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Correspondence from Gerald Yorke to Charles Stansfeld Jones
8 July 1948
Dear Jones,
Your 29/6/48. No point in our starting a controversy. Your 3rd July 48. A.C.'s own version, as often seems to happen, differs from yours. He wrote 10 Oct 38 to the head of the O.T.O., for Denmark [Grunddal Sjallung], whose predecessor worked from a charter from Peregrinus [Theodor Reuss]: "Peregrinus asked me to put the rituals into proper and workable shape and I did so. They incorporated in 9 degrees the whole of masonic knowledge as well as that of other even more important orders, but I found when I visited America that rituals thus prepared as far as degrees 1 to 3 were concerned were held by Masons to clash with their supposed rights. I too thought the symbolism was out of date and prepared 3 new rituals which equally contained the knowledge, but did not imply the symbolism to which objection was taken . . ." He then sent him rituals. These will have been what you call the 'Detroit rituals'.
When Smith [Wilfred Talbot Smith] started lodge working in 1936, and you turned a blind eye, he worked rituals sent him by A.C. for that purpose. VI° was missing from the set, as it is now, and to me it is quite clear that this set was the Detroit set. Have you any evidence to the contrary?
To make quite sure that we are not talking at cross purposes: in the set which I have, handed to me personally by A.C., in Minerval it opens with a conical tent within which is seated Saladin before an altar. First degree, Lustration, an oasis, in the West a well, that is a cubical altar with a removable top, together with a conical tent and a throne. In II, the oasis, well and tent; in III, the same. III has a certain amount to do with Mansur el-Hallaj, and I have difficulty in believing that Mansur el-Hallaj was in any way connected with the Shriners.
Is the above the Detroit ritual? If so what evidence have you that Smith was not working this set of rituals? From the mechanical point of view the set which I have up to III° could be put on quite simple anywhere, so I do not understand your remark "I don't think any lodge which ever existed had the facilities for putting these degrees on". I agree that Rose Cross degrees have never been put on, and I doubt the Lodge of Perfection.
Have you actually got a set of the 'Detroit rituals', or are you writing from memory, which has let you down?
I cannot very well send you a copy of the Will behind Germer's [Karl Germer] back. I am glad you are getting it direct from Somerset House.
Yours,
P.S. You remember your statement that A.C. never proclaimed a word officially as Magus. In 1920 on going to Cefalù, he records taking 'The Oath of the Beast', this includes the following "that I am a Magus of A∴A∴ 9º=2o and my Word is THELEMA". This directly contradicts your previous assertion that he did not have a word as a Magus. In the interests of accuracy you should support your assertion to the contrary with the relevant quotations from the diaries which you hold.
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