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William Wynn Westcott to Arthur Cadbury-Jones
Sheffield's Telephone is 502.Bromley
Her address is 3 The Avenue Beckenham Kent.
Nifheim Club, London, S.W.
[30 March 1910]
Dear Cadbury-Jones,
I am much obliged by your kind work on my behalf; please continue it, in case of further proceedings of any sort and of further quarrels by C.[Aleister Crowley]. I think it best I should be able to say I have not seen M.[MacGregor Mathers] on this occasion. My only hope for fair treatment lies in his desire for a money gift.
His willingness to sign any form as to my starting the G.D. [Golden Dawn] only confirms his own original letter—and is no boon, only a confirmation which I should consider proper from one who has broken every pledge of Brotherhood. The Second Order matter is really serious. I know M. had said to some person he doubted whether my letters from Germany signed Sap[iens] Dom[inabitur] Ast[ris] [Anna Sprengel] were or were not forgeries, but I did not know he had actually written and sent out such a charge of forgery, nor did I dream that C.[rowley] had heard of the charge.
Crowley's quotation of Mathers's actual letter, saying I forged letters cannot be passed over. The charge may be repeated in any Daily paper and the London County Council may call on me to prosecute both M. and C. for printing the libel, and I might be ruined; how could I rebut such a charge of what occurred in 1 888 between me and a correspondent I mew nothing of? The only evidence on which he made such a charge was the statement of a prostitute adventuress as he confesses; he had to disown her and yet he has not sent me a withdrawal of the offensive charge. He has no other evidence and just because his own teacher Lux e Tenebris [Mr. Thiesen] did not know that a person S.0.A. wrote to me he dares to say I forged the letters—it is intolerable.
If he wants a gift of money from me, he must write his withdrawal of the charge of forgery. He ought to write two—one a private letter to me dated December 1901 , or early 1902, and a confinnation2 referring to the present row dated now.
I send you copies of what I should require—I am not going to give him money for nothing.
A lawyer tells me that I ought to go to a magistrate for a criminal libel against both M. and C. at once, before M. leaves; but I do not want to act roughly to one who was an old friend and fellow student. So here is an opportunity for you to use all your well known tact and acumen. Do not say much to Mrs. [Westcott] about C. and M., only about the Lawsuit not about the forgery charge. She returns tomorrow and she worries so over matters.
Don't let him see the pages in my handwriting. I send three drafts of what I propose to pay for. [Letters] A and C could be typed and signed [Letter] B must be an autographed letter. It would be best to call him up on the phone or by letter and not write these things.
Yours sincerely,
Wynn Westcott
William Wynn Westcott's Draft Letter A. 26 March 1910
As the recent legal proceedings in relation to the Society of the G .D. and the Order of the R.R. et A.C. have raised some discussion. I declare that I am the Chief of the Order of the R.R. et A.C. and that I introduced its degrees and rituals into England, in 1892, as a second stage of initiation to the Society of Hermetic Students of the G.D. which began its work in 1887 and was called the Isis-Urania Temple. I wrote the G.D. rituals upon the invitation of Dr. W.W. Westcott, called S[apere] A[ude] upon the basis of the abstracts he had made from old MSS in cipher, which had been given to him alone by Rev. AF.A Woodford who represented them to be abbreviated rituals used by a previous G.D. Temple-long in abeyance. The new Isis [Urania Temple] G.D. was started under the auspices and authority of the late Dr. Wm. R. Woodman who was the Supreme Magus of the Masonic Rosicrucian Society of England-of which I was a member; and so I declare that the "Historical Lecture" of the G.D. is to my knowledge worthy of all confidence. I may add that while at first, five years, there was 3 Chiefs of this G.D. This Dr. Woodman died in Dec. 190 1 then4 Dr. Westcott and myself were in sole control, as of equal authority until at last in 1897, Dr. W.[estcott] of his own free will retired from his position as founder and Chief and left me the whole management of the G.D. Society for my life.
S.L M. Mathers Comte de G[lenstrae]
Witness:
William Wynn Westcott's Draft Letter B. 10 December 1910
Dear Sir and Bro. S.A. [Saper Aude], N.O.M. [Non Omnis Moriar],
As you may be aware that some time since I sent a letter to one of a group of students of the R.R. et A.C. of which I am head, saying I feared you had forged some letters from one S.D.A. [Anna Sprengel] in Germany, I wish to say I can not now substantiate such a charge as made by M[adame] Horos, who came to me with apparently good introduction. I find she is not a person who can be relied upon, in fact has been I hear, convicted of felony in London. With regret for the annoyance caused to you.
I remain, yours,
D.D.C.F. = S.R.M.D.
S.L MacGregor Mathers
William Wynn Westcott's Draft Letter C. 28 March 1910
Dear Dr. Westcott,
It is with great regret that I find that Mr. Crowley in his Equinox has published a portion of a private letter from me-written on Feb. 16, 1900, to one of my pupils, in which I said you must have forged letters from one S.DA. [Anna Sprengel] in Germany.
You will remember that my informant was discredited and indeed convicted of felony in 1901 , and so my charge was withdrawn.
I have done my best by an action at law to prevent this man from publishing his so-called revelations and I write to assure you that I make no charge of improper conduct by you, in relation to the Isis [Urania] Temple of the G.D. of which you were the first member, or in respect of the R.R. et A.C. of which I am the Chief in England.
Yours fraternally,
S.M.R.D. D.D.C.F. MacGregor
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