From Loch Ness to legal deposit: Aleister Crowley's Scottish chapter

Notorious occultist, mountaineer, and homoerotic poet Aleister Crowley lived many lives and held many personas. One such iteration of Crowley, also known as "The Great Beast", was as a gentlemanly Scottish huntsman. Evidence of his time in Scotland can still be found both on the shores of Loch Ness and within the National Library of Scotland itself.

Who was Aleister Crowley?

Edward Alexander Crowley was born in October 1875 into a wealthy Christian family. He studied at Trinity College Cambridge, adopting the name Aleister before starting his first year. There, he learnt to love chess, mountaineering — and the occult. Having come into his inheritance, Crowley spent lavishly, including self-publishing his writing, both occult and romantic. His first published work is believed to be 'Aceldama', a book of poetry published in 1898.

Crowley published prolifically throughout his complex and controversial life, often self-funding his output. There are many aspects of Crowley's life and published works that one could explore; from his exploits in yoga to his theses on drug use and his collaborations with Auguste Rodin. Here, however, we will look at his activities while living in Scotland at Boleskine House from 1899 to 1913, as well as a couple of works written by others about his time there. Through short excerpts from 'Confessions', his autohagiography (an autobiography that presents the subject in an idealised or excessively flattering way), you'll read about some of this in Crowley's own words. The edition we reference is Symonds, John; Grant, Kenneth (eds.). 'The Confessions of Aleister Crowley; An Autohagiography'. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1979.

Crowley's Highland hideaway: Boleskine House

Boleskine House sits between the villages of Foyers and Inverfarigaig on the south-east side of Loch Ness. The house was built as a hunting lodge in the 1760s on the site of a ruined kirk. It had long been blighted with supernatural rumours, including tales of reanimated corpses and an inexplicable deadly fire. The house came into the possession of Aleister Crowley in 1899, and he swiftly adopted the title of Lord Boleskine, beginning, in his words, to live "the life of the ordinary Scottish laird" ('Confessions', p. 359).

Crowley spent his time fishing on the loch, hiking with his dog (Lady Etheldreda!), tricking visitors into hunting "the Highland Haggis", and keeping quiet about his neighbour's business exploits. His most famous doctrine, "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law", was set out in 'The Book of the Law' (published in 1909), and clearly extended to his opinion on the locals' surreptitious spirit-brewing:

"On first arriving at Boleskine, I innocently frightened some excellent people by my habit of taking long walks over the moors. One morning I found a large stone jar at my front door. It was not an infernal machine; it was illicit whisky — a mute, yet eloquent appeal, not to give away illicit stills that I might happen to stumble across in my rambles. I needed no bribe. I am a free trader in every sense of the word. I have no sympathy with any regulations which interfere with the natural activities of human beings."
'Confessions', p. 184

Crowley's approval of free trade and free will did not, however, extend to The British Aluminium Company:

"Much to my disgust, commercialism thrust its ugly head into my neighbourhood. The British Aluminium Company proposed to exploit the water power of the valley above Foyers. The Falls of Foyers are one of the few natural glories of the British Isles; why not use them to turn an honest penny? … Moneys-grubbing does its best to blaspheme and destroy nature."
'Confessions', p. 187-8

Despite his grumbles with the industrial world encroaching on his solitude, Crowley was fond of his Highland life:

"We had a glorious time at Boleskine. What with the salmon and the venison and my cellar, billiards and rock scrambling, the good company and the perfect summer, life passed like an ecstatic dream. In summer in the Highlands, time seems to forgive. At midnight one can sit and read in the open air even in the absence of the moon. Night is 'one faint eternal eventide of gems'."
'Confessions', p. 406

Occult rituals and local legends

Crowley's purpose in buying Boleskine was, however, a lot darker than aristocratic pursuits, whisky-drinking, and midnight reading. His initial intention had been the completion of a six-month occult ritual. His "Operation of the Sacred Magick" was intended to invoke one's own Guardian Angel. This ritual required at least six months' celibacy and abstinence from alcohol and included the summoning of the 12 Kings and Dukes of Hell. It was, at the time, Crowley's "chief preoccupation". And required "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." ('Confessions', p. 184). Luckily for Crowley, Boleskine fulfilled these very specific requirements exactly.

Having begun the ritual, however, Crowley was called to Paris on separate occult business, leaving the demons he was thought to have summoned unbound, unbanished, and roaming the halls of the house. Crowley noted that "during my abscence, the reputation of the house had become more formidable than ever before. I have little doubt that the Abra-Melin devils, whatever they are, used the place as a convenient headquarters and put in some of their spare time in terrifying the natives. No one would pass the house after dark" ('Confessions', p. 359).

Not only unleashing new devils upon the house, Crowley's occult activities appeared to stir up some of its older ghostly inhabitants. In his 'Confessions' he explains how he dealt with the spirits he had awoken, including a prior Laird who had been beheaded following the 1745 Jacobite rising. This decapitated denizen was said to remove his head and roll it at those passing through the corridor:

"I certainly used to hear the 'rolling of the head', but when I put in a billiard table, the old gentleman preferred it to the corridor and confined his amusements to the gunroom."
'Confessions', Chapter 44, p. 358-9

Crowley's literary output

While living at Boleskine, Crowley wrote and published under the auspices of the "Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth". Its place of publication was "Boleskine, Foyers, Inverness".

He published his erotic epic poem 'The Star & the Garter' and his play, 'The God-Eater' through Charles Watts & Co. in London in 1903. (He notes in 'Confessions', that the latter was written on a three-day trip to Edinburgh to pick up wine and a housekeeper.) Crowley was disappointed with their sales and realised that "there was still no such demand for my books as to indicate that I had touched the great heart of the British public" ('Confessions', p. 406).

His solution was to open his own press and reissue the works despite having "simply no idea of business" ('Confessions', p. 406). Nevertheless, describing his publishing at this time as "remarkable", Crowley issued almost 20 works by 1910 ('Confessions', p. 406). This included his three-volume 'collected works', 'The Works of Aleister Crowley' (1905, 1906, 1907). Despite removing some of his more obscene juvenilia, its inclusion of 'The Sword of Song', the appendix of which spelled out indecencies, caused it to be cited in a libel trial against Crowley in 1911 as indicative of his immorality.

Legal deposit and the Library's Crowley collection

Crowley stated that "my responsibility to the gods was to write as I was inspired; my responsibility to mankind was to publish what I wrote. But it ended there. As long as what I wrote was technically accessible to the public through the British Museum, and such places, my hands were clean" ('Confessions', p. 406).

Here, Crowley is referring to the system of Legal Deposit, which allows all libraries within the scheme to claim a copy of any book published within the UK and Ireland. What is now the British Library was previously part of the British Museum. There are now six legal deposit libraries under UK law, including the National Library of Scotland. The other five are the British Library, the National Library of Wales, the Bodleian Library at Oxford University, Cambridge University Library, and Trinity College Dublin Library.

Despite Crowley's assumption that his works would be accessible through "such places", the majority of the works by Crowley now held in the Library did not come through this route ('Confessions', p. 406). It is possible Crowley's works were not considered appropriate for an organisation such as what was then the Advocates Library!

Now, however, the Library holds a Special collection of Crowley's works, containing 123 titles by or about The Great Beast. The Library's special collections, usually books from a particular library or private collector that come to us as a single collection, have been acquired since 1695. Individual collections often reflect the interests of the person who originally brought the books together. The Crowley collection, however, was gathered by the Library. It draws together purchased or donated works and those more modern works that came to us via legal deposit.

The collection includes several presentation copies signed by Crowley that reveal his multiple personas. Among those is a copy of 'Summa Spes', a poetry collection published in 1903. Crowley has inscribed the work simply, "F.C. de B. Cadell Aleister Crowley", omitting the traditionally exaggerated phallic signature he often employed. The recipient was Scottish painter Francis Campbell Boileau Cadell (1883 to 1937), famed for his depictions of highland life.

The gift of this work positions Crowley not as a maniacal occultist, but as a Scottish Laird sharing his art with another in a common cultural world and tells us much about how he presented himself at this time. This work, as well as the others in the collection, can be consulted in our Special Collections Reading Room.

Crowley's literary legacy and cultural influence

Crowley's influence can be found not just in the Special collection, but throughout the Library in the works he inspired. Two of these, 'Scarlet and Blue: A Hunting Novel' (1912), written by L. C. R. Duncombe-Jewell under the pseudonym Charles Hewson, and William Somerset Maugham's 'The Magician' (1908) were specifically inspired by Crowley's time at Boleskine and display his complex nature.

Duncombe-Jewell (1866 to 1947) was an eccentric author and soldier. He was invited by Crowley to Boleskine in 1903:

"I had asked him to spend a week at Boleskine and he had managed somehow or other to settle down there as my factor. I suppose he saved me trouble in one way or another, and was some sort of companion… He was very keen on the Celtic revival and wanted to unite the five Celtic nations in an empire. In this political project he had not wholly succeeded: but he had got as far as designing a flag. And, oh so ugly!"
'Confessions', p. 361.

Duncombe-Jewell's novel based on his time at Boleskine tells not of occult adventuring or supernatural occurrences but was instead "a first-rate hunting novel by a sportsman who knows hunting through and through. Full of incident and abounding in clever character sketches of the many types to be found in a hunt. There are descriptions of Otter hunts, Fox hunts, Stag hunts, Cock fighting and Beagling" (Publisher's advertisements: 'Mr Eveleigh Nash's New Books' (1912)).

Maughaum's novel, however, faces Crowley's esotericism head on, featuring an eponymous magician named "Oliver Haddo", who lives in a home called "Skene". The work was, in Crowley's opinion, a direct plagiarism of the incidents in his life, and prompted him to pen a vitriolic review in 'Vanity Fair' under the pen name Oliver Haddo, titled 'How to Write a Novel! (After W. S. Maugham)'. In it he also accused Maugham of having plagiarised 'The Island of Dr Moreau' by H. G. Wells, 'Kabbalah Unveiled' edited by Samuel Liddel MacGregor Mathers, 'The Life of Paracelsus' by Franz Hartmann, 'Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie' by Eliphas Levi, and 'The Blossom and the Fruit; a True Story of a Black Magician', by Mabel Collins – copies of all of which can be found and consulted in the Library.

Maugham later noted in his autobiography that he had not read Crowley's review, adding, "I daresay it was a pretty piece of vituperation, but probably, like his poems, intolerably verbose" ('A Fragment of Autobiography', reprinted as the preface to 'The Magician', Vintage Books (2000), p. x).

Crowley's influence stretches beyond literature and the occult. His legacy has left a mark on popular music too. Crowley's image appears on the iconic cover of The Beatles' 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band', symbolising his cultural notoriety, and Robbie Williams quotes Crowley's maxim "Do what thou wilt" in his song 'Candy'. Led Zeppelin's guitarist Jimmy Page, a known Crowley enthusiast, even purchased Boleskine House and incorporated occult symbolism into the band's aesthetic. These musical nods reflect Crowley's enduring mystique and the fascination he continues to inspire.

Explore Crowley's works at the Library

Aleister Crowley's time in the Highlands reveals a lesser-known side of the infamous occultist. It's one of whisky jars, Highland haggis hunts, and aristocratic admin. His life at Boleskine was as much about cultural performance as it was about ritual magic, and the works he left behind continue to intrigue and provoke.

Whether you're drawn to the mysticism, the literary legacy, or the eccentricity of "The Great Beast", we can offer a unique window into this complex figure's Scottish chapter. To find out more about him, and to decide if his poetry really is "intolerably verbose", join the Library and come and consult these works at The National Library of Scotland.