Boleskine House

The creep factor of Aleister Crowley is only the beginning when it comes to Boleskine House!

Most people know Boleskine House for its two most famous owners: occultist and writer, Aleister Crowley, and Led Zeppelin guitarist, Jimmy Page. But the bizarre happenings date back centuries before either of them ever set foot on the land. Many say that the Highlands are overflowing with ghosts, and Boleskine only adds to that claim.

Before the mansion, there was a Kirk and graveyard dating back to the 13th Century. In the late 1600s, Minister Thomas Houston reported having to return animated corpses to their graves after a pesky local wizard decided to raise the dead.

The house was built around 1760 on top of where the kirk once stood. The story claims that the kirk caught on fire and killed everyone inside. It was over a century later when Mr. Crowley finally appeared.

Aleister Crowley purchased Boleskine House in 1899 for £2,000. He saw the house as the ideal location for him to complete the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage (aka summoning one’s guardian angel). This process took six months of preparation as well as celibacy and abstinence from alcohol (no thank you). He also needed to summon the 12 Kings and Dukes of Hell. However, during those six months, he was called away to Paris and was never able to banish those 12 demons. Some say they’re still in the house. For the next 14 years, Crowley conducted black magic rituals, with some of them getting out of control (his words, not mine).

Jimmy Page famously owned the house from 1970-1992. While his friends stayed in the house, they reported feeling attacked by dark entities. Chairs would switch places, doors opened and closed, and carpets rolled up by unseen hands.

In 2015, the house was almost entirely destroyed in a fire. The ruins were put on the market in April 2019, and surprisingly, someone purchased what remained of Boleskine. Plans have been announced to restore the house to its original state. However, on July 31, 2019, a fire was started by an arsonist, destroying what little was left of the house.

With such a dark and twisted history, haunted by demons and devastating fires, perhaps it’d be best to let the “House of the Unholy” remain empty.

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