"This is the most dangerous book you will ever hold in your hands. It is a book of secret rituals. The ceremonies are powerful beyond belief. They can be dangerous if treated lightly, but if directions are faithfully followed no harm should befall you" - Basil Le Croix
Basically, if you struggle with Ikea furniture don't go near this book or you will straight up die. This stark warning comes from the author of the most dangerous book in the world - this is his opening salvo.
Those involved in the darkest practices of the Occult think its writer crossed the line, broke the circle, revealed the workings of their powerful magic to those who could not be trusted.
Basil E. Crouch AKA Basil le Croix wrote The Book of Forbidden Knowledge in the late 1970s but it was only after his death in January 2020 that the book was finally released. In fact the author writes that he gives the information ‘under pain of death’ and ended up asking for the book to be published only after his death for fear of repercussions.
The book invites you to become a witch, unconnected with any coven and free to peruse the most secretive of passages without having to pass an initiation test, which, according to Basil, can be 'quite grim'.
This was basically Wikileaks for the Occult pre-internet. The details of pacts and ceremonies to perform by oneself promise to give the reader power, wealth and prestige, all in under 10 minutes. Result.
Basil, although a prolific writer, was an intensely private person and little is known of him outside of his work - possibly due to the nature of his revelations, a low profile may have been best. Although it's widely known that he spent his youth in a circus amongst the main artistes who were pure Romany and members of the Manouche Tribe.
Delving into message boards from the early 2000s, many speak of their interactions with Crouch, saying "In the late 1960's he masterminded 'coven-style' Occult groups consisting of 6 or 7 women, reaching very advanced stages of development, like producing actual Apports (a material object produced supposedly by Occult means, especially at a seance) using thoughtform entities."
"This book is strictly for the daring and darkly adventurous. It is a book of pacts and ceremonies, promising GREAT WEALTH … POWER … PRESTIGE … destruction of enemies. The only modification I have made to it is the deletion of the author’s case histories, for in spite of the changed names and locations the individuals concerned could still be identified, for they all became famous." - James Finbarr, Finbarr Publishing
It was in a copy of Prediction magazine that I first stumbled over the name Basil Le Croix in a personal ad (right) offering his services as almost anything you wanted.
Occultism never strays far from naked women and hooded robes - and this book has plenty of that. In fact most of its pages are littered with what we would call abuse in this day and age.
Should the reader complete all the tasks, it will see him become an ultimate power. I wouldn't be surprised to see Donald Trump flicking through the pages of this book during some downtime at Mar-A-Lago.
But Basil saved the most extreme practises for the work written under his other pseudonym, The Red Spider! Under this mysterious moniker he wrote Secrets of the Black Temple, a meandering and often difficult to follow book about some of the more evil things to take place in the Ooccult underworld.
You can read the full Book of Forbidden Knowledge online. I'm off to be a bloody billionaire, see you shit munchers laterrrrrr.
