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Correspondence from David Curwen to Aleister Crowley
7a Melcombe Street, Baker St. NW1
Nov 16th, 1945
Dear Brother Crowley:
Your letter dated Nov 14th received with thanks.
I fear our correspondence has now reached a point where it threatens to peter out. I fully realize that you cannot say any more without my joining the O.T.O. It is a great pity however that this must be so dearly paid for at a time when I can least afford it.
Of course I have definitely asked to be allowed to join, but then I did not know that the £100 (which in all conscience was enough to deter me) would soon become 122 gns., or roughly £30 more than your earlier letter stated would be necessary. In addition I have to consider 33 gns. Per annum as well.
I always thought that genuine occult knowledge was free, and the paid-for variety was to be considered valueless. However, I know as I said before that organizations must be financed if they are to be kept going, and I am willing to pay my share.
That is why I asked certain questions about the O.T.O. I have tried to elicit from you the information as to whether the Order is alive or defunct. Whether there was anyone who took an interest in it—I mean in the country only—there were; whether it was possible to meet people in the Order, say in the IV degree who would co-operate to try our great experiments of Alchemy and so on. I should hate the idea of finding that I was made a fool of; that I was in an order that only existed on paper; that I was no better off that if I had joined a friendly society, or a masonic lodge. I think I have a right to know a little more before I am committed to finding £160 to be paid within two years. In the past my word was my bond, and so it shall remain if I can only help it.
And while I am about it, my present circumstances will allow me only to pledge myself to the following. I will pay £40 on initiation, and then from six months after, pay £20 a quarter until the full amount due in two years is settled. Better than this I cannot promise to do. But first I must get the assurance that such money will bring a fair exchange, in knowledge, friendship and usefulness. I will not pay for a "pig in a poke."
There is no doubt that your preliminary papers do set out good things, but how much of them is taking place is what I must know. If this is refused, then sadly I will turn away, and you will never hear from me again, while I must gather my own conclusions about all the different things we have discussed.
God knows there is already enough written down in books, about the great experiment, for Atwood's Suggestive Inquiry and Vaughn's Coelum Terrae, and Atwood's memorabilia alone are enough to put the full experiment plainly, and one need only await the opportunity to try it out. I hoped that you would say something about whether a Shakti could be found to co-operate within the O.T.O., but in three pages you have told me exactly nothing on the subject; I had hoped you would enlighten me. I told you that I would keep the secret inviolate, if you thought that you were telling me something that had not to be talked about.
When do I get Liber Aleph? I suppose that this also would have been available to me had I joined up. So that this money will also, sort of, be charged extra, which could have gone towards the O.T.O. fee.
I do not know why, but your letter had a depressing effect on me today. You ask "How long will I halt between two opinions," I say I have not halted at all. You yourself have halted me, with the slurring over of the very thing I wanted to know and have a right to.
I have told you, to me this is no game. I do not want any grandiose titles to which I have no claim at all. You say "that throughout, you have thought me too ready to believe things without sufficient evidence. Right, but you want me to take everything you say on trust, but when it comes to questioning things that will prove your integrity, you wonder whether I doubt too much. You can't have it both ways.
I do not wish to discuss any more occult questions, for it still remains true that although I now know what you are getting at in all your writings, I cannot think of a thing that coming from you has taught me something fresh. I see the gist of it all, but Paracelsus for instance, in his works reproduced by Hartmann says a whole lot more, and in no symbolic manner, and so do others.
Miss [Elizabeth] Sharpe, now secretary and manager to some Rajah in India, leaves me cold with all she has to say. But always you put in a false light and I just wanted to learn what you thought about The [Secrets of the] Kaula Circle.
The Taro cards do not need to be coloured, and so what I say still goes. Anyway, I do not care now, and they do not interest any more. The publishing of books are difficult because you want the publisher to stand the racket, but if the work was paid for partly in advance, there would be no trouble at all. What would he then care if nothing was sold? This again interests me little. I have my own affairs to worry about. The above applies to P.C. also. Of course keep the book The Kaula Circle. Burn it if you like.
I have finished. It is now up to you. Do what thou wilt, in the full sense of the term.
Yours Fraternally,
D. Curwen
P.S. You do not have to wait before sending me the papers on the subject we have discussed, Talismans etc. I still want to know what you have written, even if I know them. There is always a chance that there may be something fresh, a clue to something else. As I said above, at least I now know what you are writing about.
D.C.
P.P.S. Still I ask you to destroy my letters. You can send them all back to me if you wish. There is no point in your keeping them, and I do not want them to fall into wrong hands. So grant me the favour.
D.C.
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