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Correspondence from George MacNie Cowie to Aleister Crowley
14 Glenisla Gardens, Edinburgh.
[Undated: circa 1916. Possibly 1917?]
Yours of apparently Sep 9. I'm sorry now about the expression I used, but obviously no personal insult to any one was intended. I know nothing about the OHO [Outer Head of the Order] personally, if he were a reincarnation of Jacob Boeheme, it would not alter my point, which is merely that I feel uncomfortable about British people joining us when they are in ignorance of something they wouldn't like (which however they may never know at all, unless they reach VIII degree). It's been worrying me, though I don't suppose I'd even have thought of it but for your McArthy[1] articles—I have always protested about these, as even assuming that you were talking through your hat, I don't see what they can cause us but trouble if we are made to look as a body as being in favour of the McA's—I have a painful habit, as you are well aware, of preferring to look like a fool and a blighter rather than shirk saying certain things or appear to acquiesce in what I don't like, and this if only for the sake of being put right—I so wanted a clear explanation of our position about this—and have perhaps got morbid on the subject and gone beyond bounds.
That is certainly the case in another instance recently. Especially after the new Manifesto and the reading of the IX degree MSS. I feel I was vilely in the wrong to speak of the 'McArthy Origin' of the O.T.O. I am not really so miserably ignorant as that seems to imply, though—I'm really ashamed now. But this I know—I HATE being on bad terms with you, and this wretched McArthy business has been the cause of the only quarrel we ever had. Truly I have no hatred as you seem to think towards the McA's, rather hatred of this miserable situation caused. I was perhaps trying to force your hand for a fuller explanation and get things cleared up. The honest truth is that I've never been able to think of you quite in the same way, since you took to 'politics', and I don't like that feeling.
[The remainder of the letter is missing.]
1—[For 'McArthy' read 'German'. Gerald Yorke.]
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