(if you are so inclined!)
The
following letter was wirtten on April 6, 1924 e.v. to Frater A.I., Eddie
Saayman, who was the "Eddie" referred to in Crowley's commentary to
LXV iv 61, and not Frater O.P.V., who was Norman Mudd. It is an extremely important
letter in that it gives Crowley's initiated interpretation of marriage. Saayman
had (as usual with shallow students) married without consulting his Superior
beforehand. The letter was dictated to Alostrael, Leah Hirsig, the (then)
Scarlet Woman.
You don't say whether it was murder or suicide--but then, of course you don't
know, you poor bleeder! Alostrael says it is better that you should go throught
the worst that can happen. I say that it will make you happy to remember the
happy days when you had nothing worse than the clap to think about. That, I
think, is about the limit of congratulation...
He was being facetious but kind. Saayman had blundered
badly, and he was trying to save the pieces.
...The business before the meeting is to pick up the pieces. The "Book of
the Law" is the one help available: luckily, it is adequate. Cf. I 41-42.
The important point is never to expect anything sexually...
Most men marry, as most women, in search of emotional
security that they should find primarily in their own selves. Crowley simply
meant that Saayman must not expect, because he was married, that his wife would
automatically be sexually attracted to him at all times, or even that she had a
duty to be so; or, which is equally important, that Saayman had a
"duty" to keep his wife sexually satisfied and emotionally secure.
Marriage is a partnership like any other, and should be spontaneous and
naturally profitable to both; anything forced stunts psychic growth. This is
true in normal everyday life; much more, then, in the life of a would-be
Initiate. That the advice was directed primarily to Saayman is immaterial; it
will be noticed that the woman he married is considered in the same breath.
After all, they chose to live together. They would either have to achieve their
life in common on an Initiatic level, or they would fail worse than most
marriages fail; for their responsibility was greater than normal. In this
context, it should be obvserved that the woman was less responsible in the
mixup than Saayman, unless she was totally unscrupulous when she married him,
in which case she was his vampire. But nobody is vampirized against his or her
will. This is what is meant by the tradition that a vampire cannot enter your
house--meaning, your magickal circle--meaning, your aura--unless it is invited,
either by yourself, or by some badly-disciplined faculty of yours. And if any
faculty of yours is badly-disciplined to that point, whose fault is it? Always
remember this! Consider your Oath; specially, specially , consider, if you
advanced that far, the Oath of the Neophyte!
...Never make "advances", or allow them: the act must be a
spontaneous insanity on both sides...
On BOTH sides, mind you. As to "spontaneous
insanity", cf. "Love", "Chastity", "Energy",
and "Silence" in "Little Essays Toward Truth"; and
"Liber Artemis Iota" elsewhere in this Equinox Volume.
...The best aid is careful technical training in the act. Experts can prolong
the honeymoon for months by knowing how to get the last ounce of pleasure...
This, however, totally contradicts what he said above
about not making advances or allowing them. Why "prolong" the
honeymoon? Why have a honeymoon at all? The whole point of
"honeymoons" is that they *end*. In that case, why get married? For
one month's so-called pleasure? (Remember, a "moon" meant a lunar
month.) Ridiculous, and more than ridiculous; debauched. But Crowley is, of
course, speaking from the point of view of his Probationer, and keeping things
at a very low level--say, the level of the Outer Circle of the O.T.O., or the
level of the average would-be civilized man or woman.
...; how to avoid awkwardness and distaste at the same time; and aversion after
the performance. At the best, you can't expect to enjoy it more than a very
short time...
As a rule. See our "Field Theory of Sex" elsewhere
in this book.
... so, prepare from the start to slide imperceptibly into a sex-free
friendship. Train yourself and her to pick up new partners before the
enthusiasm has turned into nagging...
This does not mean to try to freshen up attraction for
each other by the introduction of "novelties" in the act: it means
that if they encourage each other to seek other sexual partners while they are
still mentally attracted, they will train themselves into a true friendship
towards each other, and a true consideration for each other's feelings,
desires, opinions and *True Will*. If they wait until they no longer feel
attracted to each other before they seek new partners, their life in common may
turn to mutual disgust and scorn, carefully disguised as mutual politeness (in
the least bad of cases). This encouragement of each other in new partners,
naturally, will not arise while the mutual attraction is still spontaneously
strong; for during that phase, as anybody knows, you have no eyes but for each
other--as a rule. *All* this is rules; not laws; except, perhaps, that it
should eventually produce some needed changes in civil law.
... and see to it that both pairs of eyes are opened, so that you will neither
of you do such a foolish thing again...
---That is, won't get a
divorce and get married again, thinking that it just "didn't work out the
first time". The reason why marriages often seem to work better the second
time around is that the people have more experience form the first
relationship, and show more tolerance and understanding towards each other. It
is not that the second marriage is any better than the first; it is just that
*you* are better people the second time around. But why go through it more than
once, unless it is a matter of the True Will? So-called "love" is
seldom *under will*, as it should be; and sexual pleasure for its own sake is,
from the Initiatic point of view, animalism and nothing else. Cf. LXV iii 3-20,
and the commentaries thereon.
... and be able to amuse yourselves outside without loss of mutual loyalty , or
getting the delusion that going off with another partner leads to happiness.
Given these attainments, you may be able to get on quite awhile on the theory
that it is her True Will to devote herself body and soul to do yours...
For otherwise, at least until Saayman reached Mastership,
she would act as a vampire. People often forget--to my despair, at least--that
Initiatic training is much more demanding on a marriage partner than any other
form of life in common; indeed, so demanding that any man who has any true
consideration, which is to say any true love, for a woman will punctiliously
refrain from making of her the total slave that she will become (or of himself
the total slave that he will become if she is unwilling to become a total
slave) if he marries her before his occult training is complete. The women
whose True Will is to do yours, even for a time, are so rare that, unless she
makes it absolutely clear that she is getting into the relationship with both
eyes open, you should firmly avoid entering any kind of commitment that entails
life in common--or even too regular dating.
It should be clearly understood that the problem is just as
equally acute in cases where the *woman*, rather than the man, is aspiring to
Initiation. The sex is immaterial; specially since it is part of the Initiatic
training, if you are a man, to develop your feminine qualities; and if you are
a woman, to develop your male ones. The subject is beyond th escope of these
notes; indeed, this whole EQUINOX number was planned to treat of it in as many
of its aspects as it is possible at the present time. Remember that the birth
of a child inevitably destroys married love as such; it creates a divided
interest...
The obvious corollary being, until you have reached
Mastership, even if you have married a woman who is totally dedicated to your
True Will, DO NOT have children. If you are a woman, naturally it should be
evident to you that child-bearing will, to say the least, delay your training
for several years.
These reservations entail, manifestly, the premise that you,
whether man or woman, are not just an irresponsible slob worse by far than a
sow or a pig. For such slobs--who frequently manage to pass for human
beings--have children without benefit of the True Will, and then proceed to
make of their children slobs just like themselves. Sometimes they have enough
moral courage to put the child up for adoption; but if so, why have a child in
the first place? In short, for the Initiate, marriage and child-bearing are so
extremely serious responsibilities that he--or she--prudently avoids them until
he--or she--can cope with them. There are enough featherless bipeds walking the
earth already--and making a mess of it. Indeed, the overabundance of "low
men" is the most serious problem of our times.
These remarks apply to men of intelligence and imagination
and ambition; of course, the bourgeois type simply becomes brutalized by marriage,
and sinks into a sodden state of vegetative rumination plus spasms of savage
animal rancour. Of course, you are young and strong and you may pull through;
but you have wantonly put a burden on your back and hers...
Please notice again the emphasis on the fact that the burden
is mutual. We must also repeat that the responsibility, if it was not the
woman's True Will to serve Saayman during his apprenticeship, was much more
Saayman's than hers.
...which a steady thousand pounds a year from investments would not go far to
ease...
For this amount would not be sufficient to buy them the
necessary independence and leisure for Saayman to do his Work and the woman to
be comfortably supported while he did it; so, to say the least, either he would
have to take a job to support her (and have no time for Initiatic training, and
no energy for the same, unless he were an Overman--but he obviously wasn't), or
she would have to take a job to support them.
Please notice that a thousand pounds a year was then a very
comfortable sum indeed--the equivalent, perhaps, of twenty thousand dollars a
year nowadays.
The one course indicated above all is for you both to act as
if this calamity had not befallen you.
This is calling a spade a spade, indeed.
Preserve your spiritual integrity, both of you; don't waver
in your aspirations...
Meaning, in theory, Saayman's aspiration to be an Initiate
and the woman's aspiration to help him become one; for unless these were their
aspirations, he was an ass, and she a fool or a knave. Combinations and
permutations of both have been known to occur.
...Don't look toward each other--or you'll see pretty ghastly sights! Move
parallel...
For parallels meet in the Infinite, which is Nuit. Cf. LXV
iii 53-54, and the commentaries thereon.
...; with infinite tact, and utter self-abnegation on her part...
Condition "sine qua non". Remember once more that
the same would apply if the woman were a Probationer, and Saayman her
recently-acquired husband.
...(at first; it will come natural later, and fulfil her nature) you may be
able to avoid too rapid a divergence of the paths. Above all, keep a sharp
look-out for signs of cooling passion; the first time that you quarrel two days
running, take the bull by the horns and get a divorce while you are still not
too bad friends. Go on living together after the divorce, if you feel like it,
and drift quietly apart. Enough for the present!
Here ends the letter. It should be unnecessary to add that
Saayman was a fool and the woman a knave; they drifted quietly apart, indeed,
but together--and from the Great Work. The story had been the same frequently
before, and has been the same often since.
Since the problem is so frequent, so simple to the Initiate,
and so difficult to the profane, we have thought it possibly useful to include
further notes from the same Diary period, referring to Magickal Chastity as
applied to the Order of Thelemites:
*Chastity:* All sexual acts are lawful. But two
conditions must be strictly observed...
This means that the first statement, that all sexual acts
are lawful, is not true as it stands. But what Crowley actually meant was that
ANY type of sexual act is lawful, provided the following conditions be STRICTLY
observed:
1(a). "Always unto me" (i.e., to Nuit). This means:
The act must be an utterly Magickal Act. (Self-indulgence is barred.
Physiological necessity is pleadable, as being in accord with the Will-to-Live
and to work as best may be. See *b*.)
This means that self-indulgence, be it under the form of
masturbation or any other, is forbidden to the Initiate. Physiological
necessity = when the physical impulse becomes so irresistable that a health
problem is involved. This, by the way, seldom happens; very few people are that
intensely sexual, specially after adolescence, although they are
always--particularly the "macho" men--willing to fool others and
themselves.
1(b) "as ye will", etc. The act must be one of
*love under will*, not undertaken unless the proper conditions exist--i.e., the
natural enthusiastic attraction combined with the technical Magickal purpose.
(This is evidently an Ideal of Perfection, rarely to be so attained. There will
nearly always be found some need to compromise, that is, there will be an
element of Restriction somewhere...
Cf. the 30th Hexagram of the "Yi Jing", and
Crowley's and our commentaries thereon.
...Even the "physiological need" above mentioned partakes of the
nature of a restriction of pure Will, caused by the body. And this--paradoxically
enough!--although the "Enthusiastic Energy" is wholly in harmony with
the other conditions. No conditioned Act can be wholly free; at the best, it
relieves the existing stress to the maximum. It is essentially, therefore, a
destructive act...
For being conditioned, therefore not free. This does not
mean that a free act cannot be an act of destruction, it simply means that
conditioned acts are, essentially, reactions, and pertain to catabolism. No
idea of "morality" or "sin" is involved.
... It destroys the existing partial energies--Two reverting to Zero--yet, it
also creates the "child"--Two combining to form the twins V H'.)
2. The second condition is a practical point of policy.
Whatever the act, it must not be allowed to lead to any consequence soever save
that designed by 1(a) and 1(b). "Thou hast no right but to do thy
will." Marriage, e.g., must have nothing to do with the matter...
That is, the fact that the people involved have a permit
(bought from some government) or a blessing (bought from some church) to
copulate, or do not have it, is totally irrelevant to the Magickal
conditions. They may have a thousand permits, and the blessings of a thousand
churches, and still the act be unlawful from an Initiatic point of view. The
planes *cannot* be mixed!
... Nor must personal affection and the like be permitted to cause, or to
spring from, the act.
(The above really follows the clause "strictly Magickal". The
point is to avoid impurity in any form.)
Often, a spontaneous sexual act is followed by a sense of
mutual obligation to show "affection" or "fidelity" to each
other. Such tendencies are fruit of a thousand years of degradation of the
sex-instinct on the part of sexual perverts masquerading as priests. Affection
and fidelity have nothing necessarily to do with Magickal Chastity. My dog may
be faithful to me, and I have affection for it; this does not mean either that
we must copulate, or that we should get married.
(The above, hopefully, will not be interpreted to mean that I am calling women
dogs, or even bitches. I repeat, hopefully; for, as the great Fernando Pessoa
once remarked, the stupidity of mankind is great; and this necessarily includes
our better half.)
Love built up from sex-attraction through affection only to
discover too late a fundamental spiritual incompatibility means disaster, the
Gods blasphemed taking Their vengeance by destroying the affection...
The Gods blasphemed are the Stars involved in the situation.
Ultimately, the entire Cosmos is involved!
... The unhappy ones try to mend this by return to excessive sexual stimulus,
and find increased tension in the daytime, and ultimately disgust all round.
The disaster is irreparable. *Vice versa*, a real spiritual marriage, probably
unconscious, awakes from above a true affection, unshakable by any trials; and
from this arises the desire to express the true Unity by destroying the sexual
duality. They therefore begin to copulate with genuine ardour, not sensual,
although arousing the senses to the highest rapture; and even should this
enthusiasm wear out, Anteros never appears, but the past is seen to have
broadened the base and deepened the foundation of the romantic and poetic love.
But it is always fatal for the attraction to be towards each other, save only
with the object of destroying the strain between the male and female forms of
bodily expression...
Serious students are advised to meditate deeply on the
above two lines.
...The union must not be between two opposing points; the two forces must be
joined throughout their whole lengths, with compatible velocities, and a
constant convergence to a spiritual norm beyond the scope of either's conscious
will. I instance a pair of remote galaxies, in opposite directions from the
earth, yet forming part of a single system of physical motion. In such a case,
every consciousness of each other is a "recognition", with
ever-increasing certainty that the proper movement of each is such as to keep
them eternally in touch, that they can never lose each other in the vastness of
the Universe, yet never clash in mutual destruction. "Twin souls are we,
to one star bound in heaven."
---Cf. LIBER ALEPH, Ch. 144.
No earthly circumstance can matter to such souls, who
"no roseleaves ask to leaven the manna that the moon of Love
provided". And they may be sure, moreover, that death itself can only
destroy the illusion of their separateness in space, and confirm them in their
real Unity of Going, the dynamic equation all independent of any material
basis!
One further, and final, observation, is perhaps useful here:
the average reader, wallowing in grossness, may complain: But I thought Crowley
came to free my prick (or cunt, as the case may be) forever; and from what you
just said, and from what this whole book implies, not only women should wear
chastity belts henceforth, but men as well!!! Reassure yourself: You are
perfectly free to go on being, in Fernando Pessoa's still other immortal
phrase, postponed corpses who procreate. Indeed, you are freer to be that than
before. The specialized advice in this book is meant only for those who aspire
to be Initiates; and particularly for those who aspire to be Thelemites.
Love is the law
love *under will*.
Parzival Project