Gareth Knight News & Ideas

Merlin and the Grail Tradition

2011-12-26T17:23:00.000Z

First publication of mine for 2012 is Merlin and the Grail Tradition - available from 1st January.

Few figures from myth and legend have impressed the imagination like that of Merlin, Archmage of the land of Logres, whose shadowy, compelling presence plays a key part in the tales of Arthurian legend and the Quest of the Holy Grail. In this collection of essays I trace the historical importance and esoteric influence of Merlin and the Grail tradition from its mythological beginnings right down to modern times, including Dion Fortune's Grail work at Glastonbury, the Merlin archetypes, the "Elizabethan Merlin" Dr John Dee, the bluestones of Preseli which were used to build Stonehenge, and the connection between Merlin and Tolkien's figure of Gandalf.

First published at the turn of the millenium by Sun Chalice Books, this new edition contains three new topics The Faery Tradition in Arthurian Legend and a new analysis of Chretien de Troyes: the First Arthurian Romancer. Additionally an old manuscript has come to light on Sir Gareth: the Quest of a Round Table Knight, resurrected from a private lecture given to the Martinist Order in Paris in 1987.

For more details go to http://www.skylightpress.co.uk/ or your usual book supplier.

Gareth Knight and Magicfolk

2011-12-01T16:58:00.000Z

As a change from scribbling books I have just made my debut doing voice overs for a couple of tracks on the new Magicfolk album, just out. My contribution appears quite appropriately on The Faery Ring and on Winged Bull. For more details or to buy a copy of this very evocative album go to http://www.magicfolk.co.uk/

The Best of 2010 Occult Fiction

2011-11-19T14:35:00.001Z

Anthony Duncan: Faversham’s Dream         ISBN 978-1-908011-11-4

Rebecca Wilby: In Different Skies               ISBN 978-1-908011-02-2

Margaret Lumley Brown: Both Sides of the Door        ISBN 978-1-909011-37-4

Alan Richardson: On Winsley Hill               ISBN 978-1-908011-00-8

For all that much of Dion Fortune’s practical teaching, (that which in the secrecy of her times she did not care to put into textbooks) is to be found in her novels there is often a reluctance to seek knowledge and wisdom in occult fiction – yet this is maybe the best place to look for it. Provided of course that the authors concerned are experienced at first hand and know what they are talking about.

The current year has seen the publication, via Skylight Press, of no less than four examples that can teach you more what occultism is all about, than umpteen textbooks. And highly entertaining as well!

The key to all this is being true to life. What otherworld experiences really are – albeit put into an apparent fictional context with the benefit of an intriguing story line upon which the facts of experience can be strung. There has been a tremendous surge of interest in my own autobiography I Called It Magic showing that a record of practical experience is of consuming interest. With this in mind, let me draw attention to the fact that all four of the authors mentioned above feature within the story of my magical life. And they all know what they are talking about.

Anthony Duncan features in a whole chapter, Rebecca Wilby is a major player in a couple of others, Margaret Lumley Brown played an important role in my early initiatory experiences, and Alan Richardson gives personal witness of what he experienced at one of my major Hawkwood workshops.

With this in mind, you will be missing a great opportunity if you do not make it your business to read something of what they have had to say in fictional form – for all is soundly based upon fact.

Anthony Duncan’s Faversham’s Dream exemplifies a great deal of what I have experienced in my own magical life in the resonance of historical occurrences with events and impressions in present time. Sparked by coincidental (!?) – (how often does so-called coincidence play an important part in esoteric experience!?) – acquisition of a volume of poems by a minor 19th century poet John Faversham discovers that its author had previously lived in the same old house as himself – and as a consequence of house and book of poems coming together begins to experience the same obsessive dream. Following up on this he discovers vivid “place memories” in the local area, rooted in highly emotive events in the 16th century.

Margaret Lumley Brown’s Both Sides of the Door is a fictionalised account of real happenings that occurred to her when as a young woman after a casual experiment in table-turning in what turned out to be a very haunted house which had once been an opium den and bordello situated close to the Tyburn, the former site of public executions in the west end of London. It is memoir of a terrifying event that developed into full blown poltergeist manifestation, with writing appearing on window blinds and materialisations in various disturbing forms. Originally privately published in 1918 this re-issue includes articles by myself and Rebecca Wilby on the life and work of Margaret Lumley Brown and a history of the locations involved.

Rebecca Wilby’s In Different Skies brings to life much of her own experience in formulating the redemptive magical work concerned with the amelioration of the inner world suffering of victims of war as described in the latter part of my autobiography. On a visit to Tewkesbury Abbey the heroine is startled to begin to recover memories – someone else’s memories – of the 1st World War trenches. These involuntary glimpses into the life of a lost soldier open up a visionary world and search across the fields of Flanders for the historical truth behind the vision. This provides another viewpoint on some important modern practical esoteric work as briefly described in I Called It Magic and also in the new expanded edition of The Abbey Papers and the play-script This Wretched Splendour also published by Skylight.

Alan Richardson’s On Winsley Hill is set on a very real location on a plateau near Bath, and is the moving story of Rosie Chant, a psychically gifted young farm worker aged 17 in 1908 who can pick up impressions from objects and places, and thus assists a visiting American folklorist in his research into the era of standing stones, long barrows and sacred wells. Nor does she complain when he uses her in other ways. As a biographer of various major figures on the modern occult scene Alan Richardson’s background knowledge in this finely observed tale provides a great deal of insight into psychic and psychological dynamics as well as human nature in general. It is also a vivid evocation of the west country world of Rosie’s youth culminating in a profoundly moving magical conclusion in the present day when she climbs the ancient site on the occasion of her 100th birthday!

All four of these books are heartily recommended, not only as means of personal instruction and entertaining but as highly suitable and inexpensive seasonal or birthday gifts to your friends. A means of expanding insights all round into the inner worlds behind physical appearances.

Follow up to "I Called It Magic"

2011-10-22T15:41:00.000+01:00

Copies of the standard paperback edition of “I Called It Magic” will soon be available through Amazon and other trade sources. The limited edition hardback of 150 copies signed by me remains available, but only direct from Skylight Press (see their web site http://www.skylightpress.co.uk/). There has been a strong demand for these so if you want to get one as a Christmas present for anyone or as a financial investment for the future you had better get in your order quickly. I am down to my last box and there won’t be any more!
Response from those who have read it so far are very positive – the first being very heart warming from a fellow writer on the esoteric scene:
“Just finished your autobiography. Still thrumming with it. It’s wonderful. I won’t make you blush with superlatives that you probably wouldn’t believe, but it’s everything I hoped to read. You weren’t coy, you didn’t pull any punches, you gave the sort of hard detail that makes it all real – and added a dash of élan, too. That’s your inner frenchiness for you! Really, it is the best book of its kind. Perhaps the only book of its kind. But remember…you’re not finished yet!”

Whilst a blog review from Australia reads:

“The diversity of magical approaches and traditions worked by Mr Knight and covered in the book is staggering: traditional ceremonial magic, Qabalah, Tarot, Isiac Mysteries, Faery Lore, Rosicrucianism…the list is very long. In addition there are descriptions of non-traditional approaches to the mysteries via the mytho-poetic creations of Tolkien, Lewis, Noyes and others. And while few of the chapters are out-and-out teachings or instructional in nature, there is much to be gained from them – both from their content and the material between the lines. Indeed it is very hard to read chapter to chapter without some break, as there is much in each to stimulate the inner awareness and senses and I felt myself getting a little overwhelmed without regular breaks. The inner contacts and reality Mr Knight writes about live more than on the page, and some descriptions are very moving and very deep.”
To read more of this long review go to http://magicoftheordinary.wordpress.com
I might say that my book of letters YOURS VERY TRULY - GARETH KNIGHT published earlier this year by Skylight Press, covering the years 1969 through 2010 can act as a very useful and entertaining companion to the autobiography – literally spelling out what it all felt like at the time! In this respect it provides vivid illustrations of a non-pictorial kind to the later book – arguably more revealing than the photographs in the autobiography.
Whilst as a teaching vehicle, another old book of mine is about to be released by Skylight, THE ABBEY PAPERS, should go well in expanding the inner horizons of the above. Zapped by a trio of inner communicators when I was working on the war letters of Dion Fortune back in 1993 it contains a very full run down on practical magical working, whether individually or in a group.

It was first published in 2002 but the new edition contains a remarkable extra section by Rebecca Wilby working with one of these original contacts, which provides very direct instruction on how such contacts are made and maintained, and also throws a revealing light on that part of “I Called It Magic” (Chapter 29 ‘This Wretched Splendour’) that saw us ranging from rituals at Hawkwood, plodding through Flanders mud, my playing “Amazing Grace” on a church carillon over the old battlefields, to theatrical performances on the London stage, and an esoteric novel “In Different Skies”. All very moving and what the deeper forms and intentions of magic are all about.
One word of warning though – make sure you get a copy of the NEW EDITION currently being announced on Amazon, and not one of the old edition copies, a few of which are still knocking about.

I Called It Magic

2011-09-28T16:11:00.000+01:00

At long last my esoteric autobiography I Called It Magic is about to see the light of day. The paperback edition will be out at the end of October but if you want to jump the gun Skylight Press are issuing a hard back limited edition on September 30th which can be signed by me if you wish. There will only be 150 copies printed of these. For full details of how to order and avoid disappointment go to the Skylight Press website and follow the instructions. http://www.skylightpress.co.uk/

More about Melusine!

2011-08-15T17:50:00.000+01:00

Book Review: The Romance of the Faery Melusine by André Lebey [from Inner Light Journal]
Translated by Gareth Knight
ISBN 978-1-908011-32-9 Publisher: Skylight Press
We owe a debt of thanks to Gareth Knight for making André Lebey’s work available to us, in what I found to be a vivid and readable style. It is the mediaeval legend, of course, as we may have learned from Mr. Knight’s previous work, but written as a novel, a very French novel. The style may be seen as florid, in the sense that the French “Great Encyclopaedia of Faeries” may also seem florid, but this attention to detail, colour and romance….and this IS a Romance…bring the tale uniquely alive, the imagery is so vital that it is like watching a film.

As you can probably tell, I loved this book. I read it with the music of French folkies “Malicorne” playing in the background, and I savoured every word. Yes, the descriptions are so evocative that one can almost taste them!
Lebey/Knight have achieved a hyperrealism through an almost hallucinatory pageant of minutiae which build and heighten the sense of time and place, of mood, of emotion, creating from the bare bones of legend a world entire. And it’s action packed! All human life is there, love and loss, bravery, betrayal…The people are real, though distant in space and time; we are shown, as it were, a myth through a series of masques or tapestries that dazzle and delight the senses.
Comparisons are odious, but if you are thinking to yourself “the reviewer loves it, but will I?” then if you like what Evangeline Walton did with Celtic myth, you probably will. There is in Lebey/Knight’s book a particularly French sensibility which makes it unique, of course. Here is a master of story weaving his magic and bringing the lovely lady Melusine back to us once more, impressing the legend firmly into our mind’s eye.

A MIDSUMMER'S JOURNEY WITH THE SIDHE

2011-08-12T16:15:00.000+01:00

BOOK REVIEW

A Midsummer’s Journey with the Sidhe by David Spangler & Jeremy Berg
(Lorian Press, 2204 E Grand Ave, Everett, WA98201, USA. www.lorian.org)

78pp 33 full page colour illustrations $15.95
This FULL COLOUR book is a magical journey into the realms of the Sidhe, the graceful "People of Peace" who are the overlords of the Faery Kingdoms. With beautiful full-colour illustrations by Jeremy Berg and text by David Spangler.
Endorsed by John Matthews: “This joyous and powerful story sits well amongst other tales of faery and brings its own enchantment. I really found myself carried off as I read, and emerged at the end with a feeling of having been a lot further than I thought. I’d put this right alongside Goethe’s ‘Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily’ as of a kind that can only be written by a true initiate. And the pictures which accompany it carry their own power – drawing deep on the wells of lore and truth.”
And by Gareth Knight: “This book should be a ‘must have’ for anyone who aspires to a spiritual awareness of the inner side of the wonderful world in which we live. An initiatory journey beautifully written and evocatively illustrated, and that is likely to take you further than you dreamed possible in many directions.”
Need I say more? An excellent practical little book upon which to build your imaginal skills and come to a deeper awareness of circles and gateways of stone and what may lie behind them!
Gareth Knight

The Romance of the Faery Melusine

2011-07-04T20:15:00.000+01:00

Skylight Press which has been going for just a year is about to publish its twentieth book which will be the result of ten or so years of my own investigation into the world of faery tradition entitled THE ROMANCE OF THE FAERY MELUSINE. For details go to the Skylight website http://www.skylightpress.co.uk/
This is a natural follow up to my two books recently published by RJStewart Books THE FAERY GATES OF AVALON and MELUSINE OF LUSIGNAN & THE CULT OF THE FAERY WOMAN, details on http://www.rjstewart.net/

While I am about it I might as well fill you in here with an article on my general progress in this direction, recently published in the excellent pagan journal THE CAULDRON with a follow up in THE INNER LIGHT JOURNAL. It is entitled FAERY LORE and here it is.

Faery lore has always been with us, as long indeed as faeries, but only in the last twenty years has it come to such prominence. This largely thanks to R J Stewart who has published some very practical books on the subject, starting with The UnderWorld Initiation in 1985, passing through Earth Light and Power within the Land in 1992, to The Living World of Faery in 1995 and The Well of Light in 2004. These have been particularly stimulating works because they present us with an important challenge.

They call upon us to do something about it, with particular reference to the doctrine of the Threefold Alliance – the mutual recognition of the interconnection of the human, animal and faery worlds. And how we can make the necessary connections by means of structured visualisations in conjunction with certain sites, such as standing stones, earthworks, forest paths, springs, pools, wells, woods, trees, meadows, crossroad tracks or the confluence of waters.

In the pursuit of otherworld experience we have, of course, to take care that such contacts are not subjective fantasies. Faeries are not quite such wish fulfilment figures as they are sometimes made out to be, and so we should not regard the quest as some kind of otherworld dating agency. Those forlornly seeking fulfilment of unsatisfied desires should stick, for their own good, to the human sphere. If you cannot make it with one of your own kind then you are not likely to have much luck with one of the Shining Ones!

In my own experience the start of any worthwhile contact has come as something of a surprise. The initiative came from the other side. When I found myself whipped up into some kind of spiral of euphoric awareness, with aura lit up like a Christmas tree, to discover I was standing in muddy shoes over a spring, in close proximity to a rowan tree. Or coming across part of a hedgerow where trunks of oak and ash formed pillars each side of a hawthorn gateway, to find it open before me on the level of inner awareness.

First comes the experience, then the realisation. Following upon this, if you are lucky and play your cards right, a deepening relationship forms from which friendship, companionship, guidance and teaching may arrive. At any rate, to a born scribbler such as myself, the consequence has been the writing of two books (The Faery Gates of Avalon and Melusine of Lusignan and the Cult of the Faery Woman) which are meant to be subtle guides and stimuli to action rather than otherwordly street maps.

Above all they seek to be modern. The study of old traditions of faery lore that have come down to us in legend and ballad can be very fascinating and indeed instructive but they speak of other times and other conditions. The faery world moves on as does the human one, and means of intercommunication now are not the same as once they might have been.

Indeed older forms of tradition speak not so much of intercommunication as of complete transition. Either a human is lured into faery land – or a faery enters the human world – visitors in an alien environment to that in which they were born. And such adventures tend to end in grief. Either the human being cannot find the way back, or if successful crumbles to dust, having been away for a very long time indeed in a different time dimension. Or the faery is driven back to fairyland because the human being breaks faith in some way, unable to unwilling to fulfil the conditions of such an unusual relationship.

There are of course rare cases where a successful transition seems to have taken place. The most celebrated being the 13th century Thomas the Rymer and his seven year dalliance in the hills with the Faery Queen. Or the successful recovery of Tam Lin from fairyland by a persistent and courageous human lover. All of which demonstrate that we are not dealing with a fluffy bunny kind of world when we approach the faery condition, but nor, on the other hand, are we consorting with demonic agencies as monkish scribes have tended to describe them.

Apart from ballad lore, which R J Stewart, as a musician has explored in some depth, there are other areas in which it is profitable to look, particularly in medieval times when humans and faeries seem to have been more closely connected than they are now. Perhaps because humans tended to believe in them more. On the one hand are the historical traditions of certain families that have claimed faery ancestry, and on the other early versions of Arthurian legend.

Three ancient families in particular spring to mind – those of Bouillon, of Anjou and of Lusignan.

The first concerns King Lothair of Lorraine who allegedly met a faery in the woods who bore him seven children, one of whom became the Knight of the Swan who sailed down the Rhine one day in a boat to champion Beatrice of Bouillon who was having some trouble with a local lord. He married Beatrice’s daughter Ida but left her when (despite his strictures) she became too curious about his origins.

The second was the powerful and widespread family of Anjou. An early member of the family, Fulke the Black, was said to have married a water sprite, who bore him at least two children before disappearing through the roof of the church in great distress when compelled to attend the consecration of the mass (an obvious monkish interpolation). This monkish libel did not faze the family at all in after years. Richard Coeur de Lion in particular revelled in being a member of “the Devil’s Brood!”

A third instance is that of the family of Lusignan, which like the town named after them near Poitiers, was founded by the faery Melusine, who originally hailed from Scotland, and returned to Avalon when after some marital strife her husband publicly called her a demon.

Taking into account the time scale of these family histories any such actual intermarriage would appear to have taken place a little before the turn of the first millennium. Was there a window or door of opportunity that opened between the worlds at that time, making such interchange possible? And is there a cyclic connection with the sudden upsurge in faery interest that has occurred to us at the turn of the second millennium?

One thinks of the elfin mythology of Tolkien that seems to have sparked much popular contemporary interest. But how much and in what way do we tend to believe in such things nowadays? I only know that when interviewed by an American radio show host I was asked to speculate a reason for this remarkable interest in Tolkien’s elven otherworld. I said that maybe it was because people were subliminally realising it to be true that we shared the world with another order of existence. At which the interviewer hastily interjected that they dared not broadcast such a possibility! Shades of Orson Wells causing a panic with his radio broadcast of H G Wells “War Between the Worlds” in the early days of radio? Are the alleged faery folk with whom we have shared the planet for millennia any more dangerous than science fiction invaders from Mars?

Who knows? What I have found intriguing is that descendants of all three families mentioned above played a leading role in the Crusades. Which suggests that for whatever reason the Christian west felt the need to go marching off to Jerusalem – then regarded as the centre of the world – the Faery powers felt the same way too!

Thus in 1099 a leader of the 1st Crusade, Godfrey of Bouillon became the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1099, and in 1101 his brother Baldwin its first king. Then thirty years on, when that line had died out, Fulke V of Anjou married the heiress to the kingdom, the princess Melisende, thus establishing the Anjou line on the throne. And by a similar process of marrying an heiress to the kingdom, the crown passed to two Lusignan brothers, first Guy who, had married the princess Sibylla, in 1186 and then Amalric who wed her half sister Isabella in 1198.

There is plenty of room for conjecture here as fascinating as holy bloods and holy grails, which has given me plenty to mull over for some time to come. But there are more significant indicators of a close human faery interconnection to be found in a close reading of Arthurian legend.

Particularly early legend, recorded a couple of hundred years before Sir Thomas Malory set pen to paper in about 1370 to produce Le Morte d’Arthur. Admittedly it is a classic of English literature but in which, despite Morgan le Fay and the Lady of the Lake, much of the faery content is lost. Sir Thomas, a contemporary of Henry V and Agincourt, was more focused on the conventions of feudal chivalry in the human world. To find the faeries coming out of the woodwork we need to go back to around 1170 when Chrétien de Troyes, the court poet of Countess Marie of Champagne, was versifying the first Arthurian romances. Not that Chrétien (who thought himself a very modern 12th century man of the world) entirely believed in faeries, but he was drawing his material from older sources who did.

And when we examine his stories in depth, we realise that the commonplace romantic scenario was not so much human damsels in distress calling upon knights to go and solve their problems. It was more a case of a faery woman acting as initiator of a human knight into the faery world.

This seems to have been the case with regard to Erec and Enide, (Geraint in the Mabinogion version), for although it appears to be Erec who is taking the initiative, it is really Enide who is calling the shots and leading him on into his various adventures, ending up in ruling a dual kingdom with her. Similarly Yvain after certain rites at a magic fountain is led on by Lunette through a series of tests that end up with him married to the faery Laudine. Even in the Grail romance Percival has his Blanchefleur and Gawain his Orgueilleuse of Logres as intermediaries on the way to very faery locations – one the Graal castle and the other the Castle of Maidens. And Lancelot’s adventures to rescue Guenevere plainly take place in a faery kingdom. All this I have spelled out in some detail in The Faery Gates of Avalon, in the hope that it will encourage others to go back to the tales, keeping an eye out for the faery dynamics, which become obvious once one knows what to look for.

This also applies to slightly later versions of Arthurian Legend such as the Lancelot Grail of 1220/30. Wendy Berg has shown in her remarkable work, Red Tree, White Tree - Humans and Faeries in Partnership, (Skylight Press 2011), that this stratum of legend leads to the conclusion that Queen Guenevere herself was one of the faery kind.

This view of Guenevere is no new agey fad, for the possibility has been seriously put forward by academics of some distinction, in Guinevere, A Study of her Abductions by Professor K G T Webster in 1951, and Lancelot and Guenevere by Professors T P Cross and W A Nitze in 1930. It is simply that Wendy, with her keen esoteric sense, has brilliantly illuminated a neglected academic thesis, and shown the whole Arthurian scenario in a new light. The light of Faery.

Guenevere was abducted on a number of occasions, but rather than passing her off as some kind of Persephone figure connected to the cycles of nature, a role which she really does not fit, a more likely possibility could have been the faery world trying to get her back! We find much the same kind of situation in Fiona Macleod’s The Immortal Hour where the faery Etain is taken back to fairyland after having wandered into the human world and been married to the Eochaid, the High King of Ireland.

Following this theory through leads to some startling conclusions as to the origin and destiny of the Grail Hallows, which as sword and lance and cup and stone, came originally from faery land. And which – like Arthur’s sword Excalibur – need to be returned there. Hence the need for the legend of Joseph of Arimathea returning the Graal to Logres, from whence it had been taken to Sarras (the inner side of Jerusalem) by the Grail heroes in the Ship of Solomon. Whilst the two cruets associated with his mission back to Glastonbury, one containing a red liquid and the other a white, signify amongst other things, the sap of the red tree and the white tree, the human and faery blood lines.

This provides the prospect for some exciting esoteric work. As Wendy points out, if it was the duty and opportunity of the knights (of whom we are the modern equivalent) to seek out the structure and nature of Faery, one way of doing this today may be to give more attention to way showers such as Melusine, Etain and Gwenevere. Those who left behind their birthright in the Immortal Clan to enter the human world. And there the challenge rests. Are we capable of responding to “the faint call of Faery” and taking steps to answer it?

An Anthology of Occult Wisdom Volume 4

2011-05-08T17:00:00.000+01:00

Just published - the latest book in this fascinating series edited by Debbie Chapnick - this one containing 40 years of writings from the archives of Dolores Aschcroft-Nowicki, Dion Fortune, W.E.Butler and Gareth Knight.

This one contains four training papers from the early 1970's by W. E. Butler.

Half a dozen records of personal occult experience by Dion Fortune dating from the 1920's and early 30's including some Occult Notes on Atlantis & Lemuria, here listed as anonymous, but probably also from Dion Fortune with additional later material by Margaret Lumley Brown which I included as an Appendix in my edited version of The Arthurian Formula (Thoth Publications 2006).

Five very practical lessons by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki from the early 1970's including detailed instructions on preparing the traditional magical weapons of wand, cup, pantacle and sword - plus herbs and incense magic.

A dozen articles by me first published in The Inner Light Journal from 2002 to 2005, later issued in PDF form only by Ritemagic under the title Dion Fortune and the Lost Secrets of the West which includes besides this leading article first delivered as a talk to the Temenos Academy in 2003 a follow up lecture on The Western Esoteric Tradition in Popular Culture later that year.

The other articles comprise The Dweller on the Threshold; Journey to the Moon (a comparison of three 32nd Path Workings by myself, Dolores, and Alan Adams (aka Charles Fielding) of the London Group); Fantasy Belief and Reality; Chretien de Troyes - the first Arthurian Romancer, (my first shot at what developed into a book published by R J Stewart in 2008 entitled The Faery Gates of Avalon); The Elemental Tides; Do You Believe in Fairies?; Dion Fortune and the Mystical Qabalah (my Introduction to a German edition of Dion Fortune's famous title); Is there a Psychic in the House?; The Magical World of Dion Fortune; The Red Rose and the White.

Altogether just over 250 pages for $25.00 plus postage from Datura Press - full details on how to get it from http://www.daturapress.com/ and daturapress@gmail.com

A History of White Magic

2011-04-16T08:54:00.001+01:00

Some time in 1977 the Managing Director of Mowbrays, a prestigious religious publishing house was looking in his shaving mirror one morning and was suddenly struck with the thought of publishing a History of White Magic. Goodness knows where that came from! Were inner plane friends of mine beaming psychical suggestions via the looking glass? Was he an unconscious medium?

Having embarked on this unconventional train of thought his first problem was to find somebody to write it. His search eventually came my way at the suggestion of my Anglican friend and mentor Anthony Duncan, via his friend and spiritual advisor, the Benedictine monk Dom Robert Petitpierre, both of whom had a reputation in ecclesiastical circles of knowing something about this bizarre subject.

I had reservations about this offer, having had unfortunate experiences in trying to deal with other conventional religious publishers and was still undecided when I began to receive a strong and persistent impression to consult the I Ching. I am not much given to divination, finding that my own intuition sees me well enough through most vicissitudes of life, however, so strong did these impressions become that I dusted off my copy of the I Ching and cast the oracle of yarrow stalks.

The result was the hexagram Ts’ui, “Gathering Together”, which has as its general interpretation: “Success. The king approaches his temple. It furthers one to see the great man. This brings success. Perseverance furthers.”

This was encouraging enough for me and so I went forth “to see the great man” and duly signed his contract!

A History of White Magic duly appeared in January 1979 and attracted more general interest than any of my other books so far. I was invited to talk about the book on BBC Radio 2, on Anglia TV and at a number of local radio stations. One clerical gentleman (who had not read the book) wrote to say how appalled he was at its publication by a respectable religious publishing house – but it was very well received in the esoteric field, even compared to Dr Bronowski’s famous television serial The Ascent of Man. I would not have put it in that class myself, but it had its influence and was translated into French and Greek and later had an American incarnation as Magic and the Western Mind.

It now resurfaces in a new edition published by Skylight Press. And I hope it may continue to serve another lease of life as a means to approach intelligent laypersons who seek some kind of explanation of what magic is all about. In the esoteric world we tend to live in a kind of cultural ghetto and my aim in being given the opportunity to write this book was to use it as a chance explain that it is not necessarily a weird and offbeat flight from reason, but a way of looking at the world, and experiencing parts of it in greater depth, that had ever been with us. Indeed had once been regarded as a noble science and philosophy. And as a use of the high imagination as an aid to the evolution of consciousness, from the ancient Mystery Religions, through Alchemy, Renaissance Magic, the Rosicrucian Manifestos, Freemasonry and 19th century Magical Fraternities up to the modern age.

To quote from the Foreword to the first edition written by the distinguished poet and Blake and Yeats scholar Kathleen Raine: “Magic” is a word whose associations are both glamorous and sinister; Gareth Knight, well known to his readers as the most down-to-earth and pragmatic of magicians, by seeking to show what magic really is and to what body of thought it belongs, dissipates both these illusions. At the same time he shows how real is the world upon whose laws the operation of “magic” (and of prayer for that matter), depend. It is the world of “imagination”, consciousness itself, the secret “prima materia” of the alchemists.

Or as the Hermetic Journal was moved to review: It is obvious from the beginning that we have here a work revealing the author’s spiritual maturity, a work with a definite message and structure, rather than the piecemeal gathering of snippets of information which often is offered in books with this sort of title, by inferior authors with little occult understanding.

To check this out for yourself you can do no better than visit www.skylightpress.co.uk and purchase a copy for your own use and as a means of enlightenment for your inquisitive friends.

The Old Sod

2011-02-18T17:24:00.001Z

Anyone who is interested in seeing what the life of a dedicated magician is like could be recommended to take a look at the recent biography of William G Gray just published by Skylight Press, written up by Alan Richardson and Marcus Claridge (W.G.G.'s godson) from the old boy's unpublishable and allegedly libellous autobiography. There they will find the reason for the choice of their somewhat startling title, (which was largely chosen by W.G.G. himself), and it may also explain the reason why, as an enquiring friend of mine put it, ritual magicians sometimes seem such rather irascible folk. I don't know that we all are, but a lot can be put down to what pioneers like W G Gray had to put up with in previous decades - his main interest in life being completely ignored and misunderstood. He was a great pioneer and creative thinker who moved things on in a very substantial way that is still little realised by those who benefit from them. He had to wait until his late fifties before he received any public recognition and I count it as one of the better achievements of my life that I first published him - with The Ladder of Lights and Magical Ritual Methods, ground breaking works on the Qabalistic Tree of Life and on practical magic - and then later with the remarkable Rollright Ritual which did much for traditional pagan ways of working. This is shortly to be reissued by Skylight Press, along with Working with Inner Light, notes which he made when I was working with him in 1965/7 that formed the basis for his early books. You can read more on the Skylight Press website or blog which are easily linked from here.

The Holy Thorn of Glastonbury

2011-02-05T07:19:00.002Z

Following the recent desecration of the Holy Thorn at Glastonbury I have been led to seek out my old records to find a working I once did - in fact the first public directed visualisation I ever performed - at Hawkwood back in the morning of Sunday 24th May 1981. After thirty years it seems that there is still something of a need for it. You are welcome to meditate upon it or use it as you will as a re-affirmation of the roots and growth and flowering of the spirit of the holy thorn. There is a blessing on all who serve.

The Spreading of the Blessing of the Holy Thorn

We commence by visualising the walls of the hall in which we sit. These soon disappear and we find ourselves standing in the countryside outside, aware of the life of nature all about us.
The figure of Merlin appears, with that of Nimue‚ as a fair girl in floral dress bedecked with wild flowers.They lead us across a field to a stream, which we cross, paddling through it, and we then turn right to follow the stream down the hill, which towards the end becomes very steep and leads into a lake.
We proceed into and under the lake aware of the fishes and underwater natural life about us, the sand and gravel under our feet. We come, as the water deepens and the light less bright, to a wall of dark green weed. This is parted by Merlin and Nimue‚ to reveal a hall of dark green, in the centre of which is a great cauldron, about which stand nine maidens. The contents of the cauldron seeth and bubble as if full of vibrant life, and the maidens give each of us a small amount of the contents of the cauldron to drink, from small shell cups.
Upon drinking these waters of inspiration we find ourselves rising upward from the cauldron toward the surface, and as we do so we are aware of lines of golden light. These, we realise, are strands of a golden net, and upon breaking the surface we see we are within the net of a crowned, purple robed Fisher King in a small boat.
We clamber into the boat and it gently takes us toward a great beautiful castle on an island. We disembark, and proceed up the broad drive, through wide entrance gates, into the great hall of the castle. There the Fisher King indicates a small door, open before us and to the right, wherein we can see a room, richly furnished, in which, upon a couch, lies a very old, bearded King. He is being fed by a maiden, from a chalice and dish with wine and a communion wafer. The maiden, dressed like a princess, rises when she sees us, and comes and indicates that we follow her through another narrow door before us. Beyond the curtained doorway we find ourselves on a spiral stair which leads a long way upward, deosil, until we come to a small chapel, hung with purple velvet with a silver altar in the East before us. Upon this is a large cup, of the same design as the smaller one held by the maiden, and over it a spear. Upon the blade of the spear great drops of blood slowly form and drop into the cup. The maiden gives each of us, as we kneel, to eat and drink of the wine and the host.
Upon our receiving this sacrament the ceiling of the chapel opens wide above us to reveal an expanse of clear blue sky in which the sun is shining. We find ourselves ascending through the sky.
After a while it seems that we are at a level where there is a crystalline surface beneath our feet upon which we can stand. At the same time we see a large boat floating, as it were, on this same crystalline surface. It has three bare masts, of red, green and white. In its prow is a knight in golden armour with a white red cross shield, who appears to be Sir Galahad. And on a bier in the centre of the vessel lies the body of a fair maiden, an empty chalice upon her breast.
We ride in the boat for some distance and then it seems as if the boat becomes two. One form of the boat remains with us aboard it, floating in the crystalline sea; the other rises higher toward the Sun. As it nears the Sun the knightly form of Sir Galahad turns into the figure of Our Lord, and the maiden rises from the bier, and turns into the figure of Our Lady. The boat itself, on which they stood, turns into a great silver dove. Above them is the great gold shining orb of the Sun.
As we watch, a figure walks out of the Sun, radiant, robed and bearded, carrying a staff. We realise this to be, as it grows nearer, Joseph of Arimathea. He approaches our ship and suddenly strikes his staff into the deck. Immediately it shoots forth branches, leaves and flowers of the hawthorn - and the masts of the ship do likewise.
We fill our arms with great bundles of may blossom and descend through the sky, aware of the form of our native land below us. As we descend, may blossom falls with us, like gentle snowflakes or confetti, and we scatter it upon the land below us, which is stretched out in time as well as space. We are particularly aware of our loved ones, and all those with whom we work and play. Then, as we near the surface of the land, we concentrate upon and home in upon the physical place from whence we had started.
We reorientate into our bodies and go forth refreshed, to mediate the forces we have contacted to the world about us.
+ + +

Company of the Inner Abbey course

2011-01-26T08:50:00.002Z

John Porter, who worked within the Gareth Knight group for 20 years and is also a student of Rudolf Steiner's teachings as well as being an ordained priest, is willing to take anyone interested through a course of study based on Experience of the Inner Worlds and other Gareth Knight titles. For details go to www.companyoftheinnerabbey.com

Experience of the Inner Worlds

2011-01-20T08:30:00.002Z

Skylight Press has just produced a brand new edition of my Experience of the Inner Worlds, first published in 1975. Produced for the purpose of training my immediate students in the Gareth Knight Group (latterly Avalon Group) it met with some initial opposition but over the years has apparently become regarded a classic textbook in many spiritual and esoteric circles.

But don’t just take my word for it… have a look at some of the comments by readers of earlier editions, reprinted from various review sites such as Amazon and Goodreads:

“This book is required reading for ANYONE looking to bridge the gap between traditional Christianity and the esoteric world of metaphysics. Gareth Knight is one of the true descendants in a line of metaphysicians bringing forth teachings from a highly spiritual source.” (Isis Music, USA)

“If you have any fondness for both the esoteric and Grail Myth, you’ll really like the approach of this book. Each chapter is well written yet concise and concludes with easy but practical exercises which build upon each other effectively.” (Boudicca, Germany)

“Readers are, I’m sure, familiar with the level of hands-on experience Gareth brings to the table. This book provides fresh insights that make it an excellent companion to his Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism, a long time staple on any serious esotericists bookshelf.” (Bokhara, USA)

“More than a systematic study it is a series of pictures, of hints for future pursuits that – just to give an idea of the turns this book takes – include the grail, the Sefer Yetzirah, Dante, Simone Weil, alchemy, sufi mysticism, the cloud of unknowing, renaissance magic.” (QWFF, Italy)

“The abstract analysis and concrete points of concern are very fine-tuned to provide great support to the practical applied exercises rounding-out every well-developed chapterial Theme of Experience of the Inner Worlds.” (Kevin Kiersky, USA)

“Considering its comparative brevity (about 250 pages) and high readability, the book’s scope is vast, treating as it does the Cube of Space, the Hebrew alphabet, the Crusades, the Grail mythos, Jungian psychology, inner planes communication, meditation and ritual.” (Michael K. Kivinen, USA)

“Each chapter of this book concludes with a practical lesson, mostly visualisations. A highlight of this book for me was information given in chapter 5 regarding secret hermetic and alchemic symbols. This is information that I have not found in any other book to date.” (Dragan, Australia)

It is available now direct from Skylight Press or from various Amazon and similar sites. For more details go www.skylightpress.co.uk

Yours Very Truly - Gareth Knight

2010-12-15T17:23:00.002Z

Having been encouraged to gather some notes with a view to writing my autobiography I came upon a number of letters written to a variety of correspondents over the years. Some of them seemed worth publishing as they stood, throwing a vivid light upon what I was up to at the time - illustrating parts of my life as they were lived, and discussing some interesting topics of perennial interest to students of the Western Esoteric Tradition.

There used to be an old saying that “life begins at forty!” I don’t know about that but certainly it is borne out in a certain sense in that the letters only start in my 39th year – anything before that is shrouded in epistolary darkness. However, my forty years since then, from 1969 to 2010, have hardly been devoid of recorded opinion or incident, which you are welcome to share with me.

The letters are to some 70 different people, and vary from learned discourse with academics, through exchange of strange experiences with esoteric colleagues, to providing answers to general enquirers who wrote asking me for information.

The book must be the quickest I have ever written, having taken only a week to select and type up the contents. On the other hand, it must be the one that took me longest to write - in dribs and drabs over forty years. May you find it a worthwhile companion.

Just published at £13.99 by Skylight Press - full details on www.skylightpress.co.uk

This Wretched Splendour as magical theatre

2010-12-07T09:47:00.002Z

I have briefly mentioned the remarkable play This Wretched Splendour in the past, but have now come upon a most perceptive and esoterically intelligent review of it, by Peregrine Wildoak, whose Australian blog "Magic of the Ordinary" is often worth a look. Anyhow - please read on his words of wisdom here:

I do not normally read, much less enjoy, contemporary play scripts. In fact the last memorable one was way back in the 80s, St Bob’s stunning piece of guerrilla ontology, Wilhelm Reich in Hell which left me reeling and shaking at the final page. Rebecca Wilby’s This Wretched Splendour did not have such a dramatic impact, but is equally as impressive and stunning in its own way.
On the surface this play should hold little interest for magical and esoteric folk: a short script set in the trenches of World War I Belgium, it charts the transformation the arrival of a new officer makes to a group of depressed and (most likely) doomed soldiers. However, the play is literally a talisman, a condensation of inner forces, contacts and blessings made available on this plane via the medium of literature. The impetus for the play seems to have come from Rebecca’s connection with “David Carstairs”, one of the most persistent and personable Inner Contacts within the broader Dion Fortune tradition and lineage. Gareth Knight, Alan Richardson and others have written about the Carstairs contact, but in This Wretched Splendour Rebecca Wilby writes with the Carstairs contact. The result is a tangible piece of magic, holding both inner and outer riches.
These days there are any number of ‘magical novels’ and novels by magicians. Most of these are products of the individual writer – not that there’s anything wrong with that. This Wretched Splendour, though obviously the work and product of Rebecca Wilby has the inner planes, via Carstairs, woven into its very fabric. It is thus something more than a play, just as Dion Fortune’s novels are more than novels. Reading This Wretched Splendour enriched and effected me at both deep subconscious levels and ‘higher’ transpersonal levels.
Subconsciously, by reading this play we are connected and opened to the reality of the living history of this ‘war to end all wars’. Though nearly a century ago, the wounds and scars remain and effect us all. It warped and maimed a generation, as well as providing impetus for much change. As esoteric folk, we know the effects such momentous events have within the soul of a nation, of the world. In the words of one of the characters, Conor:
There’s a death here that goes beyond the bodies that writhe and twitch in the mud. There’s a death of the soul of man, and the final fall of Adam.
The final fall of Adam. Through these five words, Rebecca Wilby masterfully sums it up. The sheer scale of horror (with thousands dying before breakfast in some battles) is incomprehensible to our modern minds, accustomed to hearing the names of individual battle deaths. The almost preternatural violence must have seemed apocalyptic and I think helped give rise to stories such as the Angel of Mons, even though the general consensus relegates this as a myth or illusion. Experiencing hell encourages us to invoke heaven. My great-grandfather, who somehow survived the entire war (after enlisting underage in 1914), insisted to his dying day he had seen the angels.
It is only recently that psychology has begun to look at this ‘trans-generational trauma’, trying to make sense of these deep soul wounds. This play takes us into the genesis of that trauma. It also, through the presence and words of an inner contact, contains the seeds of healing and redemption, for us personally and our society.
Transpersonally, by having the presence and words of an inner contact within this play it becomes a well crafted invitation to enter mystery. The inner contact Carstairs was a young British officer who died at Ypres, where this play is set. Soon after his death, he became a kind of mediumistic control for Dion Fortune, often introducing and explaining the teachings of ‘higher’ masters and adding a much needed human and humorous element to the proceedings.
Carstairs, the inner contact, is obviously main character of the play, David Cartwright, a central sun illuminating and fructifying the other characters. Here we see the very clever writing of Rebecca Wilby, as the Cartright character is not only made different to other characters by conventional artistic devices, but by using a few channeled lines from the actual Carstairs contact and weaving his presence into the words, there is a distinct ‘feel’ of the ‘other’. If we are in sympathy with the character, this can then take us into realms not known through ordinary plays.
Towards the end of the play Cartright, like Carstairs, dies. There is not a lot to this scene, no gaudy descriptions or action, something which serves the play very well. The presence of the Carstairs contact in a play describing his own death is not only ironic but an very powerful occult tool. The play is then the material basis for the mystery of the broadness of death, the continued existence of the soul in one form or another.
Added to this, there is a richness of subtle esoteric symbolism and action throughout. This is not always clearly delineated and will play more on the subconscious of the reader than on the conscious. Again, I compare it to Dion Fortune writing about how her writing of the Sea Priestess was designed to mimic the motion of the waves. There is much within the structure and form of This Wretched Splendour that will illuminate the open reader. Of course, there are occasional overt moments of spiritual potency drawing on esoteric lore, such as this call to the battlefield dead:
Let the dead arise! Out of the shell craters, out of the mud, out of the filthy slime, let the dead arise! Out of the broken trees, out of the barbed wire entanglements, out of the wretched trenches, let the dead arise! Out of the burning earth, let the dead arise! Let the undead arise! Rise up now, see the light in the West. Kick the fifth of battle from your heels and rise up. Follow the western splendour. Go! Go to the real Western Front!
Rebecca Wilby has done a wonderful job in the creation of this play. It deserves wide readership by the esoteric community. Do not be put off by the form, a play script, the subject matter or its ‘fictional’ content: this play has much to offer the esoteric and magical student. When we read it we are sharing in a highly successful magical action – the grounding of inner knowledge and redemption. It is thus a gift to us all.
This Wretched Splendour can be ordered from Skylight Press, www.skylightpress.co.uk.

Red Tree - White Tree by Wendy Berg

2010-11-24T17:13:00.002Z

I began to write this book after I had been handed a glass of red wine and a voice in my head said: “If you drink that, you’ll die.”

Such is the opening line of Wendy Berg’s seminal new book on the Faery tradition in the Arthurian and Grail legends: the beginning of a trail which led her to a complete re-evaluation of the powers behind the fellowship of the Round Table, and which, as it unfolds, throws a whole new perspective on some of Britain’s oldest and most enduring legends.

Red Tree, White Tree is no ordinary Arthurian or Fey commentary but rather a completely comprehensive and enchanting spiralling-back through history to its first annals and beyond. Wendy, co-author of Polarity Magic: The Secret History of Western Religion with Mike Harris, works admirably through what have been formerly disparate texts to find new connections and syntheses. Her skilled exegesis includes a webbing of biblical texts (both canonical and apocryphal), the Qabalah, the Mabinogion, the bardic traditions of Taliesin, Chrétien de Troyes, Robert de Boron, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Thomas Malory, J.R.R. Tolkien, and others, to make some extraordinary discoveries. This book will appeal to historians, literary scholars, mythological schemers, grail seekers, and esoteric practitioners alike.

In my view this is the most important and challenging book on Arthurian and Grail tradition for many a long year.

Red Tree, White Tree, priced £12.99, is available from Amazon and all the usual retailers, and can also be ordered direct from Skylight Press.

In Memoriam - and then some!

2010-11-13T10:00:00.003Z

If Rebecca Wilby's play This Wretched Splendour was reckoned to have “knocked into a cocked hat” the so far established canon for first world war plays then her novel In Different Skies must go close to doing much the same demolition job in the literary sphere. As one who has seen both Cheltenham and London productions of the play, trod the Somme and Ypres battlefields along with her, and now been one of the first to read her remarkable novel – appropriately published on Armistice Day – I can vouch that it is with more than a father’s pride that I recommend them both as compelling, funny, moving, depictions of what war is all about at the sharp end. There is a fascinating esoteric theme running through as well. All of which goes to make it particularly relevant to what is going on in various places in the world today.

For more details or to make a purchase go to http://www.skylightpress.co.uk/ now!

Melusine of Lusignan

2010-10-09T23:25:00.002+01:00

Ever heard of Melusine? She deserves to be better known. A major figure in medieval French lore and legend who is little known in the English speaking world apart from an essay by the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould as one of his "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages" published way back in 1894, and where he seems to take her for a mermaid, depicting her with a fish's rather than a serpent's tail.

She is however an altogether different creature. Indeed she has given her name to the type of faery who enters the human world to mate with a human being, bringing great good fortune until he makes the mistake of distrusting her.

I have taken the trouble to visit the little town of Lusignan, deep in the forests of Poitou, which she is said to have founded along with the local ruling family. I discovered her presence to be still discernible. So much so that I could not rest until I had rendered her tale into English, to bring her and her kind into wider recognition.

A fascinating creature in all senses of the word, and with an interesting family - including her mother Pressine (a Scottish faery who married the King of Albany - the old name for Scotland) and her sisters Melior and Palastine. One the supervisor of the test of the hawk, when if you could watch over her hawk without sleeping for the three days leading up to Midsummer day you could have what you liked as a prize, apart from the faery herself. The other the keeper of a great treasure, if you had the wit and valour to get past the monsters who guarded her. To say nothing of Melusine's ten sons including Geoffrey Great-Tooth, with the temperament of a wild boar and a great giant killer.

Just published by R J Stewart books as "Melusine of Lusignan and the Cult of the Faery Woman" - hurry and discover more of this powerful initiatory legend emerging from the transformative faery tradition of ancient Europe.

An Anthology of Occult Wisdom Vol.3

2010-09-28T18:26:00.002+01:00

Just published by Datura Press www.daturapress.com or daturapress@gmail.com is the third volume of Anthologies of Occult Wisdom, which on this occasion features the work of Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, Ernest Butler and Gareth Knight. As I am a major contributor to this volume I will forebear to review my own work but pass on an independent review by the Inner Light Journal.

"As we head into Autumn I offer you another absolute cracker! Many of our readers will know or have known one or more of these greats of the magical world (two of whom are still alive at the time of going to press!). Friends, teachers, inspirations all.

"This is the first of the SOL archives that I have seen, and very impressive it is too, what a wonderful idea it has been, to transcribe from fading Gestetnered copies and barely-audible tape recordings the amassed wisdom of forty years or more. What a huge job it must have been! We may have read all the books by these well-loved authors, but many of us have not been able to attend as many lectures and conferences as we would like, so it has been a pleasure both to revisit the familiar and to discover the unfamiliar, new facets of, dare I say, insight into the personalities of these Elder Statesmen? ('not so much of the Elder,' I hear them grumble). It is because much of this material was originally spoken rather than written, that the 'voices' of the authors shine through, it is as though we hear them speak. Marvellous!'

"I love the outdated and un-pc comments from long ago, which are apologised for in the introductions! Please don't ever edit them out! They show how much things have changed over the years and also make me chuckle. There is hitherto unpublished material here too, including a particularly interesting piece by Gareth Knight, his 'Reflections on the Mirror of Venus'. So many thanks to all who are involved in undertaking this sterling work of archiving for future generations. Power to your printing arm!"

Contents List:
Social Work and the Unseen; The Automatisms of Mediumship;Trance; by W E Butler.
The Seven Jewels of the Heart; The Solo Practitioner in Magic; The Practice of Group Magic; by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki.
Dion Fortune in Bristol & Somerset; The Magical Life; Avalon of the Heart; Interview with 'Magickal Light'; The Faery Tradition in Arthurian Legend; Dion Fortune & the Masonic Tradition; Reflections on the Mirror of Venus; DF lives! - OK? ; by Gareth Knight.

Through the Skylight

2010-09-04T16:55:00.002+01:00

Great news! Well known esoteric author Alan Richardson has joined the list of Skylight Press writers with a brilliant novella "On Winsley Hill". You can keep up with breaking news of Skylight Press by going to http://skylightpress.wordpress.com/
You can also enter your e-mail address if you would like to receive notification of new posts.

To the Heart of the Rainbow

2010-08-23T14:40:00.002+01:00

In the esoteric world things are not always what they seem. And sometimes for very good reason. One of which is the tradition of providing practical instruction in some other guise – sometimes in the form of fiction. Here the secret is to stimulate the imagination to go into areas that it otherwise might not think existed. It is a technique that has been followed by many esoteric teachers and not least my old mentor Dion Fortune.

Here is my own contribution to the genre. How to experience the power of the Paths of the Tree of Life without having to mug up on all the theory! It is simply a matter of lowering the barriers of disbelief and intellectualisation and being borne along on the flow of story. It follows that what may seem to be a children’s story is a highly appropriate vehicle – for you need to have the willing acceptance of the eyes and ears of a child to register certain things – “of such is the kingdom of heaven”. So identify with one of the children, (or even the dog!), and you never know what might happen!

This is now published as To the Heart of the Rainbow (along with evocative illustration by Libby Travassos Valdez) by Skylight Press. It will shortly be available through all the usual trade channels but in the meantime you can get your copy now, hot off the press, straight from the printers. Simply go to http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/to-the-heart-of-the-rainbow/12312714
Price is £12.79 or $18.43 or you can get it cheaper still by file download.

You can find further details from Skylight Press, who will shortly be publishing various out of print titles by me, including The Magical World of the Inklings, A History of White Magic, and Experience of the Inner Worlds. Whilst on the site, take a look at This Wretched Splendour by Rebecca Wilby. Reading play scripts is not everybody’s cup of tea, but this may be somewhat different. Remember what I said about things not always being what they seem? This also is packed with esoteric clout.

It is in reality an autobiographical snapshot of the last days of one of Dion Fortune’s early contacts, a master by the name of David Carstairs. It is said that old soldiers never die, they only fade away, but this one has positively refused to fade away over the past ninety odd years. He features as a respondent in The Abbey Papers that came to me when I was working on some DF letters in 1993 and later came strongly through to a student as recorded in An Introduction to Ritual Magic that I co-authored with the late Dion Fortune.

Not content with that, he followed up by inspiring the writing of this play, and even more astonishingly seemed to pull the strings to get produced within weeks, at the Playhouse Theatre, Cheltenham and at the Grace Theatre, London. If to read it can be a moving experience, to see it performed can be mind blowing and inspiring, witness the critical acclaim it received at the time. For more details of which go to the Skylight Press web site http://www.skylightpress.co.uk

2010 Dion Fortune Conference

2010-08-04T15:59:00.002+01:00

The annual Dion Fortune Conference which has become a regular fixture in the esoteric calendar moves this year from Glastonbury to Bristol - subtitled Magic and Mysticism.

Venue is the Southville Centre, Beauley Road, Bristol, Avon BS3 1QG and it takes place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday 2nd October.

Speakers this year are:
Bob Gilbert - Dion Fortune in the Light of the West
Geraldine Beskin - The Psychologist and the Psychopath (Dion Fortune & Aleister Crowley)
Marian Green - In the Footsteps of Dion Fortune
Ina Custers-van-Bergen - The Transformation of the Archetype

Ticket price is £30 which includes buffet lunch and refreshments.

For further details and information on how to pay e-mail naomi.ozaniec@gmail.com

More Anthologies of Occult Wisdom!

2010-07-14T10:53:00.003+01:00

At the beginning of May I posted a review of Volume 2 of An Anthology of Occult Wisdom that had just come my way - forty years of writings of Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki and Walter Ernest Butler from the archives of the Servants of the Light School of Occult Science. I have since come upon Volume 1 in the series and am equally impressed with it as a fascinating and most useful compendium for any serious esoteric student of the western mystery tradition. Just two of the articles included - The Elemental Kingdom by D.A-N and The Training and Work of an Occultist by W.E.B. - are well worth the cover price from a 180 page book that contains a score of other talks and articles on subjects as diverse as Increasing Personal Power to Aphrodite the Awakener, or from The Table Round to Assumption of the Godform.

However, that is not all in this exciting series. Volume 3 is about to be published in which I have been invited to contribute some works of my own over the years. These include talks I have given to various audiences - Dion Fortune in Bristol and Somerset; The Magical Life; The Faery Tradition in Arthurian Legend, Dion Fortune and the Masonic Tradition plus some early efforts an inner plane communication Reflections on the Mirror of Venus and DF Lives! OK?
This in addition to contributions from the usual SOL stalwarts on Social Work and the Unseen, The Seven Jewels of the Heart, The Automatisms of Mediumship, and Trance.

Now available for pre-order, like the others it costs $20 + shipping ($3 US $10 UK/Europe). Any questions to daturapress@gmail.com Any paypal payments to gonnefarr@mac.com

Midsummer message

2010-06-23T13:10:00.002+01:00

As readers of The Faery Gates of Avalon may already be aware Midsummer is an important faery time, Midsummer Day being also St John's Eve, and in Chretien de Troyes' story of Yvain or the Knight of the Lion (also known to Mabinogion fans as The Lady of the Fountain) it is the day that King Arthur sets off to test the powers of the magic fountain in the forest of Broceliande where one of his knights has already married a faery bride.

Thus after a fairly fallow period it was perhaps no coincidence that I should receive a message from R J Stewart announcing imminent proofs of my next book Melusine of Lusignan and the Cult of the Faery Woman, which should therefore be available by the end of the year - despite the recent credit crunch having had the effect of the esoteric publishing world "going to hell on a hand cart" as a fellow author so graphically put it.

So green shoots are beginning to appear and I set great store on the importance of this new little book insofar that it tells the story and background of one of the most remarkable faery traditions
of medieval France that is little known to the English speaking world apart from a brief and not entirely accurate section in Baring Gould's Myths of the Middle Ages.

So much store do I set on the importance of Melusine that I hope to follow it up with a translation of an evocative recreation of the story by a French freemason who seemed to have dug deep into her tradition, Andre Lebey's Le Roman de la Melusine. It seems to be all towards this that over the past twenty years I have been pushed by a seemingly irrational urge to gain a university degree so I could read much of this kind of stuff in the original, from Chretien de Troyes back in the 12th century to Monsieur Lebey in the 20th. I now begin to reap the benefit of having slogged through French irregular verbs when I could have had my feet up in the autumn of my days.

Back of that I have my eye on another possible avenue of interest in the story of Huon of Bordeaux, contemporary with the early Graal romances, who did all kind of marvellous deeds assisted by Auberon, king of faeries, (later spelled as Oberon by Shakespeare).

In the midst of all this high powered swotting I find much leisure and pleasure in wandering in the web-site of Libby Valdez, who illustrated my little Tree of Life pathworking disguised as a children's fantasy Granny's Magic Cards - a juvenile introduction to the Tarot now alas of incredible rarity, although available (though without the illustrations) on PDF from Ritemagic, whose link you will find elsewhere on my website.

I find Libby's drawings, illustrations, stained glass work, and paintings one of the most relaxing and inspiring ways of spending time on the internet. Why not give it a try yourself - on http://www.libbytravassosvaldez.co.uk/ ?

An Anthology of Occult Wisdom

2010-05-03T14:04:00.004+01:00

A gem of a little book has just come my way. Although when I say little in fact it runs to over 200 pages. And when I say gem, it is rather a casket of gems. It contains items from the archives of the Servants of the Light including material not only from their Director of Studies Dolores Ashcroft Nowicki, but from her teacher Walter Ernest Butler and his teacher Robert King.

Dolores, who in her globe trotting over the past forty years speaks from a lot of experience in meeting students, provides some salutary guidance on Common Sense and Glamour in Occult Work and wise words on The Unreserved Dedication which every esoteric wannabe ought to take to heart. For those seeking some immediate experience she gives practical instruction on how to make a set of rune stones, and for those really dedicated, an illustrated guide on how to construct a magical temple. This runs all the way from finding a location, choosing the décor and colours, making pillars, banners and lights, dressing the altar, and then how to consecrate and act appropriately within it. And for any who may be called upon to participate in group ritual work she provides detailed advice on what is expected of the Scribe, the Messenger, the Guardian of the Lights, the Thurifer, the Guardian of the Lodge, the Seer, the Ceremonarius and the Officers (or Upholders of Power) of the Quarters. Altogether an invaluable handbook on the subject.

“Of the forming of groups there is no end…” writes W. E. Butler, and as one who had experience of many, from the Theosophical Society to the Society of the Inner Light, he provides excellent instruction Concerning Contacts, Control and Communication and on The Astral Light and The Sphere of Light, and the publishers have done sterling work in rescuing and transcribing old lecture tapes on The Implications of Exorcism and The Etheric Body. Ernest Butler’s great gift as a teacher was to combine deep theoretical knowledge with examples of practical experience, and in this selection of material he provides an excellent guide for any who are confused by the loose use of terms such as “etheric” and “astral” in occult literature.

But even Ernest Butler needed to learn from someone. I know from personal conversation with him how much he felt he owed to his teacher Robert King (1869-1954). King was an occultist and mystic of enormous experience, well known as a lecturer, and from 1909 to 1913 principal medium and psychic for a leading spiritualist group. He also became an auxiliary bishop in the Liberal Catholic Church, from which he resigned in 1921 – probably for much the same reasons that Dion Fortune and Rudolf Steiner distanced themselves from the Theosophical Society at around this time.

Very much a “hands on” practical occultist he supervised Ernest Butler’s first unique experience of etheric projection, and he was called in to assist Margaret Lumley Brown when she got into a spot of bother in 1913, as recorded in my study of this great psychic in Pythoness. He is represented here by teaching on Arthurian, Grail and Merlin archetypes, and in Guarding Merlin’s Enclosure describes group work in defence of the inner side of the nation – a theme with which Dion Fortune was also later concerned, as recorded in the currently somewhat scarce Dion Fortune’s Magical Battle of Britain.

As if all this were not enough an Appendix on Dr W J Kilner’s experiments in photographing the human aura completes this Anthology, complete with diagrams, as reported in The New York Times of February 5th 1911.

So, all in all, a book to be highly recommended, along with its publishers, the miniscule Datura Press, http://www.daturapress.com/ and daturapress@gmail.com. who are well worth looking up for details of further gems on the way. This latest book of theirs is described as Volume 2 of what is intended as a series. I eagerly await my ordered copy of Volume 1 to see if it matches up to this one, and look forward optimistically to what future volumes may bring.

"No mere theoretical treatise...."

2010-03-06T09:51:00.004Z

I seem, rather like Merlin in my declining years, to find myself much concerned with faery tradition, though hopefully not with such unfortunate consequences as some assume to have happened to the great mage. Anyhow, scribbler to the end, I have just completed a manuscript on Melusine of Lusignan and the Cult of the Faery Woman which should be published later this year by RJ Stewart books. In the meantime, by means of the review below, may I draw your attention to the already published The Faery Gates of Avalon which, although I say it myself, throws a new light on Arthurian studies by bringing to the fore the practical faery tradition that is latent within it. That is to say, many of the feminine characters are not so much human damsels in distress as faery beings leading chosen knights into initiatory otherworld adventures. From whence it follows that early Arthurian romances, written some three hundred years before Sir Thomas Malory, can be useful practical manuals even today.

The Faery Gates of Avalon, Gareth Knight’s most recent work, is an invaluable guide to the meaning and power of the faery tradition as it appears in the main works of the medieval trouvére (perhaps best translated at “seeker and finder”) Chrétien de Troyes. Though widely recognised as the first of the Grail romanciers, Chrétien also wrote into his poetic tales a large amount of material dealing with the Realm of Faery. Sometimes, as in Erec and Enide, this material is concealed, whereas in other tales the faery elements are clearly visible.

The Faery Gates of Avalon opens with a brief introduction to Chrétien, his life and associations with the faery tradition, and to how some of his tales are connected to Welsh redactions in the Mabinogion.

Then follows a summary of the main scenes in four of Chrétien’s works: Erec and Enide, Lancelot and Guenevere, (or Knight of the Cart), Yvain (Knight of the Lion) and Le Conte du Graal. The latter given two chapters devoted to Perceval and Gawain, respectively, who are the two major hero figures in the tale. In addition to the clear and concise summaries, each of these chapters contains masterful insights into the main images and magical sequences of Chrétien’s faery world.

Gareth Knight’s book is no mere theoretical treatise, however, but a highly practical work, something perhaps missed by those who’ve come to expect “exercises” in every book. As Gareth says: “Chrétien’s romances can act not merely as works of reference on faery tradition, but as devices for tuning consciousness toward reception of such contacts ourselves.” In order to achieve this tuning, it is useful to read Chrétien’s text in conjunction with Gareth’s book. Gareth Knight is a long-time student of medieval French and thus is capable of reading Chrétien’s work in the original, but for those looking for good English translations, he recommends the highly accessible Arthurian Romances translated by William W. Kibler and published by Penguin Classics in 1991.

Additional practical help is given in the final two chapters of The Faery Gates. Chapter Seven deals with the key characters, locations and situations in Chrétien’s faery realm. Here we read of the significance of questing heroes, faery partners, helpers and guides, guardians and adversaries, and mystery centres and their custodians. Chapter Eight, entitled, “Reopening the Faery Gates”, presents a visionary sequence that can be followed in meditation, but which is open-ended in a way that allows each of us to create our own “continuation” just as Chrétien’s unfinished Conte du Graal sparked a number of literary continuations.

Chrétien falls into the long line of initiate-poets and authors whose ranks include Homer, Apuleius and Dion Fortune. His narrative visions of the land of faery present a series of transformative initiatory scenarios that can be entered in waking dream-vision and drawn upon according to our level of skill and experience.

No matter what level we are at, however, Gareth Knight’s Faery Gates of Avalon stands alone as the definitive guide to our journeys.
CYH Brown

The Faery Gates of Avalon by Gareth Knight (218 pages, paperback) is published by R J Stewart Books. http://www.rjstewart.net/ $17.99 US £15.95 UK

The Litany of the Sun

2010-01-25T22:59:00.004Z

Having said something about the inner Earth in my last entry it seemed appropriate if I added something about the inner Sun. The following was written by an old mentor of mine, Margaret Lumley Brown, who has been described as possibly the greatest psychic of the 20th century. She also wrote poetry in her earlier days, which was published in a collection called The Litany of the Sun. It upset some conventional reviewers at the time for what they felt to be its paganism. But it seems to me to encompass a universal spirituality that embraces Christian, pagan, and scientific belief systems – not merely as an intellectual appreciation but as a heart felt reality of the wonder of the creation of the world and the source of physical and celestial light. Whatever our appreciation of it as poetry it seems to me her lines are worthy of deep contemplation. I was able only to publish an extract from it in my book about her, Pythoness (Thoth Publications), so here it is in its entirety.

THE LITANY OF THE SUN

Thou who standest at the portal
Of the Heaven’s great highway,
Mortal Light of Light Immortal,
Take the prayers our hearts yet say:
Thou whose worship faileth never
From the Temple of the Day
And who wast and shalt be ever
Lord of Love and Life and Lay:
Strike again thy silent lyre through our dulness of desire,
Walk with us as once in Delos with mysterious song and fire!

Thou who livest through all changes
Since the world began to be,
Ere the mountains rose in ranges
From the bottom of the sea
And the mighty spheric water
Swept the land from shore to lea,
Till the universal slaughter
Laid the forests bare to thee:
Strike again thy silent lyre through our dulness of desire,
Walk with us as once in Delos with mysterious song and fire!

Thou whose kingdom was deep-rooted
In Hellenic hills of yore
Where thy columns piled and fluted
Reared their heads from shore to shore;
Thou whose Face lit those historic
Groves of oak and sycamore,
And whose Limbs divine and Doric
Trampled all the vineyard floor:
Strike again thy silent lyre through our dulness of desire,
Walk with us as once in Delos with mysterious song and fire!

Thou who wast the Generator
Of the world’s primeval spawn;
Thou the Matrix and Creator
Of the Attic soul withdrawn;
Thou whose wine of rising brims on
Every waking lake and lawn
When within its foaming crimson
Hath been crushed the pearl of dawn:
Strike again thy silent lyre through our dulness of desire,
Walk with us as once in Delos with mysterious song and fire!

Thou the fiery Drum that beatest
From the East across the sky,
Till the Southern heights thou meetest
With a crash of victory,
And into the far West wended
Marchest earthward from on high,
As the measured roll descended
Passes the horizon by:
Strike again thy silent lyre through our dulness of desire,
Walk with us as once in Delos with mysterious song and fire!

Thou the Mystic Heav’nly Bowman
Whose swift arrows heal all ills
And who, piercing Night the foeman,
Bath’st the wound in thine own rills!
Thou art Phoebus, Christ, Osiris,
Walking yet upon the hills;
Thine the Myriad-Arching Iris
Which Eternal Heaven fills!
Strike again thy silent lyre through our dulness of desire,
Walk with us as once in Delos with mysterious song and fire!

Thou who fall’st, thy work completed,
As the darkness stabs thy breast,
And unrobed, discrowned, defeated,
Art uplifted on the West
Where thou hangest, slain and dying
For the world that thou hast blest,
Till the windy landscape, sighing,
Lays thee in the caves of rest:
Strike again thy silent lyre through our dulness of desire,
Walk with us as once in Delos with mysterious song and fire!

Thou who risest sad in glory
From the strife so lately ceased,
Golden-robed but pale and gory,
Double-crowned as King and Priest
Who to awe the midnight’s malice,
At dawn’s sacramental feast,
Liftest up the morning’s chalice
On the altar of the East:
Strike again thy silent lyre through our dulness of desire,
Walk with us as once in Delos with mysterious song and fire!

The Assumption of the Planetary Being

2009-12-29T07:53:00.002Z

I wrote this article for a recent issue of The Inner Light Journal and the general reception to it suggests that it would bear repetition here. GK

This year of 2009 marked the thirtieth anniversary of the death of Arthur Chichester, the Warden (later known as Spiritual Director) who took over the reigns of the Society of the Inner Light from Dion Fortune in 1946. In the thirty three years of his stewardship he took it through various phases, that perhaps did not suit everyone, but which, in their totality, were of considerable importance.
To his nurturing of the Arthurian tradition, in which he had a close identification with Merlin, I owe a great deal of my early development that enabled me to branch off in other forms of service to the Mysteries. His later insistence on breaking down the elitist assumptions and structure of the Society in the 1960’s was also in keeping with modern developments in the esoteric world. And along with this was a re-emphasis upon Christian fundamentals of the Western Tradition that have tended to be overlooked from time to time by an overemphasis on oriental or pagan spirituality.
Allied to this however was a masterly comprehension of the fundamental tenets of The Cosmic Doctrine, not least of which was an appreciation of the significance of the Planetary Being. Most of the remaining twenty years of his life was devoted to emphasising the importance of this great “generating Elemental” (as he liked to describe it) along with an appreciation of the feminine spiritual principles generally subsumed in veneration for the Virgin Mary in orthodox Christian circles.
This was not so far distant from an appreciation of the principles espoused by Dion Fortune in her earlier Isis work. Indeed a communication from her that inspired an early ritual of mine was to the effect that there was a strong connection between a true appreciation of the mysteries of the Four-fold Isis and the doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
With this in mind, it is perhaps worth our while to take the elements of this doctrine and apply it, not just to the Virgin but to the Planetary Being. For if the Incarnation of the Logos (as St John describes the mission of Jesus) was significant for the elevation of the human individual who bore it – it must also have been highly significant for the Planetary Being as a whole, who gave a vehicle of flesh and blood and earthly experience to the Most High.
And if the Blessed Virgin should be later exalted by it (by Assumption and Coronation in Heaven) then why not the Planetary Being – raised in the end from a traditionally dark to a celestially exalted planet?
So let us follow through some of the rubric of the Assumption legend and see how it may apply to the Planetary Being.
When the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ had hung upon the cross he saw standing beneath the cross his mother and John the evangelist, whom he especially loved of all the apostles. And he committed the charge of his mother to John, saying “Behold thy mother” and to her “Behold thy son”. And from that hour the holy mother of God continued in the especial care of John, and abode in the house of his parents beside the Mount of Olivet.
It seems not unreasonable to me to equate St John with the Hermetic tradition generally, which henceforth has the duty of “knowledge and conversation” with those forces and beings that sustain the Planetary Being. (In support of this association I might cite “Meditations on the Tarot” anonymously written by Alexander Tomberg, a mystically intelligent and therefore somewhat controversial follower of Rudolf Steiner).
In the second year after Christ, having overcome death, had ascended into heaven, Mary betook herself to her dwelling alone. And lo, an angel, shining, in a garment of great brightness, stood before her. Behold, said he, this branch. I have brought it to thee from a tree in paradise. And it shall be carried before thee when thou art taken up out of the body. For behold, thy son, with the thrones and the angels and all the powers of heaven awaiteth thee. Now the branch from the tree in paradise shone with exceeding brightness. And taking the branch, Mary went up into the Mount of Olivet to pray. And behold, the Lord Jesus came and spoke to her, saying “Come thou most precious pearl, enter into the treasure of eternal life. Come thou without fear, for the heavenly host awaiteth thee, to bring thee into the joy of paradise.
For the branch of the tree in paradise that shines with exceeding brightness we may well see the Tree of Life, the system of revealed wisdom that shows the way between Earth and Heaven. Place the promise to Mary in the context of the destiny of the Planetary Being and we see a glorious consummation of the great ark of creatures that our planetary globe really is.
And as the Lord had spoken, Mary returned to her dwelling, and laid herself down, and giving thanks to God, she gave up the ghost, which the Lord gave into the care of St Michael.
We see the taking up of the elemental into the angelic by the great guardian the archangel Michael, and the consequent result:
When they stripped the body of the Blessed Mary for burial, it shone with such brightness that it could not be looked upon, for the exceeding flashing of the light. A great splendour appeared in it, and a great sweetness and fragrance issued from it like the flowers of the lily.
And that which follows, follows a pattern that had been enacted before by the incarnation of the Logos.
The apostles carried the body of Mary into the Valley of Jehosaphat, and laid her in a new tomb which the Lord showed them, and shut the sepulchre. On the third day the Saviour came with a great multitude to angels, and light flashing with great brightness. He commanded Michael the archangel to roll away the stone. Then Jesus said: “Rise up my love and kinswoman. Thou that did not suffer corruption by original sin shalt not suffer dissolution of the body in the sepulchre”. And immediately Mary rose from the grave and blessed the Lord, saying: “Let thy name be blessed for ever, redeemer of the world, child of my body, and God of Israel.” And the Lord kissed her and delivered her to the angels.
And as it was, is, and will be (time is but an illusion in this context) for the Planetary Being, so by divine promise is it for her human children.
Jesus called to the apostles, saying: “Peace be unto you. As I have always been with you, so will I be, even unto the end of the world.” And when he had spoken, the Lord was lifted up in a cloud, and the angels with him, bearing Blessed Mary into paradise.
All this is perhaps a little beyond what is generally conceived in current concerns for the welfare of the planet, but nonetheless shows an interior reality that as initiates, and followers of the wisdom of St John, we should be fully aware. In fulfilment of which we might also see within the orthodox celebration of the Mysteries of Mary and of the Sacred Heart an extension of the Mysteries of the Planetary Being.
Who, as Holy Mother of God, gave form to the life giving Word, when Jesus the Christ was born into the world.
Who, as handmaid of the Lord, is the balance point of perfect equilibrium, of divine force and holy form.
Who is encountered through the loving heart of any man or woman.
Who is the intercessor, guide, friend and mother of all mankind.
Who is active in the process of the “becoming” of mankind, and through mankind, of the universe.
Who partakes in full measure of the aura of the divine. Into which aura must all mankind grow. For as any human being grows to maturity by grace, so do they begin to share this aura, of Earthly Paradise and of the Holy Trinity.
To share in this aura is to will and act in character with the divine. Freedom within this aura is absolute. For nothing that is initiated from within this aura is out of character with the divine.
The character of the divine aura shows in all who begin, however uncertainly, to enter it. Here the eternal life given to mankind begins to be truly lived. It is an abiding, forever, within the Sacred Heart. And this abiding within the Sacred Heart makes all unreal barriers, separations and limitations fade away.
Those who share in the divine aura, and abide in the Sacred Heart, are at one, and in close fellowship with the communion of saints, the holy angels and all the spirits of God. All the fellowship of heaven and earth is theirs.
This is the joy to which you are called.

Recent interview

2009-12-02T20:03:00.004Z

I have recently been interviewed (in English) by a prominent Greek language esoteric magazine. For the benefit of readers of this website are not fluent in Greek nor subscribers to the organ in question I thought it would be useful to provide the transcript below rather than keep my light hidden under a bushel. G.K.

Mr. Knight, could you briefly tell us how did you get into occultism at first place? What exactly drew you to this field?

I was always interested in it. For as long as I can remember. Even as a child, and I never gave up on it.

When did you meet Dion Fortune for the first time? What was your impression? And how was your relationship with her?

I never met her in the flesh. She died in January 1946 and I was still a schoolboy then. I first came across her by reading her books “The Esoteric Orders and their Work” and “The Training and Work of an Initiate”. As soon as I read these I realized that wherever this was coming from, that was where I wanted to be. If there were such things as Esoteric Orders I wanted to join, and if there were such things as Initiates I wanted to be one.

Can you tell us something about her character, her habits and her everyday life?

Not having been around at the time I cannot give any first hand information about this. I think that Bernard Bromage, a London University lecturer who came to know her quite well probably summed her up best. Watching her in contact with other people, particularly those who needed some kind of support, he was continually struck by her power to quieten agitation and to still fears by her very presence. She had a kind of maternal strength of receptiveness which led the most timid to confide in her, to put themselves at her disposal and execute her behests. She was one of the most unflustered people he had ever met. Nothing seemed to put her out.

Apart from Dion Fortune, you have corresponded and worked with major figures of the occult world, like Israel Regardie, Gerald Gardner and others. Do you have any particular recollections of these individuals you could share?

I came to know quite a few such people through editing an occult magazine during the early sixties called “New Dimensions”. Much of my contact with them was through editorial correspondence rather than working close up to them. I could go on with umpteen recollections of various personalities I worked with but it would take too long, so all this kind of reminiscence is perhaps best left for my autobiography.

In 1954 you were initiated in the Society of the Inner Light. However, in the 1960s you resigned! What was the reason of your departure?

They entered a new phase emphasizing a more mystical approach. I had no difficulty with that but they also elected to cut back on more traditional magical work with little sign of returning to what I thought had been one of their great strengths. So I decided the time had come for me to go off and do my own thing. They had also become somewhat more reserved and inward looking since Dion Fortune’s day. Again nothing wrong with that in itself, but my own inclination and opportunities were toward getting the message out into the world by means of magazine articles and books. So there was also something of a role conflict.

In 1973 you created The Avalon Group (now run by Wendy Berg). How did this group come to be? Is it an initiatory order or an open magic/study group?

In 1964 I had set up a correspondence school with W.E.Butler known as the Helios Course on Practical Qabalah, most of the wisdom for which came from him I have to say. By 1973 I was beginning to get ideas of my own and decided it was not so much a general school that I wanted to run but a small active magical ritual group, much as the upper echelons of the Society of the Inner Light had been before I left. The Helios course was relaunched as the Servants of the Light organization, which has been successfully developed by Mike and Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki since then. For more details of that consult http://www.servantsofthelight.org/ I wrote a new book, “Experience of the Inner Worlds”, setting out my own ideas, which formed the basis for training up my own students. It is what I would call an initiatory working magical group. Open in so far that it accepts serious students, but not open in the sense of a weekend workshop where anyone can join in. More details are on its web-site which is annexed to my own: http://www.garethknight.net/ or more directly at http://www.avalong-group.org/

During the 1980s, you lectured in various places including here in Athens. What was your experience with the Greek audience?

I came out at the invitation of a small group of students called Iamblichos, some of whom had originally studied on the Helios course and who translated my “Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism” into Greek as well as my “History of White Magic” and Dion Fortune’s “The Cosmic Doctrine”. I was immensely impressed by their dedication. I only spoke once to an audience of the general public, at a hall hired by the group, one of whom was arrested during the night for fly posting notices of the meeting. I slightly feared for the consequences as he had also taken the opportunity to paste them on existing posters of a leading Greek politician who was depicted holding his hand out in a generous gesture soliciting votes. He was now seen offering details of a lecture by Gareth Knight! However, all passed off well. The hall was packed out, with a somewhat shifting audience, as admission was free, but I was impressed with the patience of many, as I spoke in English with someone translating into Greek what I had said, sentence by sentence. I felt this might have been rather tedious but it all seemed to go down pretty well.

What is your opinion about Greece, the Greek mythology and our magical tradition?

Greece is the cradle of the western esoteric tradition, and there is more to be learned from it than even the ancient Egyptian, for it is closer to our own roots in western civilization. I found visits to some of the sites positively mind blowing and they certainly rate as high points in my esoteric life. It was possible at this time to visit the remains of the cell where Socrates was administered the hemlock as movingly described in Plato’s “Phaedo”, which had recently been discovered by archaeologists. And his ambience was also strongly felt near the Athenian Acropolis, where he used to speak, and again at the Theatre of Dionysus where a fallen old Silenas type of statue brought him to mind. My wife and I had a remarkable feeling of familiarity at the Agora, the civic centre and market place of ancient Athens, where we were easily able to locate the joint temple of Hephaistos/Athene, seemingly by ancient memory. It would be tedious to recount all the major and minor contacts made at the various sites, of an unexpected Asclepios contact at the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion, and who also showed up at his major centre at Epidaurus; or a Merlin contact at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi and at the little visited Stadium right at the top; and at Eleusis where I met with the strongest Demeter contact I have ever had in my life. Again at the lesser known oracular site of Triphonium we were aware of the potential reawakening of very ancient Mysteries, but the climax for me was at Mycenae where clasping a rowan and a thorn tree growing close together on the hillside, a sudden wind sprang up physically around me and I found myself surrounded by air and other elemental beings along with the feeling of making a powerful contact via all the thorn and rowan trees in both countries, earthing with their roots a major esoteric link between Albion and Hellas that went back a long long way. This was perhaps reciprocated to some extent when some of the Iamblichos group visited England a few years later and I was able to take them to major sites such as Stonehenge, Avebury, Wandlebury, Brean Down and Glastonbury Tor.

Finally, in 1998, you rejoined the Society of the Inner Light. What made you return there?

I was invited to return, initially to help with some editorial work, editing some of Dion Fortune’s hitherto unpublished papers, which saw light of day in “An Introduction to Ritual Magic”, “The Circuit of Force”, “Principles of Hermetic Philosophy”, “Spiritualism and Occultism”, “Practical Occultism”, “Principles of Esoteric Healing” and a digest of her war letters “The Magical Battle of Britain” all now available through Thoth Publications. http://www.thoth.co.uk/ Also to write introductions to American editions of her established works for Red Wheel/Weiser. This developed into helping to put in place some of the structures of the Society that had been set aside back in the 1960’s and which it was now felt the time had come to reintroduce. Having been around in the old days I was able to give practical help and advice in this respect. I should say that although I have renewed membership there, my role is an advisory one to those whole rule the lodge. I am not its head and I hold no executive position.

Does the Society operate in Greece? Could you provide some information about how long you have got an active group here, if you encountered any problems with religious intolerance, etc?

Not in practical terms. The members of any working group must live within reasonable distance of it in order to attend meetings regularly. There may well be groups of one kind or another operating in Greece but I do not have much knowledge of what goes on beyond my own patch.

Could you briefly share with us the philosophical teachings of the Society of the Inner Light, its purpose and message to the world?

That is best addressed to the Society of the Inner Light itself. You would do best to consult their website. http://www.innerlight.org.uk/

Just recently Alan Richardson published a book about the relationship between Fortune and Aleister Crowley. What was her actual opinion about him?

I have not come across Alan’s book yet, although I heard he was preparing one. As far as I know Dion Fortune respected Crowley’s technical knowledge and practical experience but did not think much of his moral calibre.

One of the most influential books of Fortune, here in Greece at least, is her Psychic Self-Defense. Do you think that this has to do with the widespread feeling of fear caused by the current economic crisis? Is there anything that the magician should actually fear and protect himself/herself from?

I do not have a very high opinion of “Psychic Self-Defense”, which is a very early work of hers that plays up the sensational side, often with much credulity – which is a phase most of us go through at one stage or another. I don’t think its popularity has much to do with any current economic crisis – it is simply the appeal of the sensational – which is the basis of most of our tabloid press and entertainment industries. This kind of book feeds on the fears of the psychologically vulnerable or inadequate and there are much better ones that have been subsequently written, such as Caitlín Matthews’ “The Psychic Protection Handbook” for those who think they are in need of help. For more details consult http://www.hallowquest.org.uk/ As far as the ordinary magical student is concerned, the only thing to fear is fear itself. Either of the unknown, or of one’s own repressed feelings projected outwards.

You have done an excellent study on the Tarot (a book that is published in Greek as well). What made you study this subject at first place? Is it a divinatory tool, a way for self exploration or both?

I was originally commissioned to write it by Carl L Weschcke of Llewellyn Publications. The Tarot is part and parcel of the Qabalistic Tree of Life as developed in 19th and 20th century occult tradition. I was drawn into closer study of it in order to design a set of cards to go with the book. For various financial and technical reasons the Gareth Knight Tarot, with artwork by Dutch astrologer Sander Littel did not appear until some twenty years after the book! The Tarot is both a divinatory tool and a way of self exploration. The latter I developed in a book called “The Treasure House of Images” (“Tarot & Magic” in the American edition); the former in “The Magical World of the Tarot”. Details of them are on my web site http://www.garethknigh.net/

Nowadays, Qabalah has become part of the fast-spirituality movement, with all kinds of interpretations and pop/New Age books. How do you feel about this?

I don’t feel anything about it particularly. There is always the risk of trivialization when any esoteric subject become popular or fashionable, but probably more good than harm comes out of the froth. At least I like to think so.

What is your opinion about other forms of contemporary esoteric schools? For example, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, Golden Dawn. Thelema, Wicca etc.

The esoteric field is a multi-faceted one, and there are many schools to suit the needs of many different people. Schools, like any living organism, have their own life cycles, of increase and decrease, progress or reaction. It is their ethical and moral standards and practice that is as important as any particular doctrinal emphasis. It is up to the individual to seek and find one most congenial to their needs – there is after all plenty of choice. Of course, many are able to hack it alone these days, in workshops or informal groups.

Do you think that there is a future for the Western Mystery Tradition? What must its modern representatives do for it to survive and grow further? How do you as an Order operate in order to respond to the challenges of the modern world?

Of course there is a future for the Western Mystery Tradition, it has always been with us in one form or another, and always will, even if muted by political or religious repression in certain times and in certain places. What do we have to do? Look in our own hearts and take the next step that is revealed in the silence.

Do you believe that angels and other unseen beings are actual creatures or do you consider them as purely symbolic inner powers?

Yes, although a lot that passes for angelic or other inner contact may well be no more than subjective and symbolic in the early stages of our spiritual progress. Although we do not need to be conscious of spiritual beings for them to act upon our lives in various ways. It is also a great mistake to regard them as psychological archetypes or complexes, although they can indeed work in that way if need be. An esoteric student is simply one who tries to meet them halfway.

What’s the general British belief for magic? Unfortunately, here in Greece every kind of magic is automatically considered as Black Magic and maleficia!

Most people don’t relate to it much – or regard it as harmless fantasy. A combination of Harry Potter and Terry Pratchet. In a largely secular society there is a good degree of tolerance for people’s belief systems as long as they do no harm to others. Some religious converts show an intolerance in direct proportion to the strength of their convictions, and fundamentalists of any kind can be somewhat tiresome, even a menace - as when one or two psychic bookshops and stores were torched some years back – although some of the poisonous tripe on sale could well have warranted some kind of protest. There is an obvious concern on the part of responsible religious bodies about vulnerable people being encouraged to experiment psychically and get out of their depth. This is understandable, particularly as they are the ones who are often called upon the clean up the mess. Much of my esoteric work has benefited from the input of sympathetic ministers of religion, although sadly, these remain in the minority.

In your opinion, what should be the purpose of magic? Could magic be so extravagant as it is presented in the movies? Are its results perceptible only in the astral level or are they actually a psycho-dynamic process of self-evolution?

Beyond the purpose of individual development of one’s full psychic and spiritual potential, the purpose of magic is cooperation with the beneficent forces behind human evolution. I doubt if it will be so extravagant as portrayed on the movies, any more than any other serious pursuit is ever accurately presented. The modus operandi may well be a technology of the imaginative faculties, but ultimately things work out in terms of physical circumstance. In quite a natural way I should say. We are not in the world of Harry Potter.

If you could recommend 3 books that constitute essential readings for a beginner keen to learn more about magic, which would they be and why?

John and Caítlin Matthews “The Western Way”, in two volumes, one on the Native tradition and the other on the Hermetic tradition which tell all you need to know about the western mysteries and how to approach them. http://www.hallowquest.org.uk/
R J Stewart “The Miracle Tree” which is an approach to the Qabalistic Tree of Life stripped of all intellectual and speculative inessentials that have grown up around it. http://www.rjstewart.org/
Coleston Brown “The Mystery of the Seven Directions” which does a like job with the basics of magical practice. http://www.magicalways.com/

Would you like to share with us your weirdest paranormal experience ever?

I don’t do weird! And it all depends on what you mean by paranormal. I have experienced a few remarkable things in my life, such as the kind of things I have briefly outlined about my visit to Greece, but I would not want to isolate any as being of the greatest significance. You will have to wait for my autobiography for a balanced assessment of all that.

Could you tell us a few words about your daily life? What’s a magician’s daily life like?

A magician’s daily life is much like anybody else’s. We are not an alien race. Indeed why typify oneself as a magician? I am, or have been, also a parent, husband, publisher, musician, chess player, pensioner, supermarket shopper, car driver, etc., etc., etc. I still have to put up with the same weather, traffic, government, household chores, minor ailments as anyone else. Just as my family and friends have to put up with me!

After so many years of a successful career, if you had the opportunity to change something in your life or in your books, would you change anything?

I have only ever done what was put in front of me to do. Some things I may have done well, others less so. It is not for me to judge. What has happened has happened, and I don’t care to speculate about “might have beens”. I mean would things have turned out better if I had been born rich, tall dark and handsome, and more intelligent? I don’t know. When it comes to books, there are always elements in them one feels might now be better expressed. Or which have not stood the test of time. But you can’t turn back the clock. We are what we are in the ever changing eternal present. So we must make the best of what we’ve got!

Which one of your books is the favorite one and why?

My biography of Dion Fortune, “Dion Fortune and the Inner Light”, which was great fun to do, and quite an education, going through the archives and plotting out the life of one of the great occultists of the twentieth century and a personal mentor and inspiration in my life.

Are you currently preparing a new book? Would like to tell us a few words about it?

Yes, I have two on the stocks, both half finished, and which I hope to deliver quite soon. An autobiography, called “A Magical Life”, which aims to be a pretty up-beat book showing how magic works – and how events in my life seem to have been shaped by inner forces or beings of one kind and another.
The other is a follow up to my recent book “The Faery Gates of Avalon”, and analyses further the very important and frequently misunderstood faery tradition. It contains a life time of research and practical experience and is called “Melusine of Lusignan and the Cult of the Faery Woman”.
Both are contracted out to RJ Stewart Books, so watch their web site next year. http://www.rjstewart.org/

Audio and Visual treats

2009-10-17T20:41:00.002+01:00

Just a note to draw attention to a couple of treats that may take your fancy. One from my daughter Rebecca who has a new album out called Seven Star Green which has as lead title a song written by my old friend and colleague R J Stewart many years ago, which I still think one of his best. For more details and free listening go to www.myspace.com/rebsiefairholm

And for some mind blowing photographs of the elemental side of nature, especially as revealed by trees and water, by Iain Duncan, son of my old sparring partner and fellow writer, the late Anthony Duncan. I remember Iain's first efforts as a kid with a clapped out old bellows camera and they were fantastic for his age. Now in maturity he has surpassed himself. For a free viewing go to http://www.photas.com

The Art of the Simple

2009-09-06T09:50:00.003+01:00

One of the problems with the human mind is that is loves to make the simple complicated. This is particularly so on the part of esoteric teachers. But who am I – it might be asked – with all the books of which I am guilty – to cast the first stone? People who live in glass houses, etcetera….

But as one very forthright beginner, who has the direct no-nonsense approach of a Joan of Arc, put it to me recently – “Is there really a need for all this swotting?”

This was not just a question of a guileless innocent saying “But the emperor has no clothes!” but rather “Can’t you see the emperor is being weighed down by superfluous finery?”

Help, however, is at hand, from an old friend and former student of mine, Coleston Brown, in a mercifully short book entitled The Mystery of the Seven Directions. For when all is said and done on the subject of magic it boils down to a very simple formula. Wherever we may be, there are just seven ways we can go: UP, DOWN, FORWARD, BACK, RIGHT, LEFT or CENTRE.

Having established these simple principles, the only mystery is what we are likely to find in each direction. And this is really up to us. There are indeed great treasures to be found and spiritual helpers and friends. All we have to do is seek in order to find, or knock in order for things to be opened to us.

The trouble has been in the past that many who have pursued these directions have been so diverted by what they found that they have come back to describe it all in great detail. And if they fancy themselves as teachers the temptation is to present all this in a great complicated system that poor benighted students are expected to master in order to progress.

This simple principle was first explained to me by W G Gray which he likened to making your own space craft – and that the whole of magic was a system of building one’s own co-ordinates in order to find your way through inner space. Of course he then went on to elaborate various complexities of his own from what he himself had found. Which I am afraid is what most of us in the esoteric workshop and scribbling trades tend to do.

There is of course nothing new in all of this. The basic principles have been there in what has been called the Cube of Space since the Sepher Yetzirah or Book of Formation was written donkey’s years ago. More modern versions have been described by Paul Case, utilising the Tarot, and even by myself in Experience of the Inner Worlds, using Hebrew letters. The secret is to keep the cube simple, as a system of seven doors, and only fill it with what you find – not some guru’s cast off junk.

It seems to me that this may well be the pattern for esoteric progress in immediate future – so you can chuck out most of the baroque complications that still clutter the place up – whether it be the Enochian tablets of Dr Dee or the quasi Masonic offshoots of the Golden Dawn. All very useful in their day but apt to get in the way of clear sight and uncluttered spirituality.

You can find details of The Mystery of the Seven Directions published by LeBrun at Vancouver Island on http://www.lebrun.pathsofspirit.com/.

The Magical Life and the Tarot

2009-06-14T10:24:00.002+01:00

A major esoteric publishing event has just been brought to my attention which I have not had the opportunity to check out myself, but the publishers speak very highly of it. It is in the form of a 562 page book entitled THE BOOK OF ENGLISH MAGIC by Philip Carr-Gomm and Sir Richard Heygate and published by the long established and respected firm of John Murray. If the title should sound somewhat parochial to world wide readers, (let alone our Scottish, Welsh and Irish cousins), then two statements in the book seek to justify it: “England has fostered the greatest variety of magicians in the world” and “there are now more practicising wizards in England than at any other time in history.” Anyhow details are freely available at http://www.bookofenglishmagic.com/

Qualifying I suppose as an English magician myself and having had to do with a few in my magical life, good, bad and indifferent, I am now in the process of reviewing what it was all about in an autobiography I propose to call “A Magical Life”. There seems to be something of a virus going around of an autobiographic nature just now, as a couple of other close colleagues of mine, of a certain age, (steaming up to the age of 80), are also apparently at the game. At least it may allow us to get in the first word (or in another sense the last) before the biographical vultures gather to pick over our remains.

Actually I find it a most educative and rewarding exercise. It has caused me to realise a lot about myself (and other people) that had not been apparent before in the cut and thrust of life’s battle. And possibly what effort I put into this exercise may make things a little easier when I actually enter the Judgement Hall of Osiris to be weighed in the balance against the feather of Maat. At least I shall have some of my answers and justifications prepared.

One thing that has come to me has been the importance of the Tarot in my life. I had more or less forgotten that I had written three books on it over the years - A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism then The Treasure House of Images (aka Tarot and Magic) and finally The Magical World of the Tarot.

The first was a somewhat traditional approach when I was still learning my trade, aligning it with the Spheres and Paths of the Tree of Life. This appeared in 1965 although it had been written by 1962 along with a set of Tarot cards, The Gareth Knight Tarot, designed by Sander Littel, that had to wait until 1984 before being rescued from oblivion by the great Tarot card collector Stuart Kaplan. The correspondences are those favoured by the Golden Dawn, which are certainly not the only ones possible, but in my experience have served me very well over the years in formal Qabalistic studies, both theoretical and practical.

The Treasure House of Images or Tarot and Magic developed out of a workshop I did in 1984 at Hawkwood College, where I sought to show its possibilities as a system of magical images in ritual work. I had then realised it to be a system in its own right that did not necessarily have to be tied in to the Qabalah. Although I did conclude with an extended path working that more or less followed Tree of Life lines, and which came to me first as a children’s story for grown ups, called Granny's Magic Cards. For the textbook I cut out all the kid’s stuff, (although, as with Lewis Carroll’s adventures of Alice, some of it contained teaching not easily rendered by other means). Eventually I did publish the original, in 2004, with evocative illustrations by Libby Valdez, but what with one thing and another it turned out to be a very limited edition, no more than 100 copies, so any who have it can rest assured that they have a considerable rarity, worth a pound or two on the second hand market. It has since been issued on disc in PDF format by Ritemagic but alas without the illustrations. It remains, however, a work that makes my hair stand on end at certain points.

The most recent book, The Magical World of the Tarot, developed out of a course that I wrote and marketed in the late 1980’s before releasing as a self study book in 1991. This was a bit of a con in a way, insofar that in the guise of teaching how to use it as a divination device I was really encouraging students to use their own magical imagination to make contact with the fount of wisdom behind the Tarot, rather than simply mugging up “meanings” in a shallow intellectual fashion. Whilst many casual readers might have found this a bit demanding, if followed through it paid handsome dividends, and one of the reader responses that I treasure most was from a sergeant in the US Marines who wrote in to say how much he had been helped by it in the vicissitudes of life.

The method was not quite so demanding perhaps, as getting people to design and produce their own Tarot cards, but that is the way I trained students in the Gareth Knight Group. Each and every one had to design and produce their own Tarot before they could regard themselves as having passed beyond the Lesser Mysteries. However, not all are called, or cut out, to be serious esoteric buffs, although it remains probably the best way to learn about Tarot, ourselves, and the inner worlds in general. We all have a Tarot within us, so why not let it come out?

Now in my latter days I still find increasing wisdom coming through the Tarot, and in this respect I have been much impressed with a book called Meditations on the Tarot which is also a profound exercise in revealing just what the Hermetic and Platonic traditions are all about.

It was, and is, anonymously authored, but we all know who it is! And one can also see why he decided to remain anonymous. It was so that the book could speak for itself. The more so, as some of his earlier work, before he reached the maturity of this one, had become somewhat controversial amongst guardians of the party line of his previous affiliations. But all who are pioneers have to pay this price. And I still bear scars of my own in this respect!

In the pages of this book, Valentin Tomberg reveals much of himself, as well as of the tradition, strung out on the convenient structure of the Tarot Trumps. In this the book becomes a magical device in itself and means of communication between the planes. Highly recommended, if you are ready for it.

Interview in Magickal Light

2009-03-13T16:19:00.005Z

I was interviewed by Pino Longchild in Magickal Light for February 2009. This is the official e-zine of http://www.magickaschool.com/ which seems to be a most interesting site for any of you of the neo-pagan persuasion.

PL: First of all let me say how pleased I am that you have agreed to be interviewed for The Magickal Light Ezine:

I believe you were 23 when you first came across books by Dion Fortune which led you to the Society of the Inner Light and the first taste of an esoteric order. I was wondering though, what provided you with the inspiration to set out on a spiritual quest before that?

GK: Oh I was always interested in magic from as far back as I can remember. Mixing up mud and water in the back garden whilst still a toddler and calling them “witches’ pies” is about the earliest manifestation of this interest I suppose. In my early teens had read most of the psychic research section in the local public library. Also a desultory interest in ouija boards, hypnosis and such like. Then onto books I could not understand like Eliphas Levi’s “History of Magic” before eventually having all bells rung loud and clear by coming across Dion Fortune’s “The Esoteric Orders and their Work” and “The Training and Work of an Initiate”. I immediately recognised a familiar voice in these. If there were such things as initiates I wanted to be one, and such things as esoteric orders, then I wanted to join. Which I promptly did – and I suppose never looked back.

PL: You were in touch with a variety of famous occultists such as Israel Regardie, Gerald Gardner and Pat Crowther. Do you have any particular recollections of these individuals you could share?

GK: I was quite shaken when I first came across Regardie’s “The Art of True Healing” which seemed to set out practical magic in a daringly uncompromising fashion. Consequently when I first set up as a publisher this was the first book I produced – absolutely delighted to have discovered that Regardie was still around. To my youthful mind he was somewhat of the status of the old gods! He turned out to be a charming man, somewhat mellowed from the time when he had been such a thorn in the side of those he rated as “the inepti” of the Golden Dawn. I met him some years later when he came across to London for one of Carr P Collins Jnr’s esoteric parties and found him very much a kindred spirit. Knowledgeable, modest but with scant respect for phonies. It was indeed Regardie that first put me onto Carr, who bankrolled my early publishing efforts.

I never met Gerald Gardner although we corresponded when I was editing “New Dimensions” magazine in which I featured all aspects of occultism from spiritualism to ritual magic and at a time when the “wicca” were beginning to come out of the closet – so he was part of quite a high powered team that wrote for me about this side of things, including Doreen Valiente, Pat and Arnold Crowther, Roy Bowers and others, despite pressure on the part of several self-appointed guardians of “the public good” to cease featuring articles on witchcraft. As I wrote in my Editorial for the May 1964 issue, which also contained his obituary by Pat Crowther, “Unfortunately we never had the pleasure of meeting him personally – but only through business postal correspondence. Even so, we feel a sense of loss. We could not agree without some degree of reservation with what he believed in and stood for, but he was that regrettably almost rare kind of person in occult circles – a man with a sense of proportion and a sense of humour. Not only the witch movement, but the occult world in general has lost a great champion in Gerald Gardner. He was also, to an outsider’s point of viewpoint, a great unifying figure in a movement which tends at times to a degree of inter-group factionalism. And his appearances on television on behalf of the Craft gave the lie to the usual distortions and sensationalism put about by the Sunday press. May his soul rest in peace – or in active work! – in whatever pagan afterworld it chooses to go to.”

Pat Crowther I first met in completely secular circumstances, entertaining her and her husband Arnold to lunch to discuss publication of his popular children’s book “Let’s Put On A Show”. A professional conjurer, he was an entertaining and convivial companion, full of fun, with a wide knowledge of esoteric lore and they both provided me with articles on witchcraft and related lore. Our paths did not cross again except by way of editorial correspondence although I did come within arms length of Pat some years later, after Arnold’s death, at one of Carr’s massive parties but regretfully never got round to chat with her.

PL: You worked with W. E. Butler on the /Helios Course on the Practical Qabalah/. W. E. Butler is a favourite author of mine for the gentle way that he encourages students and the practical no-nonsense advice he gives. What was it like working with him?

GK: I did not actually do a great deal of work alongside Ernest. I had written the first six lessons of the Helios Course, (based on Regardie’s “Art of True Healing”) and Ernest was commissioned to take it on from there, which he did, extending it to fifty lessons in the end, a unique course that utilised evocative symbolism from Arthurian legend based upon a sub-structure of the Tree of Life. So it was simply a matter of letting him get on with it, of which he was well capable, recruiting senior students to help him with the supervision.
He was considerably my senior in age, magical experience and knowledge so a comparative young whipper snapper like me did not mess with him too much, for if he felt his preserves were being trespassed upon he could be quite tetchy, which he justified by citing Irish and Yorkshire ancestry!
I shall always remember him from a couple of choice sayings of his. One was about the demerits of those esoteric schools who promised more than they delivered, quoting the White Queen in Lewis Carroll’s “Through the Looking Glass”: The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today!
The other was chanted with chuckling gusto defining the attitude of schools or teachers of an exclusive frame of mind:
We are the few, the chosen few, let all the rest be damned,
So fasten up those pearly gates, we can’t have heaven crammed!
Ernest was, above all, of the inclusive persuasion, with a deep and genuine love of all students, and humble pride in the role of being an esoteric teacher. He never compromised his principles and was certainly one of the more liberal dispensers of esoteric jam I have been privileged to know in my occult career.

PL: You set up what is now known as The Avalon Group in 1973 (now run by Wendy Berg). How did this group come to be?

GK: The time came when having passed through the grades of Dion Fortune’s Society of the Inner Light and come out the other side in 1965, I spent a few years working out the way I thought esoteric teaching and practice ought to be going, through a combination of the magical input of William G Gray and the mystical input of the Rev. Anthony Duncan, books by both of whom I also published.
There was no point in muscling in on the foundation that Ernest Butler had built, which was now launched as the Servants of the Light organisation in the capable hands of Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki and her husband Mike under Ernest’s direction for the rest of his life. Accordingly I started completely afresh, writing and publishing “Experience of the Inner Worlds” on which all my personal band of students were trained.
This initiative received a shot in the arm between 1979 and 1986 when I did a series of workshops at Hawkwood College, now quite legendary, which built up a considerable momentum until the power levels reached such a pitch that they were difficult to control in a public free for all. I therefore decided the time had come to shut up shop and continue to work with just a core of personally trained students. This later became known as the Gareth Knight Group until, in 1998, having ruled the roost for 25 years, I decided to hand over to a succeeding generation.
This is now known as the Avalon Group, under Wendy Berg, although another off shoot is the Company of Avalon under Mike Harris and Steve Blamires. I also had another job waiting me as an esoteric consultant back at a rejuvenated Society of the Inner Light, which included editing and publishing a number of Dion Fortune’s previously unpublished works.

PL: Since the 1960s Tarot has become terribly popular. It was through a desire to understand the Tarot symbolism better that I originally came across your work, most notably /A Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism/. I have noticed that although many use the Tarot for divination, far fewer have any in-depth interest in its symbolism and Qabalistic correspondences. What are your views on this?

GK: Well I think it a pity and tried to build a half-way house by launching a book and course called “The Magical World of the Tarot” in the early 1990’s, which sought to teach Tarot divination by first teaching the first principles of what the cards stood for, rather than mugging up “meanings” from out of a book. This had a modicum of success but was not worth devoting any major part of my life to. The book is still around though, and I was much touched by receiving a letter from a sergeant in the US marines to say that he did not know a lot about occultism but this book was the best on Tarot he had ever read and had helped him a lot in life.

PL: You have produced your own symbolically rich set of excellent Tarot cards, which appear to be based largely on the Golden Dawn attributions. A number of high profile occult practitioners have done similarly, most notably A. E. Waite and Aleister Crowley. Although based on the Golden Dawn attributions both sets include ideas that are not in the original design schema. Does it matter that whoever produces a set of Tarot cards is to a greater or lesser extent giving their own take on things?

GK: I think my own set of Tarot cards somewhat apprentice work, although probably none the worse for that. Indeed in training seriously committed students for my group, each and every one of them was expected to design and produce their own set of 78 cards. The criterion not being, of course, artistic ability, but by meditation upon the Tree of Life or other symbolic schema to work out their own “model of the universe” which is essentially what the Tarot is.
In one sense it is encouraging to see so many different published designs nowadays but producing your own deck, however crudely executed, would be a far more fruitful enterprise than buying one. Indeed, in the course of life, one might produce more than one set, as realisations change and mature. Although I realise that this may be a somewhat unrealistic counsel of perfection.
Exception must be made for decks produced by experienced and proven teachers. And I have myself found one or two to be highly instructive – for instance Hallowquest by Caitlín and John Matthews and the Dream Power Tarot by R J Stewart. It is surprising however, on analysis, how many designs derive (with or without acknowledgement) from those of A. E. Waite and Pamela Coleman Smith.
In practice I opt for one of the old crude Marseilles packs, which at least have not been influenced (or contaminated) by other people’s esoteric ideas, and I visualise my own ideas upon those rough archetypes.

PL: Many high profile celebrities are featured in popular magazines professing a belief in Qabalah, such as Madonna and Victoria Beckham. How do you feel about this?

GK: It does not impinge much on me as I am not a reader of popular magazines - particularly those that feature high profile celebrities. It could be all to the good to the celebrities themselves and their followers if they get beyond the superficial. Otherwise I suppose it does no more good nor harm than any other fashion accessory.

PL: Does it matter that the occult world has become increasingly commercialised?

GK: I think it has its up and down sides. Useful if it spreads the word that there is more to life than the material side of things - even if in the process of hawking superstitious nonsense. It may well lead some to enquire after more fruitful lines of enquiry. One welcomes what has been expressed in some quarters as “the externalisation of the hierarchy” but it is perhaps inevitable that this will bring with it a certain amount of trivialisation – which I suppose is better than being totally ignored or persecuted by religious or political authority – which is still the case in many parts of the world.

PL: Throughout your life you have been heavily involved in the publishing world in one way or another. If you could recommend 5 books that were essential reading for a beginning student keen to learn more about magic what would they be and why?

John and Caitlín Matthews: The Western Way. Subtitled “A Practical Guide to the Western Mystery Tradition” that is exactly what this two volume work is. The first volume devoted to the native tradition and the second to the hermetic tradition. An excellent introduction, with exercises, to all aspects of the western tradition that any beginner could possibly wish to know. Only wish I had written it myself!
R J Stewart: The Living World of Faery. A general introduction to a vastly important field of esotericism that has been unduly neglected and misunderstood, and that will also serve as an entry point to this important writer’s series of books that go deeper into underworld initiation, earth light and power within the land.
John Matthews and Marian Green: The Grail Seeker’s Companion. An elementary but comprehensive guidebook to all elements of the mysteries of the Grail - its history, ritual, myth and literature along with meditation exercises, advice and instruction – in fact everything you need to start you on the way to your own quest.
Gareth Knight: Magic and the Power of the Goddess. Now in its third incarnation having come out of a collection of lectures and practical workshops as The Rose Cross & the Goddess and then refurbished as Evoking the Goddess, it seems to go from strength to strength so maybe was ahead of its time. It gives an historical take on various aspects of the feminine divine principle along with practical exercises.
Gareth Knight: The Practice of Ritual Magic which with Magical Images and the Magical Imagination are two little primers specifically with the beginner in mind on all you need to get going on the much misunderstood practice of ritual.

PL: One of my favourite books of yours is /A History of White Magic/. This is because you explain magic as encompassing both science and religion in a coherent way. You are one of the few authors to do this. Do you think enough is done to explain the rationale of magic? The reason I ask is that the world of science has become increasingly aware that it needs to do more “outreach” work and explain itself and its value to the world. Do you think the magical world should do likewise?

GK: I think this is already happening. A number of universities are offering degrees in esoteric studies and so the whole field is beginning to be taken seriously albeit in terms of history of the subject, or in terms of anthropology, but as Robert Persig pointed out in “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” universities are “temples of reason” and therefore somewhat ill equipped to deal with matters beyond the rational mind. However, it’s a start. Mention should also be made of The Tenemos Academy in London, founded by the poet and mystic Kathleen Raine which is a high powered academic flag waver on behalf of the esoteric approach. Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophical movement has also made significant strides into the practical worlds of agriculture, education and other disciplines over the years.

PL: What are your latest projects?

GK: I have just produced after a great deal of research a book on faery in Arthurian legend as a consequence of taking a university degree in French, concentrating on the work of the first Arthurian romancer Chrétien de Troyes. Described by the publishers as “one of the most significant esoteric texts about the connections between Arthurian and Faery Tradition ever written” it is a mind blowing re-take on the function of the ladies of the knights of the Round Table – how in the earliest romances they were faery women acting as guides, guardians and lovers to the knightly heroes, inciting them or enticing them onto quests that were in reality initiations into Faeryland. And how this is equally applicable today.
This has just been published as “The Faery Gates of Avalon” by R J Stewart Books.
Another long term project has been into the history and legend of the faery Melusine of Lusignan. However this has been put on the back burner for the time being as I concentrate upon my autobiography, as yet untitled, which seems to have quite a high priority as I approach my ninth decade.
On the practical front I help out a bit at the Society of the Inner Light which is where my esoteric journey started from, thus completing the magic circle in a sense. I have however retired from public workshop and lecture work.

PL: What are you currently reading?

GK: An academically annotated edition of the works of Lewis Carroll – notably “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass” along with “The Hunting of the Snark”. All excellent sources for magical analogies, such as the one already quoted by W. E. Butler and the one that appears in the prelims of my “Experience of the Inner Worlds”:
‘Well, now that we have seen each other,’ said the Unicorn ‘if you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?’
‘Yes, if you like,’ said Alice.

PL: What makes Gareth Knight sing?

GK: No great singer, but likes to fantasise about one day playing the piano as well as Dave Brubeck or Count Basie.

Review of "The Faery Gates of Avalon"

2009-02-17T23:52:00.003Z

"Another book not to be missed" says the first review to hand of my latest book "The Faery Gates of Avalon" - which I modestly think is the most important book I have written for a long time - and it took me long enough to write and research! Whilst a reader whose knowledge and experience I value highly writes in: "once started, I couldn't put it down. It seems to me that you cleared away the centuries of overgrown brambles to reveal the "faery castle" hidden away for so long. I'm sure further readings will lead one into a very special place."

Anyway, for the review - destined for the Inner Light Journal:
The Faery Gates of Avalon by Gareth Knight ISBN 978-0-9819246-2-5
PB RJ Stewart books £15.95

Here we have another book with a proper index, and with layer upon layer of meaning to be discovered; we move forward into the 12th Century and to the work of Chretien de Troyes, who tells tales of Arthur in the Trouvere tradition to his patron, Marie of Champagne, daughter of Eleanor of Aquitaine. In exploring the tales of Erec, Yvain and Perceval, of Guenevere and of Gawain, Gareth Knight goes back to a fountain of inspiration for those who wish to “open the Faery gates” through the Arthurian tradition.

We are looking at a series of initiation tales, thinly disguised. The “heroes” are earthly knights, and the initiators are Faery women.

The different dynamics of the ever-changing relationships between Knight and Lady are as tantalising today as in the time of the Courts of Love. And if you are asking yourself why we would wish to re-enter the Faery realms, there are answers here. The Lords of Story are invoked, and we are invited to make our own entrance through “The Faery Gates of Avalon”, if we dare, to undertake our own quests in realisation of our spiritual heritage, as human beings, in Earth.

A worthy addition to the oeuvre of one who has dedicated his life to the elucidation of the Mysteries, while allowing the living heart to remain what it truly is…a Mystery that each must approach alone. Highly recommended.

The Faery Gates of Avalon

2008-12-30T20:09:00.002Z

My latest book has just been published - "The Faery Gates of Avalon"

This is a mind blowing re-take on the function of the ladies of the knights of King Arthur’s Round Table.

How in the earliest Arthurian romances they were faery women acting as guides, guardians and lovers to the knightly heroes, inciting or enticing them onto quests that were in reality initiations into Faeryland.

I have taken the stories of Erec, Yvain, Lancelot, Perceval and Gawain from the Old French romances of Chrétien de Troyes - who got them in turn from Welsh and Breton story tellers steeped in Celtic myth and legend - and have high lighted the faery dynamics that have been obscured by later writers - whether pious monks or secular chivalry buffs.

What is more, “opening the faery gates” remains possible and relevant to us today, and these tales can tell how best to go about it.

For full details on how to buy this book go to the publisher’s web site www.rjstewart.net

Keepers of the Planetary Flame

2008-11-04T14:34:00.003Z

Some thirty years ago I started a project known as the Keepers of the Planetary Flame inviting any of my students or anyone else of good will to take part in a small personal ceremony each day with the interests of the planet Earth at heart. The main concern at that time was to perhaps do something to discourage our fellow human beings from launching a nuclear holocaust. This dangerous corner having been passed, it seemed, the loose informal fellowship was discontinued.

However, in the new millennium it seems that even bigger crises await us in terms of our capacity to destroy the environment. This is currently expressed in terms of avoiding climate change, yet those who are conscious of the inner side of things and our spiritual stewardship of the planet should be concerned with rather more than improving our carbon footprints.

This can be aided by meditational work, and all you need is a stone or crystal, a candle, and the good will to devote a few minutes each day to the cause. My good friend Coleston Brown has agreed to set up a site dedicated to the running of this scheme, for full details of which you have only to go to www.magicalways.com/KPF.html

I hope you will join us in this good work and that as a Keeper of the Planetary Flame many blessings may flow back to you.

The Glastonbury Zodiac

2008-10-05T09:38:00.003+01:00

Much seems to be happening down Glastonbury way these days, including at least a couple of my former cohorts intent on stomping round what is generally, although slightly misleadingly, called the Glastonbury Zodiac.

In 1925 Katharine Emma Maltwood, working in Chilton Priory, her strange, towered abode, looked over the landscape of Somerset, getting the feel for a map she had been commissioned to produce for a new edition of The High History of the Holy Graal. As she pondered the curious appearance of a lion in the story, she had a flash of vision and saw the figure of a great lion shaped in the hills and hollows of the countryside before her. She later associated this effigy with the ancient constellation of Leo.

Wandering the landscape and referring to topographical maps she quickly outlined other effigy figures. Among them a phoenix, a great rider and horse, a giant fish, a bull's head, a mighty hound, a sheaf-bearing goddess, a divine child, and another bird in the centre. Thus did she first discern the great star temple in the holy Vale of Avalon.

She initially announced her findings anonymously in A Guide to Glastonbury's Temple of the Stars (1929) and would spend the rest of her life refining her research. In the esoteric community, support for her work came from an assortment of figures including A E Waite, Ronald Heaver, Rene Gueneon, Oliver Reiser and Lewis Spense.

The subject was controversial from the beginning, and remains so now. Nonetheless, KEM mentions in several of her letters how the RAF used the effigy figures as landmarks for training new pilots. Later, she commissioned her own aerial photographs of the complex and in 1937 published them as a supplement to her Guide. In 1938 she moved to Canada where she carried on her work until her death in 1961, in a series of articles that included a walking tour of some of the important localities within the Enclosure.

KEM recognised in the effigies a prehistoric initiatory pattern that had later infused the tales of Merlin's Round Table, Arthur, and the Graal, and there is no doubt that she saw it as vital, not only for understanding the past, but for a new spiritual vision of the future. As my esteemed colleague R J Stewart has long been teaching, the stars and earth are closely bound up with initiatic experience. Indeed, the fundamental mystery of the Hermetic and related traditions, such as the alchemical and Rosicrucian, is concerned with the celestial powers inside the earth. These are the key to the transformation and regeneration of mortal beings and of matter itself.

To learn more about this fascinating subject you can do no better than to refer to the website of The Magical Ways Open Mysteries Directive which has just been brought to my attention, where you will also find useful information on Working with Sacred Sites, Contacting Spiritual Beings and The Magical Tree. What is more, contents may be freely quoted in whole or in part for purposes of study and teaching, both private and public, as long as due acknowledgement is given to the author. (Something which, outside of a den of thieves, should go without saying!)

All this is courtesy of a former student of mine, Coleston Brown, who has trod the Glastonbury land and followed up in the tracks of Katharine Maltwood on Vancouver Island. You can find out more on http://www.magicalways.com/

The Spirit Cord and The Sphere of Art

2008-09-15T15:10:00.002+01:00

Two books, mercifully slim, have appeared in the last few weeks which are well worth a perusal. Both are from the pen of R J Stewart and entitled, respectively, The Spirit Cord and The Sphere of Art. What I find refreshing and important about them is that they encapsulate the essence of magical practice without most of what traditionally has been thought to be essential associated haberdashery, real estate, group membership and symbolic appurtenances. For the first you need simply a cord and for the second not even that, although paradoxically the whole world and immediate environment becomes your temple.

Stewart and I have interacted in various ways over the past thirty years and more, almost like complementary serpents on the caduceus of Hermes, with my own inspiration deriving ultimately from Dion Fortune and his from the Glastonbury adept Ronald Heaver, both of us, in our time, having passed through an instructive if turbulent magical apprenticeship under the irascible old adept W G Gray. (For an insight into whom, by the way, Alan Richardson’s biography The Old Sod from Ignotus Press is worth more than a passing glance. The somewhat ambivalent title was how William Gray chose to describe himself, and in many respects he certainly lived up to it. Nonetheless he is a key figure in the development of late 20th century occult theory and practice.)

I have recently praised another book for cutting much superfluous detritus out of magical practice, in Catherine MacCoun’s On Becoming an Alchemist but R J Stewart’s books do the necessary in a somewhat different manner. MacCoun’s approach is a chatty style that should appeal to the more general esoteric public, Stewart’s gets down to basics without feeling the need to sugar the pill.

The Spirit Cord reveals practical methods of Cord meditation, empowered vision and spiritual magic using a physical cord in a set of simple and powerful practices that range from mystical ancestral traditions through to a unique set of contemporary methods for transforming consciousness. Cords have been used in spiritual and magical practices for centuries, to bless, to bind, to curse, to liberate, knotted or plain, or strung with beads in religious practice, to say nothing of more intimate cords such as the umbilical cord by which we came into the world, the spinal cord that carries us through it, and the cord of continuity between incarnate lives. Stewart has distilled much of this lore into a handbook, with accompanying CD, on how to procure our own cord and then how to empower it as a device for sacro-magical techniques.

What struck me in particular, as one whose magical training consisted of magical temple work over many years – and training others in the same way – with the concomitant problems of organisation and financing such endeavours, was that in the Spirit Cord we have a device that can produce much the same effects without all the hassle.

Much the same can be said for the techniques described in The Sphere of Art which to my mind encapsulate much of the structures and dynamics of a full blown magical temple that can now be accessed by the lone operative – or the so-called lone operative! It should be apparent that, as Stewart affirms in his concluding remarks, the practices described should not be undertaken lightly – for there are responsibilities to accept and a need to be focussed and disciplined. However, beyond the early training stage of discipline and responsibility, the way becomes simple and clear, opening up into a regenerated state of awareness that perceives the world of nature as at one with the cosmos. This is a radically altered state, not an intellectual concept. Incidentally, the alchemical diagram on the front cover of the book illustrates it all.

It should be said that The Sphere of Art embodies the most advanced work of R J Stewart’s “Inner Temple Traditions Inner Convocation” that he has taught internationally since 1988. A further development is promised in his next book The Purifying Fire. You can find further details of all this on his web site www.rjstewart.org along with his publication of books by a variety of authors, whose numbers I hope shortly to join with my study of early Arthurian tradition The Faery Gates of Avalon but of this – more later!

Midsummer Message 2008

2008-06-22T08:47:00.004+01:00

Magic is where you find it. Some thirty years ago, the Managing Director of a very respectable religious publishing house in England, A.R.Mowbray & Co., was looking into his shaving mirror one morning when the message came to him, out of the blue, "Why not publish a book on the history of white magic?" He cast around what few contacts he had who might have some idea about such an arcane subject and in the end was referred to me. The consequence was, and I hope he did not lose his job as a result of it, the publication of "A History of White Magic" by Gareth Knight.

It caused a few ripples at the time, a bit of fluttering amongst some readers of the Church Times, one of whom wrote in condemning the publication without going to the trouble of actually reading it, though I hope he bought a copy if only to throw it away - unless he was as socially responsible as one of Dion Fortune's readers who returned a well thumbed copy of "The Winged Bull" to the publishers for fear of corrupting the scavengers if it ended up in the trash can. Anyhow, some people liked it, it translated into French and Greek and later had an American edition under the title of "Magic and the Western Mind".

I felt it was an opportunity to present my favoured subject to the world at large, either directly, or for fellow students of the subject to present to their friends and relations as an intelligent and reasonable justification for their taking up with such an out of the way subject. Of course in the years since then, the world has become a less strait laced place, and interest in the esoteric become almost commonplace. Nonetheless what I had to say in the book retains a use and validity I feel. Thus I am happy to announce that it has now been made available again, in the form of a disc you can put into your computer, and bringing for the first time the joys of full colour illustration.

The point I have to make in the book is that the world of magic is one of high imagination, and an art and science with applications as universal as those of mathematics. Yet its unique scope, encompassing both science and religion, has caused it to be denigrated in modern times. Physical science has discarded it as superstition or a pseudo-religion. Religion has regarded it, as it once regarded science, with deep suspicion, thinking it to be an impious attempt to trespass on sacred preserves. But I consider magic to be a middle ground between science and religion, reconciling them in a technology of the imagination, which can bring about personal regeneration and spiritual fulfilment.

In a wide historical survey I show how the higher imagination has been used as an aid to the evolution of consciousness, from the ancient Mystery religions, through alchemy, Renaissance magic, the Rosicrucian manifestoes, Freemasonry and 19th century magical fraternities up to the 20th century occult revival. The message of the whole book is that we have sadly neglected the contribution that the higher imagination can make in bringing about an ecological responsibility to science and a restoration of nerve to religion. Now that we and the environment are threatened with a Faustian disaster, could a re-appraisal of the function and importance of magic be the key to our survival?

To find out, if you have not already read a copy of the book, go to http://www.ritemagic.co.uk/ to obtain a copy of the PDF file.

Review comments:
"It is quite a book. It deserves to do well and to be treated with respect and attention. As to its main theme, I know nobody better qualified to write it, and it is a grand sweep of very well digested and understood - and researched - information which is not available to my knowledge anywhere else in this kind of form." - Publisher's reader.

"As a chronicle of the evolution of consciousness and culture in Western Europe this may be compared favourably to Bronowski's 'Ascent of Man' " - Sangreal Magazine.

And may the sun continue to shine brightly on you all,
Regards, Gareth Knight

Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism update

2008-05-22T08:46:00.003+01:00

In response to a recent query from Paul in Ireland it seems worth repeating what I wrote some time ago when I started this web-site. This concerns various comments I made in A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO QABALISTIC SYMBOLISM which many feel somewhat outdated, not to say pontifical and repressive in light of current social and moral attitudes. This is because, like any other book from human hand, it never was infallible, and almost 50 years after it was written is not unnaturally showing the effects of its age. (Like me!) For reasons of publishing economics it has not been possible to revise the text but in the latest one-volume paperback edition from Red Wheel Weiser I have been able to insert a foreword that covers some of these issues as best I may. If anyone does not have a copy of this edition but would like to read the foreword I will be happy to send it by e-mail.

Magic and the Power of the Goddess

2008-05-10T14:55:00.002+01:00

First review of Magic and the Power of the Goddess has just come to my notice, and sums up what I had in mind for the book very well. I quote:

“Over the years, Gareth Knight has been very much an innovator and opener of new ways in the Western Mysteries. At a time when this stuff was generally reserved for secret lodge meetings and when many groups frowned upon individual thought and inner work, he was one of the first to encourage people to meet and practice magic in living rooms and public workshops. Magic and the Power of the Goddess – perhaps the best in the list of impressive titles that have flowed from Knight’s prolific pen – is very much an expression of this original, initiating spirit.

“Originally published in 1985 as The Rose Cross and the Goddess, then later substantially revised and expanded under the title Evoking the Goddess, this latest edition has a new preface by the author. In many ways the book was, and still is, ahead of its time. For it presents the Western Mystery Tradition not as an inalterable secret “system” controlled by a hierarchy of reticent adepts, but as a dynamic, living approach to sacred lore. It is a way of transformation and spiritual service.

“The book is divided into two main parts, which taken together provide a rare opportunity to work magic from beginning exercises to advanced levels of service. Indeed, the book could well be taken as a course of training in and of itself and I would certainly wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone interested in the Magical Way.

“Part One, entitled The Magic Circle Maze Dance, is a masterful résumé of magical practice. Here you will learn about treading the sacred spiral, becoming one with the earth, invoking the fourfold elemental powers, working with the cycle of time and the central flame. The section concludes with a consideration of the need to balance oneself in the Three Worlds or Realms, a vision of the Goddess and a call to respond to her. There are times in this book, particularly in the practical segments, where Knight’s literary style, already accomplished and impressive, seems overshadowed by yet a greater voice. A poetic muse of spiritual contact seems to speak with unusual power from those passages.

“Part Two deals with the application of this practical instruction to the figure of the Goddess as she appears in various traditions. Gareth Knight offers insightful analyses of the myths and legends of Andromeda, Isis, Mary, Alchemical Venus, and the Queen of Faery – each followed by a visionary practice.

“In the chapter on the Queen of Faery, Knight remarks more fully on an important theme running through the book. This is “the democratization of the Mysteries”, which he rightly links to the power of the Goddess. He mentions the current spate of books and workshops on once secret doctrines and practices as evidence of this process, and from my own experience as a teacher of magical ways, it does indeed seem as if the roles of priest and priestess are moving with equal haste away from confinement in both conventional religion and traditional mystery lodges into wider, more accessible and integrated expressions in the daily lives of spiritual people.

“The book closes with a chapter on the Initiation of the Earth, in which Knight gives visionary examples of how this new priest and priestess-hood is undertaken in the context of the Goddess and sacred sites. Effective participation in this kind of spiritual service requires, the author tells us, “breadth of vision and largeness of soul” – a phrase which aptly applied to both the work and person of Gareth Knight.”
C Y H Brown

This appears on Colestone Brown’s website www.magicalways.com which is worth a visit not least for a view of the current activity and publications of this highly active and promising former student of mine.
The book itself ISBN 978-159477235-1 is published by Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, 224 pages, 9 b&w illustrations, at $14.95. Further details from www.DestinyBooks.com

Spring message 2008

2008-04-05T10:24:00.003+01:00

Well Spring has finally sprung after what has been somewhat of a hard winter and among the first green shoots to show is publication of MAGIC AND THE POWER OF THE GODDESS on April 15th by Destiny Books, which some of you may already have met in its former incarnation as “Evoking the Goddess”. It has evolved out of a great deal of practical work of mine over the years in public workshops and private groups and on looking through it again I think it to be one of the best things I have done and so thoroughly deserving this new presentation.

The Goddess, the divine feminine, is no mere product of a trendy esoteric fashion. She has been with us from the beginning of time, and I have tried to show some of the paths of her expression over the past couple of thousand years in her many guises as maiden, mother, initiator, protector, sorceress and faery queen – along with a manual of magical and mystical, active and contemplative techniques for contacting her.

For more details of this and of their other excellent publications log on to http://www.destinybooks.com/

I regret that as I press on towards the further end of my eighth decade I am having to curtail some of my travelling about and so unfortunately will not be present at the Hawkwood or Glastonbury events that I mentioned in a previous blog. However by all accounts they will be none the worse for my absence and promise to be even more powerful and rewarding events than in the past. Meanwhile I concentrate my efforts on the written word and inner rather than outer travelling, with particular emphasis on Arthurian and Faery origins. But more of that later.

I shall also be continuing to contribute regularly to the Inner Light Journal (details http://www.innerlight.org.uk/) with whatever takes my fancy.

Blessings to all!

On Becoming an Alchemist

2008-01-12T10:19:00.000Z

"On Becoming an Alchemist - a Guide for the Modern Magician" by Catherine MacCoun has just dropped onto my door mat. I was sent this book to read in manuscript some time last year, asked to review it, and was much impressed by it.

Here is what I said:
"Catherine MacCoun is a great communicator and she knows her stuff from the inside too. This book blows a bright and refreshing breeze through the musty halls of hermetic and magical symbolism, and lays it all on the line. Highly recommended."

I see that some respected fellow authors have been similarly impressed. Thus from David Spangler (author of Blessing and Everyday Miracles):
"A true alchemist, Catherine MacCoun has transformed profound ideas into a gold standard of what a book on magic should be. Excellently written with prose that sparkles with clarity and wit, this book can serve the novice and advanced practitioner alike with equal grace and insight. She inspires with her vision, and effortlessly transforms magic into the practical living art it is meant to be - as a part of life and an expression of who we are. I highly recommend it."

And from Dr Larry Dossey (author of The Extraordinary Healing Power of Ordinary Things):
"Many discussions of alchemy are hopelessly dense and opaque; this one is full of light and life. With admirable clarity, MacCoun shows how alchemy can benefit one's life here and now. This is uncluttered, everyday wisdom; the most accessible discussion of the psychospiritual dimensions of alchemy to appear in years."

Published by Shambhala Publications, Boston and London, under their Trumpter Books imprint, (ISBN 978-1-59031-369-6), it should have excellent distribution in bookstores both sides of the Atlantic. Need I say more? Don't miss one of the best books on magic I have read in years.

Extension to web site

2008-01-10T14:41:00.001Z

We have now produced an extension to my web site, giving details of the Avalon Group, which is the name of the former Gareth Knight Group, founded by me in 1973 and which is now in the capable hands of Wendy Berg. For details click here: The Avalon Group

Prospects for 2008

2007-12-29T11:10:00.000Z

2008 looks like being an interesting year. The Dion Fortune seminar at Glastonbury seems set to be a regular annual event and I look forward to being there on Saturday September 6th in company with Alan Richardson, Jim McBride and Mike Harris to continue our investigations into the faery tradition, which proved highly popular and evocative at our last meeting, details of which are now posted on the Company of Avalon website, http://www.companyofavalon.net/, where you can also apply for tickets for the 2008 meeting. In keeping with our faery theme we shall also have Wendy Berg on the platform, leader of the Avalon Group, author of the forthcoming Red Tree, White Tree which I have been fortunate enough to have read in manuscript and regard as pretty hot stuff in regard to the faery tradition in Arthurian legend.

I also hope to make a return to old haunts by participating in a residential workshop with R J Stewart and Caitlín Matthews at Hawkwood College on the weekend of 29th/31st August. This is an event limited to those who have already attended a gathering or workshop on the lines of the stellar fire temple work with R J Stewart. For enquiries about course content or student requirements contact Caitlín via tigerna9@aol.com or for a booking details http://www.hawkwoodcollege.co.uk/ or janedmay@btinternet.com. And whether you can attend or not you can find details of advance reading and supportive material at http://www.rjstewart.org/

By that time what may seem to be a new book of mine should have been published in America by Destiny Books under the title Magic and the Power of the Goddess, subtitled Initiation, Worship, and Ritual in the Western Mystery Tradition. Although it is in fact a re-titled new impression of what may already be familiar to some of you as Evoking the Goddess, Initiation, Worship, and the Eternal Feminine in the Western Mysteries (1993) or even in an earlier incarnation as The Rose Cross and the Goddess (1985). Price of the new edition is announced at $14.95, estimated publication date: 15th April 2008. For more details visit the publisher’s web site http://www.innertraditions.com/

On reading it through again I was agreeably surprised to find that, rather than aging, it seems to have increased in significance with the passing of the years. Most people now realise the great challenge that faces us involving the well-being of the Earth. This is commonly expressed in terms of climate change but this is simply the most materialist way of looking at it – entirely from the outside of things. There is an all important inner side to it all – which is linked to the realisation that our planet behaves like a conscious living being. What some of us call the Planetary Being.

In some ways this has been likened to the ancient Greek goddess of the Earth, Gaia, for there has ever been a recognition of the Divine Feminine Principle throughout the ages under different guises. But the intellectual climate of the past 300 years or so, when science and technology have made such great strides, has tended to drive it underground. Now is surely the time to restore the balance, to rediscover the true nature of things and our relationship to them. Then we might find ourselves ready to enter a New Age rather than worry about whether we are going to survive into it!

We need to see ourselves as allies of creation rather than its exploiters. To choose to work in harmony with the natural world. To realise the Earth to be a great Elemental being who provides the means for the generation of life within and upon herself. The forms of life that she nurtures and nourishes includes not only the human race but the animal kingdom in all its forms. And those with a certain degree of inner awareness may realise it also includes the so-called faery realm.

This is something to challenge us in many different ways. It is not enough to confine our interest to purely intellectual speculation or wishful thinking. We must not only believe in the reality of the Goddess and the forms of elemental and spiritual consciousness that make up Her being; we must come to understand and cooperate with them by means of an active and enlightened imagination.

By creative work with traditional images we can awaken and realign our energies. We can free up our preconditioned energy patterns and begin to work within a framework of realisation that holds great potential for inner transformation. For we literally imagine ourselves into being what we are. And it is through a culture of organised greed, indifference to others, and materialistic blindness, that we have imagined ourselves into a feeling of antagonistic isolation, alone and unloved in an alien universe.

Yet if we use our imagination to open ourselves to the hidden glory that surrounds us we can discover this sense of isolation to be an illusion. We can then discover a world of many beings and many realities. And by working with the light and power within the Earth, which throughout history has typically been revealed in feminine imagery, we may open ourselves to energies inherent in an Otherworld through which remarkable changes can occur. Not only to ourselves but to the world at large. In Magic and the Power of the Goddess I hope to have given various indicators to light your way.

The printed word is however not the only way of spreading light and wisdom and indeed the joy of living. I have mentioned the means of song before by reference to my daughter Rebsie Fairholm and to Magic Folk led by my friends Ben & Michelle Glover. You do not have to take my word entirely for it, for a couple of enthusiastic reviews have recently appeared, which I quote below.

With regard to the Magicfolk debut album, which includes Heliopolis, Persephone and Sea Priestess (based on the Dion Fortune novel), Tim Carroll of FolkWords writes “A raft of magical spells – fantastic flights of musical and lyrical fancy mixed with a touch of pagan lore, medieval storytelling and a gentle otherworldly air. Magicfolk blend tantalisingly delicate music with wistful poetic meandering lyrics. If you want to slide off this planet with all its cares and go somewhere mysterious listen to Magicfolk. Ben and Michelle write music that acts like mental balm – soothing and revitalising.” You can hear sound clips and buy online at http://www.magicfolk.co.uk/

As regards Rebsie Fairholm’s album, Mind the Gap, (the gap referred to exists between the worlds!), the prestigious magazine Organ writes: “An absolutely wonderful album’s worth of entrancing whispered glowing heart-warming Celtic/Old English (pagan?) folk, embroidered with cleverly delicate instrumentation. Lush golden strings and seductive woodwind, haunting glowing beauty and Rebsie has the most beguiling of voices – she really is something special. Just beautiful, uncluttered, refreshing. Delicately arranged folk familiars (and a beautiful version of Pink Floyd’s Julia Dream). Calming, uplifting, ethereal and a slightly new feel on something very traditional and unashamedly rooted in very old ways – for fans, followers and lovers of Fairport Convention, Sandy Denny, the leaves turning golden orange and the Albion spirit that can still be found, (beautiful artwork as well).”
And you can hear sound clips and buy online at http://www.rebsiefairholm.co.uk/

2007 saw the publication of two books that seem likely to mark the close of my literary association with Dion Fortune. One was The Arthurian Formula, an important and challenging text that she channelled in 1941 and which was continued by her successor Margaret Lumley Brown. It was originally intended for her close esoteric associates rather than the general public, so I have provided it with an introductory commentary and reader’s guide to help anyone unfamiliar with some of the concepts that she and they took for granted. There now seems nothing more of her unpublished work left for me to edit - it is all now in the public domain. Probably not before time you may think! But the powers and intelligences behind some of this advanced work tend to play a long game.

However one can still talk about some of her achievements. And my other book, The Occult Fiction of Dion Fortune, is my take on how she provided practical esoteric teaching within her short stories and novels. There is a popular saying that truth is stranger than fiction – but with esoteric authors of Dion Fortune’s calibre fiction can be the best possible way to impart certain elements of truth! This began with an opening up of the Portal of the Mysteries with her short stories The Secrets of Dr Taverner and first novel The Demon Lover, that developed into the Mysteries of Sun and Earth in The Winged Bull and The Goat-foot God followed by the Mysteries of Sea and Moon in The Sea Priestess and Moon Magic. All containing elements of practical Qabalah, the theoretical side of which she expounded in her great classic The Mystical Qabalah which has taught more than one generation of students and has been continuously in print since 1935.

Finally may I wish all readers a bright and transcendental 2008!

Glastonbury again - and some magic sounds

2007-09-10T10:17:00.000+01:00

Here follows the text of my talk at the 2nd Dion Fortune seminar at Glastonbury this year, an event which, by popular request, seems likely to become a regular event on the esoteric calendar. It was held in the Assembly Rooms, site of the first performance, back in 1914, of The Immortal Hour, the haunting faery operetta by Rutland Boughton based upon lyrics by Fiona McLeod. In Avalon of the Heart Dion Fortune records being present at a performance here, citing it as "a thing never to be forgotten." Indeed the show went on to become enormously successful with an even wider public, indicating that there are other ways of diseminating the secret wisdom other than by the printed word.

With this in mind it seems appropriate to mention the release of two magically evocative CD's recently. One by my multi-talented daughter Rebecca contains some magical songs channelled straight from the English folk muse, and its title Mind the Gap refers to a gap between worlds which it may be best to avoid falling into. Whilst two other musically gifted associates of mine, Michelle and Ben Glover, with their group Magicfolk and a CD of the same name, provide mystically inspired songs in their own blend of esoteric psych-folk.

Web sites to call at for details or a free listen are:
http://www.rebsiefairholm.co.uk and/or http://www.magicfolk.co.uk

Talk given at Glastonbury, 1st September 2007

2007-09-10T09:53:00.000+01:00

THE FAERY TRADITION IN ARTHURIAN LEGEND
Talk by Gareth Knight at 2nd Dion Fortune seminar,
the Assembly Rooms, Glastonbury, 1st September 2007

When we met last year we talked about Dion Fortune’s early work on Glastonbury – Avalon of the Heart. A book in which she cast her net wide. “Two traditions meet in Avalon,” she wrote, “the ancient faith of the Britons and the creed of Christ.”

And that is just the bare bones of it. In pursuit of these traditions she brought in strands that include Merlin, the Graal, Joseph of Arimathea, the old gods upon the Tor, even the lost continent of Atlantis. Indeed, she went on to say: “one cannot help being reminded of the super-circus which had three rings all going on at once, and the poor little boy who became permanently cross-eyed in his endeavours not to miss anything.”

Well I do not want anyone to stagger away from here any more cross eyed than they need. So I propose to concentrate on just one of these rings, the Faery ring if you like! Or more specifically the Faery element in Arthurian tradition.

I first became aware of the importance of the Faery element in Arthurian legend through a script that was produced by Dion Fortune in 1941/2 and elaborated by her successor Margaret Lumley Brown in the 1950’s. This script was known as The Arthurian Formula and it formed a focus for the advanced work of the Fraternity of the Inner Light for more than twenty years.

Something of its contents I was able to incorporate in The Secret Tradition in Arthurian Legend in 1983 but I am glad to say that, thanks to Thoth Publications, The Arthurian Formula itself is now available to all. It is the final volume in a ten year project of Thoth, the Society of the Inner Light and myself, to bring unpublished writings of Dion Fortune into the public domain.

Although this last one, I have to say, is likely to be the most challenging to readers. It was never intended for the general public, but was a document for private study by Dion Fortune’s close associates. So it is a far cry from the gentle ambiance of Avalon of the Heart. It plunges straight in to what I might call the Well of Deep Memory. Not simply to roots in Celtic myth and legend, but further in and further back – to mythopoeic strata that extend far into pre-history and ultimately to that ever recurring dream of ancient civilisations and the dawning of human consciousness.

Dion Fortune and Margaret Lumley Brown were adept at reaching this level by esoteric means, although it has also been done in the sphere of creative writing. In this respect the prime example that comes to mind is J.R.R. Tolkien, whose evocations of Middle Earth, Numenor and the rest under the cloak of fantasy literature run close to much that occultists have come up with independently.

There is also a great deal of Faery lore in Tolkien, not only in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion but in his monograph On Fairy Stories and his long short story Smith of Wotton Major. And the reason why he, above all fantasy writers, hit these deep levels was, in my view, because he was passionately committed to recreate a lost mythology. And furthermore, as a philologist, he went to it in the deepest possible way, through the avenue of language itself. That is to say he invented an Elvish language and orthography, after which an Elven mythology almost began to write itself.

So we are dealing with deep, deep matters here. In some respects it is like an archaeological dig through layers of group consciousness. At a site moreover that is not neatly stratified, but has been dug over, plundered, and generally messed about with just like any physical archaeological site might be.

And just as archaeologists may be hard put to interpret the significance of what they find, so we can have the same problem in the legendary field.

Let us take the case of Merlin. According to the legends that have come down to us he was conceived in a somewhat unusual manner, having a virgin mother and no discernible father. The Arthurian Formula suggests that he may thus have been a Theosophical Manu of some kind, his conception having taken place perhaps between an Atlantean temple priestess and a powerful Fire Elemental or even an angelic Lord of Flame.

On the other hand, the pious Robert de Boron writing in the early 13th century could not countenance the apparently blasphemous thought of what appeared to be a virgin birth, even if conceived in the womb of a nun. Thus the Otherworldly father had to be cast in the role of an incubus demon, sent by the Devil – whose nefarious plans however were thwarted by the innocent virtue of the pregnant holy maiden under direction of her confessor. Thus the youthful Merlin was diverted from being a false prophet and confirmed his holy credentials by upstaging the magicians of the usurper Vortigern.

The point I wish to make is, that there is not likely to be any “one and only true” interpretation for various events in the panorama of Arthurian legends. We each of us bring to them our own stock of preconceptions. And who is to say which of us is right?

Indeed it is possible for different interpretations, even apparently contradictory ones, to be correct at their own level. There are different levels of meaning, and they make their presence felt in different human generations. And for whatever reason, it is the Faery element in Arthurian tradition that seems to be coming to the fore these days.

In Dion Fortune’s contribution to The Arthurian Formula King Arthur himself is reckoned to have had close relationships with Faery women. And this goes beyond receiving the sword Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake, even though a directly Freudian take on this symbolism might see it as some kind of sexual initiation, to say nothing of Morgan le Fay`s later high jinks with the scabbard.

And there is certainly a dalliance with one of his half-sisters, either Morgan or Morgawse according to which line of tradition one chooses to take. The Arthurian Formula favours Morgan in this respect, who has strong faery connections. She was, after all, known as “le Fay” and was married to Uriens of Gore, reckoned by some to be a faery king. Indeed the faery connection extends to her son Yvain, or Owein, who eventually met his faery bride at a magic fountain and after various adventures became king over her faery lands.

Anyhow, by whichever sister, Arthur incestuously fathered Mordred, which eventually brought about his own downfall and that of his kingdom and of the Round Table fellowship. Thus, according to The Arthurian Formula, confounding Merlin’s original great and cunning plan to found a dynasty of priest kings and queens in Logres, somewhat after the Ancient Egyptian fashion.

According to this account, Merlin looked upon the selective breeding of humans much as humans today look upon the selective breeding of cattle, dogs or horses. And the New Age he envisaged must be realised as being quite an old age by now, even if it had come to pass. Although I suppose the concept of constitutional monarchy is a latter day survival of its assumptions.

Thus Merlin arranged the birth of Arthur from the mating of Uther Pendragon, the current ancient British ruler of the land, and Ygraine of Tintagel, living in the far south west, who, The Arthurian Formula suggests, was of the blood line of the old Atlantean priest kings. Their child Arthur would then be wed to Guenevere, the daughter of King Leodegrance of Cameliard, keeper of the Round Table, bringing with her the Round Table as her dowry.

There is a certain star lore and magic at work behind much of this. Leodegrance, the Great Lion, suggesting the constellation Leo; and Arthur what we now call the Great Bear, or indeed Arthur’s Wain; the Pendragon the constellation of the Dragon that coils around the northern celestial pole; with the Round Table as the surrounding zodiac itself. A life’s work in itself to follow all that up I suspect!

However, The Arthurian Formula follows a more human level of interpretation, suggesting that Arthur and Guenevere’s son and heir would, in the original scheme of things, have been the Grail winner – in other words, Galahad. Whilst Galahad in turn, when he became king, would have wed the daughter of Lancelot of the Lake and the Grail castle maiden, Elaine of Carbonek. Thus establishing a ruling dynasty with a unique mixture of blood lines. Or, as we might prefer to call it today, inherited genes. With ancient British, Atlantean, Faery and Grail connections.

If all this seems to be like the convoluted plot of some kind of cosmic soap opera, bear in mind that it is a meld of ancient traditions that is being taught here, in the guise of a dynastic parable.

As Anna Kingsford, the greatly underrated pioneer of modern western esotericism was wont to teach, many of the characters to be found in the Bible were intended to be understood as archetypal or spiritual principles – not historical persons. Much the same may be applied to aspects of Arthurian legend.

But to return to the scenario of a dysfunctional royal marriage at Camelot, if Arthur preferred the company of faery ladies, Guenevere found her consolation in Lancelot, and as a consequence no royal crown prince Galahad could be born.

Thus Merlin had to devise a Plan B, and with a typical bit of Merlin type magic. Although Lancelot remained devoted to the Queen, with a crafty bit of magical shape shifting, he was induced to have a one night stand with the Grail maiden, Elaine of Carbonek. The realisation of the experience drove him mad for a while but by this means the soul of Galahad was able to be born.

But having displaced his intended bride in the very womb of his mother, he was doomed to a lonely life. And he was brought up, a paragon of dedicated virginity at the Grail Castle, before turning up at Arthur’s court to undertake the Grail Quest. Only once he had won the Grail, both he and it were spirited off to the inner holy land of Sarras, never to be seen again. And presumably we all still live in the consequent Waste Land.

Yet put this in terms of movements and traditions rather than personalities and we have a body of doctrine that suggests that a mis-use of relationships between the human and faery kingdoms aborted the full flowering of both Round Table and Grail traditions. As a result, a monkish veneer has been grafted onto much of it, such as the unlikely story of Lancelot and Guenevere repenting of their sins and ending their days in the religious life, as monk and nun respectively.

But that is not the whole story, for there are other lines of interpretation we can follow, particularly with regard to Guenevere.

It has come to the minds of certain respected academics, such as Professors Webster, Nitze and Cross to try to account for the number of times that Queen Guenevere has been abducted – which amounts to no less than fourteen!

Even allowing for a possible element of duplication this does seem to be excessive! It has indeed been remarked upon by a number of other commentators, with the general concensus that it probably derives from a Celtic version of the Persephone myth. That Guenevere is a representative of the Spring Maiden who is carried off to the Underworld for six months each year by the Winter King.

Now this interpretation may well be valid at one particular level, but there are elements that suggest it is not the whole story. For one thing, Guenevere does not appear to fit this goddess archetype terribly well. And so it has been suggested that a more likely explanation might well be that Queen Guenevere was not a human queen at all - but a Faery!

Startling as this premise may sound, once it is accepted much else falls into place. For example, the usual translation of the name Guenevere as “white shadow” or “white phantom” does not describe a pale ineffectual human being but a shining faery. An accurate description of how the white light of the faery world shines bright and clear through the physical form which she, and others of her kind, must adopt if they are to exist within the human dimension. A consequence of the tradition of faery blood being a radiant white as opposed to the more sluggish human red.
And why was she fetched from her father’s house to Camelot by Lancelot? Was it because he was a knight who already had one foot in the faery world through his fostership by the Lady of the Lake, who had seized him as a child? What is more, if she were a faery princess, she might well have been already betrothed to a faery lord. In which case her abductions might well be attempts by the Faery world to get her back.

Indeed we can see in all of this a startling parallel with the situation in The Immortal Hour, based upon the ancient Irish myth that inspired Rutland Boughton and Fiona McLeod. There it is Etain who is a faery who finds herself a queen in the human world, married to the human king Eochaid the High King of Ireland, and who is eventually taken back to Faeryland by her faery husband Midir.

However, whilst professional Arthurian scholars may be content to leave things there, as an academic hypothesis, if this contention is true it raises profound esoteric issues that reverberate through the whole of Arthurian tradition.

For if Guenevere is a faery amongst humans, and married to the human King Arthur, the relationship between human and faery realms lies at the very core of the Arthurian stories. Their marriage bridges two different worlds of reality in a way that effects both kingdoms of human and faery. Thus many of the Arthurian stories can be looked upon as the record of attempts to explore and heal the relationship between the two races which inhabit the earth, faery and human.

Some of these issues, and more besides, have been taken up by Wendy Berg, in a book entitled Red Tree, White Tree, which is in course of production by Thoth Publications and I recommend you look to out for it. In the meantime you can find a summary of it as an Appendix to The Arthurian Formula, or serialised in the latest two issues of The Inner Light Journal. [Spring and Summer 2007].

Taking this line of thought a little further it has occurred to me that it may not only have been Queen Guenevere or the Lady of the Lake or the likes of Morgan le Fay who are representative of the world of Faery in Arthurian legend. Time and again we find it is a maiden who lures a knight out onto a quest, often guiding him in the way, overseeing his various tests, and being quite sharp tongued about it too on occasion. And as to the nature of these quests, whatever the apparent reason for them, (rescuing a damsel in distress or whatever), there are common elements within them that suggest they are adventures into Faeryland. That is to say, the quest is a form of initiation into Faeryland.

With this in mind I began a close analysis of the works of the first Arthurian romancer, Chrétien de Troyes. In long verse romances he covered the stories of Erec, of Yvain, of Lancelot, and of the Graal, the last being a double length feature in which Gawain as well as Perceval appears as a Grail hero.

What is clearly evident from Chrétien’s romances is that there was amongst the French aristocracy for whom he wrote, still a quite widely held belief in Faery. And whilst he prides himself with being something of a sophisticated 12th century man of the world, a bit above really believing in such things, nonetheless he and his audience are fascinated by it all. And so it is all still there, thinly covered by a naturalistic veneer.

Even though the stories may be ostensibly concerned with promoting ideals of chivalrous and courtly behaviour, at a relatively barbarous time when such virtues were eminently needed, nonetheless the faeries keep popping out of the woodwork – or out of the green wood that is the Forest of Broceliande.

Let us take his first Arthurian romance, that of Erec and Enide, which may be more familiar to some of you as Geraint and Enid in The Mabinogion. There is a great deal to suggest, although it is never explicitly stated, that Enide herself is a faery.

She is the daughter of an hospitable host, an archetypal figure with a beautiful daughter who is invariably found on the outer margins of Faeryland, and who often provides the hero with arms or horse for his quest, and in this case with his daughter Enide. Having been proven the most beautiful woman in the land, when Erec eventually takes her to Arthur’s court, she is the very essence an Otherworldly figure – fabulously gorgeous, in clothes of an ancient cut, all of them white, the faery colour, with a hawk upon her wrist, and riding a remarkable steed.

And as Caitlín Matthews has perceptively shown in her work on the Mabinogion version, in Arthur and the Sovereignty of Britain, Enide is no less than a surrogate for the Queen herself. But if Guenevere is in fact a Faery, what is more likely than for her surrogate to be one too?

Yet all this is just the prologue to the main part of the romance, when Erec, stung by the accusation that he is so besotted by Enide that he has forgotten how to fight, drags her off in a series of wild adventures, to prove himself very much the macho hero.

But on a closer reading he is by no means the dominating character that one might think. On the contrary all the initiative comes from her. By a series of feminine wiles it is she who provokes him into going off into these adventures, and they are plainly into the Otherworld.

First off there is a battle at a ford, the usual border between two worlds. Then comes a meeting up with an hospitable host in the form of a squire who feeds them and puts them up at an inn. This is followed by the need for Erec to fight off a lord who fancies Enide for himself, in what seems to me the typical reaction a faery lord might have in seeing one of his own kind being dragged around Faeryland by a human adventurer.

Then follows a testing confrontation with a diminutive but very powerful opponent Guivret le Petit, who appears to be a king of faery kings and contrives for their fight to become a draw. There is then the option for Erec to befriend and stay with the little king or alternatively to return to Arthur’s court, which is currently encamped in the forest. But he is drawn to an ever deeper Otherworldly test and adventure, when, after a confrontation with primitive giants he apparently dies and meets with the Count of Limors, a thinly disguised figure of Death, whom he overcomes and presumably his own physical mortality.

After this he is fitted to go on to the supreme test of fighting a faery guardian in an enchanted garden, and to blow a horn that hangs from an apple tree that disperses all evil enchantment – to universal joy. Then nothing remains but to be done but to go cross the sea to Brittany to undergo a double coronation, with Enide as his queen, to rule jointly over their lands. An epitome of a faery and human royal alliance.

That is just the first of Chrétien’s romances. I could go on, as indeed I intend to do, in the book I am currently writing, entitled The Faery Gates of Avalon.

However the stuff is all there for you to read for yourselves, and all you need is to be alert to what is of otherworldly origin in tales that have been partly secularised, where they have not been ecclesiasticised, by later writers.

So bear in mind that in the stories of the Knights of the Round Table, it may well be the ladies who are at least as important as the knights, of whom they are the awakeners, the initiators, the testers, the guides, and faery companions.

And in a strange way this also has a bearing upon the legends of the Grail. The point being that the Grail hallows, like King Arthur’s sword and its scabbard, originated in the faery world. Excalibur was a gift to Arthur from the Lady of the Lake and to her it had to be returned before he could be taken to Avalon in the faery barge to be cured of his grievous wound. Similarly the Grail hallows originate in a mysterious castle that is hard to find, that is capable of appearing and disappearing, upon the other side of a river bordering a lake.

Percival, whose original Grail was a dish, never did find it in Chrétien’s original tale. Whilst Gawain’s quest for other hallows, according to Chrétien, led into obvious faery realms involving a chess board castle, an apparently malevolent maiden who tests him in diverse ways, a remarkable ferryman who takes him to an island, and a castle of maidens or female ancestors, ruled by none other than his maternal grandmother, Ygraine, where further tests await him to see if he is fit to be their guardian.

All this is not to gainsay the relevance of the Christianisation of the Grail into a chalice or a cup of the Last Supper, and its being spirited off to Sarras, apparently the inner side of the Holy Land, in the Ship of Solomon. For when, in another body of legend, Joseph of Arimathea comes to Glastonbury, was he returning the Grail hallows to the place whence they had originated? Indeed what is the significance of his cruets of white and red? Ostensibly they are from the body of the Saviour. But are they also emblematic of faery as well as human blood?

And is there a talismanic connection with the waters that run red and white between the Tor and Chalice Hill?

Who knows?

One does not often come upon an association of the Faery world with the Christian, although when Dion Fortune and her friends experienced a remarkable contact on the Tor at Whitsun in 1926, (the one that brought them the Chant of the Elements that begins: The Wind and the Fire work on the hill - the Wind and the Fire work on the hill - and so on), it concluded with a very strangely Christian evocation:

Awaken and come, awaken and come, awaken and come.
Come from the depths of your Elemental Being and lighten our darkness.
Come in the name of the White Christ and the Hosts of the Elements.
Come at our bidding and serve with us the One Name above all Names,
the Lover of men and of the Elemental Peoples.
The Great Name – of JEHOSHUA – JESUS.
He who said as he descended into the Underworld:
There shall be no night where my people are –
And the night shall be as day in the light of the eternal fire –
And there shall be peace where my people are –
The peace of the heights above the winds.
And there shall be purity.
Fire and Air – Fire and Air –
For Power to serve the Master.

Who is this White Christ they mention? Is it their vision of the Second Person of the Trinity at the time of the Incarnation? I don’t know. But it is enough to stretch the parameters of belief of orthodox Christian and traditional neo-pagan alike.

And it gives point to Dion Fortune’s remark that I quoted at the beginning, that “Two traditions meet in Avalon, the ancient faith of the Britons and the creed of Christ.”

So let us also recall what she also said about the little boy and the super-circus. It is all a very challenging spectacle.

And if, like a knight of Arthurian legend, you should think about undertaking a personal quest into this territory beyond the material veil, or seek a Faery to guide you there, you must be prepared to be tested and surprised, and try to take in all that you may meet.

Even at the cost of ending up cross eyed. Whether you end up contemplating the Cross of the Elemental Kingdoms, or the Cross of Christ. Or that which partakes of them both, the Cross of Christian Rosencreutz, in a tangle of roses of red and of white.

Perhaps however the best way forward is to seek a particular cross roads, that can be found in vision, where roads from north and south and east and west, not forgetting the above and below, meet in what has been described as a Well of Light. And here I can do no better than to refer you to a recent book by R.J.Stewart of the same name, [The Well of Light, R J Stewart Books, www.rjstewart.net, including CD] which will give you all the directions you need for getting there.

There, where roses of red and of white may be seen to bloom, is the focus for a way of healing the wounded relationship between the human race and the planet. Where faery healing becomes earth healing, as well as a highly transformative and deeply rewarding personal spiritual path. And it comes about by cultivating a working relationship with the inner forces of the land or region in which you live. So what more important to think about than in our meeting today at Glastonbury?

In all of this I have tried to show you how the Arthurian legends, as part of what has been called “The Matter of Britain” may play a part. This depends of course on our reading them aright. Which may well be the case if we do so in the spirit of a well tested prayer and invocation:

“With us is the Grace of the Shining Ones in the Mystery of Earth Light. Peace to all Signs and Shadows, Radiant Light to all Ways of Darkness, and the Living One of Light, Secret Unknown, Forever.”

Anna Kingsford and Dion Fortune

2007-07-11T11:33:00.000+01:00

Anna Kingsford (1846-1888) and Dion Fortune (1890-1946) were remarkable esoteric teachers and campaigners of succeeding generations, with certain odd parallels in their lives, not that there is any suggestion of a reincarnational link. New biographies have recently appeared for each of them, that are worth a place on anybody’s bookshelf.

Priestess: the Life and Magic of Dion Fortune
By Alan Richardson (Thoth Publications 2007) ISBN 978-1-870450-11-9

Alan Richardson is the pioneer of all Dion Fortune biographers and this is a revised edition of his first attempt back in 1987, when he was faced with the unenviable task of making bricks without very much straw and was obliged to quote large chunks out of Psychic Self Defence, which is perhaps the closest Dion Fortune ever got to autobiography.

However, over the last twenty years others have joined the fray - including myself, my old Inner Light companion, Alan Adams (under the pen name of Charles Fielding), and the intrepid American questor Janine Chapman. As Alan Richardson remarks, we have all taken bits and pieces from each other, and will no doubt continue to do so, but it now seems likely that, for better or for worse, there is little more to be said. Yet it seems to me that no single one of us has been able to provide a fully rounded portrait of the woman and her work; we each have our limitations.

In The Story of Dion Fortune it is a pity that Alan Adams was not able to correct some of the well intentioned inaccuracies inserted by his co-author and financial patron Carr P. Collins Jnr. who liked to portray things as he thought people would like them to be rather than as they were. (A dear man and a generous one, none the less.) However Alan Adams did live long enough to produce a foreword to the Thoth Publications edition indicating some of the gaffes to look out for; and as it stands Fielding and Collins give the best account of the actions and intentions of the Guild of the Master Jesus, a much neglected aspect of Dion Fortune’s work.

Janine Chapman’s Quest for Dion Fortune never pretended to be a full length biography, but simply a quest for what remained of DF in the memory of a number of old Inner Lighters, including W.E.Butler. Her effort was savaged somewhat within the pages of this Journal, and rather churlishly I thought, simply perhaps for what may have seemed an over-ambitious title. It nonetheless contains some gems of reminiscence without which we would all be the poorer.

Alan Richardson envies my apparent unlimited access to the archives of the Society of the Inner Light, yet despite having the advantage of being an inside job, Dion Fortune and the Inner Light lacks for many people a broader perspective. Indeed one disappointed reader claimed that it is not a proper biography. Nor is it, if the struggles of a human personality to the challenges of life is the main level of interest. It is more in the nature of the magical record of an important occultist’s esoteric career.

Alan Richardson’s Priestess probably goes closest to being a biography in the usual sense. It does not lack for human interest and as well as being a biographer of considerable talent and readability, he has a well developed esoteric sense, which is all too rare in commentators upon the occult scene.

One of his techniques is, like Jeanine Chapman, conversation with old timers, which can provide illuminating perspectives on things past, although one has to bear in mind that they too had their limitations of perspective on what was going on around them, and there is a shifting boundary between hard evidence, contemporary gossip, and even the settling of old scores. I fancy that Christine Hartley (née Campbell-Thompson) had a bit of a down on W.K.Creasy for one reason or another, whether justified or not we shall probably never know. Oddly enough, both were admitted to the Fraternity on the very same day, 27th February 1934, the initiating magus being Colonel C.R.F.Seymour. I don’t know if Alan Richardson knew that, or even if it is relevant, but there is perhaps a case for Alan Richardson being given a free run of the archives in the event of a third edition.

Another point of caution is Alan’s fondness for searching for fact in Dion Fortune’s fiction. I tended to think that in the first edition this was a means of filling space in the lack of hard biographic material. However he obviously likes the game as he is still at it, seeking pen portraits of her acquaintances, self revelations or glimpses of relationships she might have had or have wished to have in snippets from her novels. This is admittedly a fascinating speculative literary game as long as we remember that it is only speculation, and may be as revealing of the speculator as the intended subject of analysis. Much imaginative writing is indeed ultimately drawn from life, but usually in such a piecemeal and composite fashion that I have never been a believer that one could deduce a portrait of the goose from the golden eggs it lays.

However with the benefit of what he has been able to glean from the rest of us Alan Richardson’s new edition is a much improved and welcome piece of work. And insofar as it paints a broad picture of the esoteric scene, from the early Theosophists and the redoubtable Anna Kingsford through to the present, Priestess is likely to remain the staple introduction to Dion Fortune for members of the general public as well as being of great interest to the more esoterically committed.

Red Cactus: the Life of Anna Kingsford
By Alan Pert (Books & Writers Network 2006) ISBN 978-1-740180-5-2
[UK distributor: Psypioneer@aol.com]

Anna Kingsford is one of the most fascinating and charismatic of all characters who have graced the western esoteric tradition. She was the inspiration of many of her contemporaries, including MacGregor Mathers, who acknowledged as much in his major work “The Kabbalah Unveiled”. Indeed it is possible that the famous Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn would never have come to birth if she had lived, but would have been subsumed within the Hermetic Society that she founded in 1884, only for it to wither away after her tragically premature death at the age of 41 in 1888.

Today she is remembered more for her work in the field of animal rights, particularly anti-vivisection and vegetarianism of which she was a passionate advocate. Yet her exposition of esoteric philosophy, The Perfect Way, and the record of her illuminations, posthumously published as Clothed with the Sun, are both classic Hermetic texts.

To write the story of Anna Kingsford might seem a relatively straightforward task as it already seems to have been done, and at great length, in 1896, by her esoteric colleague Edward Maitland in his Anna Kingsford: Her Life, Letters, Diary and Work. Thus at first sight it seems no more than a question of editing Maitland’s two weighty volumes of late Victorian prolixity down to reasonable and relevant proportions. So it appeared to Alan Pert at first. And indeed to me.

Alas, things are not so simple. For the question remains how far Maitland can be trusted in all he has said. This is not a question that is easy to answer with any accuracy, for after writing his great tome, by accident or intention Maitland destroyed all her diaries and correspondence.

In his own approach to the problem Alan Pert comes down pretty heavily against Maitland , and not without reason. Whether he has come down too heavily or not enough is likely to be a matter of discussion.

As far as Alan Pert is concerned, Maitland’s unreliability is self evident from the way that, despite his apparent adulation of Anna Kingsford, Maitland subtly does her down in ways that are at odds with her perceived character. A principal example of this being the allegation that in her horror at the actions of contemporary vivisectionists, including Louis Pasteur, she was driven to try to kill them by occult means. To Alan Pert such a suggestion, given her lofty character and high principles, is self evidently ludicrous.

But to support this intuitive assessment we needs must have some kind of supporting evidence, either in the witness of contemporaries who knew them both, or, in the lack of manuscript material by Anna Kingsford, other writings by Edward Maitland.

The latter, it has to be said, are not an easy read, but I can claim to be one of the few, along with Alan Pert, to have attempted the task, for I did at one time also contemplate writing an up-date on Anna Kingsford, and as preparation read most of Maitland’s literary work, along with books that he said had influenced him. It was a wild and woolly scenic ride through early Victorian romanticism, and had its fascinating and invigorating moments, including Emerson, Lord Lytton, Southey’s “Thalaba the Destroyer”, Charlotte Bronte, the now obscure Abraham Tucker and the now unheard of Philip James Bailey, whose “Festus” is a vast cosmological drama in verse.

Maitland cites these in The Pilgrim and the Shrine, his promising first novel which is largely autobiographical, containing an account of his youthful adventures in the West Indies, the 1849 California gold rush, and thence via the Pacific Islands to Australia to seek a fortune in the gold mines of New South Wales. However, once arrived in the antipodes the novel begins to lose its pace and grip and devolves into rather tedious metaphysical discussion, a trend to which he had been intermittently prone in earlier pages.

His next novel By-and-By: an Historical Romance of the Future continued this trend, although as a utopian metaphysical science fiction novel it could have been a great idea at the time, even foreshadowing Jules Verne, it suffers from a cloying sentimentality, and his view of womanhood is quite bizarre, a kind of submissive and not very bright angel being his ideal of femininity. It is thus surprising that he claims it was Anna Kingsford’s admiration for this novel that caused her to get in touch with him, for it contains material very much at odds with her feminist principles. Indeed he admits to her saying that at first reading she had flung it down in disgust – but this apparently because she saw elements of herself in his heroine! Make of this what we may.

It seems that his publishers encouraged him to abandon fiction after this but his non-fictional work England and Islam becomes at times quite off the wall. It is a political diatribe that began as a letter to “The Times” but developed into a lengthy volume, dashed off in six weeks, that he felt had almost divine authority, because parts of it were written under spirit guidance, his fingers at times being controlled as he worked at the typewriter.

That his publishers accepted it is surprising, although it may have seemed topically opportune, as dealing with current concern over possible war with either Russia or Turkey. That his family considered it as grounds for having him mentally certified seems not unreasonable, although he considered this to have been sectarian bigotry on their part that was fortunately thwarted by psychic intervention.

He later confessed that the work had probably destroyed his literary reputation, such as it then was, but having met Anna Kingsford he now brought out The Soul and How it Found Me, a book recording the mystical effect of their association upon his inner life. It found few readers outside of the spiritualist movement and on strong representations from Anna Kingsford was withdrawn from publication. Although she was not mentioned by name in it, it was evidently doing her reputation no good at all. Maitland bought in all the remaining stock and had it destroyed, but vowed to use the material in his eventual book on Anna Kingsford.

Over this, of course, the great biography, she was no longer able to lay a restraining hand, and it is larded with detailed accounts of his visits to mediums along with personal psychic experiences, together with the assumption that he and Anna were co-founders of a new religious dispensation – buttressed by his conviction of having been no less than St. John in a previous life, the beloved disciple of Jesus and author of Revelations.

Indeed the conclusion seems to be that Edward Maitland, sincere and harmless old buffer though he may have appeared to be, was in serious need of help and something of a menace to the reputation of Anna Kingsford. Should there be any doubt in the matter it seems sufficient to study just the last chapter of his life of Anna Kingsford, entitled “Post Mortem”, and in particular the very last paragraph of the book:

While writing I was suddenly seized with a strong desire to exchange supposition for positive assurance in regard to my identity with John; and looking up from my writing, I mentally put the question as to my own inmost self, being, as was my invariable wont, absolutely calm and collected, and without the smallest expectation of a response: “May I be quite certain of the reality of my seeming recollections of having been John the Evangelist and Seer, and that I am truly a reincarnation of the soul that was in him?” The response to this question came with an instantaneousness and force which seemed to imply that the question had been prompted and expected in order to make answer to it, there being no moment of delay to suggest the need of the arrival of anyone to answer it. It was electric for its swiftness, vividness, and intensity, and seemed to radiate from the very centre of my system to its farthest extremities, and it consisted in a mighty “YES,” which appealed to every sense at once, being alike heard, seen, and felt. And when the sensation had passed away and the tones of the utterance had ceased to vibrate, I found myself perfectly content and satisfied, and undesirous of further assurance. The answer seemed to be intended as a final and conclusive reply, to seek beyond which would be to exhibit a distrust wholly without excuse in view of the history, relations, experiences, and achievements in which it had been given me to bear part.

In this is encapsulated much of the self deception and grandiose self regard of which Edward Maitland seemed capable, and which begs one to question how much of his previous 884 pages can be regarded as reliable, to say nothing of his editing of her Illuminations. The tragedy is that his appropriation of the legacy of Anna Kingsford has tended to make her an object of neglect and misunderstanding, and is perhaps why Anna Kingsford is remembered more for her vegetarian and anti-vivisection causes than for the remarkable seer that she undoubtedly was.

It is to be hoped that Alan Pert’s serviceable and competent biography will do something to put this right, having brought new material to light, including the witness of close contemporaries such as Anna Kingsford’s friend Florence Miller. Regrettably, perhaps too much emphasis has had to be taken up in the book (as in this review) with Edward Maitland`s shortcomings rather than Anna Kingsford’s remarkable qualities.

“Red Cactus” was an emblem said, in one of her Illuminations, appropriately to represent her, the cactus being an organism that causes the desert to bloom. The high regard in which she was held by her contemporaries seems witness to this. Alan Pert has performed a useful service in providing us with a succinct and accurate record of her outer life. It perhaps remains for the gist of her inner life and esoteric teaching to be presented in systematic and modern terms, for the importance of much that she taught and realised has barely been appreciated even today.

Midsummer message 2007

2007-06-20T10:15:00.000+01:00

A pleasant midsummer surprise has been to receive copies of my new little book THE OCCULT FICTION OF DION FORTUNE just issued by Thoth Publications.

Dion Fortune is recognised as one of the most influential figures in 20th century occultism and her books on various aspects of the occult tradition are now enjoying a much deserved reappraisal. Her works of fiction are highly acclaimed both as vehicles for presenting complex magical and psychical theory and as remarkably powerful pieces of genre literature. Most are still in print thanks to Red Wheel/Weiser in the United States.

As a life long student of her work I have here tried to provide an overview of all her occult fiction, including her early work, The Secrets of Dr Taverner, a series of short stories based upon the approach of her early teacher Dr Theodore Moriarty to methods of esoteric healing, and The Demon Lover, a blood and thunder thriller of black magic and vampirism that developed in the writing into a story of initiation and redemption through love.

In her later novels Dion Fortune began deliberately to use fiction as a means of practical teaching. While she had presented the theory of occultism in her great work The Mystical Qabalah, it was through her works of fiction that she sought to provide manuals for putting it into practice, at a time when much of this material was considered highly secret and to be revealed to initiates only.

I hope that I have now provided a clear guide on how and where to look for this practical instruction in these later novels, which comprise The Goat-foot God, an evocation of Earth Mysteries and the Rite of Pan; The Winged Bull, with its polar Mysteries of Sun and Earth; The Sea Priestess, celebrating the Mysteries of the Moon; and the posthumously published Moon Magic that takes them to a higher arc with the setting up of a temple dedicated to Isis.

Many aspects of occultism receive practical attention in her pages, including place memories, karmic elements from past incarnations, animal magnetism, ley lines, sacred centres, techniques of ritual, and above all the working out of right relationships between the sexes in polar interchange.

An additional bonus for me has been the evocative cover design provided by Helen Surman, an impression of the Sea Priestess with her fire of Azrael, invoking the horned heavenly Isis who strides across the sky with her feet upon the waters of Bridgewater Bay, close to the actual physical location of Dion Fortune's novel.

Spring message 2007

2007-03-31T11:05:00.000+01:00

Just a year ago I was setting out on a series of four public talks to mark the sixtieth anniversary of Dion Fortune's departure from the physical plane, the texts of which you can find displayed on this website and also on the Company of Avalon website along with other details of the Dion Fortune "Avalon of the Heart" seminar that we held at Glastonbury town hall. This last attracted greater interest than we expected and so regrettably some people had to be turned away, so in organising a similar event for Saturday, September 1st 2007 a larger venue has been hired, at the Glastonbury Assembly Rooms.

This is the place where Dion Fortune spoke of being much moved by a performance of Rutland Boughton and Fiona McLeod's faery epic "The Immortal Hour" back in 1920. So our theme this year will explore the understanding of the world of faery held by Dion Fortune and her fellow Avalonians ... and successors. Programme details and how to book for it can be found on the Company of Avalon website: www.companyofavalon.net

For anyone seeking a broader perspective to Dion Fortune's place in the scheme of things Mike Harris will also be laying on a weekend workshop at Hawkwood College from June 15th to 17th entitled "Dion Fortune and the Western Tradition". For details of that and how to book consult the Hawkwood College website www.hawkwoodcollege.co.uk

Whilst as a special opportunity for anyone of reasonable experience Mike has also been able to arrange a series of practical workings at a location at the foot of the Tor on the weekends of July 13th -15th, August 17th - 19th, and September 7th - 9th. Access to these will be limited in terms of numbers and suitability of those wishing to become involved. For more details consult Mike Harris on harrisavalon@btinternet.com

I have over the past ten years been dedicated to bringing out previously unobtainable works by Dion Fortune through the good offices of Thoth Publications and the end of last year saw the final one of these, and perhaps the most evocative. This was "The Arthurian Formula", a script that was brought through by Dion Fortune as far back as 1941/2 and which was elaborated by her successor Margaret Lumley Brown and which formed the staple of advanced work in the Society of the Inner Light for some twenty years. I used it as the basis of a public workshop at Hawkwood College in 1981 with quite remarkable results that have their ramifications even today.

It is a heady mix of a number of traditions that feed into the Arthurian legend, from Atlantean and Celtic Faery lore to the Troubadour Minstrelsy and the Cult of Queen Venus. I have taken the opportunity to include a guide to recent academic and esoteric scholarship and to incorporate a remarkable perspective on Queen Gwenevere and the Faery and Grail traditions by Wendy Berg. This is a foretaste of her complete manuscript "Red Tree, White Tree" which is also due from Thoth Publications. For details of this and other exciting forthcoming items, including my own overview of "The Magical Fiction of Dion Fortune" go to the Thoth website: www.thoth.co.uk

In the meantime I look forward to meeting some of you again at Glastonbury on September 1st.

New Year message for 2007

2006-12-31T10:06:00.000Z

The relaunch of my refurbished web site seems to have got off to a good start and has elicited some favourable comments. I am pleased to say that obtaining a Google e-mail address has brought the Spam plague into manageable proportions, and although I was hit with 122 unwanted objects of this nature over the Christmas period, they were all automatically shunted into a bin by the Google technology and disposed of with a single key stroke from myself. This has enabled me to respond once more to genuine enquirers. Also by paying a small rental to angelfire I have been able to keep the website clear of unwanted advertisements.

Apart from occasional odd balls, whose missives, I have to say, I consign unanswered to the same limbo as the Spam merchants, two questions tend to crop up in the more welcome enquiries.

The first seeks clarification over statements made in A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO QABALISTIC SYMBOLISM that seem somewhat outdated, not to say pontifical and repressive, in light of current social and moral attitudes. This is because, like any other book from human hand, it never was infallible, and 45 years after it was written is not unnaturally showing the effects of its age.

For reasons of publishing economics it has not been possible to revise the text but in the latest one-volume paperback edition from Red Wheel Weiser I have been able to insert a foreword that covers some of these issues as best I may. If you do not have a copy of this edition but would like to read the foreword I will be happy to send it by e-mail attachment.

The second question is the perennial one about finding some course of study for those unable for geographical or social reasons to find a decent esoteric school. Fortunately I have just come across a solution that may prove helpful. Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, the Director of Studies of the Servants of the Light foundation, has produced a self study course entitled YOUR UNSEEN POWER that may be what you are looking for. However, as recommending teachers is as fraught with problems as setting up a dating agency, I suggest that, before buying a pig in a poke, you take a look at an interview she gave at the launch of the project, which you can find on the www.soundstrue.com/interviews web site.

In my view her comments in this interview constitute one of the best expositions of the purpose of magic and magical training I have come across, and so if it gels with you, and you have 149 bucks to spare, you may well find what you are looking for.

It comes in the form of nine CD's backed up with a 136 page study guide and sets of cards on Qabalah and Celtic and Egyptian mythology, highly professionally produced. Dolores has enormous experience of teaching the subject and, having known her for some thirtyfive years and her teacher Ernest Butler for some ten years before that, I can vouchsafe that you will be in reputable as well as experienced hands.

On the more personal publishing front the close of the old year saw the eventual publication of THE ARTHURIAN FORMULA which completes my series of delvings into the archives of the Society of the Inner Light in search of previously unpublished material by Dion Fortune. This is not material for beginners as it needs some powers of discernment to get the best out of it, but for those of reasonable esoteric intelligence and experience it may set a few fascinating hares running.

In some ways it could be said to be a bit of a dog's breakfast, containing a mixture of traditions including clairvoyant visions of Atlantis, Faery lore, Troubadour minstrelsy, and the Cult of Queen Venus, along with legends of Merlin, the Round Table and the Grail. It was originated by Dion Fortune in 1941 in conjunction with her old Golden Dawn teacher Maiya Tranchell Hayes and then further developed by the remarkable mediumship of Margaret Lumley Brown. I discovered something of its power when performing a workshop based upon it at Hawkood College back in 1981. Now at last the original material is in the public domain, and I have taken the opportunity to incorporate some further work along these lines by Wendy Berg on the Faery origins of much Arthurian and Grail material, and in particular the unique role within it all of Queen Gwenevere.

More details can be obtained from Thoth Publications, who have more treasures in store from yours truly and also Wendy Berg in the coming year or three. In the meantime, best wishes to all for 2007.

Talk given at Canonbury Masonic Research Centre, London, October 2006

2006-11-04T19:38:00.000Z

Dion Fortune and the Masonic Tradition
Talk by Gareth Knight at Canonbury Masonic Research Centre
18th October 2006

I take it that I do not have to say too much about Dion Fortune, as she will be quite familiar to those of you who follow my usual lines of thought and practice. However, as there may be some of you who come from a more strictly Masonic line perhaps I should say briefly that she is a leading figure in esoteric circles, who founded a school of initiation in 1927, although she had been active on the esoteric scene for some years before that, in the Golden Dawn and the Theosophical Society amongst others, learning her trade so to speak. And that she is perhaps best known by her written work, which ranges from a user-friendly work on the Qabalah, and through many of its aspects in fact and fiction. Her school, still exists as The Society of the Inner Light, and I, amongst a number of other teachers and writers of my generation, have passed through its doors and owe our apprenticeship to it, before becoming in our various ways either journeymen or mastercraftsmen in our chosen field.
Even amongst her aficionados I think the Masonic foundation of her own esoteric apprenticeship is not generally realised. The teacher who had a major effect upon her early esoteric work was a Mason of considerable erudition, remarkable occult abilities, and wide ranging freedom of thought. Indeed she made a fictional character of him in a series of short stories, “The Secrets of Dr Taverner”, casting him as a doctor who ran a strange nursing home that catered for unusual psycho-physical problems in a highly unorthodox manner.
She later wrote, “if there had been no Dr Taverner, there would have been no Dion Fortune.”
Well Dr Taverner was known in real life Dr Theodore Moriarty who seems to have been only slightly less larger than life than the fictional character based upon him. An Irishman, born on July 27th 1873 in Dublin, he was the son of a captain in the Royal Navy, the Republic of Ireland still being under the British crown at that time.
According to scraps of biographical reminiscence recalled by his students, he ran away to sea and joined the merchant service. Then after one of the ship`s officers had interested him in philosophy, he returned to Dublin to study, and from thence went on to Heidelberg, where it is assumed he obtained a doctorate, although if he did it was not in medicine. University records in Dublin and Heidelberg throw no light upon his possible academic attainments.
Anyhow, at the age of twenty four he contracted tuberculosis, a not uncommon disease in those days, and on being advised to seek a dryer climate, emigrated, in 1897, to South Africa. There he worked on surveying roads before enlisting in the Customs service. He married, had two children and developed an interest in anthropology, particularly of local tribes of primitive Bushmen.
He also became a freemason. He was initiated into the St. Blaize Lodge, No. 1938 of the United Grand Lodge of England at Mossel Bay, but later transferred, in 1906, to the Edward H. Corgland Lodge, No. 247 of the Grand Lodge of Ireland, in Johannesberg. Then in 1911 he was back under the jurisdiction of the United Grand Lodge of England, in the Unanimity Lodge No. 3126, at Walmer, near Port Elizabeth.
During this time he became co-author of two books on the subject, “The Freemason’s Vade Mecum” and “Notes on Masonic Etiquette and Jurisprudence”, his co-author being another mason of some distinction, Thomas N. Cranstoun-Day.
In documents he signed himself as being of the 18th degree, which signifies the Rosicrucian initiations that are open within Freemasonry. For all this information, and much that follows, we are indebted to the painstaking research of Alan Richardson, Dion Fortune’s other biographer, a new edition of whose work “Priestess” is, I am pleased to say, shortly forthcoming.
He must also have studied esoteric subjects in considerable depth for by the time Dion Fortune met him, soon after he had returned to England, in 1916, he had gained a reputation as a teacher of a system that he called “Universal Theosophy”. This had attracted a body of students that included three loyal and dedicated sisters who provided him, each in their way, with facilities for his classes. They were daughters of Francis Allen JP, of Swaffham in Norfolk.
The first was Elsie Reeves, the widow of a surgeon. She provided residential accommodation for courses at her home in Eversley, a village in Hampshire. These were attended on several occasions by Dion Fortune as she records in her semi-autobiography, “Psychic Self-Defence”. The second sister was Ursula Allen-Williams, the wife of an army officer, who provided Moriarty with a large shed for lectures at the bottom of her garden at Inverness Terrace, Bayswater, barely a stone`s throw away from Dion Fortune`s later London headquarters in Queensborough Terrace. And the third sister was Gwen Stafford-Allen, who allowed Moriarty to run his Science, Arts and Craft Society from her home, the Grange, in Bishops Stortford, where she ran a home for unwanted babies with the help of two doctors and nursing staff under the auspices of the County Council. Dion Fortune it seems was also acquainted with this location, for the district provides the locale for one of her novels, “The Goat-foot God”.
Dion Fortune thus seems to have availed herself of all three centres of his activity and it is an amalgam of these that forms the fictional nursing home described in “The Secrets of Dr. Taverner”, which ran as a series of stories in “The Royal Magazine” between February and July 1922, and which was the first published work of Violet Mary Firth to appear under the pen name Dion Fortune, by which she is now more generally known.
Her first meeting with Moriarty, at the age of 26, had a climactic effect upon the rest of her life. Until then she had been something of a misfit, unable to find a true direction in life, looking for some kind of career at a time when little was open to young women. After dabbling with horticulture and aspirations to free lance journalism, she had however begun to settle into the newly burgeoning field of psychology at the Medico-Psychological Clinic in Brunswick Square. Here she had become a leading student employed as a psychotherapeutic counsellor as back-up to the qualified medical staff. She had even had published a little book on elementary psychology, entitled “The Machinery of the Mind” graced with a foreword by a distinguished scientist, A.G.Tansley F.R.S., author of a major psychological textbook of the day.
She had however begun to become a little disillusioned by the lack of success that she discerned in current psychotherapeutic methods. Until, on a particularly unusual and difficult case, involving what might be called modern vampirism allied to psychic phenomena and necrophilia, Dr. Moriarty was called in, who apparently cleared it all up in spectacular fashion.
She was sufficiently impressed to write up the incident as the first of the Dr. Taverner stories, under the title “Blood Lust”, and to throw up her intentions of a career in psychotherapy. From henceforth she dedicated herself to investigating the psychic side of things.
She was quite eclectic in her approach, dividing her time between the Theosophical Society, the Golden Dawn tradition, and Theodore Moriarty’s activities.
The latter included a co-masonic lodge that he had set up at Sinclair Road in Hammersmith, and a record survives of ritual officers in the year 1919/20. Theodore Moriarty is registered as Adeptus with most, if not all, of the other officers being female, the office of Junior Warden being filled by V.M.Firth – the future Dion Fortune.
She does not appear in the list of officers for the following year, possibly because she had transferred her allegiance to the Golden Dawn system. However, her great friend Netta Fornario, is named as Outer Guardian, and the group seems to have made excellent strides for there had been thirteen initiations and an affiliation during the year.
The Golden Dawn of course had its origins in 1888 with three members of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia but by 1919 had changed its name and divided into a number of temples. The one that Dion Fortune joined was the Alpha and Omega, that had been founded in Edinburgh in 1913 by the Scottish novelist Brodie Innes, but which had a London branch in which Maiya Curtis-Webb (an old friend of the Firth family) played a leading role. Dion Fortune seems to have thrived under Maiya Curtis-Webb’s tutelage but after Moina Macgregor Mathers, following the death of her husband, returned to England and took over the London branch of the Alpha et Omega, the stage seemed set for some kind of eventual confrontation. The newly initiated Soror Deo Non Fortuna apparently had something of an independent streak that did not go down too well with those whom she later described as the “widows and grey beards” who now ran the society.
As one who in later life was to demonstrate her natural flair in powers of leadership those about her no doubt found her rather than a trifle too pushy. This included the Allen sisters, when following Moriarty`s death from a heart attack in 1923, she put herself forward as a natural candidate to take over his group. This received a somewhat dusty response from the Allen girls for it was Gwen Stafford-Allen who seemed the natural heir-apparent.
Accordingly, Dion Fortune went her own way and formed and developed her own group, which went from strength to strength over the years. Establishing herself in Glastonbury she set about developing powers of trance mediumship, apparently after the manner that she had observed practised by Theodore Moriarty. This was not the type of mediumship usually practised by spiritualists, concerning family messages from the recently departed, but attempts to contact superior intelligences of one kind and another for metaphysical teaching and practice.
There was a great deal of this about at the time. It was the period when Alice Bailey made her first contacts with the Tibetan, when Olive Pixley developed her system of the Armour of Light under inner instruction, when W.B.Yeats received the complex teaching, through the automatic writing of his wife Georgie, that he later published as “A Vision”. And indeed if truth were told it was the modus operandi of pioneers of the previous generation, including the Secret Chiefs of the Golden Dawn, and the remarkable visions of Anna Kingsford that developed into the Hermetic Society, which was an immediate predecessor to the Golden Dawn and inspiration to Macgregor Mathers as he acknowledges in his dedication to her in “The Kaballah Unveiled”. Dion Fortune`s involvement in communications of this nature resulted in a body of teaching known as “The Cosmic Doctrine”.
An interesting factor in this body of teaching lies in some of its terminology, which shows a considerable subconscious influence from the writings of Moriarty. Although there is a difference of outlook and approach that distances it from any possible accusation of plagiarism. Some of the same terms may be being used, but they are used in a completely different way. And a way, it should be said, that is quite demanding on the intuitive powers of anyone who seeks to comes to grips with it. Indeed it has been designated as being designed “to train the mind rather than to inform it”. And indeed much the same could be said of much cosmic mediumship of this type. It stretches the intellect into intuitive modes of speculation, even possible spiritual revelation, somewhat after the manner of the writings of Jacob Boehme or William Blake.
Dion Fortune came to rely a great deal on what came to her through her mediumistic work, although not exclusively, for she threw her net wide. But there is one session in particular that I would like to concentrate upon, which is very revealing of the pattern of ritual work and the Masonic influence as it impacted upon her Fraternity.
This session occurred on March 29th 1925 and is evidently a response, given in deep trance, to a recent recruit to her group who is worried about whether he has received quittance from his obligation to his original Masonic, or possibly Golden Dawn, affiliations. It is worth examining in some detail, for a good deal can be gleaned I think, fairly accurately, from reading between the lines.
The immediate response to the neophyte`s question is unequivocal. “There is no question of quittance, my son, it is one and the same thing. There are the same Inner Chiefs. You have not changed your allegiance, you have merely changed your lodge. There is but one keystone to the arch, though there are two pillars.”
There follows a potted history of the history of Freemasonry as understood by the communicator, or by the subconscious mind of Dion Fortune, however you like to interpret these matters.
“The Lesser Mysteries were given in their present form in the year 1717, but you are also no doubt aware that they existed long prior to that date. The tradition of their origin in Solomon’s Temple is mainly symbolical, though it has a substratum of historical fact, as have all allegorical histories. The facts of the matter I will briefly explain.
“The Temples were the repositories of the Secret Wisdom, which was derived from the Manus and added to by the Illuminati as evolution permitted a wider consciousness. There were employed in the service of the Temple, craftsmen and artificers. These of necessity had to have conveyed to them certain knowledge, because it was their province to work the symbols which were used in the rituals. It thus came about that there grew up around each Temple groups of lay brethren, and in order to bind these to secrecy, oaths were administered. They thus formed a Lesser Fraternity, which was possessed of the secret symbols, but not of their interpretations.
“In ancient days promotion never took place from the Lesser Fraternity to the Greater, for the men of the Greater Fraternity were specially bred for the purpose, and derived their blood from the Sacred Clan, whereas the men of the Lesser Fraternity came from the populace. A soul that aspired to pass from the Lesser to the Greater had to disincarnate.”
I should perhaps interject at this point that the ancient days being spoken of are far beyond those of the Temple of Solomon and refer to the legendary lost continent of Atlantis. This was a subject that was the topic of hot speculation in the 1920`s, although subsequent scientific investigation seems to throw some doubt upon the matter. Nonetheless it is keeps cropping up with great persistence in many manners of ways, including Tolkien’s Numenor, so that I think it can be legitimately be regarded as a valid element of what we might call psycho-geography or psycho-historiography. Like the square root of minus one in mathematics, it may not exist, but nonetheless allows us to explain much!
However, Dion Fortune`s communicator does not labour the point but leapfrogs quite quickly to the more familiar territory of the building of the Temple of Solomon in early Judaic times.
“When King Solomon desired to reorganise the Jewish or Melchisedechian mysteries, he sent to the Tyrian School for an Initiator, and this Initiator brought with him certain artificers who were familiar with the art of working in stone which, in its more refined aspects, was unknown to the Jews. There were then at Jerusalem the Clan of the Craftsmen and the Sacred College. Into the Clan of the Craftsmen were admitted numerous Jewish subordinates, and these, with the enterprise of their race, desired opportunity for admission to the Greater Mysteries.
“This was refused, and there was an insurrection, which was quelled but not before serious developments had followed. But the building had progressed sufficiently far to be capable of completion without further need of Tyrian science, and so arrangements were made for the Tyrian artificers to return to their homes, and the work was completed by the Jewish craftsmen, and the services of the Temple were duly inaugurated and conducted by the Levites.
“There remained, however, a considerable body of men, who by means of the experiences they had undergone, and the symbols they had handled, had attained a degree of enlightenment, but these were neither priests nor populace. Many of the labourers and workmen, having profited nothing by their opportunities, but remaining hewers of wood and drawers of water, were reabsorbed by the populace on the completion of that Great Work.
“Others, however, having learnt the exoteric or technical arts of applied geometry, were capable of constructing edifices. They therefore banded themselves together into the first Building Guilds, and wandered as nomads wherever their work was required; the head man of the clan driving a bargain for the service of his people, who, with their wives and families, tools and implements, borne on the backs of asses, and driving herds of goats, wandered all over the known world, leaving the mark of their training on the edifices they erected, and conserving their knowledge of the building arts as tribal secrets. These were the forerunners and ancestors of the medieval Building Guilds.
“Now it was the custom of these patriarchal Fraternities to employ solemn worship, whose ritual they derived from the days of the Temple building, and each edifice was consecrated at its commencement and dedicated at its completion by the rituals known only to the Builders.
“In the dedication they aimed at the propitiation of the Earth Spirits of the site, that they might withhold accidents from the workmen. And at the completion they rendered thanks lest resentful spirits should revenge themselves in the future. It is to the Earth Spirits of the site that the coins of dedication are tendered. For, as you doubtless know, coins of the realm are placed beneath the Corner Stone. This is the remote relic of the Great Invocations with which the Tyrian Adept consecrated each corner of his Temple.
“The medieval Building Guilds, substituting the Saints for the Elementals, continued the Tradition, using the symbolism, of which they had no interpretation, and employing an art of whose esoteric significance they were ignorant.
“The line of the Greater Mysteries, however, had never died out neither had its flame been quenched, for each new Illuminatus rekindled the Light from the hidden fire; and the tradition stretched down the ages, despite the persecutions of the Church.
“During the earlier years of the 18th century and the concluding years of the 17th the Secret Science had received a great impetus owing to the activities of certain men of outstanding character, and many students pursued these arts.
“It was desired by the Adepti to organise the training of the aspirants and it was decided that for this purpose the rituals of the Lesser Mysteries were required. These, however, had become extinct. For though the Greater Mysteries could relume the torch at the Light of the Inner Fire, the Lesser Mysteries were dependent on the Greater; and when the Light went out it was not relit. Therefore it was that there was no School of the Lesser Mysteries to act as a bridge whereby the populace could reach the Temple.
“Now the Adepti, seeking to construct rituals suitable for the Initiation of Candidates of the grades of the Lesser Mysteries, cast about for such relics of the old rituals as might still be extant. They had no more affinity with the Building Guilds than they had with the Scribes or Papermaking Guilds who also were descendants of the Temple servants. But in the superstitious practices of the Building Guilds they found the relics of the ancient Craft Mysteries and on these relics they based their work.
“Therefore it is that the Lesser Mysteries of the Western races express abstract truths in the formulae of masons` technicalities. The principles are those common to all the Lesser Mystery Schools. The form is peculiar to the particular trade which happened to be selected for the purpose of picking up the contacts.”
It will be gathered from this that the largely unspoken assumption is that what we are concerned with is a secret tradition of means of communicating with various inner powers, that is the motivating and indeed the driving engine behind Masonic symbolism. And moreover that there is a division between the members of such guilds as might be privy to the symbolism, even if they did not understand it, and the general populace. But moreover there is a division within, between what might be called the Lesser and the Greater Mysteries, which the communicator goes on to define as Rosicrucian. And in the original script such words do not appear printed out, but only by a row of dots, indicating not so much a requirement for secrecy, for the meaning is perfectly obvious, but a certain reverence in the hearts and minds of those who are receiving this material. The importance and glory of which of course, they may well hope, rubs off a little on themselves, as being entrusted to be in the know.
But back to the script, which may possibly cause the hackles of some more down to earth Masonic brothers to rise. But don`t blame me, I am only quoting what the man said!
“You will see from this that the validity of the Lesser Mystery ritual depends entirely on its being operated by Initiates of the Greater Mysteries, and mark you this – no Mason can initiate. It is only a Rosicrucian that can initiate, and the Rosicrucians are the masters of the Masons, and they know it, my brother.
“ And if you take your initiation from the hand of the Rosicrucian you have no occasion to question its validity, rather you may question the validity of Initiations received from other hands.
“Now mark this well – it was only the three Craft Degrees that were instituted by the Adepts, and these are the only degrees of the Lesser Mysteries. The higher Masonic Degrees are but attempts on the part of the populace to enter the Mysteries which were reserved for the Sacred Clan; and now, as then, it is necessary to be twice-born – born of the Spirit as well as of the flesh in order to enter the Greater Mysteries.
“Of recent years evolution, having advanced, and the development of the feminine aspect of the race having reached a degree which enabled the average woman to benefit by the Masonic Initiations, those who ruled the Order from within desired that the gates should be open, but those who ruled the Order from without held the gates shut in England. Among the French Masons, however, were a larger proportion of occultists, and these, acting under instructions, opened the gates and gave the Charter to three noble women that they might initiate their sex.
“This Charter is valid: By their works ye shall know them.”.
Now I am no scholar of Masonic history and tradition, and so am in no position to be able to put names and faces to what is generally implied here. But in that which follows, which comes closer to home, I can certainly hazard an informed guess as to who is being referred to. Let us continue.
“A difficulty arose however; Masonry is designed to act as an introductory school to the Rosicrucian Mysteries. Women’s Masonry was used under Eastern contacts, for which it was unsuited…” Here, I think we have the writing off, in the script, of any Theosophical Society initiatives in this direction under Annie Besant and C.W.Leadbeater.
“… and therefore another attempt was made at founding a mixed Lodge, and, the Anglo-saxon race being too unreceptive and hidebound by prejudice, the task was given before to a Celt.”
Is this a reference to Samuel Liddell Macgregor Mathers I ask myself?
“Later a Celt was used again, and this time an Irishman received and acted upon the mandate.”
Would this be Theodore Moriarty?
“He worked for a time and then the mandate was withdrawn and the Lodge closed – for the force had broken bounds.”
That is, he too had died, and his successors did not seem able to pick up the torch, at any rate in Dion Fortune`s estimation.
“Again the attempt was made, but this time, the Celtic stock being deemed too unstable, the Nordic stock was used. That briefly is the history of your Fraternity.”
The Nordic stock is of course that of Violet Mary Firth, or Dion Fortune, who was greatly proud of her Yorkshire origins, part of which she indirectly celebrates in the character to Tim Murchison in her novel “The Winged Bull”.
“Now the Irishman who founded the Neo-Essenes sought a contact, just as the Adepts of 1717 sought a contact, but he, being able to function on the inner planes, established his contact by touching the planetary memories and linked up with the ancient Essenes of Palestine, who were the residuum of the builders settled among the mountains of Lebanon – men too old for the task of building who retired to end their lives in peaceful meditation upon the mysteries of God and Nature. It is from these that this Fraternity first derived its contacts, though these contacts are enshrined in the form of the Masonic symbolism as being most appropriate thereto and likewise the lineal descendants thereof.”
This reference to an Irishman who founded the Neo-Essenes I think must also refer to Moriarty, although I am not aware of his connection with any such organisation. Neo-Essenes tend to call to my mind the later successors of Anna Kingsford, who embraced their own kind of mystical Christianity. However, Moriarty was certainly well enough informed in the esoteric elements of Christian religion to have been involved in such an enterprise, and I cite as evidence a series of lectures he gave called “Metaphysical Aspects, (or Concepts), of Religion” with particular reference to the Gospel of St John.
In one of these particularly, and it appears to be the first, is evidence of his pervading influence on Dion Fortune`s conceptions.
As an initiate of her school, albeit having entered it rather more than fifty years ago, I do not think I am giving away any esoteric secrets in saying that much of the ritual symbolism she used is broadly Masonic. Indeed pillars and such appear in the introductory study course, but I recall the sense of shock I received when in later years I found much that I had thought to be secret symbolism of the innermost inner plainly laid out in a Masonic handbook! However, there can be considerable differences between one lodge or tradition and another, in detail and addition to the general symbolic scenario, as well as various perceptual developments and shifts of emphasis from one generation to another.
Some of these have been publicly revealed already by the amusing and occasionally iconoclastic writer Francis King, in “Ritual Magic in England”, who does not pull his punches, even if they sometimes swing somewhat wide of the mark. He found cause for risibility in an Inner Light ritual that he attended on the close association of such symbolic elements as wheat, honey and asbestos.
Now just such a bizarre sounding triad is to be found in one of the Moriarty lectures I have mentioned, given God knows when, but which by coincidence has come my way, and with annotations that I am part persuaded are in Dion Fortune`s hand.
In this, along with the assumption of the existence of Atlantis, is a dissertation upon the sun hero, representing the divine aspect in man, that is paralleled by the passage of the sun through the signs of the zodiac, which sinks to relative impotence in the winter to rise again gloriously in the spring. And as the sun begins its descent in the sign Leo, so the lion is found in all sun myths, and from whose carcase proceed bees.
The bee he sees as an important symbol within the Mysteries, with allusions in many Bible passages – in Genesis, Ezra, the Psalms and the Pauline Epistles – and also as an especial mark of the Order of Melchizedek, bees being creatures capable of creating a perfect figure, the hexagon, within their cells.
Another aspect of the sun hero is as god of agriculture, and as god of the corn the sun hero is said to scatter the seed. From earliest times the ear of corn has been the symbol of fertility, of “the bread of life”, and with the essential quality inherent in all seeds, the abstract being only waiting for fertilisation to spring into activity and growth.
And then we come upon asbestos as the third member of a symbolic trinity, which according to Moriarty has been a symbol in the Mysteries from earliest days. And the reason for the connection between these three things he says – the bee, the corn and asbestos – is because they all came to earth from other evolutions. That is, they have no archetypes on this planet, but have been brought over to us to teach definite lessons, and for this reason are called Manu manifestations.
And he goes on to explain that although at first sight there does not appear to be any mention of asbestos in the Bible, the Toltec word pettri, though meaning primarily a stone, also stands for asbestos, and equally the Greek word petros, used so much in the gospels, is the same word as pitheros, which also stands for asbestos, which stands for the indestructibility of the spirit principle even by fire.
In these old Mysteries, asbestos is described as “the unaffected yet bound”.
The wheat is described as “the living yet dead”.
And the bee as “the free yet enslaved.”
All three of which, I suggest, are profound definitions as to what being an initiate in the world entails.
“The unaffected yet bound.”
“The living yet dead.”
“The free yet enslaved.”
Think on these things. For whatever our outward differences or perceived paths may seem, be they Rosicrucian, Masonic, Neo-Essene, Golden Dawn or Inner Light, these definitions are symbolic pointers to essential and universal truth. They were good enough for Theodore Moriarty. They were good enough for Dion Fortune. And they are certainly good enough for me!

Talk given at Leaping Hare Conference, Colchester, April 2006

2006-11-04T19:29:00.000Z

THE MAGICAL LIFE
Talk given by Gareth Knight at Leaping Hare Annual Conference,
High Woods, Colchester, 1st April 2006

I have been asked to talk to you today about my magical life, although I am not sure that it is very much more magical than anyone else`s. It certainly seems to have been going on for rather a long time, which means I cannot include too much of it in one afternoon. And it could well keep us going well into the night, simply trying to define what magic is, let alone what my particular involvement in it may have been, in public or private.
However, I can say that anyone who has an inclination toward the magical life is rather prone to look for omens, portents and the inner significance of things. Therefore it intrigues me somewhat to have been invited to speak at this particular location, in High Woods, Colchester. For you have unwittingly brought me back close to where I started off in life - seventy six years ago, come the day after tomorrow.
On April 3rd 1930 I was born at Mile End, just across the fields from here, over what used to be called the Candy Meadows, but which I imagine is now a housing estate. And I recall High Woods as a magical kind of place, an extent of woodland where, in the spring, the ground was covered in a veritable mist of bluebells.
Not that the scene was always entirely idyllic, for I also recall my mother and I being ordered out by a gamekeeper halfway through a family picnic, for being on the wrong side of a barbed wire fence. Thus do two kinds of reality tend to butt up against one another, in the nineteen thirties as well as today.
So whether you have pulled me back full circle this afternoon, to set me going on the next ring of some spiral of magical life experience remains to be seen. I think there unlikely to be much picnicking in the woods. Although there seems to be no shortage of parking at Tescos.
And I have to say that of late I have become increasingly aware of the magical dynamics of the woods, and fields, and the Earth itself. Indeed of the contours of the land, such as this high wooded point, overlooking across the Colne valley, the corresponding height of England`s most ancient recorded town, as Camulodunum, with its temple of Claudius, and before that home to Old King Cole the merry old soul overlooking the river Sheepen. The ups and downs of all of which I remember well, through pushing my bike unwillingly to school, in the shadow of the Roman wall, up Balkern Hill. To say nothing of tearing back down it, at risk to life and limb, in the afternoon.
But it was not until I had said farewell to Colchester as a young man that I found the magical direction to my life. When, at the age of twentythree, I came across a couple of books by Dion Fortune. One was called “The Esoteric Orders and Their Work” and the other “The Training and Work of an Initiate”. They struck me with tremendous force. I devoured them avidly, and determined that wherever this stuff was coming from, that was where I had to be. If there were such things as initiates I wanted to become one, and if there were such things as esoteric orders at work then I wanted to join.
Accordingly, I enrolled on the preparatory correspondence course with the Society of the Inner Light, became a member, and as soon as I could arrange it, took up residence in London as close as I could to its headquarters, and subsequently worked my way up the grades.
The Society had been founded by Dion Fortune some thirty years previously. I have been told on good authority from at least two sources recently that no-one under the age of 30 seems to have heard of Dion Fortune, in which case my sympathy goes out to a somewhat deprived generation. She may have died sixty years ago this January but most of her books are still in print, including a clutch of occult novels, upon some of which a couple of film companies currently hold options.
My own magical life, such as it is, has consisted largely of following and then promoting and researching the magical ways that Dion Fortune pioneered.
Magic has become quite respectable in academic circles these days, and in his history of modern pagan belief, “The Triumph of the Moon”, Professor Ronald Hutton cites Dion Fortune as being one of four modern figures, active between 1900 and 1950, who, he considers have had a direct and obvious influence upon it, and who has been acknowledged by many of its practitioners as a source of inspiration.
Well that is as may be, although I have to say that Dion Fortune cast her magical net rather more widely. In her youth she joined just about every major esoteric organisation in sight, from the Theosophical Society to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. She assisted Bligh Bond in psychic endeavours to contact medieval monks at Glastonbury Abbey. She developed a clinic with her doctor husband that combined esoteric healing along with conventional medicine. She wrote and performed Rites of Isis and of Pan for public performance in central London. She organised public worship in a private chapel known as the Church of the Grail. And founded an esoteric school that still exists today, through the doors of which many well known writers and teachers have passed. And in her latter days she was researching kundalini yoga and the Arthurian tradition and speaking on spiritualist platforms.
So any label placed upon her, be it pagan, Christian or magical is likely to be somewhat short of comprehensive in terms of an esoteric trade descriptions act. But just as there is a movement today to get supermarkets to label their produce red, yellow or green according to the amount of salt or fat or whatever else may be in their products, so Dion Fortune tended to brand her magical goodies with different labels according to occasion. Her particular colours being Green Ray, Orange Ray or Purple. The Green of elemental energy and the nature contacts, the Orange of hermetic philosophy and ceremonial magic, and the Purple of spiritual and religious mysticism.
I have to say my own approach to things is similarly eclectic. However, this being an occasion which above all celebrates the Green Ray side of things, let us concentrate upon that particular aspect of the three-fold way. For it also happens to be, in my belief, currently the most important and one that we ignore at our peril.
I was talking to the Quest conference in Bristol just a month ago, on Dion Fortune and her work, and particularly the legacy of her novels, which she used as a means to present the more practical aspects of magic. She was always keenly aware of the importance of the land, which often features in her novels. And of particular interest to my west country audience was therefore her novel “The Sea Priestess” which features a promontory of land that juts out into the Atlantic some way south of Bristol, near Weston super Mare. It is known as Brean Down, and there her magical heroine, who goes by the evocative name of Vivienne Le Fay Morgan, builds a temple dedicated to the powers of the sea and the moon, and performs her Rite of Isis under the aegis of an inner Merlin like figure known as the Priest of the Moon.
Much of her inspiration for this came from an academic work published in 1903, written by a remarkable woman called Jane Harrison, who at a time when classical studies were an exclusive preserve of fuddy duddies of the male sex, not only stormed their Olympean ramparts, but chose to upstage most of the Olympean gods by concentrating on more ancient primitive Greek religion from which they had sprung. Her major work, somewhat formidably entitled “Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion”, had great influence on Dion Fortune when writing her novels some thirty years later.
It was an examination of the primal dynamics of the cults of Orpheus and Dionysus – and indeed part of Dion Fortune`s Rite of Isis clearly derives from the inscription on an ancient funerary and initiatory gold tablet that is quoted and described by Jane Harrison. In Dion Fortune`s modern rendering of these dynamics we find the Sea Priestess, evoking an approach to the goddess of the inner Earth for the questing priest.
Sink down, sink down, sink deeper and more deep
Into eternal and primordial sleep,
Sink down, be still, forget and draw apart,
Sink into the inner earth`s most secret heart.
Drink of the waters of Persephone,
The secret well beside the sacred tree.
Waters of life and strength and inner light –
Eternal joy drawn from the deeps of night.
Then rise, made strong, with life and hope renewed,
Reborn from darkness and from solitude.
Blessed with the blessing of Persephone,
And secret strength of Rhea, Binah, Ge.
Now what is particularly significant about this approach is that she is directing the aspirant downwards into the UnderWorld rather than upwards onto cosmic Cloud Nine. In this she is a forerunner of such latter day teachers as R.J.Stewart and his book “The UnderWorld Initiation”, which has been the subject of many a powerful esoteric workshop. The UnderWorld in question, I hasten to add, has nothing to do with medieval conceptions of Hell, but is the inner side of the Earth upon which we live and move and have our being. The traditions of which, as R.J.Stewart discovered from his early experience as a folk musician, are enshrined in ancient ballad lore.
Not, I furthermore hasten to add, that Cloud Nine should be excluded from our vision of the inner side of things. For there is a place for angels in the cosmos as well as elemental beings. And here again in the last analysis we have to seek a just balance in the three fold way of things. But to deny the powers of the inner Earth is arguably responsible for many excesses of asceticism in medieval sanctity, considerable hypocrisy and an ineffectual prissiness in some avenues of esoteric studies.
Now although my friends in Bristol were particularly interested in her work as a priestess of the Rite of Isis, because the site of the temple of the Sea Priestess was upon their doorstep, Dion Fortune also celebrated another side of the polarity of the inner Earth. That is to say, through her Rite of Pan, which was featured in her earlier novel “The Goat-foot God” and is of particular interest to us, in that the location of her fictional inspiration seems to have been closer to our neck of the woods. Certainly her heroes turn east rather than west when they drive out of London and find themselves in wooded areas, which could well be Epping Forest, or Hatfield Forest, if not quite so far east as High Woods.
The site of Monk`s Farm, built upon the ruins of an ancient abbey that had turned heretical, has been conjecturally located somewhere along the Essex and Hertfordshire border, and rightly or wrongly, driving through the countryside around Takeley and Hatfield Heath always puts me in mind of it. Be that as it may, it was here that Hugh Paston, a wealthy socialite dumped by his wife and disenchanted with his former friends turns to investigate the inner worlds and his own psyche.
We are never quite sure which is which – and this is what makes it in some ways her most accurate and complex occult novel. Is he having memories of a past incarnation, or is he developing a schizophrenic secondary personality, or is he being overshadowed by the ghost of a medieval monk, who was walled up by the authorities in an oubliette for dabbling with pagan rites instead of studying his breviary?
Again, I detect the influence of Jane Harrison when Dion Fortune`s characters speculate upon the past history of the place:
“You think what it must have meant to these monks, shut up in their monasteries, when they got to work on the Greek manuscripts that the Renaissance brought to Europe. They were careful what Latin ones they let come into the libraries, because the old abbots could read those. But they couldn`t read the Greek ones, and the smart young fellows in the scriptorium got to work on them – and they must have had an eye-opener. Supposing they got hold of the “Bacchae” for instance, with the invocations to Dionysos? That must have livened up the cloister a bit.”
To cut a long story short, it appears that the prior must have experimented with some of this, fallen foul of the authorities and been walled up.
So it is thought that the spirit of the prior Ambrosius may still walk the place. Hugo Paston, begins to feel overshadowed by him, even to feel that it may have been his own former incarnation, and all this on top of being emotionally repressed in this life in the present. Whatever the facts of the matter, for better or for worse, the pathetic and ascetic Hugh, and Mona Freeman, the raunchy young lady who has befriended him set about reviving the spirit of Pan within the grounds of the old abbey.
One of the most evocative preliminaries is a curious song that Mona sings as she lays out their morning meal, prior to performing the rite:
Bowl of oak and earthen jar,
Honey of the honey-bee;
Milk of kine and Grecian wine,
Golden corn from neighbouring lea –
These our offerings, Pan, to thee,
Goat-foot god of Arcady.

Horned head and cloven hoof –
Fawns who seek and nymphs that flee –
Piping clear and draweth near
Through the vales of Arcady –
These the gifts we have of thee,
God of joyous ecstasy.

Come, great Pan, and bless us all:
Bless the corn and honey-bee.
Bless the kine and bless the vine,
Bless the vales of Arcady.
Bless the nymphs that laugh and flee,
God of all fertility.

Dion Fortune was good at describing the dynamics of magical experience. What it felt like. Of course she had the advantage of considerable direct personal experience, allied to a gift with the pen. And as they begin to get into the evocation of Pan, so they sense a change in the atmosphere within the woodland clearing in which they work:
“ Then the place began to fill with light, overpowering the oppressive heat so that they thought only of the light and forgot the heat. It was a curious light, neither of the sun, nor of the moon, nor of the stars; more silvery than the golden band that still shone amid it; less silvery than the pale moon-glow and the stars. And in this light all things were reflected. The earth spread away into space in a great curve, with their grove upon it. It swung through the heavens in a yet greater curve, the planets circling around it, and it was ringed like Saturn with luminous bands. This was the earth-aura, and within it was lived their life. Their psychic selves breathed in those bands of light as their physical selves breathed in the atmosphere. And within the earth was the earth-soul, all alive and sentient, and from it they drew their vitality.”
Hugh thinks that all this has come about through their invocation, but Mona knows that these things are there all the time, though in our normal state of everyday consciousness we are unaware of them. That magical invocation is a process of expansion of awareness. An opening the doors and cleansing the windows of perception.
And the polar connection between the Rites of Isis and the Rite of Pan is revealed at the end of the book, in a magical invocation chanted by Mona as priestess of these powers.
I am She who ere the earth was formed
Rose from the sea.
O First-begotten Love, come unto me,
And let the worlds be formed of me and thee.

Giver of vine and wine and ecstasy,
God of the garden, shepherd of the lea –
Bringer of fear, who maketh men to flee,
I am thy priestess, answer unto me!

Lo, I receive the gifts thou bringest me –
Life, and more life, in fullest ecstasy.
I am the moon, the moon that draweth thee.
I am the waiting earth that needeth thee.
Come unto me, Great Pan, come unto me!

And in the coming of the god, Hugh realises that the Pan that is being evoked is not the goat-god, crude and earthy, it is the Sun. Not the sun of the sophisticated Greek Apollo, but an older, earlier, primordial sun, the sun of Helios, the Titan.
And he remembers a favourite phrase of his occult teacher “All the gods are one god, and all the goddesses are one goddess…” The All-Father is celestial Zeus - and woodland Pan – and Helios the Life-giver. He is all these things, and having known Pan, a man might pass on to the heavenly gate where Helios waits beside the rosy fingered Dawn – of Aphrodite, the Awakener, arising from the sea.
And so it is with invocations, that seek to rouse the Pan within, who is by no means just a cosmic billy-goat.
So much for Dion Fortune as a pioneer, as Professor Hutton has hailed her. But if she has fulfilled her function as a pioneer what does it behove us to do? The function of a pioneer is to blaize a trail that can be followed and developed by those who come after. She has done her job. What are we going to do about ours?
Well I think that to a large degree this consolidation has been achieved by the modern neo-pagan movement. I also dare to believe that it is also beginning to impinge upon a wider front of public awareness. There is certainly of late a greater realisation of the importance of the being of the earth itself.
To some extent this insight that came to the environmental scientist James Lovelock some thirty years ago, when he began to see the planet as a great super-organism that regulates itself chemically and atmospherically to keep itself fit to bear life. That is to say, that to all intents and purposes, is a living being itself.
Being a scientist he put it in jaw breaking and mind crunching terms of “a biocybernetic universal system tendency” and it was left to the novelist William Golding to come up with a more appropriate name – of Gaia – after the Greek goddess of the Earth. She whom, in another of her aspects, Mona Freeman was evoking in the Rite of Pan.
So if we conceive of the Earth as being a great elemental being providing the means for the generation of life within and upon herself, what of the forms of life that she so nurtures and nourishes? This includes ourselves, as members of the human race. It also includes the animal kingdom in all its forms. And for those who have a certain degree of psychical and elemental awareness, along with breadth of vision to take in the fact, it includes the faery realm.
According to folk lore and myth and occasional sightings, this is as wide and diverse a kingdom as the whole of the animal species and the ethnic variations of the human race. It may include the little flower faeries that have crept into Victorian nursery tales and some of Shakespeare, but also the great “lordly ones of the hollow hills” – the Tuatha de Danaan and their like, - the children of the goddess Dana.
Time was when Irish mystics of a hundred years ago, such as George Russell and W.B.Yeats were scorned for believing in faeries. But despite the brash materialist and hedonistic tenor or our times there has become a general awareness of the possibility of the existence of such a range of beings, if only let in through the back door of fantasy fiction.
Thus we see, against all commercial odds, the massive success of works of the mythopeoic imagination such as J.R.R.Tolkien in “The Silmarillion” and “The Lord of the Rings”, not only in terms of books, but latterly of their film production world wide.
One even finds evidence of the general acceptability of the tradition in the comic novels of Terry Pratchett, which have broken into the mass market despite the somewhat esoteric subject matter of witches of various grades and indeed of elemental beings. As for instance in the hilarious “Lords and Ladies”.
Here traditional witches in the form of Nanny Ogg and Granny Weatherwax do their best to cope with the rash invocations of teenage wannabe`s who have conjured a somewhat stroppy elf queen out of a stone circle. There is sound wisdom too behind much of the laughter. For the inner worlds are very reflective. And in esoteric evocation we tend to get a mirror image of our own state of being. This is an elementary tenet of esoteric psychology and the reason why sound esoteric schools set great store by purity of motive and spiritual and emotional maturity.
I have spoken of the influence of Dion Fortune upon my magical life, who flourished half a generation before my time, so it is also appropriate that I speak of one or two teachers who come half a generation or so after my time, and who carry on the broad tradition I believe in.
To R.J.Stewart, whom I have already mentioned, we owe the concept of what is known as the Triune or the Three-fold Alliance. That is, mutual recognition and cooperation between the human, the animal and the faery kingdoms. This is no new age fad nor fancy for he supports it with an 18th century esoteric document in his possession, which he quotes in two of his books “The Living World of Faery” and “Power Within the Land”. And more recently he develops the concept in “The Well of Light”, in a form of spiritual healing based on folkloric tradition involving a working relationship between humans and the inner forces of the land or region in which they live.
Or, if you should want things straight from the horse`s mouth there is the record of an apparent confrontation between John Matthews and what appears to have been one of the Lordly Ones at a Neolithic site in Ireland, which he has revealed in a book called “The Sidhe – Wisdom from the Celtic Otherworld”.
I quote a key passage of this message from one of these lordly ones, who is plainly not best pleased with the way that the human race has been shaping:
“You would be better to see yourselves as allies of creation rather than its rulers. By choosing to work in harmony with the natural world – as once all living things did – you could still redress the balance.
“If your life brushes against that of another creature you feel something. If you take the life of another creature you feel something. It is no great step to extend this to feeling something when you touch a rock or a tree, when you feel the energy of a river or the sea.
“Many feel these things, yet your race continually shut out these feelings. Just as you attach devices to your horses so that they can see only ahead, so you have done to yourselves, limiting your vision until you can see nothing save that which is before you. Only when you learn to remove the guards will you experience true vision. You must seek to become reconnected to everything, end the separation you have created for yourselves.
“There are many things you can do to bring about a re-connection. Begin by noticing the world around you. By truly looking. By seeing past the surface of things to the level of Spirit.
“At the moment when you go out into nature you see only the surface of things. Trees, grass, water, plants. Yet the reality of these things is far greater. Once you knew this. You can discover it again if you truly wish. Next time you are outside look around you. Try to see beyond the surface into the true nature of things you see. Though you may find it difficult to do so at first, in time you will begin to see more.
“If you continue far enough and deeply enough you will even begin to communicate with the spirit within the things you are observing. In truth you will cease to be observers at all and become part of the thing you are looking at.
“This is what the ancient bards of this land meant when they spoke of having `been` a thing. This was more than a poetic image, but a very real truth. To truly know a thing is to become one with it. Just as to become one with it is to truly know it.
“When you do this you will begin to understand the true nature of things, and of your own relationship to them. Perhaps then, when plants and rocks and animals are no longer soulless things, you will cease to treat them as such, cease to take them and use them as you have now for so many of your ages. If you are truly ready to enter a new era then you must discover how to make such changes to the way you view things. Only when you have done so will you be truly liberated from the narrow place in which you have put yourselves.
“At present you are just as much prisoners as if you were truly locked up within stone walls. The walls of your prison are not ones that you can see with your eyes, but they can still be recognised.”
It seems to me that this may well be true of the great majority of the human race, although I venture to think that it may be less true of those of us who are assembled here. The very fact that we are present here demonstrates that we realise that there is something more to life than the surface illusion – hard, brash and self-sufficient though that surface illusion might appear.
This is something that challenges us in many different ways. It is not enough to confine our interest in such matters to a safe and purely intellectual level. We not only have to “believe in” faeries and other forms of elemental consciousness, but to understand who and what they are, where they come from, where they are going, and what our mutual relationship with them may be.
The Three-fold Alliance makes similar demands on us to think about how we relate to the animal kingdom, for the patience and suffering of the animal kingdom needs to come through to our awareness loud and clear.
So we should arouse ourselves and reach out to our companions on this planetary globe. Make ourselves known to these beings who are part of the evolution of the inner Earth in high and low degree. Seek out what lies within these parallel worlds behind appearances. And in particular the hidden evolutionary expression of the faery world that is often concealed behind the veil of literary fancy.
This is all part of that which is embraced in Dion Fortune`s Rite of Isis and Rite of Pan, and it is all perhaps a matter of taking fiction seriously, whether it be that of Dion Fortune, Tolkien, or even C.S.Lewis`s “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, for whether or not you choose to accept any element of Christian allegory within his work, it nonetheless depicts a joint communication and cooperation between human, animal and faery against devolutionary forces. And who knows if something of the angelic may not be also somewhere in there.
So all you have to do is to go out into the woods, into the High Woods, and beyond, into the wider world, with all your senses and your imaginative faculties open. And as you develop your own magical lives, so will you help and heal your fellow creatures, and the Earth itself. All it requires is the courage to be amazed.

List of books cited
Dion Fortune: The Esoteric Orders and their Work
Dion Fortune: The Training and Work of an Initiate
Ronald Hutton: The Triumph of the Moon
Jane Harrison: Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion
R.J.Stewart: The UnderWorld Initiation
Dion Fortune: The Sea Priestess
Dion Fortune: The Goat-foot God
J.R.R.Tolkien: The Silmarillion
J.R.R.Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings
R.J.Stewart: The Living World of Faery
R.J.Stewart: Power Within the Land
R.J.Stewart: The Well of Light
John Matthews: The Sidhe –Wisdom from the Celtic Otherworld
Terry Pratchet: Lords and Ladies
C.S.Lewis: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

Talk at Quest Conference Bristol - March 2006

2006-11-04T19:14:00.000Z

DION FORTUNE IN BRISTOL & SOMERSET
Talk given by Gareth Knight at Quest Conference 4th March 2006
I am not sure that Bristol is entirely the most appropriate place to celebrate Dion Fortune, as she tended to express a certain antipathy to the city. This was based in part, I think, on an assumed reincarnationary memory of once having been hanged here as a pirate!
However she did have happier associations in her most recent incarnation when affiliated to a temple of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, that operated here under the control of her friend Hope Hughes. She was very grateful for this at the time, having been drummed out of her original temple through falling out with Moina Macgregor Mathers. The formidable widow of the founder of the Golden Dawn, it seems, considered her something of an upstart. And perhaps what is more unforgiveable, a highly successful upstart - with her own group, establishments in Glastonbury and London, and her own direct access to the Secret Chiefs, under whose aegis she published a raft of teachings which Moina felt ought to be reserved for the elect of the innermost inner.
Unfortunately, her reinstatement to the Order, albeit by another branch, did not last for long. For Dion Fortune and her husband were instrumental in introducing the young Israel Regardie to the Bristol temple. In fact they were present at his initiation – coyly referred to in correspondence as his vaccination. It turned out to be however a vaccination with a violent and painful reaction. For Regardie found the kind of magic dispensed by Hope Hughes and her friends at the Hermes Temple of the Stella Matutina to be far beneath his expectations.
This is perhaps not surprising given the fact that, despite his youth, he had already written two books on the subject, and had just spent three years in Paris as an acolyte of Aleister Crowley. The upshot was that he denounced the Golden Dawn adepti, root and branch, and published all their secret papers, on the grounds that they ought to be out in the public domain rather than kept under close concealment by those whom he considered to be incompetent.
Whilst it is arguable that this may be have been a good thing in the long run, it shattered Dion Fortune`s relationship with Hope Hughes and she was once more cast upon her own resources. Again no great harm was done in the long run, for she proved quite capable of establishing her own school which became, and still remains, a force to be reckoned with upon the esoteric scene, through the portals of which many well known occult writers and teachers have passed.
Nonetheless, whether or not she did end a former life swinging from a yard arm on the Bristol waterfront, there was arguably something of the buccaneer in Dion Fortune. Indeed such an element might well have been deemed essential in the character of one destined to prove such a pioneer and adventurer. One who, so to speak, built, vitalled and captained her own ship, and made up her own rules of engagement on the esoteric scene.
We could well ask how much of a transition there might be from plying the trade of Captain Morgan, to following in the footsteps of Morgan le Fay? She was not afraid to cut loose from any organisation which seemed to her to be falling short of her expectations, and then set to, to do things better herself.
Her interest in the inner side of things started with psycho-analysis, which in her early twenties, before the 1st World War, she hoped to make her living as well as her life`s work. However, despite achieving some standing among her fellow practitioners she became increasingly aware that none of them seem to be having much success in alleviating human misery, and that because a whole dimension was missing from orthodox psychological theory. Thus she moved on to para-psychology, having been greatly impressed by the case work of Dr. Theodore Moriarty, a maverick anthropologist, freemason and practical occultist, who became her exemplar and first teacher. She later eulogised him in a series of short stories entitled The Secrets of Dr. Taverner and went so far as to claim that if there had been no Dr. Taverner there would have been no Dion Fortune.
She also joined almost everything esoteric in sight, including the Theosophical Society and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. But spurred on by the example of Moriarty, she was not content with taking other people`s theories or psychic impressions for granted, but deliberately set out to develop mediumistic powers of her own. Which took her some years to achieve, her method being intense concentration in identifying herself with an inner communicator to the point of losing awareness of the physical vehicle. She could keep this up for several hours. This technique was the secret weapon in her armoury, the source of most of her own teaching, and, she maintained, the source of spiritual power to inspire others and make things happen.
The first written evidence we have of her seership was in collaboration with Frederick Bligh Bond, at Glastonbury, in the autumn of 1921. Bligh Bond was an architect and antiquary who many years before, in 1907, had been appointed by the Somerset Archeological Society to direct excavations at the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey.
He achieved remarkable success, but provoked a storm of controversy when, in a book called The Gate of Remembrance, published some years later in 1918, he revealed that he had been guided where to dig by recourse to a psychic skilled in automatic writing. The Church of England authorities, who had subsequently come into ownership of the ruins, were horrified rather than enthused by these disclosures from beyond the grave, and took firm steps to distance themselves from Mr Bligh Bond and Mr Bligh Bond from their hallowed ruins.
Somewhat frustrated and sidelined, and shortly to emigrate for most of his life to the United States, Bligh Bond, who had become editor of a journal of the College of Psychic Science, was apparently interested to try out the burgeoning talents of Miss Violet Firth, as Dion Fortune was then more generally known.
The result was an interesting document, generally referred to as the Glastonbury Script, which formed an important plank in Dion Fortune`s platform of belief. It proclaimed the uniqueness of Glastonbury as a gate between the Seen and the Unseen, and one that had been open from long before Christian times. And one where, in accord with the legend of Joseph of Arimathea founding the first Christian church in England, a link was established between the ancient Druid faith and the incoming religion for the new age, at a time when no antagonism was felt between Christian and pagan. Indeed where both Christian and pagan felt the best way was to hedge their bets and have a foot in each spiritual camp.
This meant that there was an unbroken line of descent of mystic power, from past to present, connecting directly with the elemental powers of the soil, in which are the roots of the soul of the race. That is to say, of those who inhabit the land, who are its children. It is this heritage that is the power behind the wide field of esoteric lore surrounding Glastonbury, not least of which is the Arthurian legend.
Much of this heritage is celebrated in Dion Fortune`s little book Avalon of the Heart, which began as articles in her monthly magazine, and was published as a book for the general reader in 1934. It is still in print, albeit published in America, and remains a moving evocation of the place and its varied traditions.
Growth of the work she had so tentatively begun with Bligh Bond at Glastonbury was rapid, when she found herself linking up with a wider spectrum of inner plane contacts than the medieval monks. Some years before she had been much impressed by Annie Besant`s book The Ancient Wisdom, whose teaching about hidden Masters in the Himalayas induced in the young Violet Firth a profound early visionary experience, in which she felt herself to be confronted by two of such beings.
Those with whom she now found herself in touch were not, however, the largely oriental contacts promulgated by the Theosophical Society, but a group of individuals with strong connections to the west. Of ancient Greece at the time of Pericles, Plato and Socrates; of Georgian England, via a former Lord Chancellor, animal rights pioneer and defender of human rights; and a representative of the recently fallen in the 1st World War. Later too, with a 19th century pioneer of modern medicine.
This inner group had a specific end in view, which was to found an esoteric school, and moreover seemed to have the ability to operate the levers of power by which to do it. The small group of like minded friends and psychical experimenters, who first met up in 1922, thus became a formal group by 1927, with sanctuary and guest house at the foot of Glastonbury Tor and headquarters in the west end of London, who published a monthly magazine, followed shortly by a series of textbooks and works of occult fiction. The Society thus founded continues its work to this day.
Times pass, and priorities change, and it no longer owns a nest of chalets at the foot of Glastonbury Tor. The last material link with Glastonbury are perhaps the physical remains of Dion Fortune herself, which lie within the municipal cemetery, with that of her close friend, colleague and general factotum, Thomas Loveday, close by. A steady flow of visitors still goes there to pay their respects, although, as was said in another context, there may be better places to seek for the living than amongst the dead. The spirit of Dion Fortune, and the spirit of what she stood for, is closely associated not only with Glastonbury at large, but with the country surrounding it.
And so as we are all met today in Bristol, which is not a million miles away from any of these places, it would seem appropriate to pay attention to this particular tract of land, the wider Avalon, which embraces most of the county of Somerset. And hopefully, some of you may feel inspired to take a trip to this fascinating territory, this doorway to the Unseen, that lies upon your doorstep.
As Dion Fortune says of it, in the opening pages of Avalon of the Heart, “Legend and history and the vision of the heart blend in the building of the Mystical Avalon. It is to this Avalon of the heart the pilgrims still go. Some in bands, knowing what they seek. Some alone, with the staff of vision in their hands, awaiting what may come to meet them on this holy ground. None go away as they came. Here the veil that hides the Unseen is thin. Here the invisible tides flow strongly; here indeed rests the foot of Jacob`s Ladder whereby the souls of men may come and go between the inner and outer planes. Glastonbury is a gateway to the Unseen.”
Nor is this confined to the more obvious historical and religious human associations. She was also aware of another level of the powers behind the Veil of outer appearances.
An opening up to her of this level was at the Glastonbury Festival of 1920 – which, I hasten to add, was a rather more decorous affair than the pop music raves of our own day. She attended a performance of The Immortal Hour at the Glastonbury assembly rooms – with lyrics by Fiona McLeod, the Celtic secondary personality, if you will, of the journalist William Sharp, and haunting music by the local composer Rutland Boughton - which apart from its literary or musical merits is a powerful evocation of the realm of faery.
As she wrote more than a dozen years later, “I had the unique privilege of seeing a performance of The Immortal Hour, which, timed to fit in with the exigencies of the local buses and trains, began at sunset. The first scene started with broad daylight shining in through the uncurtained windows of the Assembly Rooms. But as it progressed the dusk grew on, till only phantom figures could be seen moving on the stage and the hooting laughter of the shadowy horrors in the magic wood rang out in complete darkness, lit only by the stars that shone strangely brilliant through the skylights of the hall. It was a thing never to be forgotten.”
Indeed, one can believe so, simply by contemplating the lyrics of the voices from beyond the Veil, as King Eochaidh`s faery lover is drawn back to her own people:
How beautiful they are,/The lordly ones/Who dwell in the hills,/The hollow hills.
They have faces like flowers/And their breath is a wind/That blows through summer meadows/Filled with dewy clover.
Their limbs are more white/Than shafts of moonshine, They are more fleet/Than the March wind.
They laugh and are glad,/And are terrible./When their lances shake and glitter/Every green reed quivers.
I am pleased to say that it is now possible to savour, in some degree, something of what Dion Fortune experienced all those years ago, as an excellent recording has been released in two CD`s on the Hyperion label. (CDD22040). Two hours of sheer magic.
But as in all things Dion Fortune was not content to experience things at second hand. And in the Pentecost of 1926, walking with some friends on Glastonbury Tor, shortly after performing an invocation of the Element of Air apparently, they were all overtaken by a feeling of ecstasy - which set then whirling spontaneously in an impromptu dance. Then they saw a friend rushing across the fields below, who raced up the hill to join in their revelry. In the whirling dance a repetitive chant seemed to beat through into consciousness, which they rendered into words, a kind of affirmative ritual, often used in later years as a means of stimulating Elemental contact and vitality.
The wind and the fire work on the hill –
The wind and the fire work on the hill -
The wind and the fire work on the hill -
Evoke ye the wind and the fire.
The wind and the fire work on the hill -
The wind and the fire work on the hill -
The wind and the fire work on the hill -
Trust ye the wind and the fire.
And as they later sat in their newly erected hut at the foot of the Tor one of the Masters under whom they worked explained that they had met a messenger from the Elemental kingdoms, and that this was no chance contact, but part of their development and training as a group.
He went on to say: “In the Elements is power if you dare to use it. And that is a thing we have always tried to teach you, that you must have Elemental power if you are going to do anything. Many people have the best of intentions but they have not got the Elemental power, and therefore their intentions are fruitless. That is why you have been given this house at the very centre of these forces. It is not for nothing that you came to the Tor and have built on the Tor. Not for nothing believe me. You will have your devotional aspect in the city. You will have your nature contacts here, but you will have your deeper wisdom contacts where earth and water meet.”
I find these latter sentiments quite intriguing. It is true that at their headquarters in London, together with their hermetic ritual working, they did have a focus for devotional mysticism open to the public on a Sunday morning that eventually became known as the Church of the Graal. Here they endeavoured to bring a direct mystical experience to those who attended, by evoking the presence of the Holy Graal, which was built up in the form of a chalice over the heads of the congregation by a band of acolytes trained in the techniques of magical visualisation and the descent of power. These meetings continued until the outbreak of war in 1939 when hostilities and restrictions on travel and public meetings made them impracticable.
However, what is this we hear about this other place, and the “deeper wisdom contacts where earth and water meet”? My feeling is that here we have an indication of the line of work that blossomed into her foray into occult fiction and the most evocative of all her novels, The Sea Priestess.
This takes us beyond Glastonbury to the surrounding countryside of the Somerset levels, and a ridge of land that forms the southern arm of the bay that contains Weston-super-Mare.
It was at the end of this promontory, called Bell Head in the novel, that the Sea Priestess built her Temple.
It is an evocative countryside both in fact and fiction. Bell Head exists in real life as Brean Down, a limestone peninsular one and a half miles long and a quarter of a mile wide, that juts from the coast of Somerset off the small stretch of shoreline that faces due west onto the deep Atlantic, without Ireland or the coasts of Wales or Devon and Cornwall getting in the way. It forms part of a ridge that makes up the local group of hills, knolls and tors that once were islands in an archipelago of which the Mendip Hills, Glastonbury Tor, and the islands of Steep Holme and Flat Holme in the Bristol channel form a part.
Brean Down was owned by Glastonbury Abbey in medieval times, but is now in the care of the National Trust not least as a nature reserve. It contains traces of civilisation and worship that go back through Romano-Celtic to Bronze Age and Neolithic times. The ruined fort at its end, dating from the 1860`s as a defence against the French, was abandoned in 1900 although pressed into service again during the second world war, the buildings of which still stand.
Dion Fortune spent much of her schooldays at Weston and took the land into her consciousness to form the esoteric topography of the novel. Of the surrounding country described in the book, Bell Knowle may well be the very prominent Brent Knoll just off the modern M5 motorway, whilst Dickmouth compares closely with the seaside resort of Weston-super-Mare. And Dickford equates with the village of Axbridge, which sits on the River Axe, a river which Dion Fortune chose to call the Dick, as a play on the name Naradek – which is traditionally the river which ran by the City of the Golden Gates in ancient Atlantis.
It is in the context of this physical and legendary topography that the sea priestess and her acolyte weave their psychic visions which in turn form the channel for their magical work.
One lesson the novel teaches is the importance of creative fantasy. Whether such fantasy is objectively correct in all its historical or legendary details is less important than the pooled intention of the pair of them to believe in it. If faith can move mountains it should also be efficacious in the context of the green hills of Somerset.
This is the rationale behind the importance of a group being of one mind and in one place. And a group can be as little as two. This is the basis of magical polarity work, which is not a form of exotic sexual foreplay that prurient outsiders or naïve and lonely esoteric wannabes often assume it to be. Or wish that it was.
The imaginative pictures that most people spin in various circumstances of daily life are generally kaleidoscopic and evanescent, and so remain for the most part subjective. However, if others can be induced to share a steadily held vision, then mutual suggestion is added to autosuggestion, and a kind of oscillatory circuit may be set up, a form of psychic feed-back.
Then subjective imagery can take a quantum leap into a state of inner objectivity. In conventional esoteric terms, a form will have been built upon the astral ethers that can become the channel for occult or spiritual forces. The level and type of force depending upon the moral, ethical, and spiritual status of the participants, both inner and outer.
In the case of the sea priestess, Vivien Le Fay Morgan, and her assistant and trainee, Wilfred Maxwell, their shared vision, buttressed by some weeks of hard and demanding dedication and work, mental, imaginative, and physical, in building a fitting temple in a remote location, results in their increasing awareness of an inner plane presence, who is simply called in the book the Priest of the Moon.
Of this being, one of the characters says: “The Priest of the Moon had personality in a very marked degree, and if he was a product of my subconscious, I am proud of it. There were times, not infrequent, when I used to wonder what he was, and whether I was deluding myself, or whether I was loopy; but each time I met him afresh I knew what he was, beyond all doubting, and he left his mark on me.”
All this is in much the same fashion that Dion Fortune and Thomas Loveday and their small circle of friends at Glastonbury made contact with their own inner priesthood, or masters of wisdom, and embarked upon the work that still goes on today, a couple of generations after its inception.
The intention behind the magic of the sea priestess and her inner plane contact, the Priest of the Moon, was nothing less than to tap, as a source of power, the inner tides of moon and the sea. This is why they were out there establishing a gateway between the planes upon this deserted headland. Nor is it for nothing that she went by the name of Vivien Le Fay Morgan, with its legendary and magical overtones.
Within the artistic licence of a popular novel, this apparent exhibitionism is an outward demonstration of the archetypal role playing and image making of an adept, rather than the superficial trappings of an esoteric poseur.
Although alas, she has perhaps provided a somewhat distorted role model for a number of misguided aspirants who may think that all that is necessary is to camp up and down in a long cloak and floppy hat. Terry Pratchett has described the type well in his novel Lords and Ladies.
If you would like to view the physical launch pad of Dion Fortune`s fictional and magical imagination, then a trek along the back of Brean Down is well worth the effort. Whether along the rough track of its spine, which was transformed into a sacred way in the novel, or via the old single track military road that leads along the northern side out to the fort.
Beyond the fort, with its moat and underground rooms, a rough pathway runs out to a little cabin, covered with sea weed, that once housed a searchlight. It retains an evocative resonance of the temple envisaged by the Sea Priestess, as it overlooks the dark line of rocks that extends into the sea where Wilfred Maxwell, one moonlit night, saw to his wonder and alarm the sea priestess, treading their shining and slippery surfaces, as the Atlantic rollers broke at her feet. There she raised her arms to the sky in the form of the horns of a crescent moon, to chant her evocation to Isis:
O Isis, veiled on earth, but shining clear
In the high heaven now the full moon draws near,
Hear the invoking words, hear and appear
Shaddai el Chai, and Ea, Binah, Ge.
I will say, that even now, viewed in broad daylight, that location has an ambience sufficient to bring you out in goose bumps! It still holds a certain magical ambience.
At least it did, the last time that I was there. Hopefully it has not been improved into a cafeteria or other tourist amenities by now. There is, however more to magic than going in search of atmospheres for a bit of otherworldly frisson. What was it that the Sea Priestess was about?
In the book, Wilfred Maxwell is matured and empowered by the experience to throw off his previous emotional shackles of being an ineffectual wimp, hen pecked by his mother and elder sister. He marries one of the office girls, despite her being of a lower social class than his immediate female relations would like, and embarks upon a happy married life, in which he and Molly form and continue a contact with the Priest of the Moon. Thus their home, besides being a perfectly natural expression of human domesticity becomes also a hallowed place where the goddess is recognised and revered. No bad achievement in the nineteen thirties – even if we are still in the realms of fiction.
For her part, the dedicated sea priestess moves her sphere of operations to London, where she sets up a temple in a disused church overlooking the south bank of the Thames - another place where earth and water meet, and embarks upon another magical operation, described at length in the ensuing novel Moon Magic.
Here again her mode of working consists of polarity magic, this time with a very different neophyte of her choosing, who once again benefits personally from the experience by coming to terms with his repressed emotional nature.
Once more there is a certain connection between fictional and factual life, in that at about this time Dion Fortune was herself operating from an old former Presbyterian church, known as the Belfry. Although it was not actually located on the water front, but anyway within a mile of it, to south and east, as the Thames curves around Westminster and Belgravia.
Here she celebrated semi-public performances of the Rite of Isis, parts of which are quoted in both Moon Magic and The Sea Priestess. And also, it would seem, to keep the balance right, the Rite of Pan that features in her earlier novel The Goat-foot God.
Much of this work she had developed intuitionally but at about this time she began to formulate an intellectual background for it after meeting up with Bernard Bromage, a University of London academic who was running a course of extension lectures on occultism in literature. She became one of his best students and together they set up a series of public meetings with literary celebrities of the day discussing the merits of occultism in general. At the same time Bromage had been researching elements of eastern religion and mysticism, and through him she was able to borrow translations of texts on tantrik yoga which enabled her to formulate a series of articles entitled The Circuit of Force. She just had time to publish these in her magazine before war broke out and brought an end to all that had gone before.
One of the first tasks I embarked upon when invited to go through Dion Fortune`s papers with a view to rescuing anything that was worth publishing, was indeed to issue The Circuit of Force, through Thoth Publications. Again, I have heard this work described, most bizarrely, and by those who ought to know better, as “a most dangerous book”. Danger, like evil, or beauty, or any other emotive power source, is often in the eye of the beholder. But as far as Dion Fortune was concerned, the principle of polarity, or the Circuit of Force, was “one of the lost secrets of western occultism.”
Therefore it much pleased me when two former students of mine, Wendy Berg and Mike Harris, recently published a book of their own, precisely with the title Polarity Magic.
It moves things along considerably from Dion Fortune`s early The Esoteric Philosophy of Love and Marriage, in the 1920`s, which so upset Moina Macgregor Mathers for its explicitness, although which now, it must be said, seems rather quaint. But is an example of how the torch is passed along from one generation to another, and how the esoteric tradition is an evolving entity with insights that move in step with the realisations and attitudes of society at large.
It is to a larger and wider context that I would however now seek to draw your attention. Beyond the personal, or microcosmic view of magical dynamics, to the general, or macrocosmic view of human life in the world. For we are all bound up in this together. No one is on a magic island divorced from general human problems or general human responsibility. So although there is an important element in the personal approach to Isis, it is also important to realise just what is implied in the wider vision of the goddess Isis.
As Dion Fortune saw her, she is a power that is veiled on Earth by the luminous garment of nature, but who can be imagined, unveiled, in the heavens, in the radiance of the moon`s reflected light. Thus is Isis appropriately evoked by the sea priestess at the time of the full moon. Yet she is not specifically identified with the moon, but with the entire divine feminine principle, which can be evoked under a variety of names, associated with the heavens, with the earth itself, or with the sea.
Isis Veiled is Our Lady of Nature. Isis Unveiled is the Heavenly Isis. Ea is the soul of space and parent of time. Ge, or Gaia, is the magnetic earth that forms an aura about the physical planet. Binah is the Great Sea of the Qabalah from whence all spiritual life arose. And beyond that the Limitless Light of the Uncreate Realities from whence all creation springs.
So it is more than personal polarity magic that is being evoked.
Let us go back to the early days of Dion Fortune`s work, at Glastonbury. Before she had even set up her chalets on the Tor, and was staying either at Alice Buckton`s guest house at Chalice Well or else renting an old farmhouse in Chilkwell Street. This was a series of metaphysical teachings that came to be known as The Cosmic Doctrine.
This was quite demanding stuff, not at all easy to understand. So much so that it was generally referred to as being “designed to train the mind rather than to inform it”. However, it contained a number of insights that proved to be of considerable importance once their significance was realised. And perhaps the one of most immediate importance is the concept of the Planetary Being – although it was called Planetary Spirit in the original script – a term later changed because the being involved is not so much spirit, in the sense of living up there on Cloud Nine, but very much closer to our business and bosoms, being the physical and etheric globe upon which we all currently live, and move and have our being.
It came to be realised that we owe a considerable debt to this Being, and indeed have a responsibility towards it – which if ignored might very well hold karmic consequences, to use an eastern metaphysical concept, that would be dire indeed.
This has but comparatively lately been taken at all seriously by the world at large. And that thanks largely to a scientist, an environmentalist by the name of James Lovelock, who thirty years ago, conceived the idea that the planet is special in a way no-one has hitherto realised. That it is indeed a great super-organism that regulates itself chemically and atmospherically to keep itself fit to bear life. That it is, to all intents and purposes, a living being itself.
He did not call it the Planetary Being, but being a scientist, preferred the term, “biocybernetic universal system tendency.” It was left to a literary neighbour, the novelist William Golding, to come up with a more preferable name – Gaia – after the Greek goddess of the Earth. She whom Dion Fortune`s sea priestess sung of as Ge.
Well I am sure we are all aware of the resultant controversy that blows about our heads in the increasing concern about global warming and all the rest of it – but this is simply the most materialist outlook and concern with it, looking entirely on the outside of things. What is the outlook and concern of the esoteric world? Which includes you and me. Surely we should be able to contribute something, not only in perception but in some form of action – with our knowledge and belief in the inside of things?
Not least of which is that we are not the only inhabitants of the globe, but that we share it. Not only with the animal kingdom, but with many and various elemental beings, from the lordly ones in the hollow hills to the lesser beings who are intimately concerned with the organic functioning of mineral, plant, animal and indeed human life.
The need for this is not new. And we owe it to a contemporary and fellow student of ours, R.J.Stewart, who used to live in these parts, and was particularly well known for his researches into the inner side of the ancient waters of Bath. Indeed some of us remember well a series of workshops and various workings in a temple above his flat, just across the road from the baths, that are now a neo-Regency tourist attraction, but once a temple of Sulis-Minerva and of more ancient mysteries beyond that, going back to the mysterious King Bladud.
The concept he proposes is known as the Triune or Three-fold Alliance – which is between the human, the animal and the faery kingdoms.
This is no mere contemporary fad dreamed up out of his own head. This crisis has been seen coming for some time now, and he quotes extensively from an 18th century document in his possession, which you can read for yourselves in two of his books The Living World of Faery, and Power Within the Land, which, along with both his earlier and more recent work, seek a working relationship between humans and the spiritual forces of the land or region in which they live. Within these spiritual forces are included the animal as well as the elemental.
This is why I have felt it important to draw your attention to the land round about us here, and particularly in relation to Dion Fortune who did a great deal of practical import here within your own backyard.
For all this challenges us in many different ways. It is not enough to confine our interest in these matters to a safe and purely intellectual level. It calls upon us not only to “believe in” faeries, but to understand who and what they are, where they come from, where they are going, and what our mutual relationship with them may be.
It makes similar demands on us to think about how we relate to the animal kingdom, for the patience and suffering of the animal kingdom needs to come through to our awareness loud and clear. It requires us to open our minds to areas we are not accustomed to explore; to open doors of consciousness which have remained shut for a very long time.
The faery and elemental forces are the only true inner expression of the natural world, since much of scientific thinking remains detached, mechanical and Newtonian. The human majority are conditioned by the familiarity of everyday perception and see nothing to be wondered at in the constant sustaining of the entire universe second by second and day by day, from the stars down to the tiniest atomic infrastructure.
So we should rouse ourselves and reach out to our companions on this planetary globe. Make ourselves known to these beings who are part of the evolution of the inner Earth in high or low degree. Seek out what lies within these parallel worlds behind appearances. And in particular the hidden evolutionary expression of the faery world that is often concealed behind the curtains of myth and fantasy.
This challenging relationship to the world of faery is real enough to those who may have experienced it, but has been sadly misrepresented. Despite the witness of seers from Thomas the Rhymer, and Robert Kirk, to Evans-Wentz, W.B.Yeats and George Russell, it remains a fragmented and misunderstood corpus of legend and folklore. Even condemned as demonic by religious authority.
And in some respects this may be understandable. Even Terry Pratchett`s young witches discovered it was possible to get the wrong side of a stroppy elf queen. Although the hidden lesson here is that they made that kind of contact because it was a reflection of their own stroppy adolescent hubris. The inner worlds can be very reflective of our own attitudes. Which is why dedication and pure motive are all important.
There are many types of faeries. Just as there are many types of animal species, and ethnic variations of the human race. And there may well be some who have little love for human beings – and not without just cause.
However, the general concensus from a more cooperative part of the faery host is that time is running short for this kind of work; that they are affected by our neglect of them, and that we emasculate them with our notions of prettiness and “airy fairy”. That element of human whimsy and sentimentality that sees them all gossamer wings and frilly knickers.
However, there is a general resurgence of awareness of the existence of this kingdom, in various forms. We see it evident in the imaginative response to the works of Tolkien, a somewhat cantankerous Oxford don who decided to sit down and write his own mythology, just for his own satisfaction, and ended up, albeit posthumously, stirring the imagination of a new generation with his tales of elven kingdoms. Not that all Tolkien wrote should be taken as literal truth, but he dug deep in mining his fantasy, and has presented a painted curtain behind which breathes a true elven reality. As may be apparent by close reading of his essay On Faery Stories or his short faery tale Smith of Wooton Major.
The theme of a threefold alliance of human, animal and faery seems also evident in the filming and popular reception of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, by his friend C.S.Lewis. Whether or not you choose to accept any element of Christian allegory within his work, it nonetheless depicts a joint communication and cooperation between human, animal and faery against devolutionary forces.
There are also more specialist works available for those who seek to pursue these lines. One, recently published, that comes to mind is by John Matthews, entitled The Sidhe – Wisdom from the Celtic Otherworld. It is an account of a contact with what would appear to be a representative of one of the Lordly Ones at an Irish archeological site, a Neolithic barrow, on a trip which turned out to be the most exciting journey of his life.
It may be that John has psychic gifts a little beyond the ordinary, but the gist of the message he received was that work of this nature does not require any especial psychic gifts, or the organisational requirements of formal ritual, but is simply a matter of attitude, or what William Blake might have called “cleansing the doors of perception.”
I quote from a key passage of what he received, in relation to a view of the sidhe as to how the human race were falling short.
“You would be better to see yourselves as allies of creation rather than its rulers. By choosing to work in harmony with the natural world – as once all living things did – you could still redress the balance.
“If your life brushes against that of another creature you feel something. If you take the life of another creature you feel something. It is no great step to extend this to feeling something when you touch a rock or a tree, when you feel the energy of a river or the sea.
“Many feel these things, yet your race continually shut out these feelings. Just as you attach devices to your horses so that they can see only ahead, so you have done to yourselves, limiting your vision until you can see nothing save that which is before you. Only when you learn to remove the guards will you experience true vision. You must seek to become reconnected to everything, end the separation you have created for yourselves.
“There are many things you can do to bring about a re-connection. Begin by noticing the world around you. By truly looking. By seeing past the surface of things to the level of Spirit.
“At the moment when you go out into nature you see only the surface of things. Trees, grass, water, plants. Yet the reality of these things is far greater. Once you knew this. You can discover it again if you truly wish. Next time you are outside look around you. Try to see beyond the surface into the true nature of things you see. Though you may find it difficult to do so at first, in time you will begin to see more. If you continue far enough and deeply enough you will even begin to communicate with the spirit within the things you are observing. In truth you will cease to be observers at all and become part of the thing you are looking at.
“This is what the ancient bards of this land meant when they spoke of having `been` a thing. This was more than a poetic image, but a very real truth. To truly know a thing is to become one with it. Just as to become one with it is to truly know it.
“When you do this you will begin to understand the true nature of things, and of your own relationship to them. Perhaps then, when plants and rocks and animals are no longer soulless things, you will cease to treat them as such, cease to take them and use them as you have now for so many of your ages. If you are truly ready to enter a new era then you must discover how to make such changes to the way you view things. Only when you have done so will you be truly liberated from the narrow place in which you have put yourselves.
“At present you are just as much prisoners as if you were truly locked up within stone walls. The walls of your prison are not ones that you can see with your eyes, but they can still be recognised.”
It seems to me that this may well be true of the great majority of the human race, although I venture to think that it may be less true of those of us who are assembled here. The very fact that we are present here demonstrates that we realise that there is something more to life than the surface illusion – hard, brash and self-sufficient though that surface illusion might appear.
Thus it is with a certain degree of puzzlement, mixed with sympathy, that I read within the pages of Quest sometimes, the plight of those who feel they follow a path alone. Believe me, you are never less alone than when you think you are alone. You simply have to reach out. Have faith and be aware. And prepare to be surprised.
So I suggest you could do yourselves and others a favour by going forth to tread the land that Dion Fortune trod with your senses open to what you may discover. And I conclude with the comments that David Carstairs, one of her contacts, made to her in 1923.
“You should make a practice, when the occasion offers, of getting into touch with the elements and the Nature Spirits, you`ll find it a very enjoyable process. They quicken the vitality and the perceptions and the sense of enjoyment. They quicken the `animal` in you of course, but as long as it`s a healthy animal and properly broken in you`ll be none the worse for that.
“You do it by going to the appointed place at the appointed time and sympathising with them – that is to say, feeling with them. You want to practice in getting the feel of a place and analysing it.
“You`ll find it consists of several layers. There will be a layer of human associations on the surface, then below that you will get the animal or the natural life that lived there, and below that the trees and the sub-tones of the plants – herbaceous stuff that dies to the roots each year – and below that again you`ll get the elements themselves, and you want to train your ear so that you can hear the different themes and pick them out and listen to them.”
And so these words I leave you to ponder, in the hope that they inspire you, as they did Dion Fortune, with the urge for diligent travelling, imaginative courage, and fruitful listening.

Works cited:
Dion Fortune: The Secrets of Dr Taverner
Frederick Bligh Bond: The Gate of Remembrance
Dion Fortune: Avalon of the Heart
Annie Besant: The Ancient Wisdom
Rutland Boughton & Fiona McLeod: The Immortal Hour
Dion Fortune: The Sea Priestess
Terry Pratchett: Lords and Ladies
Dion Fortune: Moon Magic
Dion Fortune: The Goat-foot God
Dion Fortune & Gareth Knight: The Circuit of Force
Wendy Berg & Mike Harris: Polarity Magic
Dion Fortune: The Esoteric Philosophy of Love and Marriage
Dion Fortune: The Cosmic Doctrine
R.J.Stewart: The Living World of Faery
R.J.Stewart: Power within the Land
C.S.Lewis: The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe
J.R.R.Tolkien: On Faery Stories
J.R.R.Tolkien: Smith of Wooton Major
John Matthews: The Sidhe

Welcome!

2006-09-23T10:18:00.000+01:00

Welcome to the new Gareth Knight website!

You will find here details of all my books and also those of Dion Fortune.

I am also opening a new e-mail address in the hope that this time round, with more advanced technology, it will not be swamped with spam, which is what happened before and caused me to give up contact with the outside world by these means. A pity for the few genuine enquirers with whom some dialogue might have been welcome.

Another new feature is this diary of news and views along with an occasional script of recent talks or articles which you are welcome to download. Copyright remains mine but feel free to pass it on or reproduce it for your friends.

The most recent talk I gave was "Avalon of the Heart" at Glastonbury town hall on 2nd September at a conference to celebrate the life and work of Dion Fortune. This was a highly successful event which by popular demand seems set to be repeated next September 1st, 2007 at the Glastonbury Assembly Rooms. For details log on to the organisers www.companyofavalon.net where you can find a copy of my talk in full together with photos and other details of the day. On their associated site www.ritemagic.co.uk you can also find a collection of recent articles of mine entitled "Dion Fortune and the Lost Secrets of the West" along with my foray into fiction "Granny`s Magic Cards" available for sale as PDF files.

Yours sincerely, Gareth Knight