Early Life
Dion Fortune was a prolific writer on occult rituals and magic. She is one of the influential occultists of the 21st Century and modern paganism owes much to her.
She was born Violet Mary Firth on 6th December 1890 to an upper middle class family in Llandudno, North Wales. The Firths had made their money in the Sheffield steel industry, manufacturing guns.
Dion Fortune was not her real name but one based on the family motto, ‘Deo, non Fortuna’ (‘God, not Luck.’). She studied psychotherapy, hopping from Freud to Jung devotee. After graduating, she worked as a counsellor, but would later ditch psychotherapy to focus on her occult studies.
Speaking to the Dead through Occult Rituals
During the First World War, Fortune served in the Women’s Land Army. In 1919, she was initiated into a splinter group of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, known as the Alpha and Omega. Already a member of the Theosophical Society, she became the president of its Christian Mystic Lodge in the early 1920s.
In 1920, she moved to Glastonbury and became interested in trance mediumship. The Somerset town still has a reputation as one of the most pagan-centric places in the UK. Dion Fortune fitted right in. With help from her teacher from the Golden Dawn, Maiya Curtis-Webb, she performed several occult rituals involving trance, and claimed to have contacted a group of spirit entities known as ‘The Watchers of Avalon’.
Fortune would later leave the Theosophical Society, decrying its lack of focus on the Christian faith. She would also be booted out of the Alpha and Omega order in 1922 after continual disputes with its leader, Moina Mathers. The ceremonial magician had become exiled from the Occult fold.
In 1923, she claimed to have contacted another band of spirit entities through group trance. Known as the Ascended Masters, their long-dead ranks were said to include Socrates! Through performing these regular occult rituals, Fortune was able to psychically download a cosmological text over the following two years. The Cosmic Doctrine was later published posthumously.
The Society of the Inner Light
In 1924, Fortune set up her own religious order, The Fraternity (later changed to Society) of the Inner Light. Based in London and Glastonbury, the Fraternity published a magazine, gaining a wide membership. The group set up a three-degree system for initiates, most of whom were female.
This link to the official website of The Society of the Inner Light explains more. Under work aims, the Society declares that ‘the Society of the Inner Light’s prime purpose is to maintain and expand the bridge that exists between outer life in the world and spiritual forces upon the inner planes.’
In 1927, Fortune published her first occult novel, The Demon Lover. That same year, she married Tom Evans, a Welsh medical doctor. Sympathetic to his new bride’s occult beliefs, Evans was no staunch believer himself. The marriage lasted only six years, in part because of rumours of the good doctor’s extramarital affairs. Fortune had confided before to female members of her Inner Light Fraternity that she’d only married Evans for magical reasons, not for love. She did not contest his request for a divorce.
During WWII, Fortune would rally her fraternity into reciting a mantra designed to protect London from Luftwaffe bombing raids. This ritual didn’t protect the Fraternity’s HQ from bomb damage.
Dion Fortune died in 1946 from leukaemia and is buried in Glastonbury Cemetery.
The Sea Princess
And so on to the written works of Dion Fortune, a prolific writer of the occult, who published 21 non-fiction books, nine novels, and one collection of short stories between 1922 and 1957.
Upon asking at my local pagan moot for a good first Dion Fortune book to read, I was a little surprised to be recommended one of her novels, the Sea Princess. Surely, I thought, it would be better to read one of her non-fiction works. Still, I ordered on the spot a secondhand paperback version, which arrived a few days later. Upon closer investigation, I learned that The Sea Princess is the best Fortune book to read.
An Essential Read?
According to a 2016 blog by Jason Mankey, ‘The most important book Fortune wrote of interest to Witches is The Sea Priestess (1938) and it’s the only book I truly consider essential (I know some of you think that’s blasphemous, too bad).’
Is this the book every trainee witch should read? Dion Fortune writes, ‘It is because my novels are packed with such things as these (symbolism directed to the subconscious) that I want my students to take them seriously. The ‘Mystical Qabalah’ gives the theory, but the novels give the practice. Those who read the novels without having studied the ‘Qabalah’ will get hints and a stimulus to their subconscious.’
So, here goes. What are my thoughts on The Sea Princess?
Well, Fortune has quite a heavy literary style (I guess, reminiscent of the era), which I didn’t find too easy on the eyes. It’s written from the POV of Wilfred, a hen-pecked estate agent and a serious asthmatic (incidentally, I can’t remember reading a book where the word ‘asthma’ occurs more often than this one; it gets quite monotonous). Whether Fortune was basing her lead character on Gerald Gardner (also a serious asthmatic), I can’t be sure.
Occult Rituals of the Sea
The story is set in Dickmouth, a fictional Somerset town which overlooks a wild and windswept estuary off the Bristol Channel. It’s a perfect place for sea magic! Wilfred meets the eponymous sea priestess, Morgan Le Fay (who dresses much like Fortune did herself) through her dealings with his estate agency (a little like Dracula). Wilfred finds a suitable home for her in the shape of a rundown old fort on the coast. He falls in love with this mysterious woman and eagerly helps decorate the dwelling before she moves into it. She introduces him to the sorcerous ways of the Sea Priestess with a view to training him up as a moon priest, so that he can assist in her mysterious occult rituals of the sea.
The story progresses at a glacial pace with little in the way of magic ritual or folklore expressed in the first half. Now, whether there’s a lot of Qabalistic symbolism woven in, I couldn’t tell you. As a story in itself, I found it a little meandering with too much emphasis on mundane domestic issues. I would have liked more occult rituals and magickal folklore included. Furthermore, I found the main character, Wilfred, pompous and arrogant. It was hard to invest too much in him.
Fortune at her best crafts a lyrical writing style, particularly when setting the scene, but she can also be prone to throwing in the odd hackneyed phrase.
The sequel to this book is Moon Magic. Will I read it? Maybe, but not for a while yet.