Thanks for citing the J.Brodie-Innes article from the Occult Review which we have used many times since the early seventies.It is on line as well as is the first of two Waite's two replies.
Repeat George Pollexfen sent his report to GD head Wynn Wescott on October 15,1897.His nephew who had been GD since the earliest days of the movement and who had been working with Florence since the late eighties or early nineties(It has never been possible to fix an exact date on this historic meeting) was in the house when he wrote it.The GD was therefore not previously using it at all.Unless people were picking it up from Yeats or Florence.
It was in answer to the erroneous paper which you cite that we responded on Roger's behalf .He spent several months deciding whether to reply at this time and place at all.
Roger has been aware of the Gardener references cited in the article for many years.He has spent months in the library in question over a period of years.He does not recollect that the references in question are dated from 1892.However he awaits the author's documentation on this point.
As Roger hasn't been able to check out the names of the people whom Pollexfen mentions
in his letter of October 15,1897,it is uncertain how far back the interviews may date. Pollexfen cites three separate sources plus Mary Battle,his housekeeper,who is featured in Yeats' "Celtic Twilight" written long before 1897. And it was planned a decade earlier.
The Crowleyite writer could easily have contacted Roger if he had --seriously--wished for elucidation before publishing his snide and inaccurate article.
Neither Roger nor we find any profit in conversing with Crowleyites.Tehuti may remember that when she last corresponded with Roger in 2002 he was being plagued by a Crowleyite in the area of Austin,Texas,who brought in at least six partners in intellectual crime to help him out.He finally folded his tent and went away .You have met one of them you have met them all.
Roger has cited very specific documents here and elsewhere showing that from a historical perspective the entire conception that Waite was a Christian mystic as opposed to magicians Mathers and Crowley is completely erroneous.Waite and Crowley are listed in the same line as fellow students under the infamous Theodore Reuss. Waite's code name for that organization was "the present". Roger recently gave a very specific citation
over at the Co-Inherence site.
The Crowley Waite connection was printed by Elic Howe in German("Merlin Redivious")in the early 1980's.Strange with all the Crowley people out there no one in English picked it up til Roger printed it. Nor can he find a single person listed on the web who has chosen
comment on the same.
(off topic) Crowley was,generally speaking, a cheap little copy cat.He certainly belongs in a history of advertising,but not in a Ph.D.on Tarot.Anything significant that Crowley had learned earlier and with far greater accuracy and greater powers of lucid exposition.
Roger(who is writing most of this one himself) well remembers his first meeting with Padraic Colum very late 1965 or early 1966. Padraic quoted Yeats on AC,"In the midst of all that garbage there are ten or twelve lines of genuine poetry." Roger said,"You mean 'The Bells'?" and Colum was immediately his friend .
Donna Luisa Coomeraswamy was likewise a good friend to Roger as were Constantine
Fitzgibbon,and Arthur Power.Michael MacLiamore and Geoffrey Watkins also provided memorable accounts, to name no more. Watkins was the kindest of anyone."He was not so much an evil magician as a bad magician."
Roger,moreover discovered the grandson of one of the two genuinely sane people he ever heard of who really liked Crowley.The last thing the gentleman wants is visits from true believers but he has a wealth of stories and we hope that he will print them himself one day-or have his executors print them.
Grandfather was in show business and used to double in off seasons with a pushcart selling food.Crowley was in the habit, for many years, of stopping by for late evening chats
and perambulations.He left him a copy of Papus's "Tarot of the Bohemians" inscribed in GD code on the inner front leaf.
Crowley(summarize in Roger 's words) was an absolutely fantastic talker and genuinely helpful.Contrary to the public image which he deliberately built for himself,he was fair and fascinating in his evaluations of the many famous(or soon to be famous) people whom he had known.Roger remarked that he had seen reports that he was desperately trying to play up to Florence Farr about the time Waite published his Tarot pack. His informant replied with immediate enthusiasm,"He liked Florence Farr She kept him afraid of her..He was afraid of my grandfather. You had to keep him afraid of you,it was the only way to keep him your friend."
"He was really afraid of Ananda Coomeraswamy,(whom nobody else was ever afraid of)"and Coomeraswamy wouldn't play friends with him."
Grandfather stayed friends for years and valued what he learned about the world from Crowley,but he managed this because he knew that as their rapport grew and Crowley
increasingly reached out for sympathy that he dared not respond.One sign of emotional weakness and Crowley would have turned and rent him.And Crowley liked him as he might well have been helpful to more people had they been willing to show specific backbone.
That's all we have to say about Mr.Crowley.He played,to our knowledge no part whatsoever in the development of Yeats' or Florence Farr's art.He did give valuable evidence on the Yeats-Farr-Waite Tarot feud in his late 20's edition of Magic with interesting and valuable cross-references to private order papers.
Now there is an interesting topic for a Crowley Ph.D. thesis.Perhaps our sarcastic critic would care to augment his research with the publication of these items!
