I N V E S T I G A T I N G
CROWLEY’S CRIB John Tolladay checks off Boleskine from his bucket list
F
riday nights were very special for me in my early teens, I loved the Hammer horror movies which were at the time a regular feature at 10:30 pm with my heroes Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee playing roles in Frankenstein and Dracula classics.
I was of course, a bit young to be staying up late on a Friday night, but myself and my dad had a very set routine as to how we would watch them together. I would go to bed at the correct time, about 9pm and then about an hour later, I would hear mom climb the stairs and go to bed herself. Around 15 minutes after that my dad would come up the stairs, pop his head around their bedroom door, say goodnight to mom and then close the door behind him, while at the same time opening mine to shield the noise. Then we would both go back down together, and I would settle on the floor in front of the TV and wait until the movie began. Dad would get me a drink and a bag of crisps and we would have a great time watching them battle good against evil. Fabulous memories which are hard to re live today thanks to the invention of the games console. I remember them as if it were last week with great affection.
One movie in particular made a great impression on me, it was ‘The Devil Rides Out’, in which Christopher Lee played Duc De Richleau, a demonologist who to protect his friend, took on an occultist named Mocata (loosely I am sure based on Aleister Crowley) who summoned demons, It has been in my collection ever since in both video and DVD format and I must have watched it well over 200 times.
This was how I became interested in demonology, the paranormal and the occult, reading books loaned from my local library or purchased with my pocket money and wages from my then two paper rounds. One of the books I purchased was ‘Magick’ by Aleister Crowley. Though it was hard reading I became fascinated by the man, I began reading everything I could find about him, eventually making him the subject for my History GCSE’s to the bewilderment of my teacher. I have remained fascinated to this day. Amazingly, I had never visited his one-time residence Boleskine House on the shores of Loch Ness in a place called Foyers, in fact I had never even been to Scotland.
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HAUNTED H A U N T E D M A G AM ZA I NGEA Z I N E
