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1933—and one of the oddest explanations for Nessie’s existence (if she does exist) is that Crowley was somehow responsible. (I’m not sure if Crowley actually took credit for this, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.) Boleskine seemed perfect for what he had in mind. The plan was to begin the ritual that coming Easter. He set up his home in November, bringing with him the magical mirrors of his white temple. He also started calling himself the Laird of Boleskine. From a Russian count he became a Scottish lord.
    In between fishing, tramping on the moors, and seduction, Crowley also worked on his magic. It seemed the spirit world was aware of his intentions, because even before he began the Abramelin magic, things were afoot. The shadowy shapes that had visited Chancery Lane turned up in Scotland, but as before, Crowley could not harness them. They caused much mischief. His coachman, who abstained from alcohol, became a drunkard. When a psychic Crowley had shipped in returned to London, she gave up her calling and took to prostitution. One of his workmen tried to kill him, and a local butcher died when he accidentally sliced through his artery. Crowley had absentmindedly jotted down some demonic names on a butcher bill and the spirits took advantage of this. And there were other, less dangerous magical pursuits. Crowley invoked fire angels using one of the Enochian formulas of the Elizabethan magician Dr. John Dee—we will return to these further on—and found himself speaking with other angels, rather as Emanuel Swedenborg had more than acentury earlier. There was a battle between angels to prevent the squaring of the circle, he was told. He had a vision of Christ and of the Abyss of Water and of Chaos and Death (Crowley’s uppercase). These are early accounts of the kind of visionary experience that occupied Crowley a decade later and were recounted in his book
The Vision and the Voice
.
    Yet other thoughts came to him. It was time, he thought, to receive his next initiation. He was supposed to be preparing to receive his Holy Guardian Angel, and focusing on Abramelin’s magic, but Crowley, as usual, was distracted. From the shores of Loch Ness he descended on London and the mediocrities making up the Golden Dawn. Crowley believed he was due to be advanced to the grade of Adeptus Minor 5 0 = 6but his brethren disagreed. They were not happy with the reports of the goings-on at Chancery Lane or with Crowley’s sexual conduct, and his performance as Count Svareff didn’t help. That the Trades Protection Association had blacklisted Crowley for bad debts was also not a plus. 22 For Yeats, Crowley was a “quite unspeakable person,” and as far as he was concerned, the Golden Dawn was not intended to be a “reformatory.” 23 Even Julian Baker, the man who brought Crowley in, considered him “a man without principles.” Israel Regardie suggests that Yeats and Co. were shocked by Crowley’s drinking, womanizing, and drug taking, but by this time Yeats himself had experimented with hashish and mescaline, in advance of Crowley, and was no prude; Yeats enjoyed both drugs but found hashish preferable for astral traveling. 24 They knew of the Laura Grahame affair, and even if that did not really involve theft, there was something about Crowley that rubbed his fellow magicians the wrong way. The portal was closed to him.
    Undeterred, Frater Perdurabo
crossed the Channel and onJanuary 13, 1900, presented himself to Mathers. Clad in Highland dress, Crowley requested his initiation from the Count of Glenstrae, the leader of the order. Mathers no doubt recognized Crowley’s magical potential, but at that point, the fact that he had been turned away by Yeats and Co. was a singing endorsement.
    Mathers was not on good terms with his flock. The pension from Annie Horniman had ended in 1896 after he had quarreled with her and cast her out. Mathers barely maintained himself and Moina on what he received from the British