DION FORTUNE [1890-1946]
David Harvey
Dion Fortune was a major figure on the occult scene in Britain during the first half of the 20th Century, and was a Qabalist, esoteric teacher and Initiate in the Western Esoteric Tradition. She belonged for some time to the Theosophical Society and various offshoots of the Golden Dawn, before founding her own group - the Society of the Inner Light - which continues to this day.
W.G. Gray wrote that ... "Dion Fortune made an outstanding attempt to introduce commonsense and a clear thinking attitude into Western occultism. The accent was very much on strongly disciplined behaviour and developing a sense of individual responsibility towards Divinity and Humanity. She built up a background of very sound Western magical methods, drawn principally from Qabalistic (Golden Dawn), Christian and Celtic sources. She left a legacy of interesting literature, some of her books still being classics. There is no doubt that her work had a most salutary influence on the Western Tradition. [‘An Outlook on our Inner Western Way’ W.G. Gray]
CHILDHOOD
‘Dion Fortune’ was the pen-name of Violet Mary Firth, born near Llandudno on 6th December 1890 the only child of Arthur and Sarah Firth of the Sheffield steel family, and it has been said that stainless steel admirably described her character and attributes The Firth family motto was ‘Deo Non Fortuna’ (God, not Luck), from which Violet took her 'magical' name. Not a lot is known of her childhood, but she wrote poetry, may have had some natural mediumistic ability in her late 'teens, and claimed to have had some spontaneous visions which she later interpreted as past-life memories of Atlantis.
COLLEGE
When she was 20 she went to Studley Horticultural college in Warwickshire, where the Warden was an extremely forceful character who seemingly used occult knowledge and powers she had acquired in India to dominate and manipulate some of the staff and students. Violet incurred her anger by intervening in one such episode to protect an elderly woman, with the result that she herself was then psychically attacked face-to-face, the Warden using forced/telepathic hypnosis. She entered the Warden's room a strong and healthy girl and left it a mental and physical wreck, from which she took several years to recover, but which prompted her to study psychology and to find ways of defence against such attacks.
The story is recounted in full in the preface to one of her classic books Psychic Self-Defence, and she wrote that, apart from the terrible psychological effects ... "For a long time I had no reserves of energy and after the least exertion would fall into a dead sleep at any hour of the day ....... the etheric double had been damaged and leaked prana ........ It did not become normal until I took initiation into the Order in which I subsequently trained. Within an hour of the ceremony I felt a change.”
As a result of the Studley experience Violet took up analytical psychology and in 1914 she seems to have been a practising (Jungian) lay analyst at the Tavistock Clinic in London, in the days before formal qualifications were required. She also gave lectures at the clinic.
THEOSOPHY
Also at this time Violet had some contact with the Theosophical Society, as a club for young Theosophists had been formed, met quite near her clinic - and they did good meals ! However, she became disenchanted with the whole basis of Theosophy, dismissing it without further enquiry. Indeed, when the Theosophists produced their best psychic experiences for her she replied that she had patients suffering in a similar way at the clinic but they were getting better under treatment. This led to strained relations, but Violet did one day join the meditation class. The matter in hand was the creation and perception of thought-forms, and to her surprise there arose in her mind a hypnagogic picture of what the leader then announced was 'the image'. This happened four times in all, and she realised that the telepathy was genuine.
After considering the relevance it had for her work (i.e. psychically ‘reading' the patients dissociated complexes instead of the painful and cumbersome psychoanalytic method), she proceeded to experiment along those lines. She found it to be reliable and having scrapped the greater part of the analytical side of psychotherapy, found that the re-education itself, if based on a right diagnosis, could produce a synthesis of the complexes.
Violet knew, therefore, that she could not go on with her psychological work, so threw it up and went to do war work as a 'Land girl'. She ended up in a food laboratory where she had ample time to ruminate. She wrote that the enforced quiet must have had the effect of turning her attention inward, for astral sight suddenly opened and gave her one of the frights of her life. "I know of nothing more alarming than astral vision without the necessary knowledge to control it. I knew that Theosophy possessed the knowledge ... and I therefore went to the library in Tavistock Square, and browsed among the books".
VISION OF THE MASTERS
“My first choice fell upon The Ancient Wisdom (Annie Besant) and I began to read, coming presently to that wonderful passage wherein are referred to 'The Brotherhood of the Great White Lodge, the Hierarchy of Adepts who watch over and guide the evolution of humanity'. ...... ”
Shortly thereafter she had a dream which turned into a vision of three Adepts, which you can read about in the biographies (see end). One of these was ‘The Most Wise’, a Lord of Mind on the Hermetic (Blue) Ray, a tremendous intellectual force. Another was ‘The Most Holy’, the Master Jesus, Lord of Compassion. The third was a Master representing the Elemental Nature contacts (Green ray). These were all perceived as Astral/Mental beings, not in physical bodies, and it was the ‘Most Wise’ who communicated with her.
She was given to understand that her natural path was probably Hermetic but she would also require the Elemental and Devotional forces for her work in this lifetime, and that, quote, “she was severely and dangerously deficient in the spiritual qualities exemplified by the Master Jesus”.
She said “When in the morning I looked back upon that breathless adventure, seeking to recover every detail of its memory, I found in my consciousness the certain knowledge that I had been accepted as a pupil by a Master. But here is a curious point, for although the whole bent of my temperament was towards the Master of Wisdom. I had been handed over to the Most Holy, the Lord of Compassion, and I was not at all happy about it. I can see now why I was placed under his guidance and not given to the more intellectual type of Master who was congenial to my temperament. It was in order that I might not develop the powers of the mind with the faults of character uneradicated”.
“During the next three days the memory of my past incarnations returned to me, right back to my first initiation in Atlantis; it was a practically unbroken record of temple work, save my last incarnation which was most lurid, and into which I seemed to pack all the experiences I had foregone during the rest of my evolution. Now it is quite a simple matter for anyone to equip themselves with a series of egotistical phantasies by way of past lives, but in my case I got back not only the memory of initiations and temple lives, but also the memory of the teaching I had received during those lives” [see ‘Magical Life of Dion Fortune, Alan Richardson, p66-71, Aquarian Press 1991, and ‘The Story of Dion Fortune’, Charles Fielding and Carr Collins, p27, Thoth Publns, 1998].
MAGICAL TRAINING
How her training with the ‘discarnate’ (?) Jesus went, we do not know, but here in the physical world she studied with Dr Theodore Moriarty, who is the model for "Z" in her book Psychic Self-Defence, and also for Taverner in The Secrets of Dr Taverner. She wrote that to him she owed the greatest debt of her life, and without him there would have been no 'Dion Fortune'. He was a man of formidable intellect and remembered as an unpredictable but affectionate and approachable man who vehemently refused to be called 'Master' as was sometimes the fashion in those days. If he could sum up his philosophy in one sentence it would be "Love is the fulfilling of the Law”.
She subsequently pursued her magical training in other offshoots of the Golden Dawn, the ‘Stella Matutina’, and the ‘Hermes Lodge’, started her own Fraternity, and also temporarily rejoined the Theosophical Society. Her brief sojourn with the TS was apparently under instructions from her Inner Plane contacts. Seemingly this was to encourage in theosophists an awareness of the importance of Jesus the Christ for Western peoples, presumably as a counterbalance to Krishnamurti who the TS was promoting as the coming ‘World Teacher’ for the New Age. This was before Krishnamurti renounced the trappings of the role the TS had prepared for him.
Dion became the President of the Christian Mystic Lodge of the Theosophical Society. However, the TS was then going through one of its soul-searching periods, with the stirrings of a 'Back to Blavatsky' movement, the relationship with Dion Fortune was a fragile one. Eventually it became too fraught and her Inner Planes contact said "We told you, when you're asked to go, you go." So she went, and most of the Lodge went with her.
THE INNER LIGHT
The time had come and Dion became entirely independent with her own Order - The Fraternity of the Inner Light. She was now the teacher but her work is not an easy task.
The principal ‘key’ she used for the inner work of the group was the Kabbalah. This followed on from her Golden Dawn training. In addition there was astrology, her own psychic abilities and teachings received from the Inner planes via herself as the medium.
The core work thus received was later published as ‘The Cosmic Doctrine’. Kenneth Grant wrote that "We recognise in Dion Fortune a dedicated priestess, a priestess of Isis, as Blavatsky before had been - Isis Unveiled and bearing her ‘Secret Doctrine’. Fortune too had her ‘Cosmic Doctrine’, concerned as was Blavatsky's with vast cycles of time, alien life-waves and superhuman entities".
Dion Fortune was very concerned about the suitability of Eastern teachings for the West. She held that the ‘flame’ had almost been extinguished in the West after centuries of persecution by the Church. Blavatsky had the task of making a massive dent in the materialism and stagnation of the time and teaching the mysteries anew. Thus, as DF said, the "Western flame had to be relit at an Eastern altar".
She continued in this vein ... "If you wish to follow the yogi methods you must lead the yogi life; if you do not you will break down. The Eastern forces require very purified and rarefied vehicles for their operation, and therefore the primitive aspects of the nature have to be pruned away. The Western forces are much stronger and more drastic in their action, because they take hold of the primitive aspects and use them for their own ends, sublimating the base metal into gold and not precipitating the gold from the ether. You may enable yourself to receive wireless signals beyond normal range either by increasing the power of the transmitting apparatus or the sensitivity of the receiving apparatus. The Western method employs the former, the Eastern the latter. If the teacher desires to use the methods of the East, he must make his pupils fulfil the conditions of the East, and for the higher degrees he must go to the East.
The knowledge of the Ancient Wisdom of the East has been popularised by the Theosophical Society, but do not let us forget that there is our own native esotericism hidden in the superconscious mind of the race, and that we have our holy places at our very doors which have been used for initiations from time immemorial. Potent alike for the nature contacts of the Celt, the work of the Hermeticist and the mystical experiences of the Church of the Holy Grail." [‘The Esoteric Orders and their Work’, Dion Fortune, p 34-5]
This gives you some idea, and it is noteworthy that this 3-pronged approach reflected the Adept beings she encountered in her very first ‘Vision’, primarily Hermeticists balanced by Christian Mysticism on the one hand and Nature Mysticism on the other.
THE THREE RAYS
"Three paths before you are separate in method and discipline, yet one in their ultimate synthesis. They are the three faces of the Pyramid of Spirit and according to how you view this Pyramid it will appear as either the Mystic, the Hermetic or the Path of the Green Ray. When you have climbed to the apex you will see the three are in fact one..........If your way is devotional, you will incline to the Mystic Path. If that of will and wisdom towards the Hermetic Path. If your way is that of the love of beauty and its expression, you will incline to the Green Ray. But remember, what seems to you a path is in very truth a Pyramid." [Society of the Inner Light - Its Work and Aims, 1995]
CONCLUSION
Gareth Knight wrote that "Dion is recognised as one of the most luminous and significant figures of 20th Century esoteric thought. She was a brilliant writer, pioneer psychologist and powerful psychic who dedicated her life to the revival of the Mystery Tradition of the West, and left behind her a solidly established system of teaching and school of initiation." [Foreword to ‘The Magical Battle of Britain’- Golden Gates Press, 1993]