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Keeping the Faith
Preserving Crowley's Literary Legacy
By Richard Kaczynski
Panic in Detroit: The Magician and the Motor City (2019)
(pages 321-356)
Aleister Crowley came to the United States in 1914 with two trunks or cases of "rariora": unique personal copies of his books bound by master craftsmen like Zaehnsdorf, rare versions printed on vellum, chapbooks released in extraordinarily limited numbers, and original manuscripts of his published works. He hoped New York lawyer and patron-collector of the arts John Quinn (1870-1924) would buy enough to make the voyage worthwhile. Crowley would be disappointed: hoping to sell $5,000 in books, Quinn took only $700 worth. The lawyer had already been collecting Crowley's works, though he claimed to have read none of them. When his library sold in 1923, it contained 67 items by Crowley. While the sale list doesn't specify which came from rariora, the copies printed on vellum are almost certainly from that collection. In addition, three original manuscripts bound by Zaehnsdorf in levant morocco and housed in half-morocco slipcases—The Soul of Osiris, The Mother's Tragedy, and Alice: an Adultery—could only have come directly from Crowley. Also noteworthy was a cloth slipcase containing O.T.O.'s eight-page folio, An Open Letter to Those Who May Wish to Join the Order; Enumerating the Duties and Privileges (London: O.T.O., n.d.). Crowley also presented Quinn with a gift of the original manuscript to "The King of Terrors," [The Testament of Magdalen Blair] bound in limp crimson morocco and housed in a cloth solander case, with the inscription, "To John Quinn the MS. of my best story (so far). Christmas 1914, a tiny tribute from Aleister Crowley."
The rariora occasionally figured into Crowley's other transactions during his American stay. For instance, he sold lawyer Theodore Schroeder (1864-1953) a copy of The Scented Garden for £3.3.0, telling him, "When you're done with it, you can walk straight down to Brentano's and get your money back. It's very, very rare: Only 200 copies printed, many of these destroyed and the bulk of the stock probably lost." Four years later, when Crowley inked a distribution deal for the Spring 1919 issue of The Equinox with the Universal Book Stores in Detroit, and his heir apparent Charles Stansfeld Jones moved to the city to become the stores' accountant, Crowley also struck an informal agreement to sell his remaining rariora through the Universal Book Stores on consignment. The Equinox would also serve to advertise and sell those consignment titles.
Jones was given charge of the details and Crowley left the United States at the end of 1919, stopping briefly in England en route to found the Abbey of Thelema in Cefalù. To Jones' surprise, another six tons of books—the remainder of Crowley's book stock in nearly forty cases—arrived in September 1920 along with a $586 bill for freight and cartage. Jones scrambled to scrape the money together, selling them at the Universal Book Stores under the table in an attempt to recoup his costs, repay those who had loaned him money, and cover continuing storage fees on the books.
Unfortunately, the Universal Book Stores soon began to show signs of faltering, and on March 26, 1921—six months after the additional books arrived—Jones moved to Chicago. There he opened a post office box under the name Collegium ad Spiritum Sanctum, which he used to sell Crowley's books and to publish and promote his own writings. The two trunks of rariora, however, remained in storage with the Leonard Warehouse in Detroit. All these books, both rare and regular stock, would become a sore point and ultimately cause a rupture in the relationship between Crowley and Jones.
The Case of the Missing Case
Crowley returned his attention to this stock of books after being invited to a conference in Weida, Thuringia, in the summer of 1925. The purpose of this gathering was to establish an international headquarters for Ordo Templi Orientis and proclaim Crowley the World Teacher. He would also meet with the German leaders of the Thelema-adjacent Pansophical movement to discuss their unification around Crowley and O.T.O. The outcome of the conference was largely unsuccessful, but he met people enthusiastic about publishing his works in German. This included Karl Germer (1885-1962), founder of the Pansophia Verlag publishing house in Munich; he would become a lifelong supporter and ultimately successor to Crowley's leadership in both O.T.O. and A∴A∴. With a potential new market opening up, Crowley recalled the books he had left in Jones' care. Asked about the material, Jones sent this reply:
[See Charles Stansfeld Jones to Aleister Crowley, 24 August 1925]
What seemed to Jones like a reasonable request for remuneration of his out-of-pocket expenses struck Crowley as an attempt to seize ownership of his book stock. It couldn't have come at a worse time, as Crowley believed his German contacts represented an opportunity to revitalize his stalled publishing efforts, promoting not only himself but also Thelema. As he explained to his new disciple and financier Karl Germer,
[See Aleister Crowley to Karl Germer, 22 February 1926]
Crowley dispatched his student Max Schneider (1887-1948) to Chicago to reclaim the book stock. Meanwhile, Dorothy Olsen, Crowley's Scarlet Woman of the moment who happened to hail from Chicago, called on her father and uncle to help. In successfully wresting possession of the general book stock from Jones, however, Schneider was forced to shoulder the same financial burdens of which Jones had complained. As Martin P. Starr reports, "Since his victory over Jones in reclaiming Crowley's books, Schneider had been left to market the stock and pay the monthly storage charges; he had no experience in bookselling and the sales were few.
While the matter of the regular book stock was resolved, the two cases of rariora were a different matter. The Leonard Warehouses were able to send one of the cases to Chicago for Jones and Schneider, but the other could not be located. As Jones later recounted,
[See Charles Stansfeld Jones to Aleister Crowley, 15 September 1936]
The recovery of one of the two cases of rariora was later confirmed by Gerald Yorke, who wrote that,
[See Gerald Yorke to Robert Lund, 22 March 1958]
Although these manuscripts have been turned over to Schneider, Germer apparently shipped them to Yorke for "safekeeping," as indicated by slips to that effect placed in many manuscript books in the Yorke Collection.
Dissatisfied with losing an entire case of rare and unique books and manuscripts, Crowley asked Germer to travel from Germany to Detroit in an effort to locate the missing case. As Germer recalled, "In 1926 I visited Detroit, but it was impossible to get any helpful information from the Warehouse people." Crowley suspected Jones of subterfuge: "We want Schneider in Chicago, just because Achad [Charles Stansfeld Jones] is there, and he had better spend his whole time in showing up Achad as a common thief and swindler. If the thing gets into the Law Courts, so much the better. I want to know what has happened to the box." Unfortunately, neither Crowley nor his emissaries nor Jones would ever locate the missing case of books. The suspicion and recriminations would lead to a fissure between Jones and Crowley which—despite brief moments of rapprochement over the ensuing twenty years—would never be healed. Crowley would die in 1947, followed by Jones shortly thereafter in 1950.
[See 20 April 1948 letter from Jones to Karl Germer for Jone's side of the story]
Post-Crowley: The Faithful Few
In the years following Crowley's death, a small circle of students, researchers, and enthusiasts set about collecting and swapping the author's literary remains. These included book collector Montgomery Evans (1901-1954), sexologist Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956), Crowley's disciple Edward Noel Fitzgerald (1908-1958), author and folklorist Gershon Legman (1917-1999), filmmaker Kenneth Anger (b. 1927), and Jones' student Dr. John P. Kowal in the UK and Norman Robb (ca. 1895-1961) in Australia. These players varied from lurking on the periphery to being in the thick of things. The most consequential figures, however, were Gerald Yorke and Karl Germer.
Gerald Yorke (1909-1983) first entered Crowley's circle on New Year's Eve, 1927, as a student, eventually signing the A∴A∴ Oath of a Probationer on December 9, 1928, with the motto "Volo Intelligere" ("I will to understand"). He was long-conflicted by certain passages in The Book of the Law and ultimately concluded that he could not fully embrace Thelema, resigning as Crowley's pupil. However, he believed Crowley had something important to impart to the world. This led Yorke to financially assist Crowley's writing and publishing efforts in various ways, and to safeguard those manuscripts and typescripts he received from Crowley against the depredations of landlords, creditors, and Crowley's unpredictable moves. As Yorke clarified the distinction between his former and subsequent relationships to Crowley.
[See Gerald Yorke to Samuel Jacobs, 4 February 1956]
As for his unparalleled collection of Crowleyana, a great deal of effort, plus a little bit of magick, went into making that happen:
[See Gerald Yorke to Philip Kaplan, 31 March 1956]
Yorke's collection resides at the Warburg Institute in London.
Karl Germer, Crowley's erstwhile disciple and financial supporter, ultimately succeeded Crowley as head of O.T.O. and the A∴A∴. Crowley's last will and testament called for his personal papers and literary remains to be gathered and shipped to Germer, his copyrights left to the O.T.O. for the organization's benefit. Like Yorke, Germer felt honor-bound to preserve the archives, which at the time filled some twenty large cases. This sacred duty included helping other enthusiasts complete their collections, so as to distribute backup copies of the material around the globe. As he wrote to one collector, whom we shall meet soon:
[See Karl Germer to Philip Kaplan, 13 July 1957]
Ominous words indeed! As Germer clarified his cautionary words about keeping the collection safe, "I meant from theft, and partly, of course, from such calamities as fire, and, as far as possible 'Acts of God'—if He is with you." This sentence is amazingly prescient, as around 1967 [3 September 1967], a few years after Germer's death, his widow [Sascha Germer] would be assaulted in her home, drugged, and the archives ransacked [see HERE for an account of the burglary] by members of the Solar Lodge, and independent group which worked a hybrid system of O.T.O.'s degree work and A∴A∴'s curriculum. The stolen archival material was reportedly destroyed by a fire at the group's desert ranch. This would prompt the infamous "Boy in the Box" incident, names for the punishment inflicted upon the six-year-old son of a member who started the fire.
If Yorke had taken a magical oath to preserve the archives, then Germer felt it to be an obligation to the Gods. This included the Gods having contingencies for the types of disasters that Germer warned against (and ultimately predicted):
[See Karl Germer to Philip Kaplan, 12 December 1957]
A newer entrant into the Crowley collecting world was Philip Kaplan (1903-1990). Born in Grodno, Russia, he emigrated as a child to the United States with his parents and siblings in 1911, ultimately settling in Cleveland, Ohio. A chance stop at Richard Laukhuff's bookstore at 40 Taylor Arcade introduced him to a lifelong love of literature and art. As he recalls, "It was the collection of German art books such as Die Junge Kunst that started me on my career as an artist." He soon found work as a self-taught artist, painting murals in homes, schools and businesses in the Cleveland and Pittsburgh areas, and winning awards in the Cleveland Museum of Art's annual shows in 1929 and 1930. In the mid-1920s, he also joined the modernist Kokoon Arts Club—sometimes called the "Cocaine Club" for its risqué annual ball—serving in time as the club's secretary (1927) and president (1932). In this capacity, he notes, "I played an important part in the development of Day-Glo," likely in conjunction with the Club's 1938 "Black Light Ball." During these years he also founded and became president of the local chapter of the fledgling American Artists Congress; promoted as "an effort to bring together artists of note for the purpose of improving their general welfare," it also opposed fascism and was part of the popular front of the Communist Party USA. Kaplan married his wife, Esther Rose, in 1933, and soon after had a daughter, Luba. In 1939, his career took him to Kings, New York, where he served as executive art director for a large advertising agency. He also worked with S. W. Hayter's experimental printmaking group Atelier 17, for whom he created a series of intaglios. In addition to being an artist, he was also an avid collector of both art and literature, amassing thousands of books, periodicals, manuscripts and other literary works.
Kaplan began collecting Crowley around 1931. Decades later, provided with Yorke's address by Gershon Legman, Kaplan wrote introducing himself thus: "In the past 25 years I have acquired almost all of his [Crowley's] printed material. Crowley appeals to me from a literary rather than a hocus-pocus angle." In another letter, he mentioned, "By the way, I know a few people who knew A.C. when he was in America. Sam Jacobs (Aiwas) is a good friend of mine and Ben Abramson the bookdealer who published Pan." Although late in making himself known to the other names mentioned herein, Kaplan's influence on the preservation of Crowley's works would achieve a level comparable to the sacred missions of Germer and Yorke.
Discovery
Around the beginning of 1958, in the course of clearing out abandoned and worthless material that had accumulated in its space, the Leonard Warehouses came across something other than the typical boxes of outdated textbooks and old stock that would ordinarily be discarded and pulped. It was a collection of beautifully-bound books and manuscripts. A bookseller who was called in to assess the collection made an unheard-of offer in the neighborhood of $200. Instead of selling, the shocked warehouse owner contacted the curator of rare books at the Detroit Public Library, Frances Brewer, inquiring who Aleister Crowley was. After doing some research on her end, she suggested, "The man who is an authority on magicians is a friend of mine. His name is Bob Lund. Why don't you call him?"
Former Detroit newspaper reporter and later auto industry columnist Robert J. Lund (1925-1995) was a collector, writer, and historian of stage magic, amassing over his lifetime one of the largest collections of books, posters, news clippings and correspondence on the subject. He knew little about Crowley, and had next to no interest in magick, but thought he could find buyers for the books. As he later related to Martin Starr, "I made him an offer for what was a great deal of money in those days, 'If you want to pay that sum of money, the books are yours' [the owner said]. I had to go to the bank to borrow the money. It wasn't a great deal of money . . . but it was to me at that time."
When Lund thereafter spoke with Bill Noble, a reporter friend from the Detroit News, it spawned a sensational story about the acquisition. The headline "Black Magic Once Detroit Cult: Lives Ruined Decades Ago by Sorcerer Aleister Crowley" in the January 25, 1958, Detroit News rocked the small Crowley collecting circle. Lund did not anticipate the resultant deluge of letters and phone calls. As he told magician and ventriloquist Jay Marshall (1919-2005),
Crowley used the phrase "magical son" in reference to Jones, who was custodian of this missing rariora, but Jones had died several years earlier in 1950. Germer, however, was Crowley's living successor. The reference to national headquarters in California removes any doubt. Indeed, Lund later recalled "One man in California . . . Karl Germer told me he was Crowley's son. I said what do you mean you're his son?' He says, "I'm his spiritual son.' "
As for the identity of the "believer" who phoned Lund so soon after the article appeared, that is undoubtedly Jones' student, J. P. Kowal. Kowal was living in Detroit at the time and promptly sent word to Germer. Nearly two weeks would pass by the time Germer, notoriously slow at responding to mail, in turn reached out to Lund.
[See Karl Germer to Robert Lund, 7 February 1958]
Unfortunately, Germer did not indicate his desire to make an offer on the lot—and indeed could not do so without knowing the contents. Instead, it sounded like Germer was asking for a detailed description of the books and manuscripts for personal reference, and Lund—ready to flip his investment—had already begun negotiating with a local book dealer. When word of this reached Germer (again, via Kowal), he followed up with Lund:
[See Karl Germer to Robert Lund, 13 March 1958]
Lund was none too happy to read that Kowal had told Germer he would have first pick on the sale, and that a list was being sent to him. This prompted Lund to pick up the phone and set Kowal straight. As Kowal recounted to Germer.
[See J. P. Kowal to Karl Germer, 17 March 1958]
Surmising that Kowal wasn't "too clever at negotiating" and hearing that Lund "wants to have no more to do with him" as a middleman, Germer reached out to Philip Kaplan as a dark horse buyer. As Germer explained his rationale, and underlying mistrust of Lund:
[See Karl Germer to Philip Kaplan, 26 March 1958]
Kaplan wasted no time in calling Lund and requesting a list of the books in order to make a purchase offer. Lund intended to sell the books, withholding a few titles for himself, and offer the buyer first choice of the manuscript materials. Lund had grown suspicious of pesky occultists—he had received on letter threatening to curse him!—and regarded Kaplan with caution:
[See Robert Lund to Philip Kaplan, 30 March 1958]
Kaplan apparently satisfied Lund that he was a serious collector sufficiently removed from Germer, Kowal, and the other "followers" for negotiations to move forward.
"I wish you had told me about this find sooner," Yorke lamented to Germer. Yorke was late to the game by the time he wrote to Lund on March 22, with interest in the entire lot already being expressed not only by Germer and Kaplan, but also London booksellers such as Harold Mortlake and occult shop Watkins Books, as well as East Coast occult book specialists Samuel Weiser and another rare book dealer in Baltimore. Nevertheless, Yorke's name had some cache as compiler of the Crowley bibliography appended to John Symonds' The Great Beast. This garnered an effusive reply from Lund:
[See Robert Lund to Gerald Yorke, 31 March 1958]
Yorke obligingly sent Lund a copy of An Open Letter to Lord Beaverbrook, and a letters in Symonds' handwriting. The latter Lund would place in an envelope and tip into his copy of The Great Beast. Yorke would also assist with a later request from Lund for a copy of Symonds' new book, The Magic of Aleister Crowley, to which Yorke added a length inscription on the front free endpaper.
Sealing the Deal
Once the news was out, Germer, Kaplan, and Yorke quietly communicated with each other on the necessity of acquiring and preserving the long-lost rariora. Their correspondence is heartwarming, because—although competitors—there is a camaraderie and deference between them, satisfied that whoever gets the material, it will be in good hands, and they will allow the others to make copies for their personal archives.
Thus, when Kaplan received the list of books that Lund was selling, he forwarded it along to Germer, who never did receive the list. When it came to Lund dealing with potential buyers, Germer wryly noted, "disciples of Crowley are not favoured." Nevertheless, Kaplan offered to let Germer buy the collection if he was prepared to bid on it:
[See Philip Kaplan to Karl Germer, 2 April 1958]
Germer, not having the cash, passed on buying the books. Yet he gave Kaplan his blessing to proceed with making an offer:
[See Karl Germer to Philip Kaplan, 3 April 1958]
Negotiations reached a tenuous point when Lund's book dealer upped their offer from $750 to $1250. Kaplan, fearing the possibility of a bidding war in which he could only be the loser if the bookseller always had the final bid, wrote candidly to Lund,
[See Philip Kaplan to Robert Lund, 4 April 1958]
Despite Kaplan's concerns, Lund agreed to sell the books to him. The deciding factor turned out not to be financial at all. It came down to the fact that the Detroit bookseller, Charlie Boesen, was representing a university, and Lund wanted the books to go to a serious collector, not an institution (and apparently not to one of Crowley's disciples, either). As Lund expressed when breaking the news to Yorke, "For my part I am pleased that Mr. Kaplan, a private collector, obtained the material, rather than an institution," Years later, Lund echoed and amplified those sentiments to Martin Starr:
Kaplan shared his opinion, later writing to Lund, "I know just how you feel about collections going to institutions. I have been against this principal for a long time [ . . . ] I have been asked what I intend to do with my collection—frankly I have no answer at this time."
After sending the above offer, Kaplan's next letter to Lund read, "Confirming our phone conversation, I enclose my check for $500 as down payment on lot of books." This sounds like the terms of the above-quoted letter with a purchase price of $1,500. The exact price, negotiated by telephone, is not attested in the surviving correspondence. Lund told Starr, "I sold it for less than $2,000." Kaplan promptly notified both Yorke and Germer of the agreement. Their response was swift and unequivocally happy. "What good news," Yorke replied: "Many congratulations. You have got a big bargain." Germer's reply was equally jubilant, but also pointed:
[See Karl Germer to Philip Kaplan, 18 April 1958]
The importance of the held-back manuscripts, not included in the sale of the books, would be a refrain in Germer's communications with Kaplan, who represented their only chance of recovering this material: "I cannot help feeling that they may contain some material of great interest. He [Lund] may not see their value at all, and may decide to simply let you keep them. Do your best that he does."
The Manuscripts
While Lund kept a small number of books—either for his personal collection or as gifts to friends—Lund and Kaplan went back-and-forth about the unsold manuscripts for the better part of a year. These manuscripts included Book of Lies, John St. John, Sword of Song, and a bound volume containing both "Lines to a Young Lady Violinist" and "Energized Enthusiasm." Thus, for instance, in July 1958—three months after the sale of the books—Kaplan again wrote to Lund, "Have you given any more thought about selling the books to me? They would complement my collection and they should really be kept together. If you like, I could give you copies of the books. I have them all and you could have these for your library."
Lund wasn't interested in selling, and three weeks later Kaplan wrote wearily to Germer,
[See Philip Kaplan to Karl Germer, 3 August 1958]
Germer, however, was insistent about the importance of the manuscripts:
[See Karl Germer to Philip Kaplan, 9 August1958]
Kaplan cursorily poked Lund from time to time about the matter, as he did on the April 1959 anniversary of the sale of the books: "It was a year ago that we were negotiating for the Crowley books—what do you say about starting on the remaining lot sometime soon. I have the room and the money: two good reasons for talking about the books at this time." But Lund didn't budge.
In August 1959, Lund finally decided to sell the remaining Crowley materials. Once again, Kaplan found himself in the uncomfortable position of being in what could be a bidding war, rather than buying the collection outright for an agree-upon price. As he wrote to Lund, "I will give you my bid—and I am sure it will be high enough—but I would hate to lose because of another 25 of 50 dollars offered by the highest bidder over my offer." He followed this with a more strongly worded letter:
[See Philip Kaplan to Robert Lund, 13 August 1959]
Germer sympathized with Kaplan, writing "Lund seemed to me like a little stinker." To his pleasant surprise, Kaplan followed with news on October 11 that he and Lund had struck a deal. Germer replied, "It shows that certain powers are watching closely, and do not wish the material of the stolen property of A.C.'s to fall into the hands of speculators, enemies of the Work, or what have you." On November 3, 1959, Kaplan wrote to Lund, "Books arrived Monday, in good condition, for which I enclose check. I am very happy to add these to the rest of the Crowleys." For the first time in thirty-five years, Crowley's mislaid rariora were recovered and deposited into safe hands (except for a few items that Lund kept . . . of which more below).
Selling the Deal
A year later, apparently without notice, Kaplan decided to sell his entire Crowley collection, which consisted not only of the rariora from Lund, but other items he had amassed since he first began collecting Crowley in the 1930s. He enlisted the help of New York's famous rare book dealer House of El Dieff, named after its founder Lew David Feldman (i.e., "L.D.F.," 1906-1976). According to his New York Times obituary, "there was hardly a 20th-century manuscript that did not at one time or another pass through Mr. Feldman's hands." A fixture at virtually every auction, "he was probably the only man who bid on 56 successive items at Sotheby's London while dressed in pajamas, a robe and a raincoat. He had gotten up late and was so fearful that he would miss out on the bidding that he simply put on a raincoat and headed for the auction rooms," His omnipresence at auction houses was possible through the support of high-paying institutions such as the New York Public Library, Yale University, and Harvard University. His biggest client, however, was the University of Texas at Austin:
This characterization is perhaps exaggerated—Ransom dealt with other book-dealers including Jake Zeitlin, James Drake, Frances Hammill, Bertram Rota, Margie Cohn, and Franklin Gilliam—but Feldman was unquestionably the American book dealer most identified with the Humanities Research Center. When he first started working with Ransom in 1956, Feldman specialized in mystery and detective fiction, but was soon bankrolled sufficiently to begin purchasing entire manuscript collections of twentieth-century authors in literature, often to the chagrin of other book dealer who could not compete with Ransom's deep pockets.
Feldman offered Kaplan's collection to Ransom for $17,000 (plus a ten percent commission), describing it as "unquestionably the finest A. Crowley collection in America." Negotiations proceeded over the phone from there, but the books arrived in early January 1961. Feldman was paid on November 2, 1961.
Kaplan waited nearly a month to let Germer know he had sold the collection: "I want to tell you of my own decision regarding Crowley: I finally arrived at a point where I felt that my collection would do more good in the library pf a University, where fresh and curious minds could use this wonderful material and really do something worthwhile with it." Germer responded with a characteristic mix of paranoia and faith in the numinous:
[See Karl Germer to Philip Kaplan, 4 February 1961]
Much as Germer's fears seemed to prophesy the theft and fire to which the archives were subjected after his death, one of his last letters to Kaplan also seems eerily prophetic in retrospect. Updating Kaplan about his plans to publish Crowley's long-delayed Liber Aleph, he wrote,
[See Karl Germer to Philip Kaplan, 23 July 1961]
Germer would die the same year the book finally appeared.
If the Harry Ransom Center's acquisition of the Kaplan collection wasn't enough of a score, they would also purchase J. F. C. Fuller's collection of Crowleyana in 1966. While that is another story entirely, the combination of these two collections established the center as second only to the Warburg Institute in its selection of Crowleyana. These two collections, safely housed in university libraries on two continents, largely fulfills the vision of Germer, Yorke, Kaplan and others of having the archives stored safely in multiple locations "just in case."
This vision would be further realized in 2002 when O.T.O. microfilmed the Crowley material in the Yorke collection, depositing copies with selected research libraries around the world. Within the United States, these include Indiana University in Bloomington; Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois; and the University of Texas at Austin.
Kaplan's sale of his Crowleyana was part of a larger pattern of selling what he had collected over the decades. In 1963, the Morris Library at Southern Illinois University acquired his collection of American expatriate writers. "In this collection," he remarked, "nearly every American writer who participated in the expatriate movement is represented." In 1972, Hofstra University in Long Island, New York, purchased his Weingrow Collection of illustrated books, periodicals, pamphlets, and other materials: "Most of this material was gathered together during my stay in New York. A great deal of it was acquired directly from European and American expatriates who were forced out of Europe prior to WWII." In addition, New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art lists Kaplan in the provenance for its sizable collection of work by French portrait photographer Pierre-Louis Pierson (1822-1913).
Philip Kaplan died in California in 1990 at the age of 87.
Late to the Party
One curious letter to Lund arrived a decade after he sold the Crowley books to Kaplan, but is of sufficient historical interest to include here. The correspondent is Karl Germer's student, Marcelo Motta, who had assisted with the publication of Liver Aleph.
[See Marcelo Motta to Robert Lund, 16 June 1969]
Motta's story was just beginning. Having lost his mentor, and unaware of the surviving members of the now-defunct Agape Lodge (from whom Germer had fallen out of contact in his last years), Motta worked in isolation to promote Thelema in Brazil. He started with his self-published Chamando Os Filhos do Sol ("Calling the Children of the Sun"), which he later suppressed, fearing political persecution. This concern, echoed in Motta's letter to Lund, reflected a paranoia that would work to his detriment as he sought to extend his version of O.T.O. into the United States, his mistrust bringing him into conflict with the former Agape Lodge initiates who were also carrying on with O.T.O. in the wake of Germer's death.
Full Circle: The Books Held Back
The last part of this story—the items that Lund kept back—did not run its course until the last few years. It is generally understood that Lund held onto three items: the manuscript to The Book of Lies, pus Crowley's personal copies of Gargoyles and his three-volume Collected Works.
In March 2007, Crowley's personal copy of Gargoyles turned up for live auction on eBay. Unfortunately, the original listing is no longer available, nor is the sale price.
In June 2015, Crowley's Works were auctioned at Christie's as described on the Zero Equals Two blog:
The books are now—per Crowley's intentions—in the archives of the O.T.O.
In January 2016, Crowley's manuscript of The Book of Lies was offered by Weiser Antiquarian, with the explanation that "Lund retained ownership of the manuscript until the 1980s, at which time he sold it to a rare book dealer, from whose estate it is now offered." The catalog entry, now no longer online, described the manuscript thus:
The manuscript is also now in the O.T.O. archives.
According to [David] Meyer, Lund gave another book to Joseph Dunninger (1892-1975), "a magician and mentalist famous for his radio broadcasts in the 1920s and TV shows in the 1940s and '50s." While Lund couldn't recall the title, this book was The Sword of Song, a unique copy of which the Book Store at Depot Square purchased from Dunninger's widow and listed on the Antiquarian Book Exchange in 2014 with an asking price of $5,000. The listing at the time read:
This book sold in May 2016. While it is in the hands of a private collector, the comment from Crowley and Kelly have been noted in a forthcoming edited and annotated reissue of Sword of Song.
Remarkably, despite being lost for thirty-five years, this case of rariora did more than survive. It escaped the theft and fire that Karl Germer feared would—and did—befall parts of the archive in the 1960s. It emerged from the Leonard Warehouses largely intact, passing from Lund's hands to those of a passionate collector who—inspired by the sacred duty espoused by both Yorke and Germer—recognized their importance and sold them to a university where students and scholars can plumb their depths for generations to come. Even the books kept by Lund have been identified, catalogued, and preserved. Perhaps Germer was right all along: "I have a feeling that some friendly genius is watching over that part of it." |