DAY 11: Aleister Crowley: The Beast 666 (ShortHand’s 13 Days of Halloween)

Summary

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RedHanded – DAY 11: Aleister Crowley: The Beast 666

ShortHand’s 13 Days of Halloween
Released: October 29, 2025
Hosts: Hannah McGuire & Josephine

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Episode Overview

This Halloween special dives into the life and lore of Aleister Crowley, dubbed "The Beast 666" and "the most wicked man in the world." With RedHanded’s signature wit and irreverence, Hannah and Josephine recount Crowley's bizarre childhood, infamous magical exploits, scandalous relationships, and ultimate rise from outcast to countercultural icon. Expect a wild ride through sex magic, curses, cults, and occult misadventures.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The End Before the Beginning – Crowley’s Final Days

• Crowley’s death & infamous last words:
  Died in Hastings (1947), in obscure Netherwood House, hooked on heroin, with son Ataturk and partner Patricia McAlpine at his side.

  • Notable Quote: “His final words were, ‘I am perplexed.’” (04:46 – Josephine)
  • A dramatic legend claims there was a thunderclap as he died.

• Denial of cremation and the “Crowley Curse”:
  Hastings refused his cremation, so his ashes were shipped to New Jersey, allegedly cursing the town.

  • “Legend has it…the only way to circumvent this Crowley curse is to carry a hagstone…from Hastings beach with you wherever you go.” (05:56 – Hannah)

• Cursed doctor:
  His doctor, who denied Crowley heroin on his deathbed, died the next day—allegedly from a Crowley curse.

  • “As a result of being refused his heroin, Crowley, with the last of his strength, laid a deadly curse upon this doctor…the day after...his doctor was found dead in his bath, allegedly of natural causes.” (07:26–07:47 – Josephine)

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Early Life: Strict Religion, Early Rebellion

• Strict upbringing:
  Born Edward Alexander Crowley to devout Plymouth Brethren parents; no makeup, no haircuts, no vices allowed.

  • “They’re basically the pilgrims who didn’t leave.” (08:45 – Josephine)

• The loss of faith:
  Devoted as a child, but turned to Satanism after his beloved, pious father died early.

  • “All of that changed when Crowley’s father died quite suddenly…Crowley simply went over to Satan’s side.” (09:17 – Josephine)

• Origin of “The Beast”:
  As a teen, slept with the maid on his mother’s bed in rebellion; his mother called him “The Beast.”

  • “That led Crowley’s mother to give him the name that he would make his own. The Beast.” (09:58 – Josephine)

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Schooling, Cambridge, and Scandalous Relationships

• Expelled from school:
  Contracted gonorrhea at boarding school.

  • “An adolescent Aleister Crowley was expelled from Malvern for contracting gonorrhoea from a sex worker.” (10:23 – Hannah)

• University antics:
  Let into Cambridge without finishing school, mostly indulged in “fucking bitches and reading Arabian Nights” (11:02 – Hannah).

• Relationship with Jerome Pollitt (“Diane de Ruggy”):

  • First great love, a drag queen; “introduced Crowley…to the decadent movement.” (12:11 – Josephine)
  • Wrote scandalous, graphic poetry (12:25–12:56).

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The Occult: The Golden Dawn and Magical Mayhem

• Joins the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn:
  • Meets famed mystics and artists, including W.B. Yeats and A.E. Waite.
  • “The golden dawn…were like the Illuminati of their day. They…truly believed in magic and in powerful spiritual entities.” (15:17–16:12 – Hannah)
  • Crowley’s obsession with black magic splits the group. Dramatic “astral siege” gets him expelled. (17:13–18:01)

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Marriage, Egypt, and the Birth of Thelema

• Marries Rose Edith Kelly:
  Takes her to the Pyramids for magical rituals.

  • “He cast many incantations and attempted to communicate with the ancient Egyptian deities…” (18:18 – Hannah)

• Rose’s trance & the number 666:

  • Rose, in a trance, says, “they are waiting for you.” Later, picks out Horus and artifact number 666 in a museum.
    • “Crowley was stunned…it was artifact number 666, the number of the beast that he had claimed as his own.” (19:35–20:28 – Josephine)

• The Book of the Law:

  • Under “celestial guidance,” writes his magnum opus, establishing the law: “Do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” (21:06 – Hannah)

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Mountains, Magic with a K, and the OTO

• Failed mountaineering heroics:

  • Nearly first to summit K2; disaster on Kanchenjunga, where he abandoned some climbers (22:12–23:07).

• Founds the O.T.O.:
  “Used the method of science with the aim of religion.” Recruits Jack Parsons (inventor of rocket fuel), silent film stars, and more. (23:34–24:15)

• Boleskine House and abuse of Victor Neuberg:

  • “He was talented, but Victor was lazy, and Crowley handled this by abusing him.” (24:37 – Josephine)
  • Attempted to summon “Twelve Kings and Dukes of Hell,” with much sadism involved (25:42–26:41).

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Sex Magick in the Desert

• Neuberg and Crowley undertake a bizarre sex magic ritual in the Algerian desert—complete with horned haircuts and mystical ego death.
  • “Neuberg actually became the God Pan…”
    “They performed many rituals out there in the wilderness, just as Christ had done for 40 days and 40 nights.” (28:35–28:44 – Josephine)
  • “We’re only going to tell you about one of these rituals…Crowley and Neuberg, deep in the desert, drew…a triangle of invocation. Then they had sex. Neuberg was the giver and Crowley was the receiver.” (28:44 – Josephine)
  • “Crowley had crossed the abyss, something he’d always wanted to do, but…had no knowledge of the consequence that came with it.” (29:47 – Josephine)

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Decline, Infamy, and Posthumous Fame

• Faked his own death:
  Wrote a dramatic suicide note (“The other mouth of hell that will catch me won’t be as hot as yours”) and “reappeared three weeks later at an art gallery.” (31:08–31:11 – Hannah)

• The Abbey of Thelema (Sicily):

  • Bought a monastery for orgiastic, drug-fueled rituals (“college towards the Holy Spirit”), including the infamous “Chamber of Nightmares.”
  • The death of follower Raoul Loveday (allegedly forced to drink cat’s blood) leads to Crowley being branded “the wickedest man in the world.” (33:19 – Hannah)
  • Mussolini expels him; Abbey abandoned (34:02–34:14).

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Crowley’s Enduring Legacy

• Crowley “bopped around” Europe, indulging in drugs and debauchery. Found a “real love” for son Ataturk in his twilight years.

• Posthumously idolized by the 1960s-70s counterculture.

  • “He was seen…as an icon of counterculture, a symbol of rebellion and ancient wisdom. He’s on the cover of Dr. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…” (34:45–35:29 – Hannah)

• British R&B musician Graham Bond claimed to be Crowley’s son; met a tragic end.

• The phrase “Do what thou wilt” is immortalized, and Boleskine House continues to draw stories of occult mystery.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “The beast 666, the magician, the poet, the perpetual catcher of STDs and the inventor of magic with a K.” (04:46 – Josephine)
• “He’s such a fucking… I don’t even know.” (26:24 – Hannah, on Crowley’s behavior)
• “Can you imagine if Aleister Crowley had a YouTube channel?” (34:23 – Hannah)
• “We’re stuck with Joe Rogan.” (34:34 – Josephine)
• “All that is left of the great beast is legend… and of course the immortal phrase: do what thou wilt.” (36:02 – Josephine)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Crowley’s death and curses: 04:46–07:52
• Childhood, “The Beast,” and schooling: 07:56–10:57
• Cambridge, Pollitt, and decadent movement: 10:57–13:03
• Occultism & Golden Dawn: 15:09–18:01
• Rose Kelly, Egypt, Book of the Law: 18:01–21:58
• Mountaineering & OTO: 22:12–24:37
• Boleskine abuse and ritual fails: 24:37–27:44
• Sex magick in the desert: 27:44–30:28
• Fake death, Abbey of Thelema: 31:08–34:02
• Decline and legacy: 34:14–36:05

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Memorable Segment – Crowley’s Name as a Dick Joke

• Visual joke (“giant dick”) with Crowley’s stylized signature:
  “As this is an audio format and you don’t know what we’re laughing at…Aleister is just a giant dick, you can follow us on all the socials…” (36:45 – Josephine/Hannah)

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Tone & Closing Thoughts

The episode balances macabre storytelling and irreverent humor, poking fun at Crowley’s eccentricities and legacy. The hosts express both fascination and mockery throughout, making the dark subject matter accessible and engaging.

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Overall:
A rapid-fire, scandal-laced jaunt through Crowley’s life—equal parts informative, hilarious, and bonkers. Whether you’re a seasoned occultist, a history buff, or just here for wild tales and witty banter, this RedHanded ShortHand delivers.

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Transcript

[Hannah McGuire]

Wondry plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad free. Join Wondry plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts. If you run a small business, you'll know there's nothing small about it. So if you're feeling overwhelmed, you need the right platform to give you all the tools you need for success. Like Shopify. Shopify's Point of Sale system is a unified command center that brings together in store and online retail operations across up to 1000 locations. Shopify POS even helps you build your customer base. Get all the big stuff for your small business right with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com redhanded go to shopify.com redhanded shopify.com redhanded.

[Josephine]

You know that feeling when you come home late from work and those puppy dog eyes just pierce right through your soul? Or when you're packing up for a trip and your cat refuses to leave your suitcase? Yeah, we've all been there. Pet parent guilt is extraordinarily real. Especially if you happen to have given birth to a Mabel. It's totally normal. I love trouble and I love my job, but a little bit of my heart breaks every time I have to drop Mabel off at doggy daycare and she looks at me like a starving Victorian orphan as I leave. That's exactly why Hill's Pet Nutrition exists. They understand that being a pet parent means being human. With all our imperfections and daily juggling acts, Hills science led nutrition helps you give more love than humanly possible. They've created science based nutrition that supports your pet's lifelong health so you can feel confident even when life gets hectic because you're only human. There's Hills Science does more Ready to let go of that guilt? Find the right [e-mail] redhanded that's hillspet.com.

[Hannah McGuire]

Redhanded Scams are everywhere. On your phone, in your inbox, even on your television screen. So what is it about scams that has pop culture so obsessed? Maybe it's because it can happen to anyone. Or maybe it's because we're all deeply fascinated by the psyche of someone who can lie with ease and cheat with no guilt. Listen to Scamflancers now, wherever you get your podcasts. Hello there spooky listener. It's October, our favourite time of the year. And so to celebrate and give you all a well deserved treat, we're bringing you the 13 days of Halloween shorthand edition.

[Josephine]

Usually every single week over On Amazon Music, we release brand new episodes of our bite sized sister show Shorthand. It's like Red Handed's Little Friend, where we delve into all sorts of fascinating topics from hell in different religions, Haitian Voodoo, the death of Edgar Allan Poe, Cotard syndrome, Japan, Suicide Forest, and so much more.

[Hannah McGuire]

And this Halloween, from the 19th of October to the 31st of October, we are going to be pulling out 13 of our most terrifying episodes of Shorthand to drop straight into your Red Handed feed every single day.

[Josephine]

But beware, each episode will only be available for 24 hours. So get listening or abandon all hope.

[Hannah McGuire]

Enjoy.

[Josephine]

Hello.

[Hannah McGuire]

Hello, Thunder Crab, do you want to see if one of those buttons on the thunderclap, I can't hear it.

[Josephine]

Oh, I didn't turn it on.

[Hannah McGuire]

That's fine. Duh.

[Josephine]

No, I'm going to try one more time.

[Hannah McGuire]

Okay. I mean I imagine that's people response people people's response when they hear that this episode is about. Yes. Yeah. Woo.

[Josephine]

Here on Shorthand, we usually start at the beginning, but not tonight, Josephine. In keeping with today's theme, we are starting at the end. And also today's topic is a religious one. No matter what anyone says, you can come and find me. Welcome to Hannah McGuire's Helen Hot Takes as above, so below edition as Aleister Crowley. And it is Crowley. People say Crowley, including Ozzy Osbourne, but they are wrong. Sorry.

[Hannah McGuire]

There you go.

[Josephine]

Aleister Crowley, the most wicked man in the world. The beast 666, the magician, the poet, the perpetual catcher of STDs and the inventor of magic with a K. Died by the sea in Hastings in 1947. He died with his fifth child, Ataturk, and his baby mother, Patricia McAlpine by his side. And his final words were, I am perplexed. And according to Patricia, as Aleister Crowley slipped from this life to the next, the heavens opened in a mighty thunderclap to welcome Aleister Crowley home.

[Hannah McGuire]

Once a wielder of great esoteric power, Aleister Crowley died in obscurity in a run down guest house at 72. And this guest house was rather spookily named Netherwood House. Crowley had spent a few years at the guest house, feeding his heroin habit and reading long into the night in room number 13. Of course, due to his once erroneous reputation as a devil worshipping deviant, the town of Hastings denied Crowley a cremation within their jurisdiction.

[Josephine]

I've never heard of that happening before. Isn't that interesting?

[Hannah McGuire]

That is interesting. It is said that because of this, Crowley cursed Hastings Declaring that if a person has ever lived there, they will never be able to leave. Even if one tries, they will always return. Legend has it that the only way to circumvent this Crowley curse is to carry a hagstone. And just in case you don't know what one is, it is apparently a stone with a hole in it. And you have to carry it from Hastings beach with you wherever you go.

[Josephine]

So you never quite leave, is the argument.

[Hannah McGuire]

I see, I see. So since Hastings said, no, we're not having you here, Crowley Brighton took the hit. So Crowley's ashes were shipped to New Jersey, where he was buried in the garden of famed German occultist and definitely not Nazi, Karl Girmer.

[Josephine]

Carl Girma's a very interesting guy. I had a whole section about it, but he's on the cutting room floor.

[Hannah McGuire]

I see.

[Josephine]

Maybe a candidate for his own shorthand. Because a lot of the stuff we know about concentration camps is because of letters he wrote. Interesting, really interesting. But back to the beast. The doctor who was at his side when Aleister Crowley died refused Crowley his beloved heroine as he lay there dying, literally. Why? This happened to my uncle. His sister, long term alcoholic, died of cirrhosis of the liver, and she was lying in hospital and they were like, don't give her anything to drink. My uncle was like, why? She's dead in the next 10 minutes. Anyway.

[Hannah McGuire]

Yeah, anyway.

[Josephine]

As a result of being refused his heroine, Crowley, with the last of his strength, laid a deadly curse upon this doctor.

[Hannah McGuire]

Right, yes, enough with the curses, Crowley.

[Josephine]

But this one seems to have worked.

[Hannah McGuire]

Uh oh.

[Josephine]

The day after Aleister Crowley died, his doctor was found dead in his bath, allegedly of natural causes.

[Hannah McGuire]

It would only be better if it was dead of a heroin. Yes, heroin overdose.

[Josephine]

But I'm not particularly sure that death certificates come with a black magic section.

[Hannah McGuire]

And I'm also not saying it would be good if he had died of a heroin overdose. I just meant it would have been more cursey. True. So now we have the end. Let's get to the beginning. The beast 666 was not born that way. He wasn't even born with the name Alastair. He was born in Royal Leamington Spa in 1875 and christened Edward Alexander Crowley. His parents, despite having made their fortune in the booze business, were pretty much as straight edges as they come. They were members of a fundamentalist Christian denomination called the Plymouth Brethren, which sounds absolutely terrifying. Some of their beliefs included no makeup, no haircuts, no drinking outside the home, no smoking, no gambling, and Absolutely no tattoos.

[Josephine]

They're basically the pilgrims who didn't leave.

[Hannah McGuire]

Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, they're like, we got as far as Plymouth and we didn't get on the boat. So, yeah, as you can tell, they were a fun bunch. And it may be a surprise, but a young Crowley was extremely devout and desperately dedicated to his pious father. I can believe that. I feel like most people who end up feeling very counterculture in that way, especially at this time period, probably did come from very religious backgrounds because they need something to rebel against.

[Josephine]

But all of that changed when Crowley's father died quite suddenly in 1887. Looking back, Aleister Crowley would describe this as a turning point in his life, but not one that included a renouncement of religion. Quite the opposite. Crowley simply went over to Satan's side. He claimed not to really know why this happened, but I know better than anyone that the death of a revered father can make anyone question the existence of benevolent, omnipotent and omnipresent God. Young Crowley never thought that much of his mother, and he treated her more like a servant than anything else. And then, at the ripe old age of 14, Crowley had his way with his mother's maid, on his mother's bed in an act of defiance. And that led Croly's mother to give him the name that he would make his own. The Beast.

[Hannah McGuire]

Now, because this is the 1800s and the crolies were rich, Mrs. Croley only had to deal with her beast of a son in the summer holidays because the rest of the time he was shipped off to Malvern boarding school. Years later, he would claim that the school was run by a sadist and he should know.

[Josephine]

Pretty qualified to make that assessment, I would argue.

[Hannah McGuire]

Now, Crowley didn't make it the full nine yards at the school, though. An adolescent, Aleister Crowley, was expelled from Malvern for contracting gonorrhoea from a sex worker.

[Josephine]

Not for the final time, no. Happens to him quite a lot.

[Hannah McGuire]

But to be honest, he was such a precocious little shit that they were probably just waiting for an excuse to get rid of him. Crowley's expulsion didn't stop him from enrolling in Cambridge University, however, and he did this in 1895, which I would love to put down to being the bad old days. But let's face it, Prince Harry was allowed to go to St Andrews with a D in art.

[Josephine]

I mean, he doesn't even finish school and Cambridge is like, come in, my boy.

[Hannah McGuire]

Prince Harry should never have been allowed to go anywhere near any university. I mean, it's shocking. So, unsurprisingly, Crowley wasn't that interested in learning, given that he basically didn't even finish school. He was much more concerned with fucking bitches and reading Arabian Nights, which does sound more fun. And this of course sparked an obsession in Crowley with Arab culture that would stay with him forever.

[Josephine]

Crowley had a rotation of women that he would fall desperately in love with and then get bored of just as quickly. And then in his final year at Cambridge, a 23 year old Crowley fell in love with a man called Jerome Pollitt. Jerome was 10 years older than Crowley, he was worldly and best of all, he was a drag queen. Jerome's drag name was Diane de Ruggy and he entertained at many private parties. Crowley always maintained that there was no sexual element to their relationship. I don't believe him. But what he does say is that it was as intimate as the ancient Greeks would have wanted it. So the sort of like elder man, younger boy vibe.

[Hannah McGuire]

They were fucking though.

[Josephine]

Still though, whether they were fucking or not. It was Jerome that introduced Crowley, who after a brief obsession with Celtic tradition, was now insisting that everyone call him Aleister to the decadent movement. And according to Crowley himself, Jerome made a poet out of him. If you want to read Crowley's poetry, you can. Many people who do pieces on him do. I don't have the strength. It is so graphic that he had to publish it all abroad under a fake name. And he invented some convoluted story, including a translating monk. All you do need to know is that Crowley's poetry is not only bad, it's full of farts, gonorrhea, sodomy and earth shattering orgasms. So go forth and read it at your own risk. And fisting, right, you know, like the saying that's like. If you can think about it, there's porn about it. If you can think of it, he's already done it.

[Hannah McGuire]

Sure. And probably lots of things that we can't think about also because we don't have the imagination. Yeah, sure.

[Mr. Ballin]

How hard is it to kill a planet? Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere. When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene.

[Josephine]

Are we really safe? Is our water safe? You destroyed our tap.

[Mr. Ballin]

And crimes like that, they don't just happen.

[Hannah McGuire]

We call things accidents. There is no accident.

[Josephine]

This was 100% preventable.

[Mr. Ballin]

They're the result of choices by people. Ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime. These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet, stories of scams, murders and coverups that are about us and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it. Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad free right now by joining Wondry plus in the Wondry App, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

[Josephine]

It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are, well, research. Of the 880 men who survived the attack, around 400 would eventually find their way to one another and merge into one larger group with a touch of humor.

[Hannah McGuire]

Shout out to her. Shout out to all my therapists. Out the years there's been like eight of them.

[Josephine]

A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing.

[Hannah McGuire]

That motherf er is not real. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal, or you.

[Josephine]

Love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune.

[Hannah McGuire]

In to our podcast Morbid.

[Josephine]

Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad free by joining Wondery plus and the Wondery App or on Apple Podcasts.

[Hannah McGuire]

The same Though as any adult would, Jerome Pollitt got bored of Crowley, who was getting more and more interested in two things, the occult and mountains. Jerome couldn't give a shit about either of these things, so he dipped. Aleister Crowley would regret this parting for the rest of his life. But nevertheless, Crowley threw himself into his new hobbies. He left Cambridge without graduating. Shocker. And took himself off hiking in the Alps. And it was there, in the Alpine splendour, that Alistair met a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The golden dawn, which is now like a fucking fascist group in Greece. This is a separate golden dawn that we're talking about. Were like the Illuminati of their day. They were high society types, poets, artists, bored aristocrats who truly believed in magic and in powerful spiritual entities that could be communicated with. And they called themselves the Secret Chiefs. That's a bad name.

[Josephine]

I know.

[Hannah McGuire]

As soon as Alastair heard about this, he knew that he needed a piece of it though. And the most famous alums of the golden dawn are obviously Crowley himself, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, A.E. waite and Pamela Colman Smith, the co creators of the Rider Waite Tarot deck, and the poet, novelist and namesake of Irish pubs all over the world, W.B. yeats.

[Josephine]

Can you think of any W.B. yeats works?

[Hannah McGuire]

Oh, I thought you were gonna say locations.

[Josephine]

No, I mean there's one in Finsbury park. Does a great roast there. Actually, I had one. Oh, WB8S is. There are no strangers here, only friends you haven't met yet. That's him. And something to do with striking. Not striking while the iron's hot, but like strike to make the iron hot in the first place. Something like that, but more succinct and poetic.

[Hannah McGuire]

Nice.

[Josephine]

Anyway, the co founder of the Golden Dawn, Samuel Mathers, liked Crowley very much. And as a result, Aleister motored through the magical levels apace. But he was basically the only one. The golden dawn was not particularly concerned with black magic. And soon that would be the only thing that Alastair was interested in at all. WB Yeats particularly hated Crowley, but Alastair put that down to poetic jealousy, which is absolutely an example of Delulu being the only Sululu. Crowley, in his obsession with the darker side of the veil, split the Hermetic Order of the golden dawn right down the middle. But Mathers, a Crowley fan, remember, flat out refused to hand over leadership of the sect. And that eventually led to Crowley heading up what he called an astral siege. That was actually just Crowley in a kilt and an Osiris mask flailing a dagger around. And with that, Aleister Crowley was expelled from the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. But he wasn't going to let that stop him.

[Hannah McGuire]

He continued to travel far and wide. And in 1903 he married his first wife, Rose Edith Kelly, who he described as the perfect mistress and the perfect wife. Crowley and Kelly honeymooned in Egypt and then Crowley took his new wife into the central chamber of the Great Pyramid, which sounds like quite the euphemism There he cast many incantations and attempted to communicate with the ancient Egyptian deities that he had been studying all of his life. I really hope that Rose knew all of this about him because otherwise, quite a shock on your honeymoon.

[Josephine]

Rose fucking loves it.

[Hannah McGuire]

Good, because otherwise you're just like. And also sorry, what?

[Josephine]

Yeah, it is a lot of sorry, what? And also, as we all go on to learn, Rose was so drunk all the time, she probably had no idea what was going on. Sure, sure, sure.

[Hannah McGuire]

Now unfortunately, these ancient Egyptian deities that Crowley was trying to communicate with did not speak. But much to his dismay, they did speak to his much less learned wife. After their chamber chanting session, Rose went into a trance. The only words she said to her new husband were, they are waiting for you. After Rose had come back to reality, she told Crowley that an Egyptian God called Horus had appeared to her and said that the gods would not make contact with Alistair because he was too arrogant. Rose knows what she's doing. She's like, look, I've had a word with the guys upstairs and they say you just, you're a bit arrogant. Maybe you just need to chill out a little bit.

[Josephine]

Crowley was outraged. He had done years of work and the God spoke to his dumb wife and not him. It couldn't be possible, he thought. Rose didn't even know who Horace was. How could the great beyond have been so totally unfair? So Crowley resolved to test his wife, and he took her to a nearby museum and asked her to point out the deity in the hieroglyphs that had spoken to her. Without hesitation, Rose walked up to an exhibit and pointed to a depiction of Horus and declared that this was the entity with which she spoke. Crowley was stunned. He was even more aghast when he studied the exhibition more closely. And more specifically, the exhibition number, the article that his wife had pointed to with such certainty was artifact number 666, the number of the beast that he had claimed as his own.

[Hannah McGuire]

That was just like a mistranslation, according to Merry Beard.

[Josephine]

Well, see, I tried to figure this out, right?

[Hannah McGuire]

To be honest, maybe I'm not right that it's not a mistranslation. I think 666 is in the. I forget which way round it is. I wish I had looked this up, but it's like the whole thing about Nero being the Antichrist, being the great beast. 666. And it was like how back in the day, back in Roman times, they had had numbers aligning with letters and therefore when you do Nero's name, it, it like adds up to 666. But actually it was like a mistranslation and it didn't add up to 666, but they just said that it did. Whatever.

[Josephine]

I don't know.

[Hannah McGuire]

I go ask Mary. Yeah, I think it comes from, like, Hebrew numerology things and it was like the Greek spell. It's like they spell Nero wrong to then do the alphabetical numerological translation and then it doesn't. 666 if you spell it the right way. But anyway, we're just gonna leave it at that. There's loads on the Internet about it if you're really that bothered by it. So eventually, the ancient Egyptian gods spoke to Aleister Crowley, too. Horus appeared to him under the guise Aizawa. And it was under this influence that Crowley wrote the Book of the Law, where famously, he wrote, do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Crowley used this celestial guidance and his new authorship to found his own badass version of the Hermetic Order of the golden dawn, which he called the Ordithalamma Orientis. Crushed it.

[Josephine]

Well done.

[Hannah McGuire]

Thank you. With the emphasis being fulfilling one's own divine purpose. Now, Rose wouldn't be around for long. She had an epic struggle with alcoholism and depression, and Crowley divorced her and she went right into an institution.

[Josephine]

Now we're going to take a Himalayan detour. We mentioned earlier that Crowley was quite the accomplished climber. Actually, he was one of the best of his time. He led an unsuccessful mission to summit K2, the world's most dangerous mountain. But they were basically the first Westerners to even try. And in 1905, he had a crack at Kanchendunga again, the first expedition of its kind. His company didn't summit, but they did get higher than anyone else had managed until 1922. Crowley was a wonderful climber, but a terrible leader. There was dissension in the ranks that led to an almost mutiny. Crowley left his party on the mountain to die. Some survived and some didn't. It is interesting to think, though Lars Pockets on the left make at this point. It's interesting to think that there is a parallel universe where Aleister Crowley was the first to summit K2, and that's what he would be remembered for. Rather than adding the letter K to.

[Hannah McGuire]

Magic, he's like, he would rather the second. Yeah. As much as he loves fucking bitches. Magic with a K and mountains, it's magic with a K that comes first. That's true. So after the Kanchenjunga disaster, Crowley gave alpinism a rest for a bit and focused on the OTO instead, which is his order. That. Don't make me say it again. He described his mission as using the method of science with the aim of religion.

[Josephine]

Ding, ding, ding. Scientology.

[Hannah McGuire]

Oh, yeah. Now, Alastair studied magic by collecting data and looking for patterns. He went whole hog on the Oto in 1907, he also started a magazine called the Equinox, a periodical totally dedicated to the occult arts. And he managed to Recruit the inventor of rocket fuel into his ranks.

[Josephine]

Who is.

[Hannah McGuire]

Oh my God, I've forgotten his name. Johnny Banks.

[Josephine]

Johnny.

[Hannah McGuire]

Johnny Buell Banks. Jack Parsons. Jack Parsons, that's it, sure. Good. So, yeah, Jack Parsons joins his ranks with a bunch of mystics and also some silent film stars.

[Josephine]

It's like the parsonage before the parsonage happened.

[Hannah McGuire]

Sure, sure, sure. It was also around this time that Alastair met poet Victor Neuberg, who would change the course of his life. In Crowley's own words, Neuberg possessed an altogether extraordinary capacity for magic with a K. And Crowley took him under his wing. I think he wanted to fuck him.

[Josephine]

Oh, he does. He goes on to do many a fucking of Viktor Newberg Neuberg. He was talented, but Victor was lazy and Crowley handled this by abusing him. Most of the abuse happened on the shores of Loch Ness at a property purchased by Crowley for double the market rate at the time called boleskin house. In 1909, Neuberg travelled up to the Highlands on the night train, just like we did after he graduated Cambridge with a Carol, which is a third because Carol Valderman got a third in maths. When Victor Neuberg arrived on the lock, he was told by Crowley that he was about to undergo a magical retirement, a complete withdrawal from the world in pursuit of astral light. What this actually meant was that Victor was forced to sleep on prickly shrubs for nights on end and Crowley would show up in the middle of the night to beat him with nettles. Crowley tried a great deal of other nonsense at Bowlerskin House. His main purpose was to call forth the Twelve Kings and Dukes of Hell. Please see the Lesser Key of Solomon for further reference or you can watch Hereditary. One of them is in there as well. What's he called? Pieman.

[Hannah McGuire]

That's what I was just trying to think. Paimon.

[Josephine]

Something like that. Yeah, the pie man.

[Hannah McGuire]

One of the lesser known cryptids that hang out in the woods where Hereditary Satan. When the Beast first arrived in the area, he wasn't a huge fan, so much so that he wrote a letter of complaint to the local vigilance society. He claimed that prostitution was most unpleasantly conspicuous. An officer replied to him, confused. There was no prostitution on Loch Ness and there still isn't. It's as rural as rural gets. So Crowley wrote back, conspicuous by its absence. You fools. THUNDERCLAP he's such a fucking. He's such a fucking. I don't. I don't even know.

[Josephine]

I don't know what he is either.

[Hannah McGuire]

How to describe him anyway? Maybe it was a lack of sex workers or perhaps his failure to summon up pieman or payment or Mr. Pie Man. Either way, Crowley left Bowleskin House in 1913, but locals say that it has never been the same since.

[Josephine]

And here's why. Crowley's housekeeper had two children that both died suddenly under mysterious circumstances. An employee of Crowley's estate who had been teetotal for decades got wasted one night and tried to murder his entire family. A butcher who supplied the house cut off his own hand. The myth list goes on. Eventually, the house was bought by Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page in 1965. And he always claimed that whatever Crowley had left behind had never left. The house has changed hands several times since Jimmy Page owned it and in 2015 it spontaneously burned to the ground. It's being rebuilt as some sort of National Trust situation. But they're very, you know, like when we went to the labyrinth where the Minotaur is in Crete and they were like, nope.

[Hannah McGuire]

Oh yeah, it's very that. Yeah, all the marketing. Half bull, half baby when you get there. Sorry, what K was K in Greek?

[Josephine]

I don't know.

[Hannah McGuire]

That is what we got a lot of. But anyway, for now let's get back to Victor. His time at Bolskin was short lived, but he would not get rid of the beast that easily. In 1909, the two men took themselves off to Algiers. They travelled into the desert on a journey of sexy magic discovery. The first thing Victor did was get a haircut. Crowley insisted that he shaved his entire head save two tufts at his temples twisted into horns, which apparently turned him into a demon that I had tamed and trained to serve me as a familiar spirit.

[Josephine]

He looks like the front man of the prodigy, basically. Sure, sure, sure.

[Hannah McGuire]

And so new hairstyle unlocked. They entered into the desert on their quest to make it to the other side. And they did. But it ruined both of them.

[Josephine]

They performed many rituals out there in the wilderness, just as Christ had done for 40 days and 40 nights.

[Hannah McGuire]

I'm guessing there was a lot more fisting in there. Rituals.

[Josephine]

I'm getting to the fisting. This is a shorthand, so we're only going to tell you about one of these rituals and one of them only. Crowley and Neuberg, deep in the desert, drew a circle of protection and a triangle of invocation. Then they had sex. I understand that Neuberg was the giver and Crowley was the receiver and that Neuberg actually became the God Pan. And Crowley later wrote, there was an animal in the wilderness. But it was not I. Then after this, Crowley entered into the Triangle of Invocation, which is a magical. No, no, you don't do that. Oh no. And he told Neuberg not to speak to anything that appeared to him, even if it looked like Crowley himself. As Crowley sat in the Triangle intoning passages from the Qur', an, he saw an all glorious angel and heard the crying of beasts. And he later described this experience as a total ego death. Crowley had crossed the abyss, something he'd always wanted to do, but something he had no knowledge of the consequence that came with it.

[Hannah McGuire]

Neuberg claimed that the demon Chorazon Choronzon. Keep up. That the demon Choronzon, disguised as a beautiful woman, appeared to him and attempted to lure him from his circle of safety. And when he refused, this demon shapeshifted into a savage man who attempted to tear out his throat with froth covered fangs. Now we'll never know what really happened. I'm guessing it's not that. But yeah, we'll never know what really happened in the desert that year. But those close to Neuberg have said that he bore the marks of his magical adventure to the grave. And Aleister Crowley never recovered either.

[Josephine]

After the Algiers expedition, Crowley actually went quiet for a few years. Just in time for the outbreak of World War I, he went to New Hampshire for another magical retirement. But he still did loads of rituals and heroin. During this time he wrote quite a lot of pro German propaganda that posthumously he claimed to be satire. He would later claim that he was actually working for British Intelligence. But no, he wasn't. Which is also exactly what L. Ron Hubbard does. Whenever he does anything weird, he's like, what, I'm CIA?

[Hannah McGuire]

So the Great War came and went. Alastair found himself in Portugal. He was pissed off with his own current mistress. So he went and did what any normal man would do. He faked his own death.

[Josephine]

So few people talk about this, but it is absolutely hysterical.

[Hannah McGuire]

Yeah, because he wrote a letter claiming to have taken his own life at the Boca da Inferno caves, which means Caves of. What does Boca mean? Mouth, mouth, mouth of hell. Yes, hell mouth. Hell mouth. The mouth of hell. Yeah, the mouth of hell. But after this, he reappeared three weeks later at an art gallery. He just like jokes on you guys. He is arisen and you girlfriend. His quote unquote suicide note read the can't live without you. The other mouth of hell that will catch me won't be as hot as yours. Oh my God, he's so. It's like he's sending a text. Can't live without you. And don't worry, the other mouth of hell's not gonna be as hot as you. Bye. So obviously this was all just a fun little stunt. But Crowley had real damage to do on the European continent still.

[Josephine]

In the early 1920s, he bought a monastery in a small town in Sicily, which he named the Abbey of Thelema. He, his lovers, his children, and his acolytes all lived there together, taking drugs, performing magical rites and having orgies, all with a view of the Mediterranean.

[Hannah McGuire]

Do you feel like when you're learning about Aleister Crowley, that our lives are really boring? He is just on one constantly. I couldn't. I don't have the stamina for this.

[Josephine]

I think if I took as many drugs as he did, then I would have the stamina. I don't think anyone who consumes that, that many drugs can stop.

[Hannah McGuire]

No. And that is a big tick here. But then I think you do have meltdowns like he had in the desert where it's like. There's so many times in his life where it's like. And he was left changed forever.

[Josephine]

The Abbey of Thelema is still standing today. Although it is deserted inside, it still bears the marks of the Oto. Crowley created a room called the Chamber of Nightmares, and he decorated it with hand painted, extremely explicit satanic frescoes. They're still there. You can look them up. Crowley called the abbey a college towards the Holy Spirit, and it was the happiest he had ever been. But hedonistic fever dreams come to an end.

[Hannah McGuire]

So in 1922, a resident of the Abbey called Raoul Loveday died of typhoid, probably because of dirty spring water. But that is not the story that his wife told. When she went back to Britain, she told the press that her young husband had died because he was forced by Crowley to drink cat's blood after a sacrifice. And that article is what gave Crowley his moniker of the wickedest man in the world. He fucking loved that. Stop calling him that. But things were already falling apart. And any of you who have been paying attention to the timeline will know what is coming next. Mussolini. Mussolini is what's coming next. Because in 1923, Mussolini kicked Crowley out of Italy and the Abbey closed its doors forever. Although documentary crews who have gone to film there have been welcomed with dead cats on the doorstep, perhaps as a warning.

[Josephine]

And so marked the beast's return to obscurity. He bopped around North Africa and Europe for a bit, having lots of sex and taking a whole shitload more of heroin.

[Hannah McGuire]

Can you imagine if Aleister Crowley had a YouTube channel? The World, the change that would have occurred in the world.

[Josephine]

We're stuck with Joe Rogan.

[Hannah McGuire]

Well, the thing is, it's just like, people have always been saying whatever and doing whatever and being nuts, and now it's just like, yeah, you get to do it everywhere.

[Josephine]

And as we already know, Crowley ended his time on Earth in Hastings. He had a few kids along the way, but not all of them survived to adulthood. But he did, in his twilight years, find a love that everyone looks for. He loved his final son, Acator. There's, like, nice pictures of them on the beach and stuff. And after he was gone, the British subculture scene embraced Aleister Crowley with open arms. After his death, he seemed to have been forgiven. His debauchery, his rapes, his poems about gonorrhea. He was seen in the 60s and 70s as an icon of counterculture, a symbol of rebellion and ancient wisdom. He's on the COVID of Dr. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, for God's sake.

[Hannah McGuire]

And more interestingly, though, and less prolifically, British R and B musician Graham Bond claimed to be one of Aleister Crowley's legitimate children. Graham Bond set up a chapter of the OTO in a space rented by his record company, but not long after, he then threw himself under a train at Finsbury park in 1974. Now, these days, all that is left of the great beast is legend. Whatever the fuck is going on at Bowleskin. And of course, the immortal phrase, do what thou wilt.

[Josephine]

And just before we let you go, you may have noticed that I brought a pad of paper and a pencil down here with me.

[Hannah McGuire]

I did. I wondered why.

[Josephine]

I'm going to tell you why now. I'm going to come over and show your mic Sariti bala. If your name was Aleister Crowley, how would you write it?

[Hannah McGuire]

How would I write it? Okay. Alastair. I. I before E, except Dr. C. Like that.

[Josephine]

I mean, you spelled it wrong, but that's. This is how he wrote his name.

[Hannah McGuire]

Oh, for God's. Oh, for God's. I was gonna say, the whole time we're doing the episode, he is just a teenage boy. Can I take a picture of that for socials? Wait, let me finish it. Sure, sure. You're welcome. I just thought you'd enjoy that. Brilliant. And yes, as this is an audio format and you don't know what we're laughing at, BA and Alastair is just a giant dick, you can go follow us on all the socials where you can see Hannah's own fair hand drawing it for you. So there you go. So, yeah, that's it, guys. That is our shorthand on Aleister Crowley. We hope you enjoyed it. We hope you learned some things. I feel terribly embarrassed that we couldn't get to the bottom of the whole Nero 666 thing. We'll come back to you in another episode where I know what I'm talking about from many years ago. Goodbye.

[Josephine]

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[Hannah McGuire]

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[Josephine]

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[Hannah McGuire]

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[Josephine]

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[Mr. Ballin]

You know those creepy stories that give you goosebumps? The ones that make you really question what's real? Well, what if I told you that some of the strangest, darkest and most mysterious stories are not found in haunted houses or abandoned forests, but instead in hospital rooms and doctor's offices? Hi, I'm Mr. Ballin, the host of Mr. Ballin's Medical Mystery, and each week on my podcast you can expect to hear stories about bizarre illnesses no one can explain, miraculous recoveries that shouldn't have happened, and cases so baffling they stumped even the best doctors. So if you crave totally true and thoroughly twisted horror stories and mysteries, Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries should be your new go to weekly show. Listen to Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery in the Wondery app or on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.