Revolutionaries of the Soul by Gary Lachman

Author:Gary Lachman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General Fiction
ISBN: 9780835622141
Publisher: Quest Books
Published: 2014-04-15T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Dion Fortune: Psychic Warrior

On Sunday mornings during the height of the Battle of Britain, several people could be found huddled together in 3 Queensborough Terrace, Bayswater, engaged in an activity most Londoners wouldn’t have recognized as part of the war effort. Imagining themselves part of the “group soul of the race,” these otherwise respectable citizens visualized “angelic Presences, red-robed and armed, patrolling the length and breadth of our land.” Further meditations had them patrolling mine fields off the coast of Norway and performing astral commando raids on high-ranking Nazis. This magical effort against Hitler and Co. continued throughout the war, and although its effect on the dark forces of National Socialism may be doubted, the earnestness of those participating was unquestionable. The fact that during the Blitz not one but two German bombs fell on the headquarters of the Fraternity of Light—the group behind this spiritual resistance movement—might suggest that the Führer recognized the threat and tried to eradicate it. The further fact that those engaged in these etheric expeditions spoke of astral dogfights and mystical punch-ups might also suggest that there was more behind them than just patriotic wishful thinking.

The leader of this occult National Guard was at any rate very familiar with magical battles. In fact, it was through one such row itself that she first became involved in the occult. Having learned early on how to defend herself from psychic attack, and having devoted many years to mastering the mystic arts, by the time Hitler made a bid to annex Britain she undoubtedly felt capable of defending not only herself, but her nation. The name of this remarkable character was Dion Fortune, and she was one of the most brilliant figures of twentieth-century esotericism.

This, however, was not her name at birth, or at least not at her first one. The individual who took the name “Dion Fortune” at her second, magical birth was christened Violet Mary Firth and was born in Llandudno, North Wales, on December 6, 1890. As is true of many esoteric figures, little is known of Violet’s early years; as one writer remarks, she “obscured the details of her life and the true nature of her personality behind a cloak of glamour and illusion,” something that could be said of other occult figures, like Madame Blavatsky and Aleister Crowley. Her father came from the prosperous steelmaking Firth family of Sheffield. Arthur Firth didn’t follow this line, becoming a solicitor, although by the time of Violet’s birth, he was running the Craigside Hydropathic Establishment in Llandudno, having already run a similar spa-hotel in Bath—an apt career, perhaps, for the father of someone for whom the sea would be a central symbol of mystery, magic, and power.

Violet’s mother, Sarah, was a Christian Scientist, and in her early years Violet, too, felt the impact of Mary Baker Eddy’s ideas. But there were other, stranger experiences that presaged Violet’s life to come. At the age of four, she began to have visions of a past life in Atlantis.

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