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Correspondence from Gerald Yorke to Karl Germer
3 July 1948.
Dear Germer,
I enclose latest letter from and to Achad [Charles Stansfeld Jones], I can get no more out of him, and pass the buck to you. I also enclose copy of a will which he sent me. A typescript of part of the working with Virakam [Mary d'Este-Sturges] has arrived from Jones, and I am having a copy made for you. I suggest that you write thanking Achad for this.
Achad wrote me on May 9 "meanwhile I have had time to look up further records which had been stored away in various trunks etc and to which I had not referred for many years. These included my original diaries, and so on. But they also included a small carton which contained a number of items which A.C. handed to me personally shortly before we parted in Detroit. . . . in the nineteen twenties. These items consisted of some note books relative to the old Golden Dawn, which formed links with the past, and some note books of special interest to me as his magical son, such as one containing the record of his discovering his "begetting" in 1915, and a few items relative to the Sanctuary of the Gnosis which he wished me to keep in proper hands as G.[rand] M.[aster] and his representative.
"Until a couple of days ago I had no occasion to look through these items in the last 20 years. . . . There is an item of considerable interest which I certainly did not realise was there. This is a note book of A.C.'s working with Virakam. . . . There is with it a typescript and one carbon complete except for horoscope figure. . . . " (This carbon he has sent me.)
"Practically all the other items have been issued or published in one form or another, as for instance the Golden Dawn notebooks in The Equinox, and most of the others are crossed through in pencil showing that typescripts have been made. . . . " (I do not think that these typescripts have survived). I am sure Jones has no legal right to keep the above, and your only hope of getting it is to go to law. On the other hand this may be difficult as I think it would depend on who legally was Secretary General of the O.T.O. and I am not sure whether you would be able to substantiate in the law courts that you are Secretary General. Jones and Tränker's [Heinrich Tränker] X° degrees go back to Reuss [Theodor Reuss] and not to A.C. They therefore in the Constitutions of the O.T.O. are the ones who establish the next O.H.O. [Outer Head of the Order], and even if you are X° degree from Crowley, they can outvote you in a council to choose the new O.H.O. They could then appoint their own Treasurer General, and he could I think lay legal claim to the effects and the copyright. It would therefore I think be a mistake to go to law.
Jones letter goes on "Among my personal records I have the typescript carbon A.C. gave me of Diary of a Magus from June 28 1916 to March 6 1917. . . . Next I remembered I had just one of A.C.'s black note books, which was left with me some time or another, but apart from the parcel of items mentioned above. . . This is part of the Diary of a Magus from July 19 to September 21 An XIV. . . . Finally A.C. gave me two albums of photographs of drawings and paintings done in New York, some of them of a startling nature. . . . ".
Personally I think that you will have to wait for Achad's death to get all this. On his death you will be able to purchase from his widow or his heir. The two portions of the Diary of a Magus are not all that important as the guts of them survive in 'The Urn' and the unpublished portion of the Confessions.
Tomorrow I go to John's [John Symonds] apartment to sort what is left, and send everything except those letters which he wants to complete the life.
Sorry I could not get more out of Jones. He is a very strange creature. I told Kenneth Grant to write to you. I thought he had the full set of O.T.O. rituals, but now find he only has VII°, VIII° and IX°. I also find that A.C. gave IX° to a certain FitzGerald [Edward Noel Fitzgerald]. He does not however know what it is about. The only Vernon Simmonds I know of is the proprietor of Netherwood, Hastings [Vernon Symonds]. I cannot believe it is the same as Vernon Simmons, whose military address in Berlin you had.
Yours
Gerald Yorke
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