Masters Of Darkness (C4) - PENSIONER Dot was worried about her honeymoon night with new husband Jim in EastEnders last week, but she should be thankful she didn't marry Aleister Crowley, the man dubbed "the wickedest man in England" by the press in his day.

The Beast 666, as he liked to be known, had an odd idea of a honeymoon after marrying society girl Rose Kelly. They climbed up inside Cairo's Great Pyramid to spend the night in the king's burial chamber flicking through a book explaining how to raise demons.

Not very romantic but then Crowley was described as both a genius and evil. "This must have been one hell of a honeymoon," suggested the marvellously-named Aron Paramor. This writer and occult researcher was one of our guides through the life of Crowley, black magician, sex addict and traitor to the British people. Born in 1875, he founded his own religion based on a form of sexual magic. He died, alone and a heroin addict, in a boarding house in 1947 in, of all places, Hastings.

To most, his name sounds vaguely familiar but we're not quite sure why. This documentary put that right. The makers unearthed a 1920 recording of his voice and gave us a guided tour of the house in Sicily where unspeakable things (and the role of a goat is one thing about which I can't speak in a family newspaper) of a sexual and blasphemous nature went on.

The house of rituals contained "the nightmare room" where drug-fuelled disciples were made to sit and look at his pornographic paintings on the wall. Nowadays they'd be locked in a room and made to watch endless repeats of Crossroads.

Crowley's story proved fascinating, if repulsive at times. His father preached as a member of the Plymouth Brethren and his son, then 12, was bereft when he died. That feeling soon turned to anger and he set about destroying the religion he felt had blighted his childhood. One of his first acts was to have the maid on his mother's bed, the beginning of a life of sexual depravity and controversy.

In the swinging 1960s, he became something of an icon, his beliefs attracting the interest of John Lennon and the Rolling Stones. More interestingly, the programme suggested that his efforts weren't in vain as Christianity's grip is diminishing and our sexually liberated society follows a "very watered down" version of his beliefs.