Satanist Crowley ‘was responsible for deaths blamed on Curse of King Tut’

SIX mysterious deaths famously attributed to the “Curse of Tutankhamun” were actually murders by notorious Satanist Aleister Crowley, a historian claims in a new book.

Parallels between Crowley and Jack the Ripper have also been discovered during research by historian Mark Beynon.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, London was gripped by the idea of the mythical curse of Tutankhamun, the young Egyptian king, whose tomb was uncovered by British archaeologist Howard Carter. More than 20 people linked to the opening of the burial chamber in Luxor in 1923 died over the following years – six of them in the capital.

Victims included Carter’s personal secretary Captain Richard Bethell, who was found dead in his bed at an exclusive Mayfair club from suspected smothering; Bethell’s father Lord Westbury, who plunged seven floors to his death from his St James’s apartment, where he reportedly kept tomb artefacts gifted by his son, and Aubrey Herbert, half-brother of Carter’s financial backer Lord Carnarvon, who died in a Park Lane hospital shortly after visiting Luxor.

At the time, the press blamed a “Curse of Tutankhamun” for the deaths and speculated on the supernatural powers of the ancient Egyptians. But Mr Beynon has drawn on previously unpublished evidence to conclude that the deaths were all ritualistic killings masterminded by Crowley, an occultist dubbed “the wickedest man in the world”.

After unique analysis of Crowley’s diaries, essays and books and inquest reports, the armchair detective argues that he was a Jack the Ripper-obsessed copycat killer. It is likely that he would have found Carter’s excavation sacrilegious and wanted revenge, according to Mr Beynon.

In his new book, London’s Curse: Murder, Black Magic and Tutankhamun in the 1920s West End, published this week by The History Press, Mr Beynon pins seven deaths on Crowley, six of which took place in London.