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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Isidore Kerman
Hamilton House, 140 Piccadilly W.1. Tel GRO 2440
17th August 1942
Messers Forsyte, Kerman & Phillips.
Dear Kerman,
I got your letter of Saturday last. It seems exceedingly difficult to arrange a show-down.
Lady Harris [Frieda Harris] has told both me and friends of mine plainly that she does not want to make any money out of the Tarot, that if any money is made thereby, she would merely give it to me (or rather to the O.T.O.) for the publication fund.
On the other hand, she is (I think, through bad influences of a gang of low down swindlers which surrounds her) liable to do all sorts of disloyal and dishonourable things. She arranged these two exhibition behind my back; she issued the new catalogue, full of the most disgraceful blunders, behind my back; she started a list of private subscribers at cost price [for sets of the Thoth Tarot deck] behind my back. She keeps on maintaining that the copyright is hers, and she will not let me have effective control of the cards.
My only interest in the whole matter is to get the cards and book [The Book of Thoth] issued together and not separately.
She suggests that I should get the O.T.O. to put up the necessary funds for the reproduction; and, owing to a very fortunate occurred which took place on July 13th, this might be feasible. But it is quite clear to me that I cannot ask the Order to put up money for the reproduction of the cards is she or her agent are in a position to snatch them away in the middle of the work. This has already happened once. I sent £15 to the Sun Engraving Co., for the reproduction of two of the cards; she sent the originals to them to be reproduced and then, for no reason whatever, snatched them away and asked the Sun Engraving Co., to send her the £15—a most extraordinary thing to do, and still more extraordinary that they should have complied with her request. She then sent the £15 to the man whom I had got the money, with a letter, which I have not seen, but evidently so violent and outrageous that it has broken off my relations with him. When I point out that I still have the receipt for the money from the Sun Engraving Co., and can force them to pay me, she merely loses her temper.
This confusion is most astonishing. I cannot believe that she is in any way disloyal to me. I got a most charming letter from her last week in reply to my birthday congratulations, but she constantly acts impulsively and overbearingly under the influence of the lousiest gangs in Bloomsbury.
Please arrange the Round Table conference this week as possible.
I expect to be away for a short holiday not later than Monday next.
Yours sincerely,
for the O.T.O.
Aleister Crowley.
P.S. I think that the best practical plan is to carry out the arrangements which I made with Lady Harris some weeks ago. The details of the agreement are as follows:—
1. The question of reproducing the entire pack to be relegated to the background until we have had time to hear from certain people who may be inclined to put up the necessary funds.
2. The printing of the book to be continued. The four sets of block already prepared by the Sun Engraving Co., to be handed to the Chiswick Press. The originals of the four new blocks, viz. Trumps 5 and 11, the Ace of Swords and the Ace of Disks, to be sent to the Sun Engraving Co., for reproduction.
3. The other cards to be reproduced in collotype by the Chiswick Press.
The idea is that the publication of the book, an edition of 200 copies on hand-made paper, will stimulate sufficient interest to enable us to get the original plan carried out. If this is agreed on paper at once, it will enable us to postpone any controversial question until my return from my holiday.
A.C.
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