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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Freeman Crofts[1]
Ivy Cottage, Knockholt, Kent.
Dec. 28th, 1929.
Freeman Crofts,[1] Esq., Grianan, Jordanstown, Co. Antrim.
Dear Mr. Croft:
He that being awfully reproved hardeneth his heart, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.
As you know, I am a lunatic, although hitherto not certified, which must be my excuse for bothering you again about that luckless moon.
On page 232 of "The Box Office Murders"—"The light which should have come from the quarter moon was obscured by clouds." This is shortly after 11 o'clock at night.
I cannot find out exactly from your data the time of year, but it cannot have been far from mid-August. At this time the sun is near the beginning of Virgo, and the quarter moon, of course, increasing, would therefore have been 45° away; that is, near the middle of Scorpio. As far as I can make out in the absence of proper books of reference, the sun at this time of the year would have set somewhere in the neighbourhood of 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock summer time, and the quarter moon at about two hours later.
The zodiac being divided into 12 signs, the average time which it takes a sign to pass the ascendant is two hours, but the signs are unequal, so that some take as much 2 hours 40 minutes; others as little as 1 hour 20 minutes. But you will see that even with the utmost lattitude, and the imaginary hour of summer time to play with, the moon ought to have set well about 11 o'clock.
I was a little doubtful about the point, and therefore troubled to work it out as best I could. But on page 237 and 238, you exposed yourself to mate on the move. "At twenty minutes to three they reached the suburbs of Winchester." 128, after a longish journey "the clouds had now uncovered the quarter moon." The moon must have been going steadily backward instead of forward to produce this phenomenon, and you will go down in history with Joshua.
Come, come! Let us have a book depending on the time being fixed by a perfectly ignorant Arab boy having observed the occultation of Mars by the Moon in the desert.
Sincerely yours,
AC / ir [Israel Regardie]
1—[Freeman Wills Croft (1 June 1879 - 11 April 1957) was an Anglo-Irish mystery author during the golden age of detective fiction. He wrote The Box Office Murders in 1929.]
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