The Boleskine House Foundation (BHF), bagged £250,000 from the National Lottery Heritage Fund, and has nearly completed rebuilding Boleskine House near Loch Ness (and it is looking good even if it has got a larger occult theme than the original).
Once home to Aleister Crowley for 14 years the site has long been a magnet for occultists including Led Zep guitarist Jimmy Page.
But leaked chats suggest the charity’s original inner circle had a different agenda. Former members say they were asked to conceal any ties to Thelema, Crowley’s spiritual philosophy, when the project launched in 2019.
In messages seen by The Sunday Times, Keith Readdy, an American academic who bought the fire-damaged property with his wife Kyra, advised volunteers to present themselves as history buffs. “We can say we’re honouring the Fraser family,” he wrote.
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| Archibald Fraser (famous for not being Crowley) |
Kyra Readdy told volunteers: “Everyone attending is to be an Archibald Fraser enthusiast if asked by someone unknown. To our people we can say what we want but we cannot to members of the public. If they think a sex cult is opening, locals may go and burn what’s left of the place.”
She later stated: “Our intention is to promulgate Thelema by having Boleskine House. But if you go out into the world and say that, it’s not going to work very well. If you do it within education, that’s the intention.”
They might have had a point as there might have been a lot of local kick-back and a subsequent loss of investment if the locals had known. Local councillor Margaret Davidson told the BBC that Crowley occultists have caused trouble in the area:
“Over the years it has been a place people have visited and become obsessed with the area. That has caused its own difficulties for people in Foyers and Inverfarigaig, the nearest villages, and I would wish that to stop for them.”
The house, which Crowley called the eastern spiritual axis in his 1954 book Magick Without Tears, is now the centrepiece of a £2 million rebuild.
The foundation’s plans include recreating a domed room in an Egyptian style. Watchers has been told that this aligns with rituals from the A∴A∴ which he founded in 1907.
One expert, speaking anonymously, said: “Why is a charity planning to decorate a room in a 18th-century Scottish mansion in an Egyptian style? It makes no sense unless you know the A∴A∴. Its initiation ritual, known as Liber CXX, is heavily Egyptian in style. Nut the Egyptian goddess, represented by a vaulted night sky, is a fundamental figure in Thelema.”
In 2019 Readdy told OTO initiates that followers of Thelema would gain access. She indicated they would have private use of the restored oratory where Crowley attempted to do the “Abramelin” over a grueling two week period (when he was in his early 20s).
“We are going to allow people who are Thelemites to come and to use the oratory,” she said assuming that Abramelin was only a Thelemic ritual .
“We don’t know what our guidance is going to be on that because if some nutcase wants to come in and do some crazy stuff we don’t want the building burning down again. The idea is that the oratory will be both for private use and be part museum.”
The couple made several admissions about their aims in a December 2019 talk to the Florida branch of Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), another Crowley-linked order.
Vere Chappell, OTO grand treasurer, also confirmed the collaboration at the time. “The new owners wish to honour Crowley’s legacy as part of the estate’s history... OTO intends to co-operate with the charity,” he said.
The foundation later posted a tribute on Facebook to mark the anniversary of Crowley’s death, stating: “Hope he would like the fact that we are rebuilding!”
The BHF says the leaked conversations were “a small extract between private individuals predating the establishment of the charity”. It denies any rituals will take place on the premises and claims current events are limited to community, nature, and academic activities.
While Kyra Readdy has resigned, Keith Readdy remains chairman. The foundation refuses to confirm if he’s a member of any occult order, though his own 2018 book notes: “He has been a member of the OTO and an aspirant to the A∴A∴ since 2010.”
After two mysterious fires in 2015 and 2019, former owner Annette MacGillivray said: “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.”
Looks like they got that and the great British public to help out.
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