Richard C McNeff
In May 1941, Ian Fleming of Naval Intelligence recruits Aleister Crowley to crack the recently captured Rudolf Hess by exploiting their mutual fascination with the occult. To fill in the background to Hess’s disastrous flight, Fleming provides the diary of Albrecht Haushofer, the deputy führer’s assistant. 1945 finds Crowley in a boarding house in Hastings where he tutors Will, a fledgling priest, in Latin. Will stumbles on a file that reveals the devastating consequences of Crowley’s mission and discovers the true identities of the Reception Committee waiting for Hess in Scotland. Is the file genuine or a black-ops fake concocted by British Intelligence? Can a crazed rocket scientist in California supply the answer, or M, the Beast’s controller? Featuring Dion Fortune, Anthony Blunt, Hitler, Jack Parsons, and the Beatles, Aleister Crowley MI6 is a riveting spy thriller anchored in fact. In May 1941, Ian Fleming of Naval Intelligence lunches with Aleister Crowley in a Mayfair hotel. Fleming wants the Beast to crack the recently captured Rudolf Hess by exploiting their mutual fascination with the occult. He gives Crowley the diary of Albrecht Haushofer, Hess’s principal adviser, which fills in the background to the deputy führer’s disastrous flight. In 1945, Crowley moves to Netherwood, a boarding house in Hastings and tutors Will, the teenage handyman who intends to become a Catholic priest, in Latin. Left alone in Crowley’s room, Will stumbles on a file that describes the Beast’s wartime encounter with Hess. Believing Crowley is Churchill, Hess reveals the date of the attack on Russia. Bent on revenge, Polish troops attack Hess’s Surrey prison and shoot him dead. MI6 decide to substitute a double.Several visitors come to Netherwood: Dion Fortune, the occultist; Lady Frieda Harris, creator of the Thoth Tarot paintings; a female professor researching a book on magicians; John Symonds, the Beast’s future biographer; and a pupil of Crowley called Maxwell Knight, in fact the spymaster ’M’ who runs a division of MI5. Meanwhile, in a German castle, another MI5 operative, Anthony Blunt, burns correspondence that implicates the Duke of Kent in Hess’s mission.A Hungarian professor and his wife come to stay at Netherwood, in fact Soviet agents hunting the Hess file. Will is the victim of a honeytrap and agrees to fetch it. He discloses the plot to ’M’. At the handover, commandos ambush and kill the couple. In disgust, Will renounces the idea of becoming a priest.Crowley dies at Netherwood in 1947. ’M’ tells Will that Crowley has sent the Hess file to Jack Parsons, an American disciple and rocket scientist. In 1952, Will visits him and his wife Cameron in Pasadena. He and Jack perform an Enochian ritual in the desert. Ten days later Parsons blows himself up before he can give Will the file as promised.In April 1965, Will is working in the music business. The year is one of rapid growth for the counterculture that Crowley prophesied. Will works with the bandleader Graham Bond, who claims to be Crowley’s son. Later, in a Soho club, Will encounters John Lennon and George Harrison on their first LSD trip. The next day he runs into Maxwell Knight who tells him the Hess File was fabricated by Fleming. In May Knight invites Will to his suburban home. Will comes across a photo taken at Hess’s Scottish destination which reveals the true identities of the reception committee awaiting him.
