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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to
[A circular memorandum which was sent from 23 Albert Road, N.Q.1 Primrose 5053, but has no indication of any firm except for "Chas Coe & Co / Chartered a/c" on the back of the letter, in what may possibly be Crowley's handwriting.]
January 28 1936.
MEMORANDUM
Aleister Crowley is the head of the O.T.O. (Ordo Templi Orientis.)
His authority is sole and supreme, and the property of the Order must be vested in himself and his Grand Officers, who are his nominees.
The Order is international in scope.
A Mr. H. Spencer Lewis has been in control of an Order with headquarters in California under the title of AMORC. His authority is, however, derived from the O.T.O.
The property of the AMORC is, therefore, by the Constitution of the Order, legally the property of Mr. Aleister Crowley.
The real and personal property of the AMORC is estimated at $900,000 by his ex-Grand Treasurer, and its annual income is said to amount to about $350,000.
Mr. Crowley proposes to go to California and claim the property.
A favourable circumstance is that Mr. Spencer Lewis has acted in ways which have caused the Federal Trade Commission to institute an enquiry into the integrity of the organization. Mr. Crowley has been asked to cooperate.
In recent correspondence between Mr. Crowley and Mr. Lewis, the latter has sought to avoid acknowledgment of the authority of the former, but he can produce no alternative authority, and the true position is demonstrated beyond question by Mr. Lewis' own documents.
There should therefore be no difficulty in getting lawyers in San Francisco or Los Angeles to undertake the prosecution of the claim on a contingent basis.
Mr. Crowley would propose to set aside $125,000 for the satisfaction of any possible claims against the estate, either by the Government or previous members of the Order who are found to have legitimate grievances against Mr. Lewis. His ultimate aim is to establish the Order on a large scale in the U.S.A. and elsewhere, on a basis of the most scrupulous honesty.
We require $5000 to finance Mr. Crowley's journey.
The details of this proposition, with documentary corroboration, will be shown to interested parties on application, and if a satisfactory basis of action can be agreed, the terms of the loan will be discussed by us on his behalf.
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