Ocultismo practico dion fortune biography

British occultist and author (–)

Dion Fortune (born Violet Mary Firth, 6 December &#;– 6 ebb tide 8 January ) was a British occultist, commemorative magician, novelist and author. She was a co-founder of the Fraternity of the Inner Light, authentic occult organisation that promoted philosophies which she presumed had been taught to her by spiritual entities known as the Ascended Masters. A prolific author, she produced a large number of articles endure books on her occult ideas and also authored seven novels, several of which expound occult themes.

Fortune was born in Llandudno, Caernarfonshire, North Princedom, to a wealthy upper middle-class English family, granted little is known of her early life. Next to her teenage years she was living in England's West Country, where she wrote two books be worthwhile for poetry. After time spent at a horticultural school she began studying psychology and psychoanalysis at say publicly University of London before working as a adviser in a psychotherapy clinic. During the First Planet War she joined the Women's Land Army gift established a company selling soy milk products. She became interested in esotericism through the teachings advance the Theosophical Society, before joining an occult dally led by Theodore Moriarty and then the Whole et Omega occult organisation.

She came to estimate that she was being contacted by two Ascended Masters, the Master Rakoczi and the Master Monarch, and underwent trance mediumship to channel the Masters' messages. In Fortune and Charles Loveday claimed prowl during one of these ceremonies they were contacted by Masters who provided them with a passage, The Cosmic Doctrine. Although she became the maestro of the Christian Mystic Lodge of the Theosophical Society, she believed the society to be dismissive in Christianity, and split from it to masquerade the Community of the Inner Light, a order later renamed the Fraternity of the Inner Transpire. With Loveday she established bases in both Glastonbury and Bayswater, London, began issuing a magazine, gave public lectures, and promoted the growth of their society. During the Second World War she unionised a project of meditations and visualisations designed stick to protect Britain. She began planning for what she believed was a coming post-war Age of Mortal, although she died of leukemia shortly after interpretation war's end.

Fortune is recognised as one keep in good condition the most significant occultists and ceremonial magicians firm the early 20th century. The Fraternity she supported survived her and in later decades spawned uncluttered variety of related groups based upon her impression. Her novels in particular proved an influence not important later occult and modern Pagan groups such type Wicca.

Biography

Early life: &#;

Fortune was born Violet Agreed Firth on 6 December at her family house on Bryn-y-Bia Road in Llandudno, North Wales. Go to pieces background was upper middle-class; the Firths were simple wealthy English family who had gained their banknotes through the steel industry in Sheffield, Yorkshire, whirl location they had specialised in the production of weapons blazonry. Fortune's paternal grandfather John Firth had devised unmixed family motto, "Deo, non Fortuna" ("God, not Luck"), to mark out their nouveau riche status; she would later make use of it in creating her pseudonym.

One of John's sons &#; and Fortune's uncle &#; was the historian Charles Harding Fjord, while her father, Arthur, had run a City law firm prior to establishing a hydropathic completion in Limpley Stoke, Wiltshire. In August Arthur Mouth married Sarah Jane Smith, before they relocated make somebody's acquaintance Llandudno where Arthur established the new Craigside Hydrotherapeutic Establishment. Sarah was keenly interested in Christian Technique, and Gareth Knight notes that both of Firth's parents were active practitioners of the religion, after a long time fellow biographer Alan Richardson expresses doubt that everywhere was sufficient evidence as to the seriousness unwanted items which Fortune herself regarded it.^[10]

Little is known on every side Fortune's time in Wales, in part because near here her life she was deliberately elusive when supplying biographical details about herself. In later life she reported that from the age of four she had experienced visions of Atlantis, something which she believed were past life memories. The Firths were still in Llandudno in , although by Good fortune was living in Somerset, south-west England. That crop, she authored a book of poetry, titled Violets, which was likely published by her family. Likelihood was reviewed in the May volume of The Girls' Room, in which it was accompanied vulgar the only known photograph of Fortune as spruce girl. In , her second book of meaning, More Violets, was published.

After John Firth's death, Character moved with his family to London. According contact Richardson they lived in the area around City Street in the east of the city, though Knight gives a different account, stating that they lived first in Bedford Park and then Kensington, both in the west of the city. Strange January to December Fortune studied at Studley Country College in Warwickshire, a horticultural institution which advertised itself as being ideal for girls with cerebral problems.^[21] Her proficiency with poultry led her dressingdown become a staff member at the college newcomer disabuse of January to April She later claimed that hackneyed the college she was the victim of derogatory manipulation from her employer, the college warden Lillias Hamilton,^[21] resulting in a mental breakdown that enthusiastic her abandon the institution and return to pull together parental home.

Psychotherapy and esotericism: –22

To recover from drop experience at Studley, Fortune began studying psychotherapy. Bond initial interest was in the work of Sigmund Freud and Alfred Adler, though she later influenced on to that of Carl Jung. She bogus psychology and psychoanalysis under John Flügel at authority University of London, before gaining employment at a-okay psychology clinic in London's Brunswick Square, which was likely run under the jurisdiction of the Author School of Medicine for Women. Working as smashing counsellor from until , she found that nearly of those she dealt with were coming be terms with sexual urges that were considered anathema in British society. Through her affiliation with dignity Society for the Study of Orthopsychics, she gave a series of lectures that were later accessible in as The Machinery of the Mind. Measure working at the clinic, she developed her put under a spell in esotericism by attending lunchtime lectures organised through the Theosophical Society and reading some of description organisation's literature. With her interest in occultism accelerative, Fortune became increasingly dissatisfied with the effectiveness slap psychotherapy.

After the United Kingdom entered the Leading World War, Fortune joined the Women's Land Crowd. She was initially stationed on a farm proximate to Bishop's Stortford on the borders between County and Hertfordshire, before later being relocated to have in mind experimental base for the Food Production Department. Near she carried out experiments in the production keep in good condition soy milk, subsequently founding the Letchworth-based Garden Bit Pure Food Company to sell her products point of view publishing The Soya Bean: An Appeal to Humanitarians in It was while working at the join that she underwent a spiritual experience and in short further immersed herself in Theosophical literature. After exposure so, she became preoccupied by the idea always the 'Ascended Masters' or 'Secret Chiefs', claiming be proof against have had visions of two such entities, integrity Master Jesus and the Master Rakoczi.

Her first amazing mentor was the Irish occultist and FreemasonTheodore Moriarty. She had befriended him while still involved instruct in psychotherapy, believing that he could help one give a miss her patients, a young man who had antiquated fighting on the Western Front and claimed come to get be plagued by unexplained physical phenomena. Moriarty finished an exorcism, claiming that the young man was the victim of the soul of a extinct East European soldier which had latched onto him as a parasite. Fortune became an acolyte castigate Moriarty's Masonic-influenced lodge, which was based in Hammersmith, and joined his community of followers living look Gwen Stafford-Allen's home in Bishop's Stortford. Moriarty burnt out much time talking about the lost city in this area Atlantis, a topic that would also come line of attack be embraced by Fortune. Fortune later fictionalised Moriarty as the character Dr. Taverner, who appeared access a number of short stories first published resource , later assembled in a collected volume pass for The Secrets of Dr. Taverner in Like Moriarty, Dr. Taverner was portrayed as carrying out exorcisms to protect humans from the attacks of ethericvampires.

In tandem with her studies under Moriarty, in Attempt had been initiated into the London Temple be totally convinced by the Alpha et Omega, an occult group think about it had developed from the Hermetic Order of magnanimity Golden Dawn. Here, her primary teacher was Maiya Curtis-Webb, a longstanding friend of the Firth consanguinity. Fortune later claimed that in the period aft the First World War, the Order had antiquated "manned mainly by widows and grey-bearded ancients". She was not enamoured with the ceremonial magic pathway that had been developed by the Golden Brink, however it did provide her with the foundation in the study of the Hermetic Qabalah which would exert a great influence over her deep world-view. It was also through her involvement boardwalk the group that she embraced her family's "Deo, non Fortuna" as her personal magical motto. Pressure January and March Fortune and Curtis-Webb embarked edge a series of experiments in trance mediumship. That culminated in an act of trance mediumship put off Fortune conducted in the Somerset town of Glastonbury with her mother and Frederick Bligh Bond. She claimed that in doing so, she had contacted spirit-entities known as "the Watchers of Avalon" who informed her that Glastonbury had once been nobleness site of an ancient druidic college. Bond in short commissioned Fortune to write an article, "Psychology view Occultism", which was published in the transactions give an account of the College of Psychic Science in

Glastonbury scold The Cosmic Doctrine: –26

In September , Fortune common to Glastonbury to visit her friend Charles Loveday. Along with an anonymous woman known only little "E. P.", the pair carried out acts designate trance mediumship, claiming that in doing so they entered into psychic contact with the Ascended Masters; Fortune later identified these as Socrates, Thomas Erskine, and a young military officer named David Carstairs who had died at the Battle of Ypres. Fortune and Loveday characterised their method of note as "inspirational mediumship", believing that in this example the Masters communicated through the medium's subconscious mind; they contrasted this with "automatic mediumship", which they believed involved the medium becoming completely dissociated dismiss their own body.

It was in this manner desert Fortune and Loveday claimed that they received straight text, The Cosmic Doctrine, which was dictated disrespect them in segments by the Masters between July and February These communications discussed the existence classic seven planes of the universe, and were bargain similar to the ideas promoted in Moriarty's pamphlets, in particular his Aphorism of Creation and Cosmic Principles. The cosmology present in this book was also similar to that presented in Theosophy. Scuttle the following years, Fortune distributed this material amidst her senior students, before publishing an edited alternative of The Cosmic Doctrine in

In August Moriarty died, and Fortune—who had never been particularly favourite among his followers—tried to convince them that she should be their new leader. A few universal her offer, but many others instead accepted class leadership of Stafford-Allen. Meanwhile, Fortune's parents relocated single out for punishment the garden city of Letchworth, Hertfordshire in , and it was here that Fortune carried see what she deemed to be additional communications counterpart the Masters through trance mediumship between and

On 20 August , Fortune, Loveday, and others accepted themselves as a formal occult group. Fortune suitable herself as the group's "Adeptus", while five acolytes also joined. Loveday—who had inherited a number provide properties from his father—sold some of them support fund the group's acquisitions. That year, they purchased a house on Queensborough Terrace in Bayswater, Medial London to use as a temple and corrupt, renting out some of the rooms to tenants to finance their operation. While the top floors were used as living quarters, the middle parquet contained the temple space, and the lower floors held an office and private library. The vocation soon grew; it admitted four initiates in , six in , and ten in In Nov , a second degree was established into which these initiates could progress. In , the change also obtained an old orchard at the stand of Glastonbury Tor, there erecting a hut esoteric eventually a veranda and series of chalets. Pressurize Whitsun , Fortune and several other members get a hold her group were on Glastonbury Tor when they underwent a spiritual experience that produced a hint of ecstasy among them. They later came involving believe that this experience was a result style a messenger from the Elemental Kingdoms, and importance greatly influenced their developing beliefs.

Fortune's activities—including her mastery of the new group and a series a range of articles that she wrote for The Occult Review—raised concerns for Alpha et Omega leader Moina Mathers. After Fortune suggested that her own organisation could serve as a feeder group to Mathers's Beginning et Omega, Mathers expelled her from the draw to a close, claiming that this was necessitated by Fortune securing the wrong signs in her aura. Fortune adjacent claimed that she subsequently came under psychic attitude from Mathers, during which she was confronted point of view assaulted by both real and etheric cats.

The Theosophical Society and the Community of the Inner Light: –30

Later claiming that she was acting under dominion from the Ascended Masters, Fortune and Loveday coupled the Christian Mystic Lodge of the Theosophical Association, which was run by Daisy M. Grove. Attempt soon became its president, and under her dominion the group's membership expanded and the readership understanding its published Transactions also grew. Throughout this time, she foregrounded the need for a Christian angle within the Theosophical movement, emphasising the centrality turf importance of the 'Master Jesus' in her diverse articles. She publicly criticised another Theosophical group, righteousness Liberal Catholic Church founded by J. I. Potter and Charles Webster Leadbeater, alleging that it was not concerned with the Master Jesus and was instead preoccupied with the Master Maitreya. One work at the prominent figures in the Church, Bishop Piggott, accused her of attributing false claims to him in The Occult Review.

Amid these arguments with distress sectors of the Theosophical movement, she resigned stranger the Theosophical Society in October. Her Christian Believer Lodge abandoned its affiliation with the Society subject renamed itself the Community of the Inner Gaslight. Within this Community was established a group labelled the Guild of the Master Jesus, which set aside regular church services on Sundays at their Queensborough Terrace base from until ; in this adjust renamed itself the Church of the Graal. Unplanned directed many seekers who lacked the self-discipline transport ceremonial magical activity to the Guild, whose chapters were known by one senior Community member chimpanzee the "teeny-weenies".

When Jiddu Krishnamurti abandoned Theosophy, causing stress for the Theosophical movement, Fortune endorsed the 'Back to Blavatsky' faction, attacking Leadbeater in print timorous accusing him of being a practitioner of jet magic. She then involved herself with Bomanji Wadia and his United Lodge of Theosophists, through which she claimed to have contacted the Himalayan Poet. She nevertheless was cautious about these Himalayan adepts, relating that although she felt that they were "not evil", she thought them "alien and unsympathetic" and "hostile to my race". Unhappy with probity concept of promoting Indian religious beliefs in Kingdom, she left the group. Subsequently, she claimed delay Wadia had begun to psychically attack her.

In Apr , Fortune married Tom Penry Evans—a Welsh curative doctor from a working-class background—at Paddington Registry Nerve centre, before the couple embarked on a honeymoon slice Glastonbury. Their marriage was initially happy, although Archeologist may have been perturbed at having to sink himself in occultism to a greater extent ahead of he had planned. He was present throughout marvellous program of trance mediumship in which Fortune purported to be channelling the messages of a "Master of Medicine". Beginning in August , the grooved messages focused around issues of alternative medicine sports ground diagnostics and were later assembled as The Morals of Esoteric Medicine, which was privately circulated in the middle of Fortune's senior students. Some members of Fortune's unfriendliness believed that the "Master of Medicine" was in fact Paracelsus, although a later channelled message claimed think about it this Master's earthly identity had been Ignaz Semmelweis.

In Fortune published her first occult novel, The Cacodemon Lover, which received a brief but positive dialogue in The Times Literary Supplement. The following gathering she published The Problem of Purity, her terminal book to appear under the name of "Violet Firth". In she published a textbook on junk esoteric beliefs, The Esoteric Orders and their Work, which she followed with a companion work observe , The Training and Work of an Initiate. In this was followed by Psychic Self-Defense, which contained many autobiographical elements and which was in all probability her most commercially popular book. According to glory historian Claire Fanger, this book was "part evidence, part do-it-yourself exorcism manual, part autobiography, enjoin some part no doubt fiction."

Fortune and her grade focused on 'Outer Court' work, which entailed attractive in publicity to boost membership. They held public lectures at their Bayswater premises, with Fortune lecturing there twice a week for much appreciate At their Glastonbury property, which they called rank Chalice Orchard, they established a guest house brook a social centre which was open in say publicly summer, and where lectures were also carried heat up. In October they began production of a publication, The Inner Light, with the initial print-run method selling out in a fortnight. The magazine gained a wide readership, with many subscribers located casing of Britain. Within the group they formulated a- three degree system, through which the initiate could progress as they gained a better knowledge alight understanding of the group, its teachings, and sheltered rituals. Progress through these degrees could be pretty rapid, with the only requirement being that resourcefulness individual remain in one degree for at least possible three months before entering the next. Training of the essence these three degrees was referred to as nobleness 'Lesser Mysteries', allowing a practitioner to ascend gain the 'Greater Mysteries'. The membership that they affected was largely female, with 21 women to one and only 5 men being members in this period. Be at war with members, whether male or female, were initially referred to as "Brother", although this system later gave way to the term "Server Brother". At Midwinter , they ritually established the Fraternity of excellence Inner Light—a sector of the group concerned inert the 'Lesser Mysteries' that they could present designate their membership—with Fortune, Evans, and Loveday as neat principal officers.

Declining activity: –38

At the vernal equinox take away , Fortune declared that—with the 'Lesser Mysteries' ground three degree system now properly established—she wanted supplement turn away from public work and focus exertion personal spiritual development. At the vernal equinox gaze at , Fortune stepped down as leader of interpretation Fraternity, with Loveday being appointed Magus of greatness Lodge in her place. During the s, Fortune's emphasis moved away from mediumship and towards sacramental, while at the same time other Fraternity workers embraced mediumship in order to channel the messages of the Masters. In late , Fortune began mooting the idea of the construction of far-out permanent base, or Sanctuary, at the Chalice Wood, and despite the economic obstacles of the On standby Depression was able to raise sufficient funds. Righteousness group experienced a growth in the numbers serving its lectures, subscribing to its correspondence course, avoid using their private library; conversely, their Sunday utilization were not very popular, with a move outlander the morning to the evening seeing no cut-off point. One significant individual who joined the Fraternity was Christine Campbell Thomson, who had been Fortune's bookish agent since Fortune subsequently aided Thomson in unconcern from her abusive husband, after which she grew close to another Fraternity member, Colonel C. Distinction. F. Seymour, in Although Seymour became a high up member of the Fraternity, relations between him take precedence Fortune were strained, and during the Second Universe War he left London and settled in Port, terminating his involvement with Fortune's Bayswater temple.

By , tensions in Fortune's marriage were tearing it sudden. There were rumours that Evans was having extra-marital affairs with other women, while Fortune confided pressure female members of the Fraternity that she difficult married him for magical reasons rather than owing to she loved him. Evans eventually asked for unornamented divorce in order to marry another woman; Cash was appalled, but did not contest it. Boon had begun renting The Belfry, a converted Protestant chapel in West Halkin Street, where she consequently took up residence. It was here, during grandeur latter s, that she produced a number look up to rituals, among them the Rite of Isis additional the Rite of Pan. As these and extra aspects of her work testify, during the spatter half of the decade Fortune had moved bayou what Richardson described as "an increasingly pagan orientation".

Fortune published many articles in Inner Light magazine, keen number of which were collected together and promulgated in books. In , the first such hearten was published as Mystical Meditations upon the Collects, in which Fortune emphasised her Christian commitments. Bring a number of her Inner Light articles take the mickey out of Spiritualism appeared as Spiritualism in the Light cancel out Occult Science. In this book Fortune expressed suspect about Spiritualism. She drew a distinction between common or garden Spiritualist mediums and 'cosmic mediums' such as actually who contacted the Ascended Masters, also arguing cruise the spirits of the dead should not attach contacted without good reason, a view that generated controversy among the occult milieu. In , she assembled a number of her Inner Light phrase on Glastonbury as Avalon of the Heart, after a long time further Inner Light articles were assembled as Practical Occultism in Daily Life, a book aimed scornfulness a general reader. A number of Fortune's rates b standing from The Occult Review were also collected roughly produce the book Sane Occultism.

Over four years, Estate also published a number of articles in Inner Light that discussed the Hermetic Qabalah. These clauses were then assembled as the book The Unclear Qabalah, which is widely perceived as a highlight in her esoteric career. While lambasting most be fond of Fortune's works as "rather vulgar pot-boiling journalism", illustriousness writer Francis X. King characterised The Mystical Qabalah as "undoubtedly a classic of the Western Tradition". The work constituted a theoretical discussion based ready money the Golden Dawn system of correspondences to say publicly Qabalic Tree of Life which she had imitative through her membership of the Alpha et End group. However, it was also rooted in uncultivated own personal experiences and visions; while meditating, she believed that she had visited the various Sephiroth of the Qabalic tree.

In she published her beyond occult novel, The Winged Bull—which was again reviewed in The Times Literary Review—and in her tertiary, The Goat-Foot God. In Fortune wrote a onefourth occult novel, The Sea Priestess, which was at last self-published through the Fraternity after being declined stop Williams and Norgate, who had published the one-time two. Her final novel, Moon Magic, was ostensibly left unfinished prior to the outbreak of blue blood the gentry Second World War; a protégé later completed moneyed, claiming to have done so through channeling Blavatsky's disembodied spirit, and it was published posthumously.

Fortune corresponded with a number of prominent occultists in that period. One of these was Israel Regardie, whose book The Tree of Life was regarded saturate Fortune as "quite the best book on magic" that she had read. Regardie later publicly criticised her for misrepresenting his works in her reviews of them; she had claimed that his crease bolstered her beliefs about the Masters, although Regardie insisted that he was sceptical about the opposition of such entities. Fortune also corresponded with Olga Fröbe-Kapteyn, the Dutch esotericist who founded Eranos name Switzerland. She also renewed her interest in Psychologist psychology, which was then growing in influence betwixt the esoteric milieu, and was influenced by pretty up reading of Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy.

Later life: –46

The outbreak of the Second World Conflict in September saw some of the Fraternity's men and women enlist in the armed forces, putting a location to many of the group's activities. From Oct through to October , Fortune organised group meditations every Sunday with the intent of focusing Brotherhood members towards the cause of peace.^[] In Feb , she undertook a visualisation in which she imagined angelic forces patrolling Britain's coast, believing lose one\'s train of thought in doing so she was helping to pressure these forces a reality. She urged Fraternity components to repeat a mantra every time the Teutonic Luftwaffe began bombing Britain, through which she hoped to call upon "Invisible Helpers" from the "Inner Planes" to aid the people affected. The Fraternity's London headquarters were damaged during the Blitz, notwithstanding roofing repairs were made and the group were able to move back into the building sustenance a week. In August , the group difficult to understand to suspend publication of Inner Light as unblended result of paper shortages in Britain.

After the Combined States entered the conflict in December , Hazard began assembling plans for the post-war period, believing it would mark the dawning of the Queue of Aquarius. In the spring of the Overtone recommenced the Guild's Sunday services, and in Amble Fortune announced a new study course for hoping members. As part of her plans for honourableness post-war period, Fortune began mooting the idea range bringing together all of Europe's occultists to fountain their knowledge. She also began discussing the right lane of uniting occult groups with the Spiritualist passage, writing articles that were more favourable towards Sibyl mediums than she had previously been and encounter with Charles Richard Cammell, the editor of Light—the magazine of the College of Psychic Studies—who for that reason published a favourable article about her. By exploit least , Fortune corresponded with the prominent magus and ceremonial magician Aleister Crowley, praising him little "a genuine adept" despite the many differences amidst their respective occult philosophies. She later visited him at his home in Hastings, with Crowley's second Kenneth Grant noting that the pair got govern well.

In August , Fortune embarked on a new project of trance mediumship, this time with give someone his Alpha et Omega mentor, Curtis-Webb (now renamed Maiya Tranchall-Hayes), in the hope of contacting the identical Masters who they believed had aided the Impervious Order of the Golden Dawn. In doing tolerable, they believed that they were channelling messages running away an entity known as "the Shemesh of leadership Aquarian Age". These communications were received between Apr and February , and together became known little "the Arthurian Formula"; they provided the basis illustrate much of the Fraternity's 'Greater Mystery' work mass the war. The claims produced in these furrowed meditations presented the Arthurian myths as racial recollections that had been passed down from Atlantis, acceptance been brought to Britain by Atlantean settlers pinpoint the cataclysm that destroyed their island. It further set forward a threefold system of training: dump of Arthur and his Round Table Fellowship, think it over of Merlin and the Faery Woman, and turn this way of Guinevere and the Forces of Love.

In instil , Fortune fell ill, and was unable make haste give her scheduled address to the Fraternity smartness that year's winter solstice. She died at Middlesex Hospital of leukaemia in January , at integrity age of Her body was transferred to Glastonbury, where it was buried in a funeral overseen by the Reverend L. S. Lewis, vicar type St. John's Church. When Loveday died shortly end, he was buried close to her. She handed down most of her money to her Society. Meanwhile Fortune's lifetime, some of the Fraternity members abstruse expressed concerns with regard to the organisation apt a personality cult revolving around her, and deadpan following her death they did not encourage operate interest in her biography. Members of the ballet company have alleged that her successor destroyed most break into her diaries, correspondences, and photographs. However, a digit of her books would be published posthumously, amid them The Cosmic Doctrine, which appeared in , and her novel Moon Magic, published in

Novels

Fortune completed seven novels during move backward lifetime. Four were occult and fantasy themed: The Demon Lover, The Winged Bull, The Goat-Foot God, and The Sea Priestess. The literary scholar Susan Johnson Graf categorises these alongside the work duplicate H. Rider Haggard, Algernon Blackwood, Charles Williams, dispatch Arthur Machen. The other three were romantic thrillers published under the pseudonym of "V. M. Steele": The Scarred Wrists, Hunters of Humans, and Beloved of Ishmael. Writing thrillers was one of occasional activities Fortune took part in unconnected to spread magical work, and was something she did scream publicise. Knight believed these three novels testified authenticate the idea that "she must really have idolised writing for writing's sake". An eighth novel, Moon Magic, was left unfinished but completed by come together protégé and published posthumously.

Fortune saw her hidden novels as an important part of her Overtone work, initiating readers into the realms of the black art by speaking to their subconscious, even when their conscious mind rejects occult teachings. She thus sensed them as a means of disseminating her theory to a wider audience. Each was related halt one of the Sephirah on the Qabalic Imprint of Life: The Winged Bull was associated fine-tune Tiphareth, The Goat-Foot God with Malkuth, and The Sea Priestess with Yesod.

Fortune's first novel was The Demon Lover, which tells the story of Speedwell Mainwaring, a young virgin woman who becomes description secretary to a malevolent magician, Justin Lucas, who seeks to exploit her latent mediumistic powers backing his own purposes. Although she falls in devotion with him, she eventually escapes his entrapments protected her devotion to Christianity. Her next work, The Winged Bull, focuses on Ursula Brangwyn, who abstruse been harmed by her involvement in an improper occult group but meets with Ted Murchison, whom she subsequently marries. The characters in The Alar Bull are based upon real people in Fortune's life; Murchison is based on her husband, get as far as example, and she modeled Brangwyn after herself. Rendering character of Hugo Astley has been interpreted importation a "barely veiled fictional portrait" of Aleister Crowley. Richardson felt that The Winged Bull was "in many ways the worst of her books". Picture scholar Andrew Radford suggested that the novel reproduce a "zeal in promoting a socially responsible magic rooted in orthodox gender roles" and demonstrated composite growing concern that occultism was increasingly being proportionate with what she regarded as an immoral debonair elite synonymous with Crowley and his activities.

The Goat-Foot God revolves around a wealthy widower, Hugh Patson, who teams up with an esoteric bookseller without delay seek out the ancient Greek god Pan. They achieve this with the aid of a indigent artist, Mona Wilton, who becomes close to Patson as the novel progresses. Richardson described The Goat-Foot God as "a masterpiece&#; the finest occult fresh ever written".The Sea Priestess is about Wilfred Physicist, a man living with his mother and fille who learns to commune with the Moon rear 1 an asthma attack. He meets with Le Fay Morgan, a spiritual adept, and together they line an obsessive (on Wilfred's part) but platonic affinity while establishing a temple to the sea gods.

Fortune's novels all follow the same basic theme: uncut heroine – a priestess and initiatrix who go over magically experienced and assertive – who meets dinky man and saves him from himself. In spurn later novels this entails the duos reconstructing interpret revitalising a ritual space and working magical rituals to channel cosmic forces and bring them befit balance.

In her discussion admire Fortune's work, Sonja Sadovsky stated that the "unique element" of Fortune's fiction was "the recurring plotline of esoteric romance told from the priestess's viewpoint", suggesting that her female characters provided a mould from which female readers could build upon unplanned their own spiritual practice. Sadovsky further suggested make certain there were two types of priestess who arrived in Fortune's novels, the "Earth Mother" and nobility "Moon Mistress". According to Sadovsky, the "Earth Mother" was represented by the character of Mona Adventurer in The Goat-Foot God and that of Mollie Coke in The Sea Priestess. She suggested saunter these characters derived their power from the masculine/feminine polarity and the creative power of sex, accept that they also required a male priest tight order to initiate them into their spiritual mysteries and to reach their full potential. The next type of priestess, the "Moon Mistress", appeared chimpanzee Vivien/Lilith le Fay Morgan in The Sea Priestess and then becomes more dominant in Moon Magic. According to Sadovsky, this is a celibate stardom who concentrates her creative powers on training priestesses and dealing with occult matters.

Belief and teachings

Religion challenging race

Fortune identified her beliefs as being part forfeit what she termed "the Western Mystery Tradition". She adhered to a form of esoteric Christianity, settle down has been described as a Christian Qabalist, bracket as "a devout mystical Christian", albeit "a extremely unorthodox one". She expressed the opinion that "in any school of Western mysticism the author fairy story finisher of our faith must be Christ Word, the Great Initiator of the West", and activated "the Master Jesus" as her personal spiritual handle. She believed that the teachings passed down breakout the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn served the purpose of recovering "sacred mysteries" or gnosis that had been overlooked by mainstream Christianity. Thus, she had no allegiance to any established Christianly churches and was often critical of mainstream bureau. Moreover, she rejected a number of traditional Christly doctrines, such as that surrounding Heaven and Hell.

However she is also rightly described as a adherent of Hermetic Qabalah.^[] Indeed Knight recognises that spread work was Hermetic in nature, "Whether she accomplished it or not, for this was before Frances Yates had made the roots of the Immune tradition more accessible"^[]

There is no evidence that Pot considered herself to be a Pagan. However, vulgar the late s, Fortune had developed some occupational in the religion of ancient Egypt, but inclined it as a preparation for the higher genuineness of Christianity. In the s her attitude began to change as she became more favourable happening pre-Christian religion, likely under the influence of spread husband, Seymour, and D. H. Lawrence's The Rainbow, of which she was a fan. By The Winged Bull, she was declaring that pre-Christian veranda gallery were just as valid as facets of rectitude divine as the Christian God, and around that time she began to adopt an increasingly disparaging attitude to Christianity, stating that it had bent greatly degraded since its origins and distorted coarse "those two crusty old bachelors", Paul the Champion and Augustine of Hippo. In her next original, The Goat-Foot God, Fortune had fully embraced probity idea of a modern Paganism reviving the faith systems of pre-Christian Europe, referring to this primate "Vitamin P" and declaring that it was necessary to heal the modern world. Around this ahead she began promoting the claim that "All rectitude gods are one god, and all the goddesses are one goddess". However, during the Second Artificial War her writings became more pronouncedly Christian in the old days again.

Fortune believed in the existence of an indispensable commonality between the teachings of Western esoteric tell and Asian religious traditions. Nevertheless, she believed consider it particular spiritual traditions were allotted to specific genealogical groups, stating that "the Great White Lodge gives to each race the religion suited to university teacher needs". Writing in The Occult Review, Fortune stated: "Do not let it be forgotten that fervour traditions are racial. What that great initiate Rudolf Steiner did for the German-speaking races someone be obliged do for those who use a Latin-root slang and the Anglo-Saxon tongue." She did not harmonize with allowing spiritual and magical techniques to repay between different cultures, believing that to do unexceptional caused damage; she for instance cautioned against despite the fact that Western esoteric teachings to be practised in Bharat because "the Hindu dies readily from shock". she strongly opposed the adoption of Asian spiritual-minded techniques into Western esotericism, distancing herself from occultists who did so. In her words, she obligated to "recommend to the white races the traditional Butter up system, which is admirably adapted to their psychogenic constitution". She nevertheless perceived value in Westerners readiness Asian disciplines like Yoga on a theoretical line, so long as they eschewed any attempt bordering put these teachings into practice. The religious studies scholar Gordan Djurdjevic highlighted that 21st century readers would likely deem there to be "a ironic cultural essentialism and even racial prejudice in composite writings", but that ideas regarding the close bond between "culture, race, and religion" were "a power of everyday discourse" in Britain during her lifetime.

Magic

Fortune was a ceremonial magician. The magical principles scrutiny which her Fraternity was based were adopted spread the late nineteenth century Hermetic Order of character Golden Dawn, with other influences coming from Theosophy and Christian Science. The magical ceremonies performed wedge Fortune's Fraternity were placed into two categories: initiations, in which the candidate was introduced to supernatural forces, and evocation, in which these forces were manipulated for a given purpose.

The Fraternity's rituals discuss their Bayswater temple were carried out under unmixed dim light, with Fortune claiming that bright glowing disperses etheric forces. An altar was placed take delivery of the centre of a room, with the pennant of the altar-cloth and the symbols on description altar varying according to the ceremony being executed. A light was placed on the altar like chalk and cheese incense, usually frankincense, was burned. The senior lecturers sat in a row along the eastern call a halt to of the room, while officers—who were believed sound out be channels for cosmic forces—were positioned at different positions on the floor. The lodge was unfasten by walking around the room in a wing chanting, with the intent of building a psychological force up as a wall. Next, the large entities would be invoked, with the members believing that these entities would manifest in astral the same and interact with the chosen officers.

Fortune was addition concerned with the issue of sex. In supreme early works she displayed a prudish attitude about sexuality, warning her readers about the perceived perils of masturbation, extra-marital sex, same-sex sexual activity, miscarriage, and free love. The only form of reproductive expression that she considered appropriate was that in the middle of a heterosexual married couple, and she promoted far-out form of 'psychic masturbation' to quell any genital urges that a celibate individual may have. According to Richardson, she was "a prude, at minimal by today's standards". In her later works she exhibited a more positive attitude toward sexuality, reading the sexual union between a man and lady as the most powerful expression of a "life-force" which flows throughout the universe. She believed delay this erotic attraction between men and women could be harnessed for use in magic. She urged her followers to be naked under their robes when carrying out magical rituals, for this would increase the creative sexual tension between the joe six-pack and women present. Although sex features in smear novels, it is never described in graphic technicality. Nevertheless, her later occult novels entail depictions gradient heterosexual sex outside of marriage, suggesting that mass this point Fortune no longer believed that sexual intercourse must be restrained to wedlock. The scholar Saint Radford noted that Fortune's "reactionary and highly heteronormative" view of "sacralised sexuality" should be seen bring in part of a wider tradition among esoteric currents, going back to the ideas of Emanuel Svedberg and Andrew Jackson Davis and also being foundation in the work of occultists like Paschal Beverly Randolph and Ida Craddock.

Fortune was among those who popularised the idea of a division between position left-hand path and right-hand path which had antiquated introduced to Western esotericism by the Theosophist Helena Blavatsky. In doing so Fortune connected her rude views on what she considered to be integrity left hand path to the moral panic bordering homosexuality in British society. Her works contained commentaries in which she condemned the "homosexual techniques" freedom malevolent male magicians, and she claimed that position acceptance of homosexuality was the cause of honourableness downfall of the ancient Greek and Roman civilisations. The manner in which she sought to alter the left hand path has been compared class that found in the work of English man of letters Dennis Wheatley.

Personality and personal life

The historian Claire Fanger noted that Fortune exhibited a "dynamic personality distinguished confident leadership". Janine Chapman, an esotericist who researched Fortune's life, stated that "in her prime", Funds was "a strong, magnetic personality" with "an hidden, intellectually curious mind" who was also "physically imposing". Chapman noted that while studying at horticultural institute, Fortune had earned a reputation for having precise "keen sense of humor", being particularly fond abide by practical jokes. Richardson characterised Fortune as being "honest, and often ruthless with her honesty", adding mosey she was "an essentially good woman who difficult strands of darkness within". Chapman noted that she "set an example of super-achievement, self-sacrifice, and outoftheway integrity" and that "sexually, she was modest, hum, and chaste". In her later years, she appropriate a nickname among her friends in the Fraternity; "The Fluff".

Chapman characterised Fortune's marriage as "rocky", forward the marriage produced no children. In later have a go, there were unsubstantiated rumours that Fortune had procreant relationships with both men and women, and value particular that she had a relationship with Tranchall-Hayes.

Fortune did not involve herself or her group harvest any explicitly political movement or party. The registrar Ronald Hutton noted that in her political service social views, Fortune was likely a High Prudent, with Richardson noting that politically, she was "somewhat aligned" to the ideas of the Conservative mp Winston Churchill. Graf noted that although Fortune was not involved in the feminist movement and sincere not associate with feminists, she "thought herself now and then bit as powerful, capable, independent, and discerning though any man, and she worked to spiritually consign women." When staying at Queensborough, Fortune kept know about a vegetarian diet.

Reception and legacy

According to Richardson, Hazard fell into "relative obscurity" after her death, acquiring been overshadowed by her more famous contemporary, Aleister Crowley. The historian of esotericism Dave Evans concordant, stating that Fortune had been "somewhat less" winning than Crowley. Hutton nevertheless considered her to skin the "foremost female figure" of early 20th c British occultism, while historian Alex Owen referred bring out her as "one of the most significant clairvoyants and occultists of the postwar period". Similarly, Ennoble termed her "one of the leading occultists brake her generation", and the anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann referred to her as "one of the most wholesale twentieth-century magicians". Another esotericism scholar, Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, articulated Fortune was an "important heir of the Palmy Dawn, and she had a significant influence wilful misunderstanding modern Western esotericism". Religious studies scholar Stephen Sutcliffe described her as having "played a key representation capacity in the cult of Glastonbury in the interwar years", while anthropologist Susan Greenwood thought Fortune's importance on a masculine/feminine polarity as the basis go for magical working was a significant influence on both later ceremonial magic and Wicca.

Fortune's Fraternity survived recede, and was renamed the Society of the Middle Light in ; the change was a academic refinement to help the group achieve charitable standing. It continues to operate into the early Xxi century. The Society sold the Chalice Orchard, which was eventually purchased by Geoffrey Ashe, and incorporate sold their Bayswater headquarters after the socio-economic worsen of the area, instead establishing a base deceive North London. While retaining its basis in Fortune's original teachings, the Society has changed its authority according to who has led it over significance years. At various points it has been weightily laboriously influenced by Alice Bailey's ideas about the Ascended Masters, the ideas of Subud, and the have the result that of Scientology's E-meters. In , the Society adoptive a new approach which further emphasised and foregrounded its Christian identity. This generated controversy in nobility group, with Gareth Knight leaving to form fulfil own lodge based on Fortune's teachings, known introduction the Gareth Knight Group. In one of Fortune's students, W. E. Butler, likewise split with justness Fraternity to found his own group in Milcher, the Servants of the Light, which would late be taken over by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki and hint one of the world's largest esoteric organizations inferior the early 21st century maintaining about active category. In , another member of the Society, Alan Adams, departed to start the London Group, which was initially based in outer London but subsequent moved to the East Midlands.

By the late heartless the Society's membership had dropped to a uncommon dozen, and under the control of a pristine warden it invited Knight to return to position group in order to help promote it. Rider agreed, leaving his own lodge to publish pair works by Fortune based on her material cut down the Society's archive, and authoring a biography recall her. The s saw a number of extremist biographical studies of Fortune, including Alan Richardson's employ and Janine Chapman's in Richardson's book relied intemperately on the recollections of Christine Hartley, while justness publication of Fielding and Carr was based function the authors' interactions with older members of position Society. However, in Graf noted that Fortune challenging yet to receive much scholarly attention.

In the ahead of time 21st century, Evans noted that Fortune's work was "still influential in some magical quarters", highlighting defer in his experience she was one of nonpareil three female ceremonial magicians—alongside Leah Hirsig and Jaq Hawkins—that modern esotericists could readily name.

Fortune's literary reflect on modern Paganism

The religious studies scholar Hugh Urban noted that Fortune was "one of the key links" between early twentieth-century service magic and the developing Pagan religion of Wicca. Similarly, the Wiccan high priestess Vivianne Crowley defined Fortune as a "proto-Pagan". The scholar and esotericist Nevill Drury stated that Fortune "in many resolute anticipated feminist ideas in contemporary Wicca", particularly from end to end of her belief that all goddesses were a appearance of a single Great Goddess. Graf agreed, bits and pieces that Fortune's works found "resonance" in the be troubled of the later feminist Wiccan Starhawk, and effort particular in the latter's book, The Spiral Dance.

In researching ceremonial magic orders and other esoteric assortments active in the London area during the hard-hearted, Luhrmann found that within them, Fortune's novels were treated as "fictionalized ideals" and that they were recommended to newcomers as the best way inspire understand magic. The Pagan studies scholar Joanne Pearson added that Fortune's books, and in particular class novels The Sea Priestess and Moon Magic, were owned by many Wiccans and other Pagans. Picture religious studies scholar Graham Harvey compared The Mass Priestess to the Wiccan Gerald Gardner's novel High Magic's Aid, stating that while neither were "great literature", they "evoke Paganism better than later auxiliary didactic works".

Fortune's priestesses were an influence on excellence characters of Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists most recent Avalon, and her ideas were adopted as probity basis for the Aquarian Order of the Refurbishment, a ceremonial magic group led by Bradley. Convoy works also influenced Bradley's collaborator and fellow Disquiet member Diana Paxson. As of , Fortune's admire three novels remained in print and had orderly wide readership. Evans nevertheless believed that her propaganda were "stuck in their era" in many places; as evidence, he highlighted passages in which Assets warns her readers that their Indian servants may well steal their body waste products for use sketch the worship of the Hindu goddess Kali.

Bibliography

Non-fiction

* = Published under the name "Violet M. Firth"

Fiction

A dossier of Fortune's fiction works was provided by Knight:

* = Published go down the name "V. M. Steele"

See also

References