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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Heinrich Tränker
[DRAFT]
[circa February 1924]
I have now read from U.S.A. a [illegible] of your letter of 1.10.24 and the of final emanation concerning Br. Merlin Peregrinus [Theodor Reuss] of 1.11.24 with an enclosure of Mrs. R.[euss]. I can therefore now write further and more clearly in many points.
The financial situation with which you deal very frankly in your letter needs immediate attention: for your plans—excellent as they are—require a certain amount of capital, if undue time is not to be wasted in putting them through. From my point of view the situation is this:
I received by birth a considerable fortune which I have spent in researches and in publication of the truths thus discovered. I possess therefore in actual saleable stock and in copyrights of published and unpublished writings an indefinitely large resource of monies.
This resources entirely undeveloped from the following causes A. having had no wish to make money I never took the ordinary business steps to secure the sale of my works. B. knowing too well my gross ignorance and mental incapacity I have never been able to grasp that which appears undoubtable the fact that many students are even less well endowed than myself in these respects so that my writings are, it seems, difficult of comprehension. C. For some purpose which is still partially obscure the gods have surrounded me with a glamour so that while I am almost universally recognised as one of the most powerful of magicians I am supposed to be a monster of whom no story is too absurd or horrible for belief.
Defect A can be turned into an important asset and that immediately by establishing an enduring business organisation. Defect B. can be cured by a propaganda of popularisation by presenting the ideas in my works in an attractive and easily assimilable form. Defect C. will disappear automatically as soon as it has been made clear that my reputation is in fact a glamour for no shred of evidence can be brought forward to support any of the fantastic rumours with which my name is surrounded. (Much may be done in this matter by the publication of my memoirs which are practically ready for the press.)
You can do much to assist in this matter if you can induce a prominent publisher to undertake the translation of my works. The German copyright can be sold on a royalty basis into a lump sum paid in advance and if this could be done it would free me immediately to put in hand more important matters.
Let it be quite clear that I do not intend to leave in obscurity the answer to the question 'By what authority doest thou these things' The first cardinal virtue of the student of our art is intellectual honesty. At present there is no continuously working organisation which can claim an authentic tradition which will stand the test of initial scholarship. My position in these matters is as follows. In 1898 I was initiated into the hermetic order of the Golden Dawn (hermetic Order of R.R. et A.C. derived from the Secret Chiefs of A∴A∴). The facts are given fully in the Equinox in the Temple of Solomon the King. That this Order possessed true knowledge is proved by the nature of that knowledge, but the brother is charge in England admitted that the link with the Secret Chiefs was broken and the claim of Maters [MacGregor Mathers] to have reformed it rest as far as I know in his personal statement which was a priori invalidated and in respect of which I took infinite pains to prove him a liar.
Please answer these questions:
I. Do you know anything and if so what of a Fraulein Sprengel once resident in Germany presumably between 1850 to 1889 at the time of her connection with this English branch.
II. It is said that she belonged to a Temple called the L.L.S. do you know anything of this? Are the brethren in charge of it still in continuance?
III. If so can they throw light on the authorship of the original R.C. manuscripts and can they show documentary proof of their just hierarchical succession in the college of the holy ghost.
IV. Can you throw any light on the authority for the attributions of the Tarot trumps issued in the Practicus Grade of the Golden Dawn and published in 777. (It is evident to me that any intelligent person possessing this attribution has the Key to bring great Knowledge and power. They supply in fact a common basis of understanding between the higher adepts, and this is important to me although the nature of the proof is too subtle and profound for profane scholars.
V. Can you satisfy me in any way whatever that you possess the confidence of the Chiefs responsible for the whole manifestation of activity of which the Golden Dawn has an important branch.
VI. Those who chose me for the Cairo Working March and April 1904 gave absolute proof of their right to command me and indeed of their right to direct the whole masse of humanity, but in this matter I understood that they were in some sense identical with those Chiefs referred to in the previous questions and that therefore they had chosen me to replace Mathers who had forfeited their confidence. That they had in fact by approaching me reforged the link with the masters broken at the death of Fraulein Sprengel. Can you throw any light whatever upon this matter of which is almost the same thing in other words can you throw any light on the writer of the Book of the Law.
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