A record-setting mountaineer, a suspected intelligence asset, a tabloid villain and the self-proclaimed prophet of a new religion, all in a single life. This episode strips away a century of sensational headlines to examine the documented life of Aleister Crowley and how a restrictive Victorian childhood incubated a man who reshaped modern occultism.

We trace his reinventions across secret societies, mountains, deserts and scandals without endorsing his beliefs.

• His strict Plymouth Brethren upbringing, his father’s death, and his rebellion into the name and identity of Aleister.
• His training in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and his ceremonial magic practices.
• His perilous Himalayan expeditions to K2 and Kanchenjunga, the latter ending in a fatal mutiny.
• The Cairo experience that produced his philosophy of Thelema and its law of True Will.
• The scandal-ridden Abbey of Thelema in Sicily, his faked death in Lisbon, and his lasting cultural influence.