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| Lord Erskine, one of the people "channeled" by Dion Fortune |
“Dion Fortune and the Inner Light” is a book by Gareth Knight about Dion
Fortune (Violet Mary Firth), the British occultist. She was born in 1890 and
passed away (or perhaps passed on!) in 1946. Knight never met Fortune, but he has
been a member of the occult group she founded, the Fraternity (or Society) of
the Inner Light. Gareth Knight is of course also a pseudonym, the author´s real
name being Basil Wilby. The biography is very “esoteric”, and contains long excerpts
from spirit-messages supposedly channeled by Dion Fortune at various points in
her life. It says very little about the “pagan” aspects of Fortune´s activity
(which has been an influence on Wicca), but rather concentrates on her
mediumship and the more Hermetic or Theosophical angles. Since Knight is a
disciple of sorts of Fortune, the book is mostly positive towards its
subject-matter.
Dion Fortune was born in Wales, but her ethnicity was English. She
fancied herself (perhaps wrongly) to have Norse or “Viking” ancestry. Fortune´s
parents joined Christian Science, and some of their friends belonged to a
quasi-occult group centered on Glastonbury, the “keepers of the Grail”. Another
close friend of the family was a leading member of the Alpha et Omega, an
offshoot of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. With a background like this,
it´s perhaps not so strange that Fortune became an occultist and ceremonial
magician! As a teenager, Fortune had been subject to a psychic attack (i.e.
black magic) from the female principal of the boarding school she was
attending. Or so she believed. Much later, she would write an entire book
titled “Psychic Self-Defence”. After finishing school, Fortune studied
psychoanalysis and was a practitioner for a number of years.
Fortune´s first occult teacher was an Irishman named Theodore Moriarty,
who supposedly had supernatural powers. At one point, he had cornered a demon
in a bathroom, forced it into a magical circle and then absorbed it into his
own aura, thereby destroying it. Fortune was apparently present when this happened.
Moriarty later became the model for the character Dr Taverner in one of
Fortune´s novels. The similarities between Moriarty´s brand of occultism and
Fortune´s later activities are striking. The Irish master was inspired by
Theosophy but gave it a more “Western” slant, just as Fortune herself would do.
He was a Freemason and Co-Mason. Ritualism and Masonry did play a role in
Fortune´s later work, as well.
In 1919, Fortune was initiated into Alpha et Omega. Strictly speaking,
it wasn´t until now that she became “Dion Fortune”, her pseudonym being based
on her magical name as an Alpha et Omega member, Deo Non Fortuna. While working
the Golden Dawn system of ritual magic, Fortune also created what was de facto
an independent circle around herself. This eventually led the Alpha et Omega
leader, Moina MacGregor Mathers (who was actually Henri Bergson´s sister), to expel
her from the order, claiming that Fortune had revealed secret teachings,
especially about marriage and sexuality. Fortune claimed that Moina had tried
to attack her in the spirit-world! In 1930, Fortune joined another Golden Dawn
fragment, Stella Matutina, but this group would also expel her due to her
friendly contacts with Israel Regardie, who revealed all of the Golden Dawn´s
secret “knowledge papers” in a well-known book. There was also a curious
Theosophical interlude between the two Golden Dawn episodes, during which
Fortune and her little band of brothers and sisters carried out a kind of esoteric
entryism in the Theosophical Society, taking over its Christian Mystic Lodge. Fortune
argued forcefully against Annie Besant´s and C W Leadbeater´s attempts to
promote Jiddu Krishnamurti as the new Christ and World Teacher. Only Master
Jesus manifests the Christ principle.
It´s obvious from Gareth Knight´s book that Dion Fortune was a
trance-medium and that mediumistic communications played an important role in
her group, the Community (or Fraternity…or Society…) of the Inner Light. She
would regularly channel three sprit-beings, all three of which were said to
have lived on Earth as humans: the otherwise unknown David Carstairs (supposedly
a soldier killed during World War I), Lord Thomas Erskine (a late 18th
century British lawyer and politician who had defended radicals and reformers in court), and
Socrates. Fortune´s book “The Cosmic Doctrine” was to a large extent dictated
by Socrates. Why on earth the famous Greek philosopher would dictate a work
freely based on Madame Blavatsky´s “The Secret Doctrine” is of course an
interesting question, and even Gareth Knight admits that this is perhaps very
hard to believe. Fortune was in general more positive towards Spiritualism than
Blavatsky, and later in life tried to unite occultists and Spiritualists into
one stream, in anticipation of the Age of Aquarius.
Dion Fortune also had a more mystical side. I haven´t read “The Mystical
Qabalah”, often regarded as Fortune´s most important work by other occultists, but
it´s perfectly obvious that the qabalah wasn´t a dry intellectual interest for
the author. While meditating on the Tree of Life and its various “paths”,
Fortune would have dramatic visionary experiences during which she became totally
immersed in an alternate reality. At one point, she encountered a powerful
angelic being. At another, she merged with a huge luminous sphere seen as the
Divine itself. Other aspects of her activities included public ritual worship
of Isis and Pan, Masonic lore, magic concerning sex and polarity, occult novels,
speculations about Atlantis, worship and prayer to Master Jesus, and a strong
emphasis on the sacredness of Glastonbury. Fortune believed that the pagan
Druids had converted peacefully to Christianity at Glastonbury, thereby making
it the “heart center” of Britain. Naturally, this was connected to an interest
in King Arthur and other characters from his legend, Dion Fortune sometimes
being compared to Morgan Le Fey. Note that the author of this book has an
Arthurian pseudonym.
The impression of Violet Mary Firth I got from “Dion Fortune and the
Inner Light” is mostly a positive one. Despite her worldview being “out there”
from a secular perspective (I mean, my acquaintances don´t claim to channel British
lords or executed Greek philosophers), she nevertheless comes across as
relatively rational and balanced. Perhaps the eclectic nature of her occult
interests saved her from becoming too rigid, dogmatic and authoritarian? Her
conflicts with other people in the occult milieu strike me as the usual “dynamic
upstart vs. old guard” kind of thing. Fortune wanted to reveal as many occult
secrets as possible to the interested public, and she often attacked various abuses
in the milieu. Her opposition to Leadbeater seems to have been part of this. A
curious detail mentioned by Knight is that three members of the Fraternity
claimed to channel Dion Fortune herself after her death. Clearly, she had made
an impression…
This may not be the most accessible book around, but if you are *really*
into Western esotericism, ritual magic or secret societies, I suppose it could
be of some interest.
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