Golden Dawn Theosophy

“Esoteric Orders and Their Work” is a book by British esotericist Dion Fortune (Violet Firth), first published in 1928. At least to an outsider like myself, Fortune´s brand of esotericism seems very eclectic, blending Theosophical metaphysics and cosmogony with a Golden Dawn-inspired emphasis on ritualism and astral travel, all topped off by a kind of pseudo-Christianity in which “Master Jesus” is said to be the chief initiator of the “White race” (sic). Fortune also has a strange way of sounding rational and grounded, despite many of her ideas being “out there” by both scientific and mainline religious standards. I frequently gasped at this aspect when reading “Esoteric Orders and Their Work”.

The influence from Theosophy is obvious when Fortune puts forward a grand cosmic evolutionary perspective, complete with “root races”, “rays” (also used by Alice Bailey) and “Masters” (with a capital M). Atlantis and Lemuria are mentioned. At the same time, many of Fortune´s other speculations can be seen as a tacit criticism of Theosophy. The Eastern “Wisdom Religions” are said to be derived from an earlier emigration out of Atlantis than the Western esoteric tradition. It´s also evident that Fortune doesn´t consider Europeans and Indians to be part of the same “Aryan race”. All races have different spiritualities, and Theosophy therefore errs when trying to promote Eastern forms in the West. Fortune´s emphasis on Master Jesus and claim that a new Master won´t be born until a future age is implicitly a criticism of the Krishnamurti project.  The Western initiatory tradition comes from the last migration out of Atlantis, and is then traced through Egypt and Greece to the Knights Templar and the medieval guilds of stone-masons to the early modern alchemists and Rosicrucians. Fortune admits that the continuity of this tradition isn´t entirely clear cut, due to millennia of massive persecution by the exoteric Church. Very often, it only exists on the “inner planes”.

Despite her criticism of the exoteric Church, Fortune nevertheless sounds very “Anglo-Catholic”: she uses the term “apostolic succession”, claims that the sacraments are magical rituals, and believes in the efficacy of prayer. She also believes that Jesus died on the cross as a kind of sacrifice on behalf of sinful humanity. However, her concrete description of what happened sounds “Eastern” and occult: Jesus took upon himself the collective negative karma of humanity or the entire Earth-sphere, and destroyed it through an occult process whereupon one person can transfer another person´s suffering or sickness to himself. (Charles Williams also mentions this.)

Dion Fortune´s strong emphasis on psychic powers is probably derived from Golden Dawn. She believes that an occult student must develop psychic powers and the ability to journey out-of-body between different planes of reality. Indeed, the student will be assigned a Guide, who is really a spirit-being. This is presumably necessary since the Masters only operate from the spiritual levels, no longer materializing on the physical plane. (This may also be an implicit criticism of the wilder claims of Theosophy.) Initiation is said to be hard work, indeed it takes three incarnations of strong desire and effort to fully accomplish the first steps of it. No instant salvation here! On the other hand, Fortune strongly emphasis the free will of the student. Masters should be tested by their fruits, rogue gurus who deliberately manipulate their followers as a supposed “test” (Gurdjieff comes to mind) are condemned, and a true Master always offers his instructions free of charge. If the student becomes unbalanced due to his training, the fault is in the training, not the student. 

Fortune believes that occultists should “stay in the world”, work for a living, and so on. Another point emphasized in her book is that there are many different kinds of occult schools, corresponding to different “rays” and personality types. However, people with a natural inclination towards intellectual pursuits should be challenged by joining mystical schools, and people with an inclination towards mysticism should join intellectual ones! Fortune´s constant preoccupation with black magic and “the left hand path” is also visible in the book. Interestingly, she believes that the Adepts *should* seek and keep “siddhi powers”, something not recommended by Eastern traditions, but use them for the benefit of humanity. The evil magician is the one who uses these supernatural powers for his own nefarious ends.

The overall perspective of “Esoteric Orders and Their Work” is one of slow, piecemeal cosmic-spiritual evolution. There are no shortcuts to spiritual accomplishment, no forgiveness without suffering, and evidently no apocalypse either, although a new root race will presumably evolve in the future, with another savior than Master Jesus. In this particular book, however, Dion Fortune never really explains where we come from and whither we are going, although some kind of merger with the Divine “beyond the ring-pass not” seem to be the ultimate goal of the monads…

I found the book interesting, although it perhaps stimulated my thinking in other ways than those intended by the author. But that, perhaps, is another story (or another line of evolution) entirely!