The Law is for All

Foreword 9 of his, he can actually suggest that commentaries on the text from two different hands should be included.1 Again, the scholar’s point of view. Why not, for example, in a classical book, include commentary by Bentley and by Porson, or by half a dozen others, for that matter? Indeed, the scholar would be delighted; but no-one else would be. Another thing that Crowley has never realised is that readers are not, as a general rule, men and women of leisure and that they want things made reasonably quick and easy for them. He never troubles to condense for their benefit, he never does anything to save them time. In fact, he has never troubled to cultivate a single one of the practical, cunning tricks of the literary trade, and he never had any flair whatever for “what puts a reader off.” His innocence in this respect is one of the most singular of his many singularities.1 2 1 Wilkinson is referring to this book. It was Wilkinson himself that was asked to contribute this second commentary to The Book of the Law, remarkable in view of the “Short Comment” of 1925 that — as Crow­ ley knew quite well — sternly forbids commentary by persons other than the Prophet. The “Short Comment” (p. 284 below) was classed as a “received” text, i.e., from an independent intelligence, like Liber Legis itself. Crowley’s suggestion to Wilkinson tends to confirm that it was at variance with his conscious mind. 2 The quotation given above, from Wilkinson’s typescript draft, differs from the published version in Seven Friends, pp. 56-57. 3 Her books on the western magical tradition, The Myth of the Magus (1948) and Ritual Magic (1949), were both issued by Cambridge. 4 Crowley, letter to E. M. Butler, April 1, 1946, unpublished. Crowley arranged for John W. (Jack) Parsons of the American o.T.o. to commission the editorial work on the commentaries, on behalf of the Order. This accomplished, he then introduced Wilkinson to Eliza M. Butler of Newnham College, Cambridge, an academic acquaintance.3 His letter of introduction, though half-joking, reveals his attitude to the work: Some 25 years ago I wrote a Commentary on The Book of the Law — over a quarter of a million words of the most tur­ gid and incomprehensible hogwash ever penned. Certain adventurous spirits, however, have claimed to have found specks of gold in the silt. (I have never been able to face the ms. since it was typed — not even to correct “literals.”) One of them, Dr. Louis Umfraville Wilkinson is now at work trying to extract some coherence.4