Boleskine House

The house - now a private residence - dates from the 19th century, and is famous for its association with Aleister Crowley, the most notorious magician of all time.

Boleskine served as Crowley's retreat during 1900, when he was engaged in the magical sequence of Abramelin, which concluded with the contact of ones holy guardian angel. The ritual was a long elaborate affair consisting of several weeks of purification and ritual work. Boleskine was chosen by Crowley because it fitted a number of factors crucial to the operation.

It seems that Crowley caused quite a stir while he was there. If his writings are to be believed, his experiments in magic were not completely successful and resulted in some disturbing phenomena that was to send one of his housemaids mad, and lead to the house becoming haunted by strange entities.

Until relatively recently the house was owned by the rock guitarist Jimmy Page, who is also an avid collector of Crowley memorabilia.

There is a graveyard situated across from the property, which may have had a reputation for strangeness before Crowley's occupation. One legend (which may or may not date before Crowley) suggests that a tunnel exists linking Boleskine to the graveyard, and the graveyard is said to be the haunt of witches. Many burial places within the Highlands have similar superstitions attached to them, perhaps denoting ancient corpse ways and spirit tracks, along which the soul was believed to travel.

Directions: The house is now a private residence.