Boleskine And The Book Of Abra-Melin

Boleskine house was originally built in the late 18th century as a hunting retreat by, Archibald Fraser. The house resides on the south eastern shore of Scotland's Loch Ness. The property was owned by Aleister Crowley, between 1899-1913.



Crowley purchased the home for the sole purpose of performing rituals from, "The book of sacred magick of Abra-Melin the mage." Crowley himself said,

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.

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.

From 'The confessions of Aleister Crowley.'



The Book Of Abra-Melin
The book tells the story of an Egyptian mage named Abra-Melin, who taught a system of Magick to Abraham von worms, a German Jew presumed to have lived in the 14th century.

The book is written in an autobiographical way, whereby Abraham describes his journey from Germany to Egypt, and reveals to his son the secrets learnt from an Egyptian mage named Abra-Melin.

Abraham was given two manuscripts to copy from. Abra-Melin had Abraham promise to live 'in the way and law of the lord.' When this had been done Abra-Melin gave Abraham the 'define science' and 'true magick' contained within the two manuscripts, which was only to be given to those Abraham trusted.



The Operation Of The Manuscripts
The book contains a ritual to obtain the 'knowledge and conversation' of the performers 'Guardian Angel.' Much preparation is needed, and the process is said to be extremely difficult. All German sources describe a duration of 18 months, just to complete the first stage of the process.

After the preparatory stage is completed, it is said the Holy Guardian Angel of the performer will be revealed and bring forth secrets of the unknown.

Unfortunately it becomes increasingly difficult. Once the Guardian Angel has been revealed, the 12 Kings and Dukes of Hell, (Amy, Asmodeus, Astaroth, Azazel, Baal, Beezlebub, Belial, Beleth, Leviathan, Mephistopheles, Lucifer and Satan.) Are to be evoked my the performer, who must then bind them. This gives the performer command of them, in his own mental universe.



Aleister Crowley performed the ritual, but It's thought that he never completed it. He is believed to have achieved the initial part of the process, and said he found himself to be identical to the Beast from the book of Revelation, 666. Later in his life he describes that, what he percieved of the Guardian Angel is not necessarily ones higher self, but an independent and discrete being. He even goes as far as saying, they may have been similar to humans at one stage in their existence.

Now, on the other hand, there is an entirely different type of angel; and here we must be especially careful to remember that we include gods and devils, for there are such beings who are not by any means dependent on one particular element for their existence. They are microcosms in exactly the same sense as men and women are. They are individuals who have picked up the elements of their composition as possibility and convenience dictates, exactly as we do ourselves... I believe that the Holy Guardian Angel is a Being of this order. He is something more than a man, possibly a being who has already passed through the stage of humanity, and his peculiarly intimate relationship with his client is that of friendship, of community, of brotherhood, or Fatherhood. He is not, let me say with emphasis, a mere abstraction from yourself; and that is why I have insisted rather heavily that the term 'Higher Self' implies a damnable heresy and a dangerous delusion.

from Magic Without Tears.

Later the house was bought by Jimmy Page, who was an admirer of Crowley. He owned the house for 20 years, but he himself only spent 6 weeks in the house. He let his friend Malcom Dent live there in a caretaking role. Malcolm was oblivious to the house's history when he first moved in, but quickly learnt about it. There are interviews with Malcolm talking about the Boleskine house.

"Doors would be slamming all night, you'd go into a room and carpets and rugs would be piled up,” Malcolm added.

Another regular occurrence was that the back door, inside doors and kitchen doors would suddenly spring open as if someone was running through them, even on calm days.

"We just used to say that was Aleister doing his thing,”

If the happenings were strange, so too were some of the visitors.

"I had them from every corner of the world,” he recalled. "A lot of them were nutters. A lot of them were downright dangerous lunatics. They will still be turning up today. The house is on the map as an occult centre and you're not going to get rid of Crowley's legacy that easily."

www.lashtal.com...

as a young lad i spent 2 weeks working in boleskine house painting nothing about the place botherd me in the slightest bit ,try dunrobin castle golspie for an evil atmosphere. something in david ickes books about castles being built over inner earth openings rung tru there

ps try you tube for reverse music on mr page & led zepplin its no coincidence he bought that place i remember speaking to mr dent in the pub i would not belive a thing the guy says

reply to post by DAZ21

And lo a shining light did appeareth before me, all glittering and wavy like some cosmic candy floss. The candy floss took on humanoid appearance, spoke to me telepathically and did proceed to inform me that I was to be the Prophet of The New Age such as like none that had ever been prophecised about before. Obviously I would need to climb mountains, paint cliffs, sodomise many unlucky people and infiltrate and found some of the most secretive magical societies around but it was all part of the Great Work *cue thunderclap and maniacal Count (from Sesame Street) laughter*. I was generally a bit of a # but in the end my Holy Guardian Angel was watching over me.

I was rumoured to be a high-ranking Freemason, a magical adept, a Secret Service agent and quite the raconteur. After my passing (in the year of Roswell) a few musicians busied themselves with me... Mr Page, Mr Osbourne and some kind of Beatle.

In other words, it makes a great movie but not much proof, all due respect given. Good post though, Jimmy even bought his bookshop in London and kept it for a while back in the 70's apparently. I forget the name but it was Crowleys place too, an Esoteric Bookshop. Also, there's a part of Stairway to Heaven that if you play it backwards, is talking about Satan in the toolshed. For real.

ETA Excuse the overdose of sarcasm. I'm always a little wary of characters claiming to have had mystical/magical experiences in private.

Just a potentially interesting tidbit.
Crowley who was thought of as "THE" black magician of his era was cast opposite Mr. Arthur Edward Waite viewed by many as "THE" white magician of the same period.
Yet when Crowley claimed, as he did, that the ritual of 'the Knowledge of and Conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel' was just something he made up and that it did not actually exist, Waite said nothing. Here was a chance to discredit his long-time foe and yet he remained silent.
That he was familiar with the ritual was obvious as he mentions it in his 'Book of Black Magic and Pacts' though unlike all the other occult books in the English and French libraries, he glosses over it providing no information on it's contents like he did with all the other occult literature he had found in these locations.
It would seem that these two rivals agreed on this one point. That the general public should be kept ignorant of this one particular ritual.
Gosh golly gee. Why do you suppose that could have been?
Any thoughts?

If you read the Book The magick of Aleister Crowley, you'll learn that he was interupted while preforming the Ritual at his house near Loch Ness. He would later blame some of the things that happened later in his life for being interrupted during the ritual by his butcher. The entire Ritual is done on the Mental Plane. He would later go on to complete the ritual on horseback while on a trip through China. Not sure of the dates here because i don't have the book in front of me. But if I'm remembering right, the Ritual was completed before Crowley's famous trip to Egypt with his wife when the Book of the Law was formed. If I'm remembering the Timeline right that is lol.

Excellent thread Op. As, one who has had a life long passion to study, occultism, magic, philosophy and spirituality, I can say that "the book of the sacred magic of Abramelin the mage" has been part of my library for more then a few years and personally I think the book is worth for more then many others I have.

In fact, just the introduction; ie the letter from the alleged mage Abraham to his son, is filled with enough wisdom, to be worth far more then many grimoires.

One example I can give is his advice on the planetary days and hours; many western grimores are filled with useless tables of the days and hours of planets; in my opinion erroneously so, because many grimores were made to be sold to the aristocracy which are notoriously lazy and impatient, thus they couldn't wait around for proper alignment of planets and such, so the grimore makers made the tables as a way for them to cheat, but Abraham gives his son a bit of wisdom and says "throw the tables away, the day and hour of a planet is when it is visible in the sky, no more or less." That, alone is some good advice to occultists and magi.

As, far as the assertion that the process takes eighteen months, I have no idea where they are getting that from, definitely not from the book. The book actually divides the process into three sets of two moons each; if you stretch some parts, maybe you could take eight months to a year to complete, but eighteen seems rather excessive an estimation. Of course unless your rather wealthy even six months of isolation from society, family and other people can be daunting.

In any case, the book does indeed outline the bare bones of the process of personal spirtitual intiation; ie "Gaining knowledge and conversation with your holy gaurdian angel, or joining in a interactive unity with your true spiritual self, which is the bases of the ablilities and powers of all shamans and mystics.

And, though the later part of the book contains a great many seals and sigils, at least for me the most valuable part of the book is the main ritual itself, found in the beginning, because once you have connected with your true spiritual self you really already have completed the personal great work of the ancients and become a magus.

I too have heard the stories of Aliester's attempt to complete the ritual in the book at boleskin house, as well as the rumors that it may have been those workings that led to the appearance of the loch ness monster. haha

Anyway, very interesting thread and I would say that the book of abramelin is one of the best books in the western occult tradition and would recommend it to other occultists and students of the arcane.

reply to post by DAZ21


Interesting thread, I am somewhat fascinated, though hopefully not overly, in the concept of homoculus, or I suppose homoculi...not sure about that...either way, though I have a natural distaste for most of Crowley's work, there are sometimes moments of humility amongst his writings that have some real utility.

Nice perspective either way. Thanks for that.

reply to post by prisoneronashipoffools


Have you tried any rituals within the book? Would be interesting to here your experiences.