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*For the shinty team see Boleskine Camanachd'
Boleskine House (boll-ESS-kin) was the estate of Aleister Crowley from 1899 to 1913. It is located on the South-Eastern shore of Loch Ness in Scotland. It was built in the late 18th century by Archibald Fraser.
Crowley purchased the home in order to perform the operation found in The Book of the Sacred Magick of Abra-Melin the Mage. In order to perform it, Crowley (1989) says,
One must have a house where proper precautions against disturbance can be taken; this being arranged, there is really nothing to do but to aspire with increasing fervor and concentration, for six months, towards the obtaining of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.
In Confessions (Ch. 22), he continues:
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.
Crowley eventually sold the manor in order to fund the publication of The Equinox, Vol. III. However, he later alleged that the funds were stolen by the Grand Treasurer General of Ordo Templi Orientis, George MacNie Cowie.
Aleister Crowley considered Boleskine to be the Thelemic Kiblah. This is an Arabic word which refers to the direction of Mecca, the holiest shrine of Islam. It has a slightly different meaning in Thelema: it is mentioned in several rituals written by Crowley, where it is identified with the East. Specifically the Gnostic Mass and Liber Reguli [1] both identify the principal orientation (sometimes known as "Magical East") as being towards Boleskine. It is considered to be the focal point of the magical energies (also called the "93 Current") of the Aeon of Horus, similar to Jerusalem of Christianity and Mecca of Islam.
As Sabazius (1998) notes:
Thus, the location of Boleskine House is to be the Omphalos or Center of Power for Thelema, and is to continue as such for the duration of the Aeon of Horus, regardless of the physical presence of the Stèle or of the house itself. Thus, O.T.O. Lodges, Profess-Houses and Gnostic Mass Temples are ideally to be oriented towards Boleskine.[2]
Boleskine House is located on the South-Eastern shore of Loch Ness in Scotland at latitude 57°16' N., longitude 4°27' W.
Crowley describes Boleskine in Confessions:
The house is a long low building. I set apart the south-western half for my work. The largest room has a bow window and here I made my door and constructed the terrace and lodge. In side 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.
The home includes the entrance hall, 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, a drawing room, dining room, family room, kitchen, utility room, and the cellars. The grounds (about 47 acres) includes the Gate Lodge, which was originally the home for a coachman. It has a living room, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom, as well as a pond, small garden and an orchard.
From the early 1970s to well into the 1980s, Boleskine was owned by famed Led Zeppelin guitarist and Aleister Crowley enthusiast, Jimmy Page. In an interview he gave in 1975, Page explained:
[The house]] 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...[1]
Page's fantasy sequence in the Led Zeppelin concert film The Song Remains the Same were filmed at night on the mountain side directly behind Boleskine House.