My thanks to Richard Spence for the information in this News item…
Aleister Crowley is best known today as a founding father of modern occultism. Crowley, who proclaimed himself the Great Beast 666, has been the subject of several biographies, some painting him as a misunderstood genius, others as a manipulative charlatan. None of them have looked seriously at his career as an agent of British Intelligence.
Using documents gleaned from American, British, French, and Italian archives, Secret Agent 666 reveals that Crowley’s clandestine service linked him to the sinking of the Lusitania, a plot to overthrow the government of Spain, the thwarting of Irish and Indian nationalist conspiracies, the Communist International, and the 1941 flight of Rudolf Hess.
Author Richard Spence, a professor of History at the University of Idaho, argues that Crowley–in his own unconventional way–was a patriotic Englishman who endured years of public vilification in part to mask his role as a secret agent.
Dr. Spence has appeared on the History Channel and as a speaker at the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC. He has been interviewed on Radio Liberty and other media outlets and has been a consultant and interviewee for documentary films produced by the Russian Cultural Foundation. He is also the author of _Trust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly_ (Feral House 2002).