|
Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Louis Umfreville Wilkinson
1123 Broadway New York City Office of the Contributing Editor.
August 14, 1917
Dr. Louis U. Wilkinson, 10 Davis Place, Rockaway Beach, L. I.
Dear Wilkinson:
I thought it better not to answer your letter of August 7, as I was rather expecting you to drop into the office. I do not think you should altogether blame me in the recent matter. I remained in the trenches. It was, of course, mere accident connected with a red headed girl named Kate that lured the modern Rembrandt from New York. I really do not know how it became known that I was in the district unless it was purely divined from the presence of Kennedy [Leon Engers Kennedy]. However we must do what we can.
I do not quite understand about Ezra Pound and Yeats. I do not know what the suspicions may be; nor is it necessary to inquire, since the whole matter is unfortunately pathological. However the point is that I think you should come to New York without delay.
Your article created quite a stir and we have had lots of letters thanking us for it. It was certainly the feature of the August number [of The International]. You ought to follow it up. I think your Tolstoi review will be valuable in this number, more so than the Black Windmill, which by the way we may possibly have to hold over, though I am fighting for extra pages in order to make the world safe for Wilkinson. Your polemical style is unchallenged, and we can bring ourselves into great success of every kind by pushing it.
I am sending you a copy of “Philistine and Genius” by Boris Sidis. I am trying to get him to co-operate in our moral uplift campaign. The particular and immediate request that I make to you is for an article on Freudian Repression. The line I should like you to take is that where a natural instinct is suppressed, it is transformed into insane and monstrous deformities. The analogy that I always have in mind is that of the “Fourth”: If this be suppressed, the brain immediately fails to work with propriety and clarity. Perhaps it is a little hard to put that in an article in any detail, but I guess you will know how to bring out the whole business properly. I cannot go with Freud to his limit or anywhere near it. For example; dreams (as far as I am concerned) have, nine time out of ten, nothing to do with wishes, but are caricatures of the events of the day before or evidently dictated by the physical condition of the moment. This is simply my first suggestion, as I think that you should write a whole series of essays of this kind. We shall make a feature of them, wake up controversy, and presently will be able to collect them into a book. I think it is about the best bet you have.
Give my love to O’Neill when you write to him, and turn up here as soon as you can.
Yours ever,
Aleister Crowley
AC / RBG
P.S. The Lyric* Champbells will go into this number. I suppose that is all right. If there is any objection to it, you will have to send me a wire as we are going to press to-morrow. The paper is already made up. I hope it will be all right, as it is one of the most brilliant articles I have ever read.
A.C.
* [In A.C.’s handwriting] Good: I can't alter that!
|