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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Clifford V. Church (Crowley's Lawyer)
March 9, 1929.
Dear Mr. Church:
The Nicaraguan Consul went with my housekeeper [Maria de Miramar] to the Minister of the Interior yesterday afternoon. In the course of the interview, it transpired that they had nothing against her, but that I was selling cocaine, and that they were really doing her a kindness in throwing her onto the streets without a penny, because I always either drove women mad or murdered them as soon as possible after introduction.
The man from the Prefecture, who came here during the afternoon with my pink paper [expelling him from France], told me as that I was ill, I did not have to go at once, provided that I could produce a medical certificate showing that I was not fit to travel. My doctor called in the course of the evening, and gave me a certificate saying that I could not travel for at least a fortnight. We discussed the case slightly, and he thought that I could put in a complaint for "diffamation contre inconnu," and that this would tend to clear up the whole affair.
I hear further that the present proceedings are not technically an expulsion, but simply a "Refus de Sejour;" that is, a temporary measure with the object of getting us out of the country until the completion of the inquiry.
Of course I am not at all clear what this means but it does seem to me that there ought to be some way for us to be represented at this inquiry.
In particular it seems extraordinarily unjust, and involving abominable hardships, that the people helping me in my work here should be torn away from me without resources of any kind, and that although it is explicitly stated that there is nothing against them, but their connection with myself. I do hope that you will take some really active steps, first of all to postpone the expulsion of my good friends, and secondly to bring this whole matter into daylight.
It is obviously the vilest and most stupid conspiracy against us and how the Minister of the Interior could ever have listened for one moment to such nonsense is beyond my powers of belief.
Yours faithfully,
Aleister Crowley.
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