March 24 in A.A. History

In 1939, as the writing of the Big Book (Alcoholics Anonymous) neared completion, Hank P. [near right] wrote Bill W. [far right, 1937] a 1½-page memo addressing Bill’s reluctance to make certain editorial changes^*:

  Dogmatic;  Marked by positive and authoritative assertions. As “shown by God.”
  Doctor Howards [sic] position is that Mr. Wilson should not let himself be put in a position of being dogmatic  anywhere in the book. That instead of saying to any person . . . ”You do this or You do that.” . . . the whole attitude should be we did this or we did that and received certain blessings from God[…]
  My personal opinion is as follows: EVERY personality should be laid aside[…] Therefor [sic] Bill should take the book someplace where he can study it quietly with the attitude of taking from it <handwritten>changing</handwritten> any dogmatic statements or insinuations.[…] Simply to change it where necessary from . . . You do this . . . to . . . we did this. At the same time certain men such as Frank Amos, Harry B———, Jack D———, Doc. S———, Horace C———, Paul K——— and any others who might be suggested should <handwritten>could</handwritten> do the same thing. Then a meeting sh<handwritten>c</handwritten>ould be called for final discussion of these points and any changes made where this seemed right.[…]
To bring this proposal down to concrete few words.
A committee to study the book to ▓▓▓▓▓▓ change any “ You do this [sic] or [sic] you must do that [sic] statements or insinuations to, “ We did this [sic] or [sic] we did that.”
Then at a meeting to decide [sic] by the vote of the majority the changes. ANY people who desire and will spend the necessary time to be able [sic] to serve on such a committee.

---

^* The following excerpts include Hank’s errors; my notations are in red. “could <handwritten>should</handwritten>” indicates that Hank drew a line through “could” and hand-wrote “should” above above it.

In 1971, Margaret (or Margarita) Von Lüttichau Marbury [left, 1915] died in Washington, D.C.
    In the September 2020 issue of The Journal of Analytical Psychology, the article “Margarita Von Lüttichau: Intermediary between Jung and Bill W[—–]” by Ian McCabe, Christine Boyd, and Pádraig Carroll claimed that

Her contribution within this mediator role [i.e, between Carl Jung and Bill W.] has not been previously recognized but is an important factor in explaining how Jung became introduced to the AA 12‐step format and validated the effectiveness of group work. After the Second World War, Von Lüttichau travelled between America and Switzerland and introduced the writings and ideas of Wilson and Jung to each other and acted as an intermediary between both titans. Jung gave Von Lüttichau extraordinarily detailed instructions on how the 12‐step programme of AA could be applied to ‘general neurotics’. Von Lüttichau’s private papers provide a bridge between Jung and Wilson’s correspondence and help to piece together gaps in both Jungian and AA history.