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Correspondence from Aleister Crowley to Gerald Yorke
20.10.45
Thanks for your letter of no date. "You are only one of a number of people" who fail to distinguish between a statement and a demonstration. Your judgement of the Book of the Law is unacceptable; considering that I, who have taken it as my one link, am unable after over 40 years to understand a great deal of it, as indeed it says would be the case in the book itself, why should I expect you to pronounce a valid judgement? Incidentally, as far as I know, you have not read the Commentary which I am given to understand by several people is of very great value. I cannot send you a copy for I cannot get it printed. I could have a new typescript made, but I am afraid that would cost about a tenner.
Many of the omissions of which you complain were to be found in other places. For instance, the "Cairo Working" is given in the minutest detail in the Equinox of the Gods. There is also a great deal of my personal experiences to be found in the Vision and the Voice. In fact, I think that almost every gap of which you complain is to be found in one place or another in my printed works. You are also I think forgetful of my intense dislike of making any personal claims, or indeed any statements which cannot be verified by external and independent evidence.
With regard to Prophecy, one of the 70 odd letters is devoted to establishing the conditions which are necessary both to the promulgation of the Prophecy and its fulfilment: shall I send you one?
It is true that all relevant material is rather scattered, but I do not think I am by any means the person to collect them and edit them. Why not you? The details and exact dates are to be found by mere reference to the date of publication of the Equinox [of the Gods]. What I mean by operative publication is a little difficult to define. I think the reason was that I did not have the date of that publication in the 3 volumes of the Holy Books [Volume I, Volume II, Volume III].
I took the 'eighties' to refer to those of the 19th century—a period of maximum peace in the world generally; the Boer War was the first symptom of collapse. Yes my friend, you took a special course in history, and you have a nice sceptical mind, just the way I want it, and I think you should undertake the responsibility of getting it done.
I hope that when you have got settled in London you will think it worth while to run down and have lunch with me. Forgive the general messiness of this letter; the dentist makes it almost impossible for me to talk intelligibly, and it even interferes with my thinking that I should be unable to do so.
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