3/7/48
Dear [Karl] Germer
I enclose latest letter from and to Achad, 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 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 own 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 os ome 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 the 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.R. and his representative.
"Until a couple of days ago I had no occasion to look through these
items in the last 10 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 that Jones has no legal right to
keep the above, a.d. your only hope of getting it is to go to law. On
the other hand this may be difficult, and 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 X degrees go back to 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., 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 ddrawings 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 apartment to sort what is left, and send you
everything except those items 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 Fitsgerald [sic]. He does not however
know what it is about. The only Vernon Simmonds I know of is the
proprietor of Netherwood, Hastings. I cannot believe it is the same as
Vurnum Simmons, whose military address is Berlin you had.
Yours
[sign. Gerald Yorke]
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