Boleskine House
The Boleskine House (Scottish Gaelic: Taigh Both Fhleisginn) is a manor on the southeast side of Loch Ness in the Scottish Highlands. It is notable for being the home of author and occultist Aleister Crowley and Led Zeppelin guitarist and producer Jimmy Page. It suffered significant fire damage in December 2015 and again in July 2019. The house is now being restored and construction work started in December 2019. The Boleskine House Foundation SCIO took over ownership of one part of the estate in 2019 to manage restoration efforts on the house.
Aleister Crowley's ownership (1899–1913)
Aleister Crowley purchased Boleskine House from the Fraser family in 1899. The house then was known as the "Manor of Boleskine and Abertarff" after the name of the local parish. Crowley believed the location was ideal for sequestering himself to perform a series of operations known as the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, taken from a grimoire [Note 1] called The Book of Abramelin.
According to Crowley, in his book The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, to perform the operations, "the first essential is a house in a more or less secluded situation. A door should open north of the room where 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 purpose of this ritual is to invoke one's Guardian Angel.
It requires at least six months of preparation, celibacy, and abstinence from alcohol. However, it also includes summoning the 12 Kings and Dukes of Hell to bind them and remove their negative influences from the magician's life. While Crowley was performing the lengthy ritual, he was called to Paris by the leader of the Golden Dawn. According to legend, he never banished the demons he had summoned, leading to strange happenings occurring in and around Boleskine House.
Crowley became infamous for stories of conducting black magic and various other rituals while residing at the house; one of his pseudonyms was "Lord Boleskine." His lodge-keeper, Hugh Gillies, suffered a number of personal tragedies, including the loss of two children. Crowley later claimed that his experiments with black magic had simply gotten out of hand.
Crowley described the house as a "long low building. I set apart the southwestern half for my work. The largest room has a bow window, and here I made my door and constructed the terrace and lodge. Inside the room, I set up my oratory proper. This was a wooden structure, lined in part with the big mirrors which I brought from London."
He left the property in 1913, moving to a modest cottage for some time in Dennyloanhead near Falkirk.
Today
The fires almost totally destroyed the interior of the house. Part of the roof and the outer walls survive, but the former owner, Mrs. MacGillivray, has said that since the extent of the damage is so bad, it "is unlikely it will ever be rebuilt unless there is someone out there with an interest in the occult wanting to spend a lot of money." The ruins and 22 acres of land were sold for £500,000 in April 2019. They are now owned by the Boleskine House Foundation SCIO, which will restore the house and gardens to their original form and then open the estate to the public.
A further fire was started on 31 July 2019 in two buildings on the estate at the same time in a suspected arson. The police are currently appealing to the public for any information on those involved. The fire destroyed the remainder of what was left inside Boleskine House, and as of December 2019, work is underway to clear the fire-damaged material and prepare the building for a new roof.
Boleskine House is a Category B listed building, as are the adjacent stables and gate lodge.
In literature
Boleskine House is described and recognizable in W. Somerset Maugham's The Magician where it is called "Skene". Crowley considered Maugham's book to be plagiarism and wrote an article under the name of Oliver Haddo (the name of a character taken from Maugham's book) for "Vanity Fair" as a witty riposte. (For details, see Crowley's autobiography, Confessions, listed above.) In Neil Spring's novel The Burning House, the house plays a significant role.
- More information is available at [ Wikipedia:Boleskine_House ]
Sources
"Boleskine House." Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 28 Jun. 2023, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boleskine_House. Accessed 29 Jul. 2023.
Notes
- ↑ A grimoire (also known as a "book of spells," "magic book," or a "spellbook") is a textbook of magic, typically including instructions on how to create magical objects like talismans and amulets, how to perform magical spells, charms, and divination, and how to summon or invoke supernatural entities such as angels, spirits, deities, and demons
 • Allen H. Greenfield • Lady Frieda Harris • Leah Hirsig • Christopher Hyatt • William Breeze (Hymenaeus Beta) • Augustus Sol Invictus • Charles Stansfeld Jones • George Cecil Jones • Richard Kaczynski • Carl Kellner (mystic) • Rose Edith Kelly • James Lees (English magician) (James Lees) • Grady Louis McMurtry • Marcelo Ramos Motta • Nema Andahadna • Victor Benjamin Neuburg • Jack Parsons • Israel Regardie • Theodor Reuss • C.F. Russell • Wilfred Talbot Smith • Leila Waddell (Leila Waddel (Laylah) • James Wasserman • Sam Webster (writer) (Sam Webster) • Jane Wolfe • Gerald Yorke
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