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Correspondence from George MacNie Cowie to Aleister Crowley
14 Glenisla Gardens, Edinburgh.
Nov 23 [1914?]
Care Frater.
Read this and then nightly in dreams you'll behold Grand Treasurers General gasping for gold. Literally—I do not see quite how I am to continue supplying the sinews of war to slaughtermen [printers] after this month thanks to an additional expenditure due partly to my own damn self, partly to your own diabolical behaviour.
(1) I was not wary enough to cash your £6 cheque at once, and when I did so the Bank afterwards returned the thing marked 'refer to drawer'. Drawer had done a bunk to New York, no address, no possibility of putting Scotland Yard on his track or Sal Philosophorum on his tail, so the months expenditure is £18 instead of £12.
(2) When I wrote to Dennes about the transfer of lease of the Studio [33 Avenue Studios, Fulham Road] I was confronted with the fact that the previous quarter's rent was unpaid. This might have made further negotiations unpleasant, so, on consideration, I decided to repay it (though it has meant overdrawing my account and encroaching on my next month's pay) stating that you would refund me. Vain was the sacrifice. Without accounting for the Freaks, the trustees of that estate refused the transfer, stating that the lease must run its due course till 1917.
The £17 due for the mortgage interest [on Boleskine House] I had up my sleeve in reserve, or course, and that was all right. But it must be replaced ready for another emergency.
There's two taxes of over £4 each on Boleskine due to pay in Inverness, besides my own taxes, and that will leave little out of my salary next time, and I'll grudge, really, that little to the slaughterman, as necessary expenses ought to be paid before the luxury of publication is indulged in.
In ordinary circumstances it would be sheer lunacy to live so close to ones income and even anticipate at any moment in the immediate future that income may stop or be cut down. I see myself very near the end of my resources now, so it's to be hoped you'll have luck and keep us off the rocks. One good asset is that I know that exit by starvation is not so bad as people imagine, so long as it's not complicated by thirst, or by attempts at devouring grass.
Edinburgh is being got ready for possible raids. Parkside is half barrack now, and if we get a shell amongst the machinery . . . .!
[The remainder may be part of another letter.]
I am taking advantage of the leisure with which I can write this—the mail is not for a day or two, and I'm not so busy now as I was,—to jot down a few reflections, which arise from the VII Degree knowledge having had time to ferment in my brain. At the outset it did not seem anything surprising, I recognised the secret of the Old Mysteries so often hinted at, and almost guessed; though not formulated to myself in this clear and definite shape.
Now with this as a base and putting together many other hints I cannot help assuming that the VIII Degree knowledge give means whereby the ordinary momentary ecstasy of orgasm may be extended into a real and prolonged loss of ordinary consciousness and possible contact with the divine. So tremendous must be the forces behind the miracle of generation that the above would be in no way incredible to me, and putting many things together, e.g. the familiar hints as to the nature of the philosopher's stone, your hints in 333 [Book of Lies] and elsewhere and especially the title page for AGAPE [Liber Agape Azoth sal Philosophorum] which seems almost to give something away, I imagine that the IX Degree knowledge is that of somehow extracting the forces of the quintessence and employing their power for other purposes than those of generation. This is merely speculation on my part and I don't at all see how it could be done, but it does seem to make sole old puzzles look clearer, and I can even see—in a vague way where the joke you refer to in Levi's [Eliphas Levi] phrase 'magnetised electricity' comes in.
It's had a pretty disconcerting effect all this new knowledge and common sense morality coming into my life at the age where year by year I not progress towards the evil case of out father Christian Rosycross who didn't know what to do with a v. But then you told me that the IX Degree also implies knowledge of the means of reviving the fount of the quintessence if desired. Not necessarily for the latter result, but in order to acquire all the knowledge I can before the closing of the present Lodge and the erection of a superior one, I await the earliest day when you will give me leave to open the VIII or IX M.S.S.
By the way I find the smallest fire-proof safe costs £10 and a mere box £5 and I must trust for the present to the wooden bureau I keep them in.
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