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Correspondence from David Curwen to Aleister Crowley
Oct 3rd, 1944
156 Marylebone Road London NW1
Aleister Crowley, Esq.
Dear Sir:
Many thanks for your explanatory letter of the 23rd Sept.
If I have appeared to be querulous and hostile in my letter to you, please pardon me. Nothing of the sort was intended. I have the greatest respect for one who has done so much for the occult world.
Nevertheless, I do not like to be made a fool of. I to a certain degree resent the idea of your claiming to be what you are not, namely Antares, even in Joke. I have long known your mentality that likes to lead one "up the garden," but when I write to you in all seriousness, I want to believe what you tell me. And so I do not like to be misinformed, and have my time wasted working out whether Antares is 666. (Which of course it is not.) However I forgive, and forget this. (I don't suppose you care anyway.)
I wrote you in the first place mainly asking you to help me get a pack of Taro cards. So far as this is concerned, it is obvious I might as well have appealed to a stone wall. No answer was the stern reply. (Yes there was something about sending a cheque for £1500.)
Then there is the question of getting some help somehow, from somewhere, to show me or prove to me the efficacy of Ritual magic; I have read about it for years, but have had no proof whatsoever that there is anything to it. Or in anything else, for instance. But then I have always worked on alone. Books have been written about an Astral plane. Astral projection seems a common achievement, but many now claim that there is no such place. I have travelled out myself, quite consciously [and] so have you, you claim of flying; but was I just dreaming after all? After studying thirty years, I don't know what to make of it. Do you wonder I am querulous when I am on the subject of occultism? I expect I shall die without being any the wiser.
For years, I have always imagined that inter-cosmic spaces were filled with great beings, discarnate intelligences, the Davas [sic], the angels, etc., now you, after a lifetime of searching calmly take the trouble to prove that there is such a thing; as much as to say you always thought there was no such thing before Liber Legis. If so far you had no proof, what was all your magic ritual about? Well I am absolutely flummoxed. (All this apropos The Equinox of the Gods.)
There are still a few questions on the Taro; such as where does one find the information which says what are the Elemental, Planetary, and Zodiacal Trumps? Or rather which are they?
"Pair the cards on either side," do you mean the ones that were counted to be picked out of the lines and paired? And how would you pair them, which to which? You seemed to have left out more than you put in. Has no one enquired before me about them? Or perhaps it is because no one takes them seriously and so nobody has bothered with it.
Well, you see the state of mind I am in. After a lifetime of study, I am packed with knowledge, and really know nothing at all for certain. I am in no sense initiated, for I have had no inner experiences of note, for what I have had seem[s] trivial, and many school[s] of occultism actually say I have been dreaming. Notwithstanding, "The Hounds of Heaven" are after me, and I can never stop searching. Sometimes I feel that you have done better, far better than I, and I thought you might help. But I always have the feeling that you are "just having your joke." And it is all a lot of "Hooi" and if you did help you would be laughing up your sleeve all the time.
You see I am always practical minded as well as an occult fool. You have always laughed at Theosophy—for which school I have the greatest respect—that is of course H.P.B.'s [Helena Petrovna Blavatsky] teachings. Now you actually claim that H.P.B. was just a forerunner for you. Well—(Heart of the Master)! At what point do you begin to be taken seriously?
I am searching for someone who can show me something and say this is the way—can you or will you tell me anything that will help?
Of all your many books—what do you say is the most important writing—which is the most important book? Is there anything anywhere giving the key to something that will prove to me that outside of the material world there are other planes of being—life after death? Of course I believe there is, but I want to find out by an inner experience not only by the writings and experiences of others. There are multitudes of "blind leading the blind." Somebody said the same of you the other day. That you had a vast knowledge but little real experience showed.
Well-what about it?
Yours Sincerely
David Curwen
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