Was this 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.

Clayton said some mischaracterised Thelema, which partially stemmed from what his wife relayed to him in a trance.

He said people misinterpreted its most famous saying 'do what thou wilt' as meaning do whatever you feel, though it actually meant trying to discover your true self.

Lachman said Crowley became a counterculture icon in the 1960s as a "proto-hippie" because of his interest in psychedelic drugs, sex and flouting social convention.

He was featured on The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover, while the likes of Jimmy Page, David Bowie, Ozzy Osbourne and The Rolling Stones were inspired by him.

Crowley courted controversy for contributing to a pro-German magazine in the US during World War One, though both he and some later historical research argued he was a double agent.

Defenders claimed he was feeding information to British intelligence and trying to disrepute German propaganda, but others dispute this.

Clayton said this is how he became known as "the wickedest man in the world".

"There was this belief he... corrupted everyone that crossed his path.

"It seems a bit crazy now when people like Hitler and Stalin were around," he added.

But Clayton said he was not a Crowley apologist.

"He wasn't a particularly lovely man. A lot of people that came into his circle often ended up dead through drug abuse, alcoholism, madness.

"Crowley left a trail of wrecked people behind."

Despite his "terrible" public image, Crowley appears to have relished it, the author continued.

"Crowley didn't care too much. He wanted publicity for publicity's sake.

"Nowadays he would be a self-publicist. He'd be on social media a lot. He would have his own blog and website."

Crowley lodged at a place called Netherwood - renting room number 13 - near Hastings following a friend's recommendation, Lachman explained.

He described it as a "bohemian intellectual" guesthouse, frequented by writers, philosophers and scientists.

Clayton, who has written about Netherwood, said there is a popular misconception Crowley died in a "seedy little guesthouse in poverty, shivering away in the corner".

Instead, he said Crowley was "enjoying the good life".

He would go for walks, write books and letters and was visited by large numbers of people, he added.

In his later years, Crowley wrote extensively about being a child with his wealthy evangelical parents in Redhill, Surrey, which he called a time of "perpetual happiness".

However, Lachman said Crowley had become a "frail old man".

He had been proscribed heroin for asthma but was doing enough to "kill a room full of people", Lachman added.

He would often "shoot up" mid-conversation, according to Clayton.

A Hastings legend says Crowley cursed the town out of hatred for the place.

But Clayton said he was in fact "perfectly happy" there.

Crowley died of chronic bronchitis aggravated by pleurisy and myocardial degeneration, aged 72. He was cremated in Brighton.

Nearly 80 years after his death, Lachman said there was still interest in the controversial figure.

"He lived a larger than life existence".

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