A Scottish mansion with a long history of beheadings, hauntings and occult-inspired incidents is opening its doors to tourists.
Boleskine House on the banks of Loch Ness was once owned by occultist Aleister Crowley, and later was snapped up by Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page who was inspired by the building's creepy past.
As reported by UCR, the Foundation in charge of renovating the building is inviting tourists to visit, with prices starting at just £6 ($7.50).
According to the Boleskine House Foundation: "Page encountered Crowley's work during his teenage years after chancing upon a copy of Crowley's monograph, Magick. Crowley was already regaining popularity as a counter-culture icon with his inclusion on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover, and other musicians and artists were now lifting his legacy from its previous obscurity. Led Zeppelin's third album would include the iconic Crowley phrase 'Do what thou wilt' written on the inner ring of the record."
Crowley bought the house in 1899 and supposedly tried to summon angels and demons, but he didn't send them all away when he'd finished. Page bought the building in 1971, five years after a previous owner shot himself in what had been Crowley's bedroom.
In a 1975 interview with Rolling Stone, Page said: "The bad vibes were already there. A man was beheaded there and sometimes you can hear his head rolling down. I haven't actually heard it, but a friend of mine, who is extremely straight and doesn't know anything about anything like that at all, heard it.
"He thought it was the cats bungling about. I wasn't there at the time, but he told the help, 'Why don't you let the cats out at night?' They make a terrible racket, rolling about in the halls.' And they said, 'The cats are locked in a room every night.' Then they told him the story of the house. So that sort of thing was there before Crowley got there. Of course, after Crowley there have been suicides, people carted off to mental hospitals."
Read more about Boleskine House and the efforts to restore it on the Foundation's website.
