There were few faces as recognizable to anyone with an interest in the occult as his was in the 20th century.

His clean-shaven head and piercing eyes got the attention of everyone from would-be disciples in the 1920s to rock stars in the 1960s.

Musicians like The Beatles put him on the cover of their Sergeant Pepper album,

and Ozzy Osbourne used his name as the title of one of his songs.

Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin was an ardent collector of his books, relics, and artifacts,

and he even bought the man's home on the shores of Loch Ness in Scotland.

Yes, that Loch Ness, where the monster lives.

But the former owner of that home was a monster of another kind.

His name was Alistair Crowley, and he not only was a man

closely linked to the devil and the occult, but he also helped to shape the mythology of sex,

drugs, and rock and roll.

Welcome to American Nightmares, the podcast dedicated to America's history of horror.

Through sinister tales of murder, madness, mayhem, spirits, scandals, and sins,

I'll be presenting the origins of American terror with true accounts of diabolical witches,

murderous madmen, haunted houses, death and dying, and stories of revenge and despair that have been torn from the pages of our haunted past.

In this episode, we return to our exploration of the devil, the diabolical figure that has been the source of so many

of America's fears. American Nightmares is written, performed, and produced by Troy Taylor. That's me.

And I want to thank you for joining me for episode 17, the wickedest Man in the World.

If you're a Beatles fan, then you've probably taken a look at the colorful cover of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band. If you have, then you might have noticed a man with a bald

head peering ominously out of the crowd.

That's Alistair Crowley, the man the press once called the wickedest man in the world.

He was an infamous practitioner of sex magic.

...