Abdul Said Ahmed aka Rollo Ahmed

Born: 1899.

Died: 1958.

Born in 1899 to an Egyptian father and Guyanese mother, Abdul Said Ahmed aka Rollo Ahmed had a considerable presence in the occult community of London during the 1930’s. Rollo Ahmed was a well-known figure on the English occult scene from the 1930s to 1950s.  He was friend to Aleister Crowley, Doreen Valiente and Dennis Wheatley, and all who knew him commented on his charisma. He wrote two books, The Black Art and I Rise: The Life Story of a Negro, with the former entering the canon of  popular occult reading material.

Dennis Wheatley’s The Devil Rides Out ignited the public thirst for witchcraft and the occult, like the roaring twenties an escape from the residue of WWI’s bloodletting and the global financial and political uncertainties yet short-lived for WWII would be just down the road. Following the books success, Wheatley’s publishers wanted a follow-up but this time a non-fiction book on the subject. The author felt it wasn’t his place to write the book, so he introduced his publishers to Rollo Ahmed who Wheatley used as a consultant. Ahmed’s knowledge of the black arts from around the world and its history made him an expert with first-hand personal experience. He’d had encounters with Voodun, Obeah, werewolves in the Caribbean, and other tales. He was also a teacher of Raja Yoga which he counted Wheatley and the author’s wife as students.

Published in 1936 The Black Arts (reprinted later with the title The Complete Book of Witchcraft 1968/1970) was then and is today a definitive text on the occult world. Sectioned off into twenty one chapters, the topics covered are, early black magic, ancient magic of the East, Egyptian magic, Jewish necromancy, magic in Greece and Rome, sorcery and magic in the dark ages, the church and the practice of black magic behind its doors, witchcraft , vampirism and werewolves in Europe, alchemist and sorcerers from the 13th to 18th centuries, symbols of magic, Sex-rites, Primitive races and magic, sorcery in North and South America, Yogis and Fakirs of India, black magic in the British Isles, Necromancy, Black mass, Elementals, modern black magic and methods to counter act sorcery. The subject matter is still strong for this day and age.

Some people felt Ahmed was a man with strange powers as one of Wheatley's friends swore one night that they encountered a dark “imp” standing beside Ahmed while they had a conversation with him. Others were of the opinion that he was a sly con artist. An alleged member of The Left Hand Path, Ahmed was a fixture in London’s bohemian scene during the 30’s in his fez and white burnoose could count “The worlds most wicked man” Aleister Crowley as a friend. It’s during this time that Ahmed had to be fitted with a set of false teeth, the result of trying to capture a demon. Ahmed also published his auto biography I Rise: The life story of a Negro. It’s a rare book that’s out of print which he dedicated to actor, singer, and activist Paul Robeson. Ahmed relays his life of negative racial encounters in 1930’s London. Situations such as, landlords refusing to rent him rooms and apartment, even just a room for shelter on a cold night, harassed by the police Ahmed was jailed several times for fraud. By the 1950’s Ahmed seems to have been reduced to in stature to hiring out his services to elderly women to tell their fortunes while living with his wife Theodora (who had her own Lycanthrope encounter as a child in Germany) in Harpsichord house in Hastings. After that, he fades from the occult scene.