Aleister Crowley: Was he the ‘world’s wickedest man’?

Aleister Crowley, or the Great Beast 666 as he called himself, was a controversial figure in his day.

Born in 1875, he was an occultist, poet, writer, magician, painter, chess player and mountaineer.

Critics described him as a prolific drug user, sexual deviant, Satanist and traitor.

Less well known is that Crowley not only had childhood connections to Kent and Surrey, but also spent his final years in East Sussex.

Author Antony Clayton said, after a “very peripatetic existence”, Crowley settled in Hastings towards the end of World War Two.

He said Crowley, then aged about 69, had “encountered a lot of hostility, especially in the press”.

Clayton said this was partly because Crowley had founded a religion called Thelema, of which he was the prophet, that involved sexual rituals, alongside his association with the occult.

“That was seen as outrageous, obscene,” he told the BBC.

Author Gary Lachman added Crowley also drew condemnation for being openly bisexual at a time when homosexuality was illegal in Britain.

“Crowley was always trying to shock the bourgeoisie,” he said.

Accounts have suggested a brief, miserable spell at Tonbridge School in Kent helped fuel his alienation from Victorian society.