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Correspondence from David Curwen to Aleister Crowley
7a Melcombe Street Baker Street, NW1
Jan 10th 1946
My Dear O.H.O. [Outer Head of the Order]
Your letter dated Jan 4th, to hand. Shall I be frank? Suddenly writing to you has become a burden to me, but courtesy demands a reply to your letter. It is not because I have anything against you, but for the moment, my soul is dead within me. I cannot think coherently on occult matters. With my meeting you on that fateful Sunday a few weeks back, I seem to have come to a dead end. All washed up.
My Magic is useless and powerless. Trying to arise on the inner planes, I became unconscious; I sleep. To hell with it, I am fed up to the teeth as the saying goes. Everything in my mind is askew. My meeting with you was going to open up a new era of knowledge for me; instead as I told you in a previous letter, it seemed to have closed everything. I must start again from scratch. I will start reading the Bhagavad-Gita.
1. What is Aug 14 or 4 2573 supposed to mean? I found this written under the flap of your envelope to me in obviously your handwriting?
2. I am obliged to you for asking the Editor of an O.T.O. mag. To send me a copy. I await it with impatience and curiosity. Why not tell me what the periodical is, and who is the editor, and where he is?
3. "O.T.O. transfers real estate both to and from." As a member of the IX° may I know what estate there is, and where, and who controls it? This is exactly what I mean. When I was made a member, I was under the impression that if I am a sort of shareholder, I would be told in what? After I was sworn in I really did not want to participate in anything, but when I went home with a manuscript under my arm dealing with a subject I already knew, and no wiser as to the management, members or possessions, or anything at all for that matter about the O.T.O., frankly I felt like a B.F. [Bloody Fool] of the best kind. And don't blame me either, for so would you too, if I asked you to join a society, and having joined, and paid to do so, you were as wise as when you started, and not one whiff better off in any way whatsoever.
"What more do you want" you ask. Nothing, I reply. That what I have got, and that is all I shall get. Let's forget it, only don't let us mention real estate again, if makes me feel a "mug" of the first water.
I owe you an apology you say. Hanged if I know why; I am the one who feels like a B.F., not you.
4. Now tell me what are the important things you wish to write about and I will do my best to respond. I cannot imagine anything so important; and how can I help you with the work? What work? Is there any work?
5. Will you do something for me? Get your typist to copy out from The Equinox (no. not known), the perfect ritual for making a talisman, and your paper on this subject also. Z. 12.
6. Can you lend me your copy of Confessions [The Confessions of Aleister Crowley]?
7. Perhaps I will, after all, accept your offer at its face value, and ask you to send me a complete set of "Letters" you have promised me many times. When can I have them?
8. Can you type out for me the complete "Accendat in Nobis" and translation, and also the Latin for the purifications, and the translation?
9. Explain T.I., T.I.A.N.B. Brother 93. I am in the dark as to the meaning.
10. A previous letter told me that I rather put you off telling me of another gentleman in the O.T.O. Have no fear, I will not shame you whoever I am introduced to. I am no bragger, but I have never been accused of acting in a forward manner, and a slight hint is enough to make me disappear into the distance. So in case it may be a person who I would like to meet—you may safely tell me. I have numbered my letter to make the replies simpler.
Yours Still, Sincerely,
David Curwen
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