The agent marketing the site on the Loch Ness-side Boleskine Estate for an asking price of £176,000, said this week inquiries had come in from Canada, America and Australia.

Crowley was infamous as the "Beast of Boleskine" and owned the estate from 1899 to 1913. During his lifetime Crowley was vilified by the press as "The Wickedest Man in the World" and the tabloids regularly carried stories of his shocking exploits in occult experimentation.

His devil-worshipping followers offered animal sacrifices to Satan and used black magic rituals to invoke the four princes of evil.

Drugs, sex and blood of goats and cats were used in the debauched ceremonies.

"The demons and evil forces had congregated round me so thickly that they shutting off the light," wrote Crowley at the time. "It was a comforting situation. There could be no doubt of the efficiency of the operation."

The plot, at Boleskine Bay, Foyers, has planning permission for a three-bedroom log house and features a 140ft stretch of the Loch Ness foreshore.

Local gossip says if the new owners are not successful in spotting Nessie, they may have encounters of a more sinister kind due to Crowley's past activities at Boleskine House. Over the years there have been many incidents, including two violent deaths.

One story concerns a butcher who upset Crowley, who then scrawled the meat order on a piece of paper with a spell written on the back.

Afterwards, it was said, when the butcher was cutting up the meat for Crowley, he sliced all the fingers off his right hand with the cleaver.

In the 21st century, though, the house and the plot are now owned by different people.

And agent Strutt and Parker of Inverness is bidding to woo potential buyers to the site by promoting the more common sports of hunting, fishing and shooting.

The hunting, of course, would bear no relation to the activities of Crowley, who was said to have a pack of bloodhounds which he used on manhunts over his land.

Aleister Crowley, the 'Beast of Boleskine'.

Many years after Crowley's death in 1947, visitors to the estate reported seeing flashing lights at Boleskine House. Windows have shattered without explanation and a chair which belonged to Crowley moved on its own.

Major Edward Grant, who owned the house in 1960, shot himself in a bedroom used by Crowley for some of his rituals.

Rock star Jimmy Page, a former owner of the property, claimed in an interview in 1975 that there were many unexplained sinister events at Boleskine even before Crowley arrived.

"There were two or three owners before Crowley moved into it," said Page. "On the site of the church, there was also once a church that burned to the ground with the congregation inside.

"Strange things have happened in that house which have nothing to do with Crowley. The bad vibes were already there."

Kevin Maley, of Strutt and Parker, said after an initial flurry of interest when the site first went onto the market earlier this year, things have quietened down.

"People do tend to be interested in things that are sinister but I don't know if it's the history of Boleskine which prompted these early inquiries," he added.

Mr Maley said people were asking for details of the site and not its history.

He said: "It's a beautiful spot in an elevated position with views over Loch Ness, so it really is the perfect place for a rural retreat in a very famous part of the world."

d.wilson@highland-news.co.uk

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