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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to John Quinn
1 September 1913
Dear Sir,
I have been away in Russia for the summer and find on my return your letters of July 22, July 31, Aug 1 and Aug 20. The Book Berashith you have got though the title is printed in Hebrew, the sub-title being An Essay on Ontology. With regard to the New Year's Card: we have no copy and it would seem almost impossible to procure one. We are relying on the generosity of a friend to let us have his copy for forwarding to you. We are sending you a copy of Oracles, and one of the lithographs of Mr. John's [Augustus John] Sketch. If you will not consider it important to make the enquiry, I should like to know whether if by any chance you are the buyer of these Sketches [of Crowley] which Mr. John made.
I should now like to go fully into the question of three other books. Mr. Crowley is very anxious to avoid the idea that anything written by him has any objectionable tendency, and I should consequently wish to record the facts. When he went to Trinity College Cambridge he was, no doubt owing to the serious ill health which had pursued him from the age of 12 to that of 20, extremely backward in knowledge of the world, and the youthful initiations of public school life did not touch him. At Cambridge someone gave him a copy of Kraft-Ebing's Psycopathia Sexualis. The conclusion of the eminent German professor revolted him intellectually then, as they do now. He refused to admit that vice was the result of disease. His "White Stains" is an answer to Kraft-Ebbing. It is an attempt to explain the feelings of persons engaged in various abnormal practices, that is, to explain these practices in terms of psychology rather than of pathology. The work is entirely one of imagination as he had no actual experience even by hearsay of the subject on which he was writing, and of course, being a poet, the poetic form came naturally to him. Alienists have expressed the view that this work is a valuable contribution to medical literature and a great help to the private understanding of the question.
The Scented Garden deals entirely with paederasty, of which the author saw much evidence in India. It is an attempt to understand the mind of the Persian, while the Preliminary Essay does the same for the English clergyman.
The World's Tragedy was only [illegible] to statements in the Preface with regard to the morals of Cabinet Ministers and others in high position, which might be held libellous. The book itself is the best ever written by this author. We will arrange for these three to be sent you by registered post, and charge your account accordingly.
Yours faithfully.
P.S. Bagh-i-Muattar [The Scented Garden]. 100 printed, many of these purposely destroyed.
World's Tragedy. 100 printed. All mutilated pf pp. XXVII, XXVIII except in a few copies which are in the hands of the author's friends.
White Stains. 100 only printed.
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