Some people call it, “The House of the Devil.” While others, “The House of Sin.”
What we do know for sure is that Aleister Crowley purchased the Boleskine House in Scotland along the banks of Loch Ness for the sole purpose of performing black magick rituals and summoning demons when he lived there between 1899 and 1913.
Crowley was just 25 years old when he bought the home in 1899 after looking for the perfect location to carry out a series of rituals from the Book of Sacred Magick Abremelin Merlin of Mage.
The Boleskine House was the right spot because it was very secluded so he could carry out his rituals in solitude without the prying eyes of his neighbors. It also had the right architecture and was situated near an old cemetery, which was perfect for spirit conjuring.
This was also the same location where a blaze occurred during a church congregation – and killed everyone inside. Interestingly, this same site is near the banks of the home to one of the world’s most famous monsters, Loch Ness.
Crowley wrote in his autobiography, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley; “I had picked out Boleskine for its loneliness. Lord Lovat and Mrs Fraser-Tytler, my nearest neighbors, were eight miles away, while Grant of Glenmoriston was on the other side of Loch Ness.”
According to Crowley, in order to perform the operations, “the first essential is a house in a more or less secluded situation. There should be a door opening to the north from the room of which you make your oratory.
Outside this door, you construct a terrace covered with fine river sand. This ends in a ‘lodge’ where the spirits may congregate.” (The Confessions of Aleister Crowley)
Crowley wrote of his experiments;
“The demons and evil forces had congregated round me so thickly that they were shutting off the light. It was a comforting situation. There could be no more doubt of the efficiency of the operation.”
In his autobiography, he described how the spirits he summoned got wildly out of hand, causing one housemaid to leave, and a workman to go crazy.
It is said Crowley had to leave Boleskine when he was called upon by the head of the O.T.O. on official business before the full operation – which could take up to six months- was concluded, with the so-called demons left gathered at the home.
One of Aleister Crowleys biggest fans and an occultist himself, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, bought the home in 1973. In an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine back in 1975, the musician talked about the bad energy the place had, the spirits and weird events that haunted the manor.
ROLLING STONE: You live in Aleister Crowley’s home.
PAGE: “Yes, it was owned by Aleister Crowley. But there were two or three owners before Crowley moved into it. It was also a church that was burned to the ground with the congregation in it. And that’s the site of the house. Strange things have happened in that house that had nothing to do with Crowley.
The bad vibes were already there. A man was beheaded there, and sometimes you can hear his head rolling down.
I haven’t actually heard it, but a friend of mine, who is extremely straight and doesn’t know anything about anything like that at all, heard it. He thought it was the cats bungling about. I wasn’t there at the time, but he told the help, “Why don’t you let the cats out at night?
They make a terrible racket, rolling about in the halls.” And they said, “The cats are locked in a room every night.” Then they told him the story of the house. So that sort of thing was there before Crowley got there. Of course, after Crowley there have been suicides, people carted off to mental hospitals.”
Page later employed his childhood friend Malcolm Dent to be the caretaker of Boleskine House. He ended up living there raising his family, until Page sold the property in the early 1990s. Dent died in 2011.
In a 2006 interview, Mr. Dent said he and his wife and children had loved living there, despite the “curious” goings on.
He said: “Doors would be slamming all night, you’d go into a room and carpets and rugs would be piled up.”
“We just used to say that was Aleister doing his thing,” Mr Dent said.
Dent also experienced the “most terrifying night of my life” at Boleskine. He awoke one night to hear what sounded like a wild animal snorting and banging outside his bedroom door. It went on for some time and it was not until morning that Dent dared open the door, and there was nothing there.
Dent added “whatever was there was pure evil.”
Another friend who stayed at Boleskine awoke one night claiming she had been attacked by “some kind of devil”.
Another story that Dent says everyone loves involves seven chairs Page bought from the Cafe Royal in London.
“Jimmy got those chairs specifically because one of them had Aleister Crowley’s name on it,” Dent said. “Each of the chairs belonged to a famous person and had a nameplate on the back and front – Marie Lloyd, Billy Butlin, James Agate, Ruldolph Valentino, William Orpen and Jacob Epstein.”
Dent says Crowley’s chair was always placed at the head of the table. But, after the chairs underwent repairs, they kept finding Crowley’s chair switched with Marie Lloyd’s.
“The kids couldn’t have done it and we didn’t know why this was happening,” Dent said. “Then I realized the guy who did the repairs didn’t know which plaque went with which chair and hadn’t put them back on the right ones.”
But, according to Dent, the strangest thing about the house may have been its visitors.
“I had them from every corner of the world,” he said. “A lot of them were nutters. A lot of them were downright dangerous lunatics. They will still be turning up today. The house is on the map as an occult centre and you’re not going to get rid of Crowley’s legacy that easily.”
The Boleskin House burned down in November of 2015. Thankfully with no one inside.
Today, the burned-out ruins are all that remains of Aleister Crowley’s unholy home that sits on 23 acres of cursed Scottish land.
It was recently purchased by a group called the Boleskine House Foundation. An article they wrote titled ‘Greetings from the Boleskine House Foundation!’ – references Crowley, Thelema and the place being a sort of pilgrimage site for Thelemites. Kind of like how the Vatican is a sacred site for pious Catholics.
The Boleskine House Foundation website claims its mission is to “use the estate to promote education on the heritage of the house, to welcome the enjoyment of its structure and surrounding gardens.”
“The Boleskine House Foundation is not affiliated with Aleister Crowley or Thelema and is an independent organisation with primary secular interests to restore the house.”
“While the Bolsekine House Foundation has been set up primarily as a secular entity, established for the public’s educational benefit , we would like the reader to know that it is our intention to uphold the Thelemic legacy of the house.
“We hope it will serve as a great opportunity to educate the greater community about Crowley’s legacy and thus give Thelema more exposure to the general populace.”
“Many Thelemites know Bolsekine House as the significant place in history where Aleister Crowley underwent the intensive ceremony known as The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage in an attempt to contact the Holy Guardian Angel.
“While the ceremony was never seen to completion at Boleskine House, Crowley would forever consider the estate to be of great significant spiritual import.”
Moe is the founder of GnosticWarrior.com. He is a father, husband, author, martial arts black belt, and an expert in Gnosticism, the occult, and esotericism.
