(05/12/1946) Grady McMurtry to Aleister Crowley

1661 Sacramento St., Apt. 3
San Francisco, 9, Calif.
12 May 1946

Dear Aleister,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

The Word of the Equinox has arrived along with the authorization to “take over” in case of emergency. Let us hope that it may not be necessary for me to use it.

Yes, I mentioned to Karl when I came back from Europe that I thought that some one should go over (to) help you straighten yourself out when you are ready to come over here. At that time I saw no reason why I shouldn’t be the one who did the traveling but there is no reason why Jack or Jane couldn’t do the same. Regardless of who is to go I think it advisable that we start planning on it right away. My position at present is this, Foxie – that’s my wife – is expecting to give birth to a new McMurtry in October. We had not planned him or her until after I finished school but things like that happen in the best of families. There are several points on the bright side, of course. For one thing it seems about time for some Thelemite to start having a family. Except for …, who was outcast by Agape, no one down south has seen fit to do same. In the second place I have reason to believe that this child is the outcome of a ninth degree operation. If so we may have super-man on our hands one of these days. But all of this leads to a certain complication. In order to pay for Junior’s arrival and support ourselves in the meantime I will have to go to work this summer and next fall or, if I come over to England, someone else will have to foot the bill. Then there is the matter of timing. have you set a definite date when you plan to leave the U.K.? And the matter of passports. I checked with the passport people here in San Francisco and they said that I would have to show cause why I wanted to go to England. Either I must be on business or, if I am to render assistance to another person, then I will have to have a doctor’s certificate that such assistance is necessary. Papers, papers, papers! It is just like the Army, there they think that the world would stop turning if it didn’t have paper to roll on. Perhaps you had better refer it all to Karl. Then if he thinks Jane, for instance, could do the job just as well as I could then he could see about getting her the certificate, the passport, etc. and so on.

Here is a copy of “Space Tides”, my latest effort in the line of poetry. Had hoped to make it longer but I had to cut it short as I wanted to enter it in a poetry contest over at the University. Then I found a copy of the poem that won last year’s prize and decided that I didn’t have a chance. “How beautiful the sun is on the sea for the over the hill there is a flag-pole and a young lady sits under the pear tree” kind of stuff. We had a writer by the name of Rexroth as guest speaker at the writer’s conference over at Cal last Friday. I was quite interested in what he had to say about the cliques and groups among present day Scotch and English poets. It seems that the only people who are writing “modern” poetry in England today are either Comunists or Anarchists. Maybe it takes an Anarchist to understand modern poetry.

Love is the law, love under will.

(Grady McMurtry)

Note: Originally published in Thelema Lodge Calendar, June 1992