CROWLEY, Aleister (Signed).

[Letter] An autograph letter, signed "666", from Aleister Crowley to Frieda Harris on various matters. April 11, [1941].

[1941]. Written on all four sides of two sheets of thick 8 x 5 inch cream, note-paper. Headed "Barton Brow, Barton Cross" [Torquay] besides which Crowley has written "crucified Sir Percy" [a whimsical reference to Frieda Harris' husband Sir Percy Alfred Harris] April 11. The letter begins and ends with the Thelemic greetings. Crowley actually mentions this very letter in his diary, observing that he "Wrote [to] F.H. mostly 'business.'" A long (approx 750 words) letter divided into five main sections, the first of which is devoted to an angry denouncement of solicitors (?) Hooper & Walker, who apparently were acting on behalf of his previous landlady and demanding damages for "dilapidations" and loss to the furnished rooms that he had rented (despite his anger, Crowley managed to weave in a joke about Mrs. Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor). The second section concerns a note to be forwarded to a Miss Bach, apparently about reclaiming some property of his that is in her possession. In the third section he bemoans the tardiness of a typist, Mrs. Upton, in preparing a typescript of Liber LXV. He asks rhetorically if a "prod in the panties" might do some good, and adds that "If she has finished the typing, I could add in the Hebrew myself." In the fourth section he refers to several of his publications, in particular discussing his "Songs for Italy," in the process lamenting that "I can't help feeling that I could be so much more useful to manikind if I were gently levered into my proper place as a poet. And prophet." In the fifth section he discusses "a sad appeal" that he had received, and goes on to say that the answer is "all in [his play] Sir Palamedes the Saracen," and his "Hymn to Astarte," continuing that "It is the attainment of the 8 = 3 that supplies the only permanent cure." In the final section Crowley reveals that he is still planning on founding another Abbey, and discusses the O.T.O. principles around which it would be organised, gently chiding Harris that these were explained "in your O.T.O. papers, which you lost!" He closes the letter with "Love is the law, love under will," and signs of "F .'. ly [fraternaly] 666." From the collection of former Crowley associate, Edward Noel Fitzgerald, (1908-1958), Frater Agape, a IX degree member of the O.T.O. who was also a friend of Lady Harris from whom he acquired them directly. The paper is a little yellowed and has a few light marks, otherwise Very Good condition. Item #65975

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