Crowley's diaries
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This is a question primarily directed at Jim or any other Crowley expert/researcher. Mention is often made "we know from his diary at the time that he..." but where are these diaries? Private copies of museum pieces?
I know some diary material is published. Do the pros have access to tons of stuff we amateurs don't?
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Much (most) that's available is published. A few scraps (such as his Abramelin diary and some other small pieces) are in private circulation. A particular important notebook (his private grimoire during a critical period) is in a private university library collection, but a few people have a copy.
I suspect there are other diaries in the O.T.O. archives - H.B. was particularly intent on acquiring these, and I imagine he has everything that has been findable in several decades of intensive searching.
The published material is in many places, but the most obvious is: Two published volumes (technically o.p., but you can find them if you search); long excerpts in The Temple of Solomon the King in The Equinox; records of special operations, such as John St. John and things like The Paris Working etc. Actually, Confessions was substantially written from his diaries, and things like The Vision & the Voice constitute a diary. (His actual diary during the V&V period was published in H.B.'s edition of V&V.)
That's off the top of my head.
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I was wondering a while back at what books AC had on his bookshelves. He was so well read I bet he had an outstanding collection, that I bet did not make it to NY with him. Where are his books, and tools ect?
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When he lived at Bolesmine, he had a formidable library. (He was a Virgo-Aquarius, after all.) Most of that didn't survive his later years, moving about, and relative poverty. What survived did make it into Germer's hands after his death.
His tools have floated through the hands of private collectors over the decades. He had some with him in Hastings T the end. Some never left Boleskine when he lost the house, and were still there as the property changed hands in the '70s and '80s.