Independent twentieth-century magic
Dion Fortune
Violet Mary Firth
Occultist, novelist and founder of the Fraternity of the Inner Light, who brought ceremonial magic into sustained conversation with psychology.
- Dates
- 6 December 1890 – January 1946
- Dating
- documented dates
- Born
- Llandudno, Wales
- Died
- London
The life
Fortune trained in psychotherapy, passed through Theosophical and Golden Dawn successor organisations, and founded the community now known as the Society of the Inner Light. Her nonfiction and novels taught the same system in different registers. During the Second World War she coordinated a programme of group meditation through weekly letters.
Place in the tradition
She is one of the clearest independent continuators of the Golden Dawn current, and The Mystical Qabalah became a standard English introduction to the sephirot.
a note on the record
History and later legend
Her accounts of psychic attack and inner-plane communication are presented as experience within her religious system. They are not independently verifiable events.
the written record
Principal works
-
received 1923–24; published in parts from 1925
The Cosmic Doctrine
An elaborate cosmogony which Fortune said was communicated by inner-plane teachers.
-
1930
Psychic Self-Defence
Her best-known practical book, interpreting psychological and interpersonal danger through an occult model.
-
1935
The Mystical Qabalah
A readable synthesis of the Golden Dawn Tree of Life, Christian mysticism and Fortune's own psychological interpretation.
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