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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Gerald Yorke
Berlin
Feb 9 [1931]
C∴F∴
93 (Why do you always omit this greeting?)
Yours of 3rd cheered me immensely: I could find no veiled hostility.
Marie [Maria de Miramar]. I have written the Magistrate, and referred him to F.R. etc.
Thanks very much for doing what I asked re the Settlement.
But—really—I think I've treated Marie with far more than "common decency". To marry her at all!!!
My view is that she forfeited the position I gave her; and I see no hardship in her reverting to the status [illegible]
Pictures. The 'safe side' cost Germer [Karl Germer] a pretty penny.
Thynne [Major Robert Thynne]. Please send me the J.B. stuff. I'm quite ready to go in the box. This brings us to Pailthorpe [Grace Pailthorpe]—the [illegible]! Her diagnosis is singularly at variance with my Record. All this Freud bunk depends upon ignoring—indignantly—all actual facts, and building a pyramid of shit out of their own dirty imaginations.
I look forward with the greatest interest to your diary.
I am in the friendliest relations with N.J.N.F. Your aid as negotiator will (once more) be unnecessary.
Guess you're right about the 'successor' problem. The trouble is that you assume (at times) that I am superior to all human weakness! (Later—two pages exhausts me at present.)
Regardie [Israel Regardie] let us down horribly, cutting us off from all communication with the outer and uninitiated world as a most critical time. Guess his backbone needs a 'nature-cure.'
Marie. She never answered my letter of Aug 3 with full instructions until I had again left Berlin. I got it only Aug 24 or 25 and then it was just frivolity. She never answered other (frequent) letters at all. I sent her cash via [illegible] as I could. 50-50 of anything I got! Then she vanished, and Lloyd* wrote he thought she had killed herself. Hence my joke with you. I had learned she was with some man. I wrote all facts with dates to Nick [Lieutenant Colonel John Carter]; but have had no answer.
You see how impossible she is. At least Dennes would have mailed me a letter from her. Anyhow, what can I do? I haven't had the cash to buy a postage-stamp in 3 months. And Marie has insulted every one here beyond [illegible]. You saw her with guests in her own house. And I gather she was worse when I wasn't there. If you can suggest any course of action, do. (And you will at once become entitled to all known and unknown grades of adeptship!)
—Brain petered out, again. So for Later.
Have given your message to Germer [Karl Germer]. Still can't get the 'harpy' idea. You say "A thinks B (whom we both well know to be white) is black". I really can't see that, however deliberately you may have written "black", it implies an insult. Unless you have a subconscious wish to denigrate B. by using the word black somehow—anyhow—in reference to him. A very common puzzle in English and [illegible].
We can hold a P.M. on the Mandrake [Mandrake Press] later. The problem is how to get the composition of Vol III [of The Confessions of Aleister Crowley] and Golden Twigs—they might rent us the type till we've made arrangements to print. Another vital matter which Regardie threw [illegible]
Why should I ask Aumont [Gerard Aumont] for the Sick Man's Fancies. There are lots in stock somewhere. And I'm too sick just now for fancies, even.
Now for the serious part of this letter. I should like to see your record. From the evidence I can deduce a purgative return to your very fine normal self. But has there been a critical experience such as I hoped for? One of those events in a man's life which sets him apart for ever from the herd of the profane? Once you have the Seal of the Adepts upon you, you can't go really wrong any more. Except for silly details
93 93/93
666
* By the way, I distrust Lloyd absolutely; so does Germer. Don't be fooled again!
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