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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Wilfred Talbot Smith
[On Savoy Hotel writing paper.]
7 August 35
C∴F∴
93.
I cabled thanking you for the £5, and authorizing O.T.O. up to, and including 2°. I hope you can put on Minerval out of doors. You have fine deserts adjacent. I think it most important to keep back 3° until I come, because of the special precautions to be observed about the Word. Also, it will make people keen to make it possible for me to come. And it will help you personally very much in the matter of authority.
You should read the Constitutions very carefully with regard to payment of dues—to get the idea. The practice only conforms, however, when the Order is working in numerous branches: we want the Grand Treasurer General to be able to help poor branches, or assist new ones to open, from the funds of richer lodges.
Your letters to Holmes and Clancy are good. You get another letter from Atlantis bookshop re "Little Essays" [Little Essays Toward Truth] and prospectus follows.
93 93/93
F∴[raternal]ly
666
[Enclosed with the above letter.]
The Master Therion warns all Aspirants to the Sacred Wisdom and the Magick of Light that Initiation cannot be bought, or even conferred; it must be won by personal endeavour.
Members of the true order of A∴A∴ are pledged to seal in service to those whom they supervize, and to accept no reward of any kind for such service. Nor does the Order receive any fees whatsoever when degrees of Initiation are conferred by its authority.
He especially warns all persons against C.F. Russell of Chicago Ill and his agents. He is a thief, swindler and blackmailer; he has stolen the property of the Order and used it to enable him to pose as its representative, and so to carry on his swindles upon would-be Initiates.
Russell is a man of no education, he cannot even spell correctly. Steps have already been taken to prosecute him for his frauds.
Therion
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