facilitate the swallowing of the
gross venal lies of the radio and the Yellow Press; or, if mother-
wit has chanced to warn them, they learn a little --- very little ---
more, getting their Science from a Shilling Handbook and so on, till
they know just enough to become dangerous agitators.

No, anything like a real education demands leisure, the conversation






13


of the wise, the means to travel, and the rest.

There is only one solution: to pick out the diamonds from the clay,
cut them, polish them, and set them as they deserve.  Attempt no idiot
experiments with the muck of the mine!  You will observe that I am
advocating an aristocratic revolution.  And so I am!

P.P.P.S.  Short of the ideals above outlined, you may as well have
a pis aller --- words of astonishing insight and wisdom, not alien to
the Law Thelema, and written by one who was trained on The Book of the
Law.

     "Self-confidence must be cultivated in the younger members of
      the nation from childhood onwards.  Their whole education and
      training must be directed towards giving them a conviction that
      they are superior to others", wrote Hitler.

     "In the case of female education," I read on, "the main stress
      should be laid on bodily training, after that on character, and,
      last of all, on the intellect; but the one absolute aim of female
      education must be with a view to the future mother."

They are quoted as an extreme example of all that is horrible and evil
by Mr. George E. Chust of the Daily Telegraph --- from Mein Kampf!

P.P.P.P.S.  There is a game, an improvement on the "Spelling Bee" --- I
have anti-christened it "Fore and aft" so as to be natty and naval ---
which is in my opinion one of the three or four best indoor games for
two ever invented.,  Here are the rules, in brief: any disputed points?
Apply to me.

1.  A "Word" consists of four or more letters.

2.  It must be printed in big black type in the Dictionary chosen for
reference.  (Nuttall's is fairly good, though some very well-known
words are omitted.  The Oxford Pocket Dictionary is useless; it is
for morons, illiterates, wallowers in "Basic English" --- and [I suppose]
Oxonians.  No proper names, however well-known, unless used as common:
e.g. Bobby, a flatfoot, a beetlecrusher, a harness bull; or Xantippe,
a shrew, a lady.  X-rays is given in the plural only: ditto "R"ntgen-
rays", and they give "R"ntgenogram".  "You never can tell!"  Participles,
plurals and the like are not "words" unless printed as such in big
black type.  E.g. Nuttall's "Juttingly" is a word; "jutting" is not,
being in smaller type.  "Soaking" is in small type, but also in big
type as a noun; so it is a word.)

3.  The Dictionary is the sole and final arbiter.  This produces blas-
phemy, but averts assassination.

4.  The first player starts with the letter A.  The second may put any
letter he chooses either before or after that A.  The other continues
as he will, and can.

5.  The player who cannot add a letter without completing a "word"
loses.

They proceed to B, and so on to Z.







14


6.  A player whose turn it is must either add his letter within a
reasonable (This is a matter of good feeling, courtesy and considera-
tion) time, may say "I challenge" or, alternatively, "That is a 'word'."
The other must then give the "word" that he intends, or deny that it
is a "word" within the meaning of the Art, as the case may be.  The
Dictionary decides the winner.  The challenged player may give one
word only, and that in the form which is printed in the Dictionary;
e.g. if he were challenged at BRUSS, and answered Brussels, he would
lose; if BRUSSELS-SPROUTS, he would win.  Hyphens need not be given.
CASHMERE is a "word"; it is a kind of shawl, etc., so is CHARLEY, a
night-watchman.  Don't argue: the Dictionary decides.

7.  This game calls not only for an extensive vocabulary but for courage;
foresight, judgment, resource, subtlety and even low cunning.  It can
be played by more than two players, but the more there are, the more
the element of chance comes in; and this is hateful to really fine
players and diminishes the excitement.  The rapier-play of two experts,
when a word changes from one line of formation to another, and then
again, perhaps even a third time, is as exhilarating as a baseball-
game or a bull-fight.

And what the Tartarus-Tophet-Jehanna has all this to do with Education,
and the Great Work?  This, child!  H.G.Wells and others have pointed
out with serene justice that a gap in your vocabulary implies a gap in
your mind; you lack the corresponding idea.  Too true, "Erbert!  But
I threap that a pakeha with such xerotes as his will chowter with an
arsis of ischonophony, beyond aught that any fub, even in Vigonia and
dwale mammodis with a cascade from a Dewan tauty, a kiss-me-quick, a
chou over her merkin and a parka over her chudder could do to save
him, and have an emprosthotonos, when he reads this.  Sruti!

(Whaur's your Wullie Chaucer noo?)

I put this in for you because an American officer3, very dear to me,
flited from the Front for a few days to ask me a few questions --- oh,
"very much above your exalted grade" my dear --- and I thought it might
be useful to him to learn this game, needing, as it does, such very
meagre apparatus, to wile away some of the long hours between attacks.
He picked it up quickly enough; but, after a bit when I suggested
that he should pass it on to his comrades-in-arms, he jeered at me
openly!

Their vocabulary to mine, he said, holds just about the same proportion
as mine does to yours; I hypothesized modestly, "about five per cent."
(After all, I am forty-five years his senior.)  He roared at me.  "Not
one in a hundred," he said, "know so much as the names of nine-tenths
of the subjects that I discuss habitually and fluently.  They gasp,
they gape, they grunt, the gibber; it is almost always black bewilder-
ment4.  And some of them are college graduates --- which I'm not."
3^  WEH NOTE: Probably Grady Louis McMurtry, who became "Caliph" or
acting head of O.T.O. many years later.

4*  They attach no meaning to these words:
   Palaeontology
   Criterion
   Vector
   Synthesis (They know "synthetic" but can't connect it with the noun)
   Epitome






15

 He was snatched from school, and given a commission on the spot, appar-
ently because he was one of very few that could be differentiated from
the average Learned Pig.

All this made me exceeding sorrowful.  I began to understand why my
Liber OZ, written entirely in words of one syllable only, with this
very idea in mind, turned out to be completely beyond the average man's
(or woman's) understanding.  I had some Mass Observation done on it.

"But this is rank socialism," "Sy, ayn't this all Fascism?"  "Oh
Golly!"  "Cripes!"  "Coo!"  "How dreadful!" about the nearest most of
them got to Ralph Straus and Desmond MacCarthy!

Words of one syllable!  Louis Marlow5 had already told me what a fool
I was to expect that.  "All they can digest," said he, "is a mess of
stewed clich‚s with Bird's custard Power."

Damn everything --- it's true, it's true.

So do you at least get together the stones that you need to build
your Basilica!

CHAPTER LXXIII.

                 "MONSTERS," NIGGERS, JEWS, ETC.

Cara Soror,

          Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Come now, is this quite fair?  When I agreed to tip you off about
Magick and the rest, I certainly never expected to be treated as if I
were being interviewed by an American Sunday Newspaper.  What do I
prefer for breakfast, and my views on the future of the theatre, and
is the Great White Brotherhood in favour of Eugenic Babies?  No, dear
sister --- I nearly said sob-sister.  But this I will say, you have been
very artful, and led me on very cleverly --- you must have been a terror
to young men --- for the matter of that, I dare say you are still!

And I don't see how to get out of swallowing this last sly bait; as
you say, "Every man and every woman is a star." does need some attention
to the definition of "man" and "woman".  What is the position, you say,
of "monsters"?  And men of "inferior" races, like the Veddah, Hottentot
and the Australian Blackfellow?  There must be a line somewhere, and
   Foreign Policy (To them a mere phrase; no idea of its connotation
                   or principles)
   Demology
   Entrepreneur
   Correspondent and Co-respondent.  (They don't know the difference)
   Subcutaneous
   Chordee)
   Gleet  )  (Although they have them!)
   Histology  ("Something to do with history")
5^ WEH NOTE: Louis Umfraville Wilkinson wrote under this pen name.  He was
one of two individuals named to be literary executors under Crowley's
Last Will and Testament.







16


will I please draw it?  You make me feel like Giotto!

There is one remark which I must make at the beginning.  It's some
poet or other, Tennyson or Kipling, I think (I forget who) that wrote:
"Folks in the loomp, is baad."  It is true all round.  Someone wisely
took note that the vilest man alive had always found someone to love
him.  Remember the monster6 that Sir Frederick Treves picked up from
an East End peep-show, and had petted by princesses?  (What a cunning
trick!)  Revolting, all the same, to read his account of it.  He --- the
monster, not Treves! --- seems to have been a most charming individual ---
ah!  That's the word we want.  Every individual has some qualities
that endear him to some other.  And per contra, I doubt if there is any
class which is not detestable to some other class.  Artists, police,
the clergy, "reds," foxhunters, Freemasons, Jews, "heaven-born," women's
clubwomen (especially in U.S.A.), "Methodys," golfers, dog-lovers;
you can't find one body without its "natural" enemies.  It's right,
what's worse; every class, as a class, is almost sure to have more
defects than qualities.  As soon as you put men together, they somehow
sink, corporatively, below the level of the worst of the individuals
composing it.  Collect scholars on a club committee, or men of science
on a jury; all their virtues vanish, and their vices pop out, rein-
forced by the self-confidence which the power of numbers is bound to
bestow.

It is peculiarly noticeable that when a class is a ruling minority, it
acquires a detestation as well as a contempt for the surrounding "mob."
In the Northern States of U.S.A., where the whites are overwhelming in
number, the "nigger" can be more or less a "regular fellow;" in the
South, where fear is a factor, Lynch Law prevails.  (Should it?  The
reason for "NO" is that it is a confession of weakness.)  But in the
North, there is a very strong feeling about certain other classes: the
Irish, the Italians, the Jews.  Why?  Fear again; the Irish in poli-
tics, the Italians in crime, the Jews in finance.  But none of these
phobias prevent friendship between individuals of hostile classes.

I think that perhaps I have already written enough --- at least enough
to start you thinking on the right lines.  And mark well this!  The
submergence of the individual in his class means the end of all true
human relations between men.  Socialism means war.  When the class
moves as a class, there can be no exceptions.

This is no original thought of mine; Stalin and Hitler both saw it
crystal-clear; both, the one adroitly, the other clumsily, but with
equally consummate hypocrisy, acted it out.  They picked individuals
to rule under their autocracy, killed off those that wouldn't fit,
destroyed the power of the Trades Unions or Soviets while pretending
to make them powerful and prosperous, and settled down to the serious
business of preparing for the war which both knew to be inevitable.

It is this fundamental fact which ensures that every democracy shall
end with an upstart autocrat; the stability of peace depends upon
the original idea which aggrandized America in a century from four
millions to a hundred: extreme individualism with opportunity.  Our
own longest period of peace abroad (bar frontier skirmishes like the
Crimean war) and prosperity at home coincided with Free Trade and
Laissez-faire.

6^  WEH NOTE {needs research}:  Is this the "Elephant Man"?






17


Now we may return, refreshed, to the main question of monsters, real
(like Treves') or imaginary like Jews and niggers.

'Arf a mo!  Haven't we solved the problem, ambulando?  Everything
would be okydoke and hunkydory if only we can prevent classes from
acting as such?

I suppose so.  Then, what about a spot of pithy paradox for a change?

Why should the classes want to act as classes?  It's obvious; "Union
is strength."  The worst Fifteen can do more with a football than the
best opposing team of one --- excuse my Irish!

Well, that tortoise is that elephant based upon?  Why, still obviously,
upon the universal sense of individual weakness.  We all want a big
bruvver to tell of him!  Hence the Gods and the Classes.  It's fear
at the base of the whole pyramid of skulls.

How right politicians are to look upon their constituents as cattle!
Anyone who has any experience of dealing with any class as such knows
the futility of appealing to intelligence, indeed to any other quali-
ties than those of brutes.

And so, whenever we find one Man who has no fear like Ibsen's Doctor
Stockmann or Mark Twain's Colonel Grainger that strolled out on his
balcony with his shotgun to face the mob that had come to lynch him,
he can get away with it.  "An Enemy of the People" wrote Ibsen, "Ye
are against the people, O my chosen!" says The Book of the Law.  (AL
II, 25).

Not only does it seem to me the only conceivable way of reconciling
this and similar passages with "Every man and every woman is a star."
to assert the sovereignty of the individual, and to deny the right-
to-exist to "class-consciousness," "crowd-psychology," and so to mob-
rule and Lynch-Law, but also the only practicable plan whereby we may
each one of us settle down peaceably to mind his own business, to
pursue his True Will, and to accomplish the Great Work.

So never lose sight for a moment of the maxim so often repeated in
one context or another in these letters: that fear is at the root of
every possibility of trouble, and that "Fear is failure, and the fore-
runner of failure.  Be thou therefore without fear; for in the heart
of the coward virtue abideth not."

Good-night; and don't look under the bed!

                 Love is the law, love under will.

                                Yours fraternally,

                                        666
CHAPTER LXXIV.

                   OBSTACLES ON THE PATH.

Cara Soror,

          Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.






18

 Peccavi!  And how!  But my excuse is good, and I will try to make
amends.

First, a little counter-attack --- your letter is so rambling and diffuse
that at first I couldn't make out what you were getting at, and at last
decided that it is much too random to reproduce, or even to deal with
in detail.  I shall simply formulate the case for the Prosecution, plead
guilty, and appeal for clemency.

The gravamen is that the Path of the Wise is gay with flowers, gilded
with kiosks, and beset with snares; that every step is the Abode of
Terror and Rapture --- and all that!  Yet I habitually write in the manner
of a drunken dominie!  You "gaped for Aeschylus, and got Theognis."

I tempted you, it seems with The Chymical Marriage of Christian
Rosencreutz, its incomparable mystery and glamour, its fugitive
beauty, its ineffable romance, its chivalry and its adventure, pellucid
gleams as of sunlight under the sea, vast brooding wings of horror
overshadowing the firmament, yet with strong Starlight constant over-
bead.  And then I let you down!

You did expect at least something of the atmosphere of the Arabian
Nights; if not so high, of Apuleius and Petronius Arbiter; of Rabelais,
Meinhold, de la Motte Fouqu‚; and the Morte d'Arthur in later times, of
Balzac, Dumas, Lytton, Huysmans, Mabel Collins and Arthur Machen.

You look at me with strange sad eyes: "But you, too, Master, have not
you too led a life as strange, as glamourous, as weird and as romantic,
as the best of them?  Then why this cold detachment from that ambience?"
Well, if you put it like that, I can only say that I feel at the same
time more guilty and entirely innocent!

For, while the charge is true, the defence is not to be shaken.

The worst of all teachers are the Boloney Magnates, of whom I have
already given some account.  But the next worst are just exactly those
who try to create an atmosphere of romance, and succeed only in a crude
theatricalism.  So, avoiding the swirling turmoil of Scylla, I have
broken the ship on the barren rock Charybdis.{Editorial Q. --- isn't this bas-
akwards? WEH}

Now let me hearten you, brave sister!  All the old tales are true!
You can have as many dragons, princesses, vampires, knights-errant,
glendowers, enchanted apes, Jinn, sorcerers and incubi as you like to
fancy, and --- whoa Emma! did I tell you about Cardinal Newman?  Well,
I will.

The one passage in his snivelling Apologia which impressed me was a
tale of his childhood --- before the real poet, lover and mystic had
been buried beneath the dung-heap of Theology.  He tells us that he
read the Arabian Nights --- in a heavily Bowdlerized edition, bet you
a tosser! --- and was enchanted, like the rest of us, so that he sighed
"I wish these tales were true!"  The same thing happened to me; but
I set my teeth, and muttered: "I will make these tales true!"

Well, I have, haven't I?  You said it yourself!







19


Let me be very frank about one point.  It has always puzzled me com-
pletely why one is forbidden to relate certain of one's adventures.
You remember, perhaps, in one of these letters I started out gaily to
tell you some quite simple things --- I couldn't, can't, see quite what
harm could come of it --- and I was pulled up sharp --- yes, and actually
punished, like a school-boy!  I had often done much more impudent
things, and nobody seemed to give a hoot.  Oh somebody tell me why!

The only suggestion that occurs to me is that I might somehow be
"giving occasion to the enemy to blaspheme."  Let it go at that!
"Enough of Because!  Be he damned for a dog!"

Yes child, my deepest attitude is to be found in my life.  I have been
to most of the holy inaccessible places, and talked with the most holy
inaccessible men; I have dared all the most dangerous adventures, both
of the flesh and of the spirit; and I challenge the world's literature
to match for sublimity and terror such experiences as those in the
latter half of The Vision and the Voice.

You understand, of course, that I say all this merely in indication;
or rather, as I said before, as an appeal for clemency.

On the contrary (you will retort) you are a mean cat (Felis Leo,
please!) not to let us all in on the ground floor of so imposing a
Cathedral!

To atone?  Not a catalogue, which would be interminable; not a classi-
fication, which would be impossible, save in the roughest terms;
nothing but a few short notes, possibly an anecdote or so.  Just a
tickle or a dram of schnapps, to enliven the proceedings.  ordeals ---
temptations --- that sort of thing.  A general Khabardar karo!  With
now and then a snappy Achtung!

Oh, curse this mind of mine!  I just can't help running to hide under
the broad skirts of the Qabalah!  It's Disk, Sword, Cup and Wand again!
Sorry, but c'est trop fort pour moi.

Disks.  To master Earth, remember that the Disk is always spinning;
fix this idea, get rid of its solidity.

Commonly, the first tests of the young Aspirant refer to cash --- "that's
God's sol solid in this world."  The proper magical attitude is very
hard to describe.  (I'm not talking of that black hen's egg any more;
that is simple.)  Very sorry to have to say it, but it is not unlike
that of the spendthrift.  Money must circulate, or it loses its true
value.  A banker in New York once told me that the dollar circulated
nine times as fast as the English equivalent, so that people seemed
to themselves to be nine times as rich.  (I told you about the œ100
note in a special letter on Money).  But here I am stressing the
spiritual effect; what happens is that anxiety vanishes; one feel
that as it goes out, so it comes in.  This view is not incompatible
with thrift and prudence, and all that lot of virtues, far from it, it
tucks in with them quite easily.  You must practise this; there's a
knack in it.  Success in this leads to a very curious result indeed;
not only does the refusal to count (Fourpen'north or Yoga, please miss,
and Mum says can I have a penny if I bring back the bottle!), bring
about the needlessness of counting, but also one acquires the power
to command!






20

 A century ago, very nearly, there lived in Bristol and "Open Brother"
names Muller, who was a wizard at this; Grace before breakfast, the
usual palaver about the Lord and His blessings and His bounty et
cetera, da capo; to conclude "and, Blessed Lord, we would humbly
venture to remind Thee that this morning Thou art œ3 4s. 6 1/2d.
short in the accounts; trusting that Thou wilt give this small matter
Thine immediate attention, for Jesus' Christ's sake, Amen."  Sure
enough, when he came to open his post, there would be just enough,
sometimes exactly enough, to cover that amount.

This story was told me by an enemy, who thought quite seriously that
he would go to Hell for being "Open."  ("Open" Brethren were lax about
the Lord's Supper, let people partake who were not sound upon the
Ramsgate Question; and other Theological Atrocities!)  It meant that
the facts were so undeniable that the "advertisement for Answer to
Prayer" outweighed the "miracle by a heretic."

I knew a poetess of great distinction who used to amuse herself by
breaking off a conversation and saying, "Give me a franc" (or a shilling,
or any small sum) and then going on with her previous remarks.  She told
me that of over a hundred people I was the second who had passed the coin
to her without remark of any kind.

This story --- do you think?  --- is neither here no there.  No, my remarks
are rarely asyntartete.  The Masters, at one stage or another of initia-
tion --- it is forbidden to indicate the conditions --- arrange for some
test of the Aspirant's attitude in some matter, not necessarily involv-
ing cash.  If he fails, goodnight!

Swords, now.  The snags connected with this type of test are probably
the nastiest of any.  Misunderstanding, confusion, logical error (and,
worse, logical precision of the kind that distinguishes many lunatics),
dispersion, indecision, failure to estimate values correctly --- oh! ---
there is no end to the list.  So much so, indeed, that there is no
specific critical test, it is all part of the routine, and goes on
incessantly.

Well, there is just one.  Without warning a decision of critical
importance has to be made by the candidate, and he is given so many
minutes to say Yes or No.  He gets no second chance.

But I must warn you of one particular disgrace.  You know that people
of low mentality haunt fortune-tellers of equal calibre, but with more
low cunning.  They do not really want to know the future, or to get
advice; their real object is to persuade some supposed "authority"
to flatter them and confirm them in their folly and stupidity.

It is the same thing with a terrifying percentage of the people that
come for "teaching" and "initiation."  The moment they learn anything
they didn't know before, off they fly in a temper!  No sooner does
it become apparent that the Master is not a stupid middle-class prig
and hypocrite --- another edition of themselves, in short --- they are
frightened, they are horrified, they flee away on both their feet,
like the man in the Bible!  I have seen people turn fish-belly pale
in the face, and come near fainting outright, when it has dawned upon
them suddenly that magick is a real thing!







21


It's all beyond me!

Cups: we are much more definite again.  The great test is so well
known, and accounts have already been published, that it can be here
plainly stated.  Early in his career, the Aspirant is exposed to the
seductions of a Vampire, and warned in due form and due season.

"Sleep with A,B,C,D,E and F, my lad, and our hearty best wishes!  But
not with G on any account, on peril of your work!"

So off he goes to G, without a second's hesitation.  This test may be
prolonged; the deadliness and subtlety of the danger has been recog-
nized, and he may have half a dozen warnings, either direct or springing
from his relations with her.  And the penalty is not so drastically
final; often he gets off with a term of penal servitude.

On the other hand, the Aspirant who can spot at the first hint why the
Masters think that particular woman a danger, and acts promptly and
decisively as he should, is secretly marked down as a sword of very
fine temper indeed!

The rest of the Cup Ordeals consists for the most part of progressive
estimations of the quality of the Postulant's devotion to the work;
there is not, as a rule, anything particularly spectacular or dramatic
in it.  If you stick to your Greetings and Adorations and all such
mnemonics, you are not likely to go very far wrong.

Wands: this obviously a pure question of Will.  You will find as
you go on that obstacles of varying degrees of difficulty confront you;
and the way in which you deal with them is most carefully watched.
The best advice that I can give is to remember that there is little
need of the Bull-at-a-Gate method, though that must always be ready
in reserve; no, the best analogy is rapier-play.  Elastic strength.
Warfare shows us.

That seems to cover your question more or less; but don't forget that
it depends on yourself how much of the dramatic quality colours your
Path.  I suppose I have been lucky to have had the use of all the
traditional trappings; but it is always possible to make a "coat of
many colours" out of a heap of rags.  To show you that you have had
Chaucer and John Bunyan --- yes, and Laurence Sterne: to bring up the
rear, James Thomson (B.V.) to say nothing of Conrad and Hardy.  Nor
let me forget The Cream of the Jest and The Rivet in Grandfather's
Neck of my friend, James Branch Cabell.

So now, fair damozel, bestride thy palfrey, and away to the Mountains
of Magick!

                  Love is the law, love under will.

                                       Fraternally,

                                           666

P.S. One danger I had purposely passed over, as it is not likely to
come your way.  But, since others may read these letters ---

Some, and these the men of highest promise, often of great achievement,






22


are tempted by Treason.  The acquire a "Judas-complex,' think how
splendid it would be if they were to destroy the Order --- or, at the
very least, unhorse the Master.

This is, of course, absurd in itself, because if they had crossed the
Abyss, they would understand why it is impossible.  It would be like
"destroying Electricity," or "debunking" the Venus of Milo.  The maxi-
mum of success possible in such an operation would be to become a
"Black-Brother;" but what happens in practice, so far as my own
experience goes, is complete dispersion of the mental faculties amount-
ing to suicide; I could quote no less than four cases in which actual
physical self-murder was the direct result.

CHAPTER LXXV.

                 THE A.'. A.'. AND THE PLANET

Cara Soror,

           Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

You Write:

    "Am I to understand that the A.'. A.'. has two main lines of Work.
     (1) The initiation of Individuals, (2) Action on the world in
     general --- say "Weltpolitik"?  Because your letters on the History
     of Magick do imply (2); and yet the A.'. A.'. discourages any
     form of group working.  Is it that the Masters (8ø = 3þ Magistri
     Templi) having been admitted to the Third Order --- the A.'. A.'.
     proper; below this are R.R. et A.C. and G.'. D.'. --- are no longer
     liable to the dangers which make group activity in lower grades
     undesirable.  Or do they still work as Individuals, yet, because
     they are initiates, appear to act as a corporate body?  You have
     often expressed yourself as if this were so.  'Of course, They had
     to pick on me to do the dirty work' is a typical growl of the old
     Big Lion!  But again there is that Magical Memory of yours when
     you came down from that Hermitage in the little wood overhanging
     the nullah below the Great Peak 'somewhere in Asia' and sat in
     some sort of Consistory in the valley where the great Lamaserai ---
     or whatever it was --- towers over the track, (I quote some of your
     phrases from memory.)  Which is it?"

My dear child, that is all very sensibly put; and the answer is that
Convenience would decide.  Then you go on, after a digression:

    "Then how are They acting at present?  What impact has the new
     Word, Thelema, made upon the planet?  What are we to expect as a
     result?  And can we poor benighted outsiders help Them in any way?
     I know it's 'cheek' to ask."

then turn the other cheek, and repeat the question!  I will do my best
to make it all clear.  But do not forget that I am myself completely
in the dark with regard to the special functions of most of my
colleagues.

To begin, then!

Achtung!  I am going to be hard-boiled; my first act is to enlist the






23


Devil himself in our ranks, and take the Materialistic Interpretation
of History from Karl Marx, and accept economic laws as the manifest
levers which determine the fortune of one part of the earth or another.

I shall take exception only by showing that these principles are second-
ary: oil in Texas, nitrates on the Pacific slope of the Andes, suphur
in Louisiana (which put Etna's nose out of joint by making it cheaper
for the burgers of Messina  to import it from four thousand miles away
instead of digging it out of their own back garden), even coal and
timber, upset very few apple-carts until individual genius had found
for these commodities such uses as our grandfathers never dreamed.
The technical developments of almost every form of wealth are the
forebears of Big Business; and Big Business, directly or indirectly,
is the immediate cause of War.

In the "To-day and to-morrow" series is an essay called Ouroboros, by
Garet Garrett; one of the most shrewd and deep-delving analysis of
economics ever written.  May I condense him crudely?  Mass Production
for profit fails when its markets are exhausted; so every effort is
made to impose it not only on the native but the foreigner, and should
guile fail, then force!

But the process ineluctably goes on; when the whole world buys the
nasty stuff, and will accept no other, the exploiter is still faced by
diminishing returns.  No possibility of expansion; sooner or later
dividends dwindle, and the Business is Bust.

To even the most stupid it becomes plain at this stage that war is
wholly ruinous; organization breaks down altogether; one meaningless
revolution follows another; famine and pestilence complete the job.

Last time --- when Osiris replaced Isis --- the wreck was limited in scope
--- note that it was the civilized, the organized part that broke down.

(Jews and Arabs could remain aloof, and keep a small torch burning
until Light returned with the Renaissance.)

This time there is no civilization which can escape being involved in
the totality of the catastrophe.

Towards this collapse all totalitarian movements inevitably tend.
Bertrand Russell himself admits that, although himself "temperamentally
Anarchistic," Society must be yet more organized than it is to-day if
it is to exist at all.

But his, as Garet Garrett shows, is the John Gilpin type of horseman-
ship.  We are to-day more or less at the stage where "off flew Gilpin's
hat and wig."

Achievement of high aims, which tends ultimately to the well-being, the
prosperity of the republic, depends on the proportion of masters to
servants.  The stability of a building depends on the proportion of
superstructure to foundations.  The rule holds good in every department
of Nature.  There is an optimum for every case.  If there is one barber
for ten thousand men, most of them will remain unshorn; if there are
five thousand barbers, most of them will be out of a job.

Apply this measure to society; there must be an optimum relation between






24


industry and agriculture, between town and country.  When the proper
balance is not struck, the community must depend on outside help,
importing what it lacks, exporting its surplus.  This is an unnatural
state of affairs; it results in business, and therefore ultimately in
war.  That is, as soon as the stress set up by the conditions becomes
insupportable.  So long as "business" is confined to luxuries, no great
harm need result; but when interference with the flow of foreign trade
threatens actual necessities, the unit concerned realizes that it is in
danger of strangulation.  Consider England's food supply!  Switzerland,
Russia, China, the U.S.A. can laugh at U-boats.  England must support
a Navy, a wealth-consuming, not a wealth-producing, item in the Budget.
Similar remarks apply to practically all Government Departments.  The
minimum of organization is desirable; all artificial doctrinaire
multiplication of works which produce no wealth is waste; and for
many reasons (some absurd, like "social position") tend to create fresh
unnecessary necessities.  Ad infinitum, like the fleas in the epigram!

When laws are reasonable in the eyes of the average man, he respects
them, keeps them, does his best to maintain them; therefore a minute
Police Force, with powers strictly limited, is adequate to deal with the
almost negligibly small criminal class.  A convention is laudable when
it is convenient.  When laws are unjust, monstrous, ridiculous, that
same average man, will he-nill he, becomes a criminal; and the law
requires a Tcheka or a Gestapo with dictatorial powers and no safeguards
to maintain the farce.  Also, corruption becomes normal in official
circles; and is excused.  I refer you to Mr. J. H. Thomas.7

One evil leads to another; the seven devils always take possession of
a house that is swept and garnished to he point at which people find
it uncomfortable.

But is not all this beside the point, you ask?  No.  It was needful to
indicate this cumulative progression to social shipwreck,because,
to-day an obvious peril of the most menacing, in 1904 no ordinary sane
person foresaw anything of the sort.  But special knowledge alters
things, and it is certain that the Masters anticipated, with great
exactness of calculation, the way things would go in the political
world.

Practically all the messages received during the "Cairo Working" (March-
April 1904 e.v.) came to me through Ouarda.  No woman ever lived who
was more ignorant of, or less interested in, anything to do with poli-
tics, or the welfare of the race; she cared for nothing beyond her
personal comfort and pleasure.  When the communications ceased, she
dropped the whole affair without a thought.

She nearly always referred to the authors of these messages as "They:"
when asked who "They" were, she would say haltingly and stupidly "the
gods," or some equally unhelpful term.  But she was always absolutely
clear and precise as to the instructions.  The New Aeon was to supersede
the old; my special job was to preserve the Sacred Tradition, so that
a new Renaissance might in due season rekindle the hidden Light.  I was
accordingly to make a Quintessence of the Ancient Wisdom, and publish
it in as permanent a form as possible.  This I did in The Equinox.  I
should perhaps have been strictly classical, and admitted only the
7*  The Chancellor of the Exchequer, having fixed the increase of Income
Tax at threepence, proceeded to defraud the Insurance Companies by
insuring himself against a rise of the sum!






25


"Publication in Class "A", "A-B", "B " and "D" material.  But I had the
idea that it would be a good plan to add all sorts of other stuff, so
that people who were not in any way interested in the real Work might
preserve their copies.

This by the way: the essence this letter is to show that "They",
not one person but a number acting in concert, not only foresaw a
planet-wide catastrophe, but were agreed on measures calculated to
assure the survival of the Wisdom worth saving until the time, perhaps
three hundred or six hundred years later, when a new current should
revive the shattered thought of mankind.

The Equinox, in a word, was to be a sort of Rosetta Stone.

There is one other matter of incomparable importance: the wars which
have begun the disintegration of the world have followed, each at an
interval of nine months, the operative publications of The Book of the
Law.  This again seems to make it almost certain that "They" not only
know the future, at least in broad outline, but are at pains to arrange
it.  I have no doubt that the advance of Natural Science is in the
charge of a certain group of "Masters."  Even the spiritually and
morally as well as the physically destructive phenomena of our age must
be parts of some vast all-comprehensive plan.

Putting two and two together, and making 718, it looks as if the Masters
acquiesced in and helped to fulfill, the formula of the catastrophic
succession of the Aeons.

An analogy.  We have the secret of the Elixir of Life, and could carry
on in the same body indefinitely; yet at least some masters prefer to
reincarnate in the regular way, only taking care to waste no time in
Amennti, but to get back to the Old Bench and pick up the New Tools
with the minimum of delay.

By having attained the Freedom of "Elysian, windless, fortunate abodes
Beyond Heaven's constellated wilderness" "we are blessed; and bless"
by refusing to linger therein, but shouldering once more "Atlantean
the load of the too vast orb of" the Karma of Mankind.

This hypothesis does at least make intelligible Their action in riding
for a fall instead of preventing it.  It may also be that They feel
that human progress has reached its asymptote so far as the old Formula
can take it.  In fact, unless we take some such view, there does not
seem to be much point in taking an action so fundamentally revolutionary
(on the surface) as the proclamation of a New Word.

But then (you will object, if an objection it be) people like Lenin,
Hitler, Mussolini, the Mikado, et hoc genus omne, are loyal emissaries
of the Masters, or the gods!  Well, why not?  An analogy, once more.
In the Christian legend we find God (omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent)
employing Judas, Pilate and Herod, no less than Jesus, as actors in the
Drama which replaced Isis by Osiris in the Great Formula.  Perfectly
true; but this fact does not in any way exculpate the criminals.  It is
no excuse for the Commandants of Belsen and Buchenwald that they were
acting under orders.  The Drama is not mere play-acting, in which the
most virtuous man may play the vilest of parts.

Your further objection, doubtless, will be that this theory makes the






26


Masters responsible for the agony of the planet.  I refer you to The
Book of the Heart Girt with a Serpent, Cp I, v. 33-4-0.

     33.  Let us take our delight in the multitude of men!
          Let us shape unto ourselves a boat of Mother-of-Pearl from
          them, that we may ride upon the river of Amrit!

     34.  Thou seest yon petal of Amaranth, blown by the wind from the
          low sweet brows of Hathor?

     35.  (The magister saw it and rejoiced in the beauty of it) Listen!

     36.  (From a certain world came an infinite wail) That falling
          petal seemed to the little ones a wave to engulph their
          continent.

     37.  So they will reproach thy servant, saying: Who hath set thee
          to save us?

     38.  He will be sore distressed.

     39.  All they will understand not that thou and I are fashioning
          a boat of Mother-of-Pearl.  We will sail down the river of
          Amrit even to the yew groves of Yama, where we may rejoice
          exceedingly.

     40.  The joy of men shall be our silver gleam, their woe our blue
          gleam --- all in the Mother-of-pearl.

And again, Cp. I, v. 50-52 and v. 56-62.

     50.  Adonai spake yet again with V.V.V.V.V. and said:  The earth
          is ripe for vintage; let us eat of her grapes, and be drunken
          thereon.

     51.  And V.V.V.V.V. answered and said: O my Lord, my dove, my
          excellent one, how shall this word seem unto the children of
          men?

     52.  And He answered him: Not as thou canst see.  It is certain
          that every letter of this cipher hath some value; but who
          shall determine the value?  For it varieth ever, according
          to the subtlety of him that made it.

              . . . .                                     . . . .

     56.  And Adonai said:  The strong brown reaper swept his swathe and
          rejoiced.  The wise man counted his muscles and pondered, and
          understood not, and was sad.  Reap thou and rejoice!

     57.  Then was the adept glad, and lifted his arm.  Lo!  an earth-
          quake, and plague, and terror on the earth!  A casting down of
          them that sate in high places; a famine upon the multitude!

     58.  And the grape fell ripe and rich into his mouth.

     59.  Stained is the purple of thy mouth, O brilliant one with the
          white glory of he lips of Adonai.






27

      60.  The foam of the grape is like the storm upon the sea; the
          ships tremble and shudder; the shipmaster is afraid.

     61.  That is thy drunkenness, O holy one, and the winds whirl away
          the soul of the scribe into the happy haven.

     62.  O Lord God!  Let the haven be cast down by the fury of the
          storm!  Let the foam of the grape tincture my soul with thy
          light!

             . . . .                                      . . . .

Yes, I dare say.  But is there not here a sort of moral oxymoron?  Are
not the Masters pursuing two diametrically opposed policies at the same
time?

Genius --- or Initiation, which implies the liberation and development of
the genius latent in us all (is not one of names of the "Holy
Guardian Angel" the Genius?) --- is practically the monopoly of the "crazy
adventurer," as the official mind will most certainly rate him.  Then
why do not the Masters oppose all forms of organization tooth-and-nail?

It depends, surely, on the stage which a society has reached on its fall
to the servile state.  Civilization of course, implies organization up
to a certain point.  The freedom of any function is built upon system;
and so long as Law and Order make it easier for a man to do his True
Will, they are admirable.  It is when system is adored for its own sake,
or as a means of endowing mediocrities with power as such, that the
"critical temperature" is attained.

It so happens that I write this on the eve of a General Election in
England; and it seems to me that whichever wins, England loses:

The Socialists openly proclaim that they mean to run the country on
the lines of a convict prison; but the Tories, for all their fine talk,
would be helpless against the Banks and the Trusts to whom they must
look for support.

Still, perhaps with a little help from Hashish, one can imagine a Mer-
chant Prince or a Banker being intelligent, or even, in a weak moment,
human; and this is not the case with officials.  The standard, moreover,
of education and Good Manners, low as it is, is less low in Tory circles.

As I think that totalitarian methods are already on the way to extinguish
the last spark of manly independence --- that is, in self-styled civilized
countries --- it seems to me that we all should regard with shrewd suspi-
cion any plans for "perfecting" social conditions.  The extreme horror
is the formula of the gregarious type of insect.  Inherent in the
premises is the impossibility of advance.

One may sum the policy of the A.'. A.'. as follows:

     1.  To assist the initiation of the individual.
     2.  To maintain a form of social order in which the adventure of
         initiation is easy --- to undertake!
     3.  To work out the Magical Formula of the New Aeon.







28


"Ye-e-ss, I s-e-e."

I doubt it.  But what you are asking is how to decide upon your personal
programme.

The intelligent visitor from who knows what planet was puzzled.  He
chanced to have landed in England --- to find a General Election in full
blast.  (The operative word is "blast".)  They must be absolute imbeciles,
was his first reaction, to risk upsetting the policy of Government with
a first-class war on.

(There would have been no need of such nonsense --- I interrupted --- if
Parliament was elected by my simple plan.  I'll give you the main idea;
I don't insist on the figures.  When a candidate is returned by 50 per-
cent over his runner-up, he sits for five years.  If forty percent,
four years; and so on.  An alternative --- to "stagger" the assembly, as
(I think) is done in the Senate of the United States.)

How are you going to vote?

Rather like the question of the dentist8.  The teeth can be tinkered:
of course, sooner or later they have to go.  Is it worth the trouble
and expense?  The Socialists would have them all out right away, and
replaced by a set of "dentures," which (obviously) are perfect.  Arrange
them, change them, choose your own pattern; no trouble, no pain: all
one's dream come true!  But hardly biological.

You may argue that convicts are examples of living individuals whose
safety, shelter, nourishment and the rest are organized with the utmost
care; but accidents will happen in the best-regulated "brown stone
jugs."  The one ideally automatic case is the foetus.  You will agree
that here is lack of initiative; in fact, its "True Will" is to escape,
albeit into a harsh and hostile universe, fraught with unknown and
incalculable dangers.

As the Ritual says: "Prepare to enter the Immeasurable Region!"

I think your decision should depend on how far caries has travelled on
its road of destruction.

I do not think that the Masters need be unanimous.

A practical plan might be for them to concentrate on one particular
group, or one part of the world, and to keep this in as good shape as
possible until the time has come for Nature to grow a new set.

They will be grown on a new Formula, to meet the new needs, just as
when our "permanent" (Alas, not much!) set replace our milk-teeth.

You ask me if I think this change can be made without bloodshed.

No.  The obscure autocrats of Diplomacy and Big Business are infinitely
stupid and short-sighted; they cannot see an inch beyond their too
8^  WEH NOTE:  Crowley suffered from bad teeth in his last years, finally
having them extracted about six months before his death in 1947 e.v.  It is
speculated that secondary infection from the extraction may have contributed
to his death from pneumonia in December of that year.







29


often stigmatically shapen probosces, except where the profit of the
next financial year is concerned.  They live in perpetual panic, and
shy at their own shadows.  The accordingly attack even the most innoc-
uous windmills in suicidal charges.

Yes:  bella, horrida bella,
      Et flavem Tibrim spumantem sanguine cerno.

So, whichever way you vote, you are asking for trouble, or would do,
if the vote had any meaning.  The result of any election, or for the
matter of that any revolution, is an almost wholly insignificant compo-
nent of those stupendous and inscrutable Magical Forces which determine
the destinies of the planet.

                  Love is the law, love under will.

                                 Yours fraternally,

                                        666
CHAPTER LXXVI.

              THE GODS:  HOW AND WHY THEY OVERLAP

Cara Soror,

          Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Your last letter.

I am glad: it shows you have been putting in some genuine original
work.  Result!  You make a very shrewd observation; you have noticed
the curious fashion in which Gods seem to overlap.  It is not the same
(you point out) with Angels.  In no other system do we find a parallel
for the Living Creatures.  Wheels, Wings, Fiery Serpents, with such
quasi-human cohorts as the Beni Elohim who beget the children on women,
to whom the Qabalah has introduced us.  The Beni Elohim is actually
an exception; there is the Incubus and some of the Fairy Folk, as
well as certain Gods and demi-Gods, who act thus paternally.  But you
are right in the main.  The Arabs, for example, have "seven heavens"
and seven Orders of Angels, also Jinn; but the classes are by no means
identical.  This, even though certain Archangels, notably Gabriel,
appear in both systems.  But then Gabriel is a definite individual, a
person --- and this fact is the key to your puzzle.

For, as I have explained in a previous letter, Gods are people: macro-
cosms, not mere collocations of the elements, planets and signs as are
most of the angels, intelligences and spirits. It is interesting to
note that Gabriel in particular seems to be more than one of these;
he enjoys the divine privilege of being himself.  Between you and me
and the pylon, I suspect that Gabriel who gave the Q'uran to
Mohammed was in reality a "Master" or messenger of some such person,
more or less as Aiwass describes himself as "...the minister of Hoor-paar-
kraat."  (AL I, 7)  His name implies some such function; for G.B.R.
is Mercury between the Two Greater Lights, Sol and Luna.  This seems
to mean that he is something more than a lunar or terrestrial arch-
angel; as he would appear to be from 777.  (There now!  That was my
private fiend again --- the Demon of Digression.  Back to our Gods!)







30


777 itself, to say nothing of The Golden Bough and the Good Lord
knows how many other similar monuments of lexicography (for really
they are little more), is our text-book.  We are bound to note at
once that the Gods sympathise, run into one another, coalesce much
more closely than any other of the Orders of Being.  There is not
really much in common between a jackal and a beetle, or between a
wolf and an owl, although they are grouped under Pisces or Aries
respectively.  But Adonis, Attis, Osiris, Melcarth, Mithras, Marsyas
--- --- --- a whole string of them comes tripping off the tongue.  They all
have histories; their birth, their life, their death, their subsequent
career; all goes naturally with them exactly as if they were (say) a
set of warriors, painters, anything superbly human.  We feel instinc-
tively that we know them, or at least know of them in the same sense
that we know of our fellow men and women; and that is a sense which
never so much as occurs to us when we discuss Archangels.  The great
exception is the Holy Guardian Angel; and this as I have shewn in
another letter is for exactly the same reason; He is a Person, a
macrocosmic Individual.  (We do not know about his birth and so on;
but that is because he is, so to speak, a private God; he only appears
to the world at all through some reference to him by his client; for
instance, the genius or Augoeides of Socrates).

Let us see how this works in practice.  Consider Zeus, Jupiter, Amon-
Ra, Indra, etc., we can think of them as the same identical people
known and described by Greeks, Romans, Egyptians and Hindus; they
differ as Mont Cervin differs from Monte Silvio and the Matterhorn.
(They are bound to appear different, because the mountain does not look
the same from Zermatt as it does from Domodossola, or even as seen by
a French-Swiss and a German-Swiss.)  In the same way read the Life of
Napoleon written by one of his marshals, by Michelet (a rabid Republi-
can), by Lord Rosebery, by a patriotic Russian, and by a German poet
and philosopher: one can hardly believe that the subject of any two
of these biographies is the same man.

But upon certain points the identity is bound to transpire; even when
we read of his crushing and classic defeat at Waterloo by the Belgians,
the man is detected.  Transferring the analogy to the Gods, it is then
open to us to suppose that Tahuti, Thoth, Hermes, Mercury, Loki, Hanuman
and the rest are identical, and that the diversity of the name and the
series of exploits is due merely to the accidents of time and space.
But it is at least equally plausible to suggest that these Gods are
different individuals, although of the identical Order of Being,
characteristics and function.  Very much as if one took Drake, Frobisher,
Raleigh, Hood, Blake, Rodney and Nelson, as seen through the mists of
history, tradition, legend and plain mythopoeia.  Add a few names not
English, and our position is closely parallel.  Personally, I incline
to the latter hypothesis; but it would be hard to say why, unless that
it is because I feel that to identify them completely would be to re-
duce their stature to that of personifications of various cosmic energies.

History lends its weight to my view.  When the philosophic schools,
unable to refute the charge of absurdity leveled at the orthodox
devotee who believed that Mars actually begot Romulus and Remus on a
Vestal Virgin, explained that Mars was no more than the martial instinct,
and the Virgin a type of Purity, their faith declined, and with it
Roman Virtue.  "Educate" Colonel Blimp's children and we have the
"intelligentsia" of Bloomsbury.  I am very sorry about all this; but
life must always be brutal and stupid so long as it depends upon






31


animals and vegetables for nourishment.

How restore faith in the Gods?  There is only one way; we must get to
know them personally.  And that, of course, is one of the principal
tasks of the Magician.

One further remark.  I have suggested that all these "identical" gods
are in reality distinct persons, but belonging to the same families.
Can we follow up this line of thought?  Yes: but I will defer it to
a subsequent letter.

                  Love is the law, love under will.

                                 Yours fraternally,

                                        666
CHAPTER LXXXVII

                     WORK WORTH WHILE:  WHY?

Cara Soror,

          Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Your remarks on my 0 = 2 letter are very apt and inspiriting --- that is
if I have rightly understood what you want to say.  (Really, you know,
they are a bit muddled --- or I am!)  May I frame your question, if it
is a question, in my own terms?  Yes?  Right.

You say that I have advanced an invulnerable theory of the Universe
in philosophical and mathematical language, and you suppose (under-
lined three times with two question marks) that one could, with a great
effort, deduce therefrom perfectly good reasons for an unswerving
contemplation of one's umbilicus, or the performance of strange dances
and the vibration of mysterious names.  But what are you to say (you
enquire) to the ordinary Bloke-on-the-Boulevard, to the man of the
world who has acquired a shrewd knowledge of Nature, but finds no
rational guide to the conduct of life.  He observes many unsatisfactory
elements in the way things go, and for his own sake would like to
"remould them nearer to the heart's desire," to refurbish the clich‚
of Fitzgerald about "this sorry scheme of things."  He is not in the
least interested in the learned exposition of 0 = 2.  But he is aware
that the A.'. A.'. professes a sound solution of the problem of conduct
and would like to know if its programme can be justified in terms of
Common Sense.

As luck would have it, only a few weeks ago I was asked to address a
group of just such people --- and they gave me three-quarters of an
hour's notice.  It was really more like ten minutes, as the rest of
the time was bespoke by letter-writing and posting which could in no
wise be postponed.

So I had to devise an adequate gambit, one which ruthlessly excluded
any touch of subtlety, or any assumption of previous knowledge of the
subject on the part of the audience.

It came off.  For the first time in history, the laymen elicited intel-
ligent and relevant questions.  There were only three half-wits in the






32


five score or so persons present, and these (naturally!) were just those
people who claimed to have studied the subject.

What follows is a rough outline of my argument.

I began by pointing out that Nature exercises many forms of Energy,
which are not directly observable by the senses.  In fact, the History
of Science for the last hundred and fifty years or so has consisted
principally of the discovery of such types, with their analysis, measure-
ment and manipulation.  There is every reason to suppose that many such
remain to be discovered.

But what has in no case been observed is any trace of will or of
intelligence, except through some apparatus involving a nervous and
cerebral system.

At this point I want especially to call your attention to certain
species of animals (bees and termites are obvious cases) where a
collective consciousness seems to exist, since the community acts as
a whole in evidently purposeful ways, yet the units of that community
are not even complete in themselves.  (Isn't there some series of
worms, each sub-type able only to subsist on the excrement of its
preserver in the series?)

Then there are the phenomena of mob psychology, where a crowd gleefully
combine to perform acts which would horrify any single individual.  And
there is the exceeding strange and interesting psychology of the "par-
touse" --- this is a little more, in my judgment, than a spinthria.

In all such cases the operative consciousness does not reside in any
single person, as one might argue that it did when an orator "carries
away" his audience.  But these remarks have rather shunted one into a
siding away from the main line of argument.  My most important point
is to insist that even with the most familiar forms of energy, man has
done no creative work so ever.  He has discovered, examined, measured
(rather clumsily) and used, but in no case has he understood, still
less explained, the causes of phenomena.  Sometimes he cannot even
reconcile different "laws of Nature."  So we find J.W.N. Sullivan
exclaiming "The scientific adventure may yet have to be abandoned,"
and to me personally he confessed "It may yet turn out that the mathe-
matical approach to Reality may have to be supplanted by the Magical."

Now in Nature it leaps at one that Will and Intelligence are behind
phenomena.  My old friend and colleague Professor Buckmaster, who
wrote a book on "Blood" which, he admitted, could not possibly be
understood by more than six people, told me that the ingenuity of the
structure of the human kidney "almost frightened" him.  Yet in all
Nature there is no trace whatever of any purpose such as human mentality
can grasp.  Again, apparent purpose often appears to be baffled.  Take
one example.  Evolution, working through thousands of years to estab-
lish a most subtle scheme of cross-fertilization, found, just as it was
perfect, conditions so altered that it was completely useless.

The "law of cause and effect" itself took a death-blow when Hesinger
showed that the old formula "If A then B" was invalid, and must be
altered to "If A, then B or C or D or E or . . . "

But at least we know enough phenomena to make it certain that Will and






33


Intelligence do exist somehow apart from any nervous and cerebral system
of which we are aware, and that these must be of a type which transcends
our human consciousness as that does that of a limpet or a lichen.

It follows that somehow, somewhere, there must be "gods" or "Masters"
--- whatever name you like.  And that, I suppose, is what you may call
the premise major of my syllogism.

The minor, I confess, is not so apodeictic.  No one, I suppose, is
going to point proudly to the present state of human affairs, as evi-
dence that we are all becoming wiser and nobler every minute, as
people did seventy years ago.  (I was brought up in the faith that
Queen Victoria would never die, and that Consols would never go below
par.

In face, one may suspect that the majority of well-instructed men
expect nothing but that History will repeat itself, and our civiliza-
tion go the way of all the others whose ruins we dig up in every quarter
of the earth.

(Our own destruction may be more compete than theirs; for most of
the monuments to our intelligence, sobriety and industry are made of
steel, and would vanish in a very few years after the smash.)

Well, if we have to wait for the calamity, and for evolution to begin
all over again in a number of centuries --- with luck! --- one thing is
at least quite certain: we can do nothing about it.  Any form of
activity must be as futile and as fatuous as any other; and the only
sensible philosophy must be "Let us eat and drink for tomorrow we die."

Is there a conceivable alternative?

Well, consider the cause of the impending collapse.  It is quite simple:
Knowledge is loose, without control of Will and of Intelligence.  (How
clearly the Qabalah states and demonstrates this doctrine!  But I
musn't be naughty; let me stick to Common Sense!)

Now, these qualities in us having failed to measure up to the situation
of the world, one hope remains; to get into communication with those
"gods" or "masters" whose existence was demonstrated in my Premise Major
and learn from Them.

But is this possible?

Tradition and experience unite to assert that it is so; moreover,
various forms of technique for accomplishing this are at our disposal.

This is what is called The Great Work; and it is abundantly clear that
no other aim is worth pursuit.

So much for the argument; it will be agreed readily enough that to
put it into practice we shall need an Alphabet, a Grammar and a Diction-
ary.  Follow the Axioms, the Postulates, the Theorems; finally, the
Experiments.

And that is what all these letters are about.

                  Love is the law, love under will.






34

                                  Yours fraternally,

                                        666
CHAPTER LXXVIII.

                           SORE SPOTS

Cara Soror,

          Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Three in one and one in three --- it's the Athanasian Creed in the Black
Mass --- eh!  What's that you say?  Oh, quite right, quite, quite right
of you to remind me.  "Definition first!"

A "sore spot" is one which reacts abnormally and violently, however
gently you touch it; more, all the other bits of you give a painful
jerk, however disconnected they may seem.  Still more, the entire
System undergoes a spasm of apprehension; and the total result is
that the mental as well as the physical system is quite unable to
grasp the situation with any accuracy, and the whole man is temporarily
engulphed in what is naturally not far from a condition of insanity.

(Now, Athanasius!  It's all right; the lady has gone away to think it
over.)

In --- shall I say "Anglo-Saxondom," or "Teutonic breeds," or "bourgeoisie,
so as to include some of the French whom when they are good are very
good indeed, but when they are bad, they are horrid? --- the presiding
God/Gods of this Trinity is/are: 1. Sex, 2. Religion, 3. "Drugs;" and
the greatest of these is Sex, actually the main root of which the other
two are tough and twisted stems, each with its peculiar species of
poisonous flowers, sometimes superficially so attractive that their
nastiness passes for Beauty.

I shall leave it to the psychoanalysts to demonstrate the reduction to
Sex, merely remarking that though I agree with their analysis as far as
it goes, I do not allow it to stop where they do.

For us, Sex is the first unconscious manifestation of Chiah, the Creative
Energy; and although (like everything else) it is shown both on the
spiritual and the physical planes, its most important forth-showing is
on the "Magical" plane, because it actually produces phenomena which
partake of all these.  It is the True Will on the creative plane: "By
Wisdom formed He the worlds."  So soon as its thaumaturgy is accomplished,
it is, through Binah, understood as the Logos.  Thus in Sex we find
every one of the primary Correspondences of Chokmah.  Being thus inef-
fable and sacrosanct, it is (plainly enough) peculiarly liable to
profanation.  Being profaned, it is naturally more unspeakably nasty
than any other of the "Mysteries."  You will find a good deal on this
subject implied in Artemis Iota, attached to another of my letters to
you.

Before tackling "Sore Spots" seriously, there is after all, one point
which should be made clear as to this Trinitarian simplification.

One of the most interesting and fruitful periods of my life was when






35


I was involved in research as to the meaning of Sankhara: "tendencies"
may be, indeed is, a good enough translation, but it leaves one very
much as deeply in the dark as before.  You remember --- I hope! --- that
Sankhara lies between Vinnanam, Pure Consciousness, and Sanna, Percep-
tion.  For instance, an electric fan in motion: a house-fly "tends"
to see the vanes as we do when they are still, we "tend" to see a
diaphanous blur.

Then, in delirium tremens, why do we tend to see pink rats rather
than begonias or gazelles?

We tend to see the myriad flashing colours of the humming bird; the
bird itself does not; it has no apparatus of colour-sense; to him
all appears a neutral tint, varying only in degrees of brightness.

Such were some of the fundamental facts that directed the course of
my research, whose results you may read in "The Psychology of Hashish",
by Oliver Haddo in The Equinox, Vol. I, No. 2.  The general basis of
this Essay is Sankhara; it shows how very striking are the analogies
between, (1) the results obtained by Mystics --- this includes the Ecstasy
of Sexual Feeling, as you may read in pretty nearly all of them, from
St. Augustine to St. Teresa and the Nun Gertrude.  The stages recounted
by the Buddha in his psychological analyses correspond with almost
incredible accuracy.  (2) The phenomena observed by those who use
opium, hashish, and some other "drugs" (3) The phenomena of various
forms of insanity.

The facts of this research are infuriating to the religious mystic;
and the fact of its main conclusion is liable to drive him into so
delirious a frenzy of rage as to make one reach for one's notebook ---
one more typical extreme case!

Now of course very few religious persons know that they are mystics ---
already it annoys them to suggest it! --- but, whether the lady doth
protest too much, or too little, the fact is that they are.  There is
no true rational meaning in religion.  consider the Athanasian Creed
itself!

Observe that the rationalist dare not yield a millionth of a millimetre.

           "First cut the Liquefaction, what comes next
            But Fichte's clever cut at God himself? . . .
            The first step, I am master not to take:"

says Bishop Blougram, and is pinned to the cork labelled "St. Januarius"!

This dilemma, consciously or subconsciously, is well rooted in the
minds of everybody who takes Life, in any one of its forms, seriously.
He feels the touch of the rapier, however shrewdly or cautiously
wielded.  The salute itself is more than enough; he feels already
the thrust to his vitals.

I remember sailing happily in to breakfast at Camberwell Vicarage, and
saying cheerfully, in absolute good faith: "A fine morning, Mr. Kelly!"
I was astounded at the reply.  The dear old gentleman --- and he really
was one of the best! --- half choked, then gobbled at me like a turkey!
"You're a very insolent young man!"  Poor, tiny Aleister!  How was I
to know that his son had driven it well home that the hallmark of






36


English stupidity was that the only safe topic of conversation was the
weather.  And so my greeting was instantly construed as a deliberate
insult!

A typical example of the irrationality of the reactions of a sufferer!

Now, from this schoolboy level, let us rise and put the case a little
more strongly.  Let us quit the shallows of social backchat for the
gloomy and horrific abysses of a murder trial!

To every man and woman that has not seen Sex as it is, faced it,
mastered it --- you will find elsewhere in these letters sufficient on
this matter --- it is his secret guilt.  Imagine, then, how at any
reference however remote, the "sinner" quails, his inmost mystery laid
bare, his evil conscience holding up a tarnished mirror to his deformed
and hideous face!  Often enough, he does not mind gross jests which
admit complicity on the part of the other; but any allusion to the
Truth, and his soul shrieks: I am found out!  Then apoplectic Fear
puts on the mask of Indignation and Disgust.

As for a serious discussion of anything concerned therewith, why, every
word is a new rasping tear.  The mind takes refuge in irrational and
irrelevant outbursts of feigned rage and horror.

In the case of religion, the consciousness of guilt extended to cover
everything from "playin' chuch-farden on the bless‚d tombstones" to
"the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost."  Against this vague and mon-
strous bogey, religion is the only safeguard, and therefore to suggest
the unsoundness of the guarantee is to strike at the roots of all
security.  It is like hinting to some besotted and uxorious oldster,
that his young wife may be unfaithful.  It is the poison that Iago
dripped so skillfully into the long hairy ear of the dull Moor.  So he
reacts irrationally --- every bush conceals a bear --- nay, more likely a
Boojum, or a Bunyip, or some other creature of fear-spurred Imagination!
"Monstrum informe, ingens, horrendum."  Note well the "informe."

And because the guarantee is unsound (and must be, or where would be
the point of "Faith"?) reassurance is in the nature of things impossible.
Like the demented rider in The Erl-King, the chase goes ever wilder
and wilder, until he plunges at the end into the bottomless bog of
madness and destruction.

I wonder how many lunatics there are in the "bughouse" to-day --- in the
times of"evangelical revival" the number was fantastic --- who got there
through fear that they had somehow committed the aforesaid "blasphemy
against the Holy Ghost."  The unknown again.  The Bible does not tell
us that it is; only that it is unpardonable.  Nor Grace, nor Faith,
nor predestination avail in the least; for all you know, you may have
committed it.  Reassurance is impossible; no ceinture de chastet‚
avails to avert this danger.

Again with drugs, it is the unknown which is the horrific factor.  Most
people get their information on the subject from the yellowest of yellow
newspapers, magazines and novels.  So darkly deep is their ignorance
that that do not know what the word means --- like us so often, yes?
Wide sections of the U.S.A. are scared of tea and coffee.  They blench
when you point out that bicarbonate of soda is a drug just as much as
cocaine; at the same time they literally shovel in the really danger-






37


ous Aspirin, to say nothing of the thousand Patent Medicines blared at
them from every radio --- as if the Press were not enough to poison the
whole population!  Blank-eyed, they gasp when they learn that of all
classes, the first place among "drug addicts" is that of the doctor.

But the crisis in which fear becomes phobia is the unreasoning aversion,
the shuddering of panic, above all, the passionate refusal to learn
anything about "drugs," to analyse the conditions, still less to face
them; and the spasmodic invention of imaginary terrors, as if the real
dangers were not enough to serve as a warning.

Now why?  Surely because in the sub-conscious lies an instinct that
in these obscure medicines indeed lies the key of some forbidden sanc-
tuary.  There is a fascination as irrational and therefore as strong,
as the fear.  Here is the point at which they link up with sex and
religion.  Oh, how well nigh almighty is the urgency to him who reads
those few great writers who understood the subject from experience:
de Quincey, Ludlow, Poe and Baudelaire: into whom burn the pointed
parallels between their adventures and those of all the mystics, East
and West!

The worst of this correspondence-form is that you are always asking
simple elementary questions which require half a dozen treatises to
answer: so, take this, with my blessing!

                 Love is the law, love under will.

                                Yours fraternally,

                                       666

P.S.  One further reflection.  With all these "sore spots" is closely
linked the idea of cruelty.  I need not touch upon the relation of
cruelty to sex; the theme has been worn threadbare.  But in religion,
note the Bottomless Pit and the Eternal Flame; in Buddhism, the eighteen
hot and eighteen cold Hells, with many another beneath.  Hindu eschatol-
ogy has countless Hells; even pedestrian, precise Islam, and the
calculating Qabalists, each hoast of Seven.  Again with drugs as with
insanity, we are confronted constantly with nameless terrors; the idea
of formlessness, of infinity pervades them alike.  Consider the man who
takes every chance gesture of a stranger in the street as a secret
sign passed from one of his persecutors to another; consider those
who refuse food because of the mysterious conspiracy to poison them.

All sanity, which is all Science, is founded upon Limit.  We must be
able to cut off, to define, to measure.  Naturally, then, their oppo-
sites, Insanity and Religion, have for their prime characteristic, the
Indefinable, Incomprehensible, Immeasurable.

The healing virtue of these words is this: examine the sore spot,
analyse it, probe it; then disinfection and the Vis Medicatrix Naturae,
complete the cure.

I had just finished this when in comes your very pertinent "Supplemen-
tary" Postcard.  "Doesn't hypocrisy fit in here, somehow?"  Indeed it
does, my child!

Corresponding to, and the poison bacillus of, that centre of infection,






38


is a Trinity of pure Evil, the total abnegation of Thelema.  Well known
to the psycho-analyst: the name thereof Shame --- Guilt --- Fear.  The
Anglo-Saxon or bourgeois mentality is soaked therein; and his remedy
so far from our exploratory-disinfection method, is to hide the gan-
grened mass with dirty poultices.  He has always a text of Scripture
or some other authority to paint his foulest acts in glowing colours;
and if he wants a glass of beer, he hates the stuff, but "doctor's
orders, my boy, doctor's orders."

There is really nothing new to be said about hypocrisy; it has been
analysed, exposed, lashed by every great Artist; quite without effect.
It gets worse as the socialistic idea thrives, as the individual leans
ever harder on the moral support of the herd.9

"My friend Freddy Lyon . . . told me a story . . . of the Volga Famine.
Some A.R.A. 'higher-ups' from New York were making a tour of inspection
. . . Among them was a worthy but sentimental citizen who gushed about
the unhappy Russians and the poor little starving children and what a
privilege it was for Mr. Lyon to be doing this noble work for humanity
and so on and so forth until Lyon said he was ready to choke him . . .
After lunch the visitors suggested they would like to visit the ceme-
tary.  It was, said Freddy, a horrid sight, nude, dead bodies piled up
ten high like faggots, because the population was so destitute that
every stitch of clothing was needed for the living.  The visitors were
sickened by what they saw, and even the gushing one was silent as they
walked back to the cemetery gate.  Suddenly he caught Freddy by the arm.
'Look there!' he said, 'Is not that something to restore our faith in
the goodness of God in the midst of all these horrors?'  He pointed to
a big woolly dog lying asleep on a grave with his head between his paws,
and continued impressively.  'Faithful unto death and beyond.  I have
often heard of a dog refusing to be comforted when his master died,
lying desolate on his grave, but I never thought to see such a thing my-
self.'  That was too much for Freddy Lyon.  'Yes,' he said cruelly, 'but
look at the dog's paws and muzzle' --- they were stiff with clotted blood
--- 'he's not mourning his master, he's sleeping off a meal.'

'At which point,' Lyon concluded his story with gusto, 'that talkative
guy did the opposite of sleeping off his lunch in a very thorough manner,
and there wasn't another peep out of him until we put him on the train.'"
P.S. Here is a very different set of reactions.  I do not quite know
why I am putting it in; is it some sub-conscious attraction of my own?
Anyhow, here it is; call it

                     LA POULE AUX RATS

Time: a fine Sunday evening in June, just one and twenty years ago.
Place: Paris, just off the Place des Tertres, overlooking the city.
A large and lovely studio, panelled in oak.  Strange: it was completely
bare, and so far as one could see, it had no door.  The skylights, mind-
ful, were carefully screened with broidered stuff.  A gallery, some ten
feet from the floor, ran round one corner.  Here was a buffet loaded
with priceless wines and liquors of all sorts --- except the "soft" ---
and excellent variety of all cold "snack" refreshments.  One gained it
by a staircase from the lower floor.

9*  Here is a most pertinent story from I Write as I Please by my old
friend, Walter Duranty.  It shows how the sentimental point of view
blinds its addicts to the most obvious facts.






39


By the buffet, the old butler: oh, for a painter to portray his Weari-
ness of Evil Wisdom!

Our host led us to the gallery; "we ate and drank and saw" not God
also, but the lady responsible for the heavy tread upon the stairs.  A
woman of the Halles Centrales, in her early forties; coarse, brutal,
ugly, robust, square-set, curiously radiant with some magnetic form of
energy.

I cannot describe her clothes --- for lack of material.  She greeted us
all round with a sort of surly good humour.  The butler took a pot of
very far-gone Roquefort cheese, and smeared her all over.  She drank
to us, and clumped away downstairs.  She came out into the studio from
under  the gallery, braced herself and shook her mop of hair as if about
to wrestle, waved to us and waited.

A minute later a small trap at the far end of the studio was smartly
pulled up; in rushed a hundred starving rats.  There was a moment's
hesitation; but the smell of the cheese was too much, and they rushed
her.  She caught one in both hands, bit through its spine, and flung
it aside.

Softly repeating to myself passages from The Revenge by the late Alfred
Lord Tennyson, of which the scene most powerfully reminded me. "Rat
after rat, for half an hour, flung back as fast as it came."  Their
courage wilted; the hunted became the huntress; I thought of Artemis
as I sang softly to myself, "When the hounds of spring are on winter's
traces."  But she pursued; snapped the last spine, and flung it into
the gallery with a yell of triumph.

It was not so easy a victory as I have perhaps described it, once she
slipped in the slime and came down with a thud; and at the end blood
spurted from innumerable bites.

The whole scene was too much for most of the men; they literally
howled liked famished wolves, and shook the balustrade until it creaked
and groaned.  Presently one slipped over, let himself lightly to the
floor and charged. Others followed.  All had their heart's desire.  I
was reminded of Swinburn's Laus Veneris,

           "I let mine eyes have all their will of thee
            I seal myself upon thee with my might."

As for the women, the ferocious glitter of their eyes was almost terri-
fying.  One of them, true, would have joined the happy warriors below;
but the butler roughly pulled her back, saying in a shocked voice,
"Madame est normale."  (I enjoyed that!)  Others consoled themselves
by capturing those males who were too timid to risk the jump.

I swallowed a last glass of champagne, and then "je filai a l'Anglais."

Summary: a pleasant time was had by all.

                            _______________

Note for political economists: the woman took 10,000 francs (at about
125 to the œ); she took three weeks in hospital and three weeks' holi-
day between the shows.  She was, or had been, the mistress of a Minister






40


with "peuple" ideas, though he was an aristocrat of very old vintage;
and he helped her to have her daughters brought up in one of the most
exclusive convents in France.

CHAPTER LXXIX

                            PROGRESS

Cara Soror,

          Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

You will certainly have to have an india-rubber medal for persistence:
this is the nth time that you have tried to catch me contradicting
myself.

Well, so I do, and must, every time I make any statement whatever, as
has been shown several times in this chatty little interchange of views.
But that is not what you mean.

You say --- permit me to condense your more than somewhat tautological,
pleonastic, prolix, diffuse and incoherent elucubrations! --- that the
whole idea of the Great Order is based on faith in Progress.  The doc-
trine of successive aeons is nothing else.  The system of training is
nothing else.  Nothing, in fact, is anything else.  Maugr‚ this and in
despite thereof (you continue, with a knavish gleam in your hither eye)
I am everlastingly throwing down the whole jerry-built castle by my
cynical reflections.  (Some one --- Anthony Hope in a lucid moment, I
thing --- says that cynicism is always a confession of failure --- "sour
grapes.")  Maybe, some of the time.  But the explanation is very simple,
and you ought to have been able to think it out for yourself.  It is a
question of the "Universe of Discourse," of Perspective.  An engineer
may swear himself ultra-marine in the map all the time at the daily
mistakes and mishaps that go on all the time under his nose, yet at
dinner tell his friends complacently that the bridge is going up better
than he ever expected.

Just so, my gibes are directed at incidents; but my heart's truth is
fixed on the grand spiral.

All the same, I am glad you wrote; it is a text for a little sermon
that I have had in mind for a long while on the conditions of progress

Number One is obviously Irregularity, Eccentricity, Disorder, the Revolu-
tionary Spirit, Experiment.

I have no patience whatever with Utopia-mongers.  Biology simply shouts
at us that the happy contented community, everyone with his own (often
highly specialized) job, nobody in need, nobody in danger, is necessarily
stagnant.  Termites and other ants, bees, beavers; these and many
another have produced perfect systems.  What is the first characteristic?
Stupidity.  "Where there is no vision, the people shall perish."  What is
the Fighter Termite to do, after he has been blocked out of his home?
None of these communities possess any resource at all against any unfore-
seen unfavourable change of circumstance.  (We look rather like that just
now at the end of 1944 e.v.)  Nor does anyone of them show any achievement;
having got to the end of their biological tether, they stay out, without
an aim, an idea, an effort.  The leech, an insufferable pest in its






41


belt --- it has killed off tiger, rhinoceros, anything with a nostril! ---
is the curse of our military station at Lebong --- or was when I was
there.  At Darjeeling, a few hundred feet higher, devil a one!  They
have no one to think: now how can we flourish up higher?  Those old
forlorn-hope Miss-Sahibs --- how wide are their nostrils!  Then --- how?

Consider for a moment our own Empire.  How did that spread all over the
planet?  It was the imaginative logic, the audacity, the adroit adapta-
bility, of the Adventurer that blasted the road.

The sunny Socialist smiles his superior smile, and condescends to
instruct us.  That was an unfortunate, though perhaps sometimes neces-
sary, stage in the perfection of Society.

Something in that.  But there are other kinds of Adventure.  My imagina-
tion can set no limit to the possibilities of Science, or of Art: our
own Great Work is evidence of that.

Last Sunday I looked through an interview with the least brain-bound
of these ruminators --- poor old, dear old G. for gaga Bernard Shaw.

The artist, said he, was a special case. he should have a nice easy
job, three or four hours a day, and be free for the rest of it to devote
himself to his Art.  I wonder how much of his own work would have seen
daylight if he had been tied to some silly robot soul-killing, nerve-
crushing, mind-infuriating routine job for even one half-hour a day!
When I am on a piece of work, I grudge the time for eating; and when
it's done, I need the absolute relaxation of leisured luxury.

Then what of the Work itself?  If the Idea be truly new and important,
God help it!  The whole class of men affected jump on it with one accord,
if haply they may crush it in the germ.  Read a little of the History of
Medicine!  Any man who shows a sign of independent thought is watched,
is thwarted.  He persists and is threatened and bullied.  He persists;
every engine of oppression is set in motion against him.  Then some-
thing snaps; either they succeed in killing him (Ross, who defeated
malaria, nearly starved to death) or they make him a baronet, or a peer,
or make his death a Day of National Mourning, and bury him in the Pan-
theon --- "auc grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante" --- like Pasteur after
one of the most infamous campaigns of persecution in history.

Then, of course, entertainment must be standardized.  It costs money to
produce; and who will produce anything which can only appeal to the
very few --- to none at all, soon, if these swine have their way.  So, if
it is new, is original, is worth one's while, it must be ignored.
Besides, being new and incomprehensible to the great Us, it may be
dangerous, and must be suppressed.

In all literature I know no pages so terrifying as those in Louis
Marlow's Mr. Amberthwaite, which describe his dream.  I wish I could
quote it, with Sinai as the orchestra; never mind, read it again.  And
we are on the way --- far on the way --- to That!

Now, obviously, the robot education, robot textbooks stuffed in by robot
teachers, will have done wonders with the help of the bovine well-being
to produce a race of robot boys.

All independence, all imagination, all spirit of Adventure, will have






42


been ground down and rolled out smooth by this ghastly engine.  But ---
Nature is not so easily beaten; a few boys and girls will somehow
escape, and either by instinct or by observation, have the sense to
keep secret.  Now whatever their own peculiar genius may select as their
line, they will realise that nothing is possible in any way while the
accursed system stands.  Their first duty is Revolt.  And presently
some one will come along with the wit and the will and the weapon, and
blow the whole most damnable bag of tricks sky-high.

We had better busy ourselves about this while it is still possible to
get back to freedom without universal bloodshed.

"All right, Master, you win!  Now give us your own idea of Utopia."

An Utopia to end Utopias?  Very good, so I will.  Education, to begin
with; well, you've had all that in another letter.  The main thing to
remember is that I want every individual taught as such, according to
his own special qualities.  Then, teach them both sides of every ques-
tion: history, for example, as the play of economic forces, also, as
due to the intervention of Divine Providence, or of "Sports" of genius:
and so for the rest.  Train them to doubt --- and to dare!

Then, somehow, as large a number of the most promising rebels should be
selected to lead a life of luxury and leisure.  Let every country, by
dint of honouring its old traditions, be as different as possible from
every other.  Restore the "Grant tour," or rather, the roving Englishman
of the Nineteenth Century.  Entrust them with the secrets of discipline,
of authority, or power.  Hardship and danger in full measure: and
responsibility.

A great deal of such material will be as disgustingly wasted as it has
been in the past; and there will be much abuse of privilege.  But this
must be allowed and allowed for; no very great harm will result, as the
weak and vicious will weed themselves out.

The pure gold will repay us ten thousandfold.  You ask examples?  With
us, the Elizabethan and the Victorian periods stand out.  What is most
wanted is opportunity and reward.  Under Victoria there was some --- taste
the late Samuel Smiles Esquire, D.D. (wasn't he?) --- but not enough, and
Industrialism, the mother and nurse of Soci