(04/10/1946) Aleister Crowley to Grady McMurtry

Netherwood,
The Ridge,
HASTINGS

10th April, 1946

Dear Grady,

Thanks very much for yours of March 31st.

Yes, Frederic came to see me over a weekend, and I am hoping that he will be able to manage something like a month here a bit later in the year when he gets some leave. He was tremendously useful while he was here, sorting out letters and things which had got into the most infernal mess. Everything is now so tidy that I am afraid to look for anything I want!

I shall enclose with this letter the authorisation which you require. I think it is best to leave as much in your hands as possible, as you are more or less on the spot and appear to be full of youth and energy as ever. I will write the document required with my own fair hand.

The quotations is: “You should act as if you had omnipotence at your command and eternity at your disposal,” and the author Eliaphaz Levi. I do not know where in his writing to look for it; I think you will find it in one of the books mistranslated by Waite.
Interesting about the Bees.

I cannot be sure whether you refer to the 9th Degree story in the Book of Judges where Samson killed a lion with the jaw bone of an ass (the ass of course being sacred to Priapus). He returns the next day and find himself hungry; going to the carcass of the lion, he finds that bees have swarmed in it, and gets their honey. This is only one of several stories in the Old Testament where the 9th Degree is definitely advertised.

I am very glad you are practising regularly; that is the only thing that counts. The longer I live the more I get bored by the people who boast of their theoretical knowledge which leads absolutely nowhere, if you take it as an end in itself.

The gods that you quote are not at all those given in Liber Resh and I do not see why you should depart from the text, but if for some reason you find them more suited to your peculiar style of beauty, go ahead and heaven prosper you! As long as you do not get into a state of imagining that it matters such a devil of a lot if you have got some detail wrong. It is this state of doubt which damages people’s practices. You drift more and more vaguely into the uncharted archipelago of theory; and presently arrive at a state of jitters in which none of your practises work any more at all.

“Uncharted archipelago” reminds me that I went completely crackers yesterday and wrote two poems. In fact during the whole day I found myself thinking in rime; a most curious business. I cannot imagine what started me. However the poems are written and will shortly be copied; I will send you copies.

I refuse to dive into the morass of Budge’s books. He was a very dull scholar; and, while accurate in a pedantic way, had no real idea what the Egyptians meant by any of it; so beware.

I have not heard of this book on Alchemy. You are not going to side-track me in any such crude manner. I am completely tired (for this whole incarnation) of reading.

I am not yet through with the dentist, but last week he started the constructive part of the job, and I think that it will all be finished pretty soon after Easter. I hope this will improve my health and temper.

Curse Frederic for sending other people copies of photographs of me without my approval, especially that he did not send me any at all.

Love is the law, love under will,

Yours ever,
{signed} ALEISTER

Lieut. Grady L. McMurtry

1661 Sacramento St., Apt. 3
San Francisco 9. California
{handwritten postscript}

I’m sending you Louis Marlow’s “Forth Beast!” which has bits about me in it, & a note on its use to the Worker

I can’t write more, or properly, till I get my new reading glasses. Sorry! A.C.

Note: Originally published in Thelema Lodge Calendar, May 1993.

(04/10/1946) Aleister Crowley to Grady McMurtry #1 (04/10/1946) Aleister Crowley to Grady McMurtry #2

Note: Thank you to William Heidrick for making this image available.