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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Gerald Yorke
DE LA TOUR EIFFEL 1 Percy Street, Tottenham Court Road Londres. W. 1.
Mar. 11, 1930
die
Care Frater:
93
Thanks for your letter of no date, but apparently written from Salisbury on Saturday last. Your objection to the charge of cowardice would carry more weight if your letter did not prove its truth.
I like your "we have arranged." You should join the three tailors of Tooley Street. That would bring the percentage up to .3334.
The accusation to which you refer has not previously been made. We have hitherto lacked anyone with sufficient stupidity to make it.
I am really aghast at your lack of intelligence. I knew from the first what your ideas were and acted deliberately to baffle them. When you set a mousetrap for a lion , you must not be surprised when he puts his paw on it. Marie [Maria de Miramar] has told me repeatedly that you were playing a double game, but the youthful integrity of Regardie [Israel Regardie] made him trust you. So congratulate yourself that your conduct has taught someone something.
Incidentally your business argument is puerile. You know perfectly well that work cannot be done at all without adequate means.
I knew perfectly well from the moment you opened your mouth that your action with regard to Tattersall was not good feeling but a piece of petty feminine spite.
You have been warned that the temptation of the Probationer was to betray the Order, and you have done so as thoroughly as is compatible with your craven cowardice. You wanted to keep a foot in both camps. Your chief mercurial trouble is not volubility. What one notices is falsehood, callousness and treachery.
Your bluff has now been called.
93 93/93
Yours fraternally
666.
P.S. I am sorry that our lunch interview was so short. What I wish to emphasize is ordeals are ordeals. You cannot dodge them; you have to tackle yours as I have to tackle mine. People are always blind with regard to the ordeal as long as they are in the ordeal; and you can realize the part of your experience which concerns the ordeal because that is where the shoe pinches. You only make things worse by trying to ease the situation. You can only win through by realizing and conquering with absolute contempt of consequences.
666
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[Tuesday]