I'll blog on this subject at a later date. For now, let's reflect on how copyright embodies the tension between proprietary ownership and the free flow of information. In the United Kingdom copyright ceases 70 years after the death of the author. There are various exceptions and qualifications to this. But the general principle is that, by then, the author and their estate have no right to further exclusive control over the publication of creative works. Until then, copyright protects published material from being exploited or misused and this is only right.
[NB - if readers have any interest in the legal status of Dion Fortune's writings, they should contact the Society of the Inner Light. However the purpose of this blog is to reflect on the spiritual principle behind copyright law as a symbol of the relationship between private and public.]
70 years on from Dion Fortune's death, what a mighty deed of publication and sharing her writings represent! More than any other 20th Century writer, Dion Fortune opened the way to the Mysteries, for the whole reading public. She shared the greatest secrets of Mind and Spirit - as much as they can be shared in words and in public - ingeniously, generously and unstintingly. Where some authors gave vague hints, mystifying the subject to build up their prestige and bank balances, Dion Fortune explained the way through the Lesser Mysteries in clear language.
Of course this has been a mixed blessing. In Dion's day, it was very hard to make contact with a Mystery School, the training was exacting and the whole 'scene' was pervaded by secrecy. Now, we have the opposite problem. It's not unknown for people who have done one weekend workshop apparently think they are in contact with Angels, Ascended Masters and Aliens, to know all about the myriad planes of reality, and to share the teachings of initiates, adepts! If their 'students' are lucky, the only damage done will be to their wallets. However, the student may eventually decide that occultism is all a load of rubbish and give up their quest, while the 'teacher' believing they have scaled the heights of wisdom, does not even find their way to the first rung of the ladder of knowledge.
It is sadly inevitable that the minute people realise that some imaginal experiences are not "all just your imagination" but contact with inner aspects of reality, they may jump to the false conclusion that anything they imagine, any thought that pops into their head, is a teaching from Above, a vision of the inner worlds. As if years of training and hard work were not necessary! Hopefully these people do not practice "do it yourself brain surgery" and "intuitive plumbing"...
So how do people who have studied the disciplines and skills of magic pass on their knowledge and provide quality assurance? What is the balance between the two extremes of pretentious secrecy and chaotic idiocy? This challenge was part of the reason magic was traditionally kept so secret and information wrapped up in allegories and enigmatic pictures.
The only way is for Initiates to sense how much of the inner wisdom can be published in their particular time. Some truths simply can't be put into words, but can only be contemplated in visionary pictures. Other teachings can, but may be too risky to be used without supervision.
So was Dion Fortune justified in her particular and unparalleled opening of the Mysteries? She definitely was and there is no doubt that her work has done infinitely more good than harm. It was part of her Mission. Just consider - 150 years ago, the Tradition in which she taught was secret, limited to certain social classes and almost exclusively male. 100 years ago, Aleister Crowley started publish a lot of this material - causing scandal by breaking his Initiation oaths and later prompting Israel Regardie to do similarly. But almost nobody could have found the Way from Crowley's writings alone, without particular talents, an Oxbridge education and most likely a trust fund.
Some of these male occultists couldn't write a clear sentence even if they wanted to. Dion Fortune, by contrast, had a practical, scientific mind and a deep understanding of how to present magic to the reading public. Her 1930s writings, especially The Mystical Qabalah and the novels, gave the theory and the psychological methods to enable a lay reader, without access to an Order, to go very far on the path to Adeptship, with enough work and initiative.
One of Dion's special gifts and missions in that life was to embed the work of the 3 Principles or Rays in outer cultural life. These 3 Rays are those of Wisdom, Power and Love, or the Pillars of Wisdom, Strength and Beauty. They are also the 3 Pillars of the Tree of Life, and have been associated with the Good, the True and the Beautiful as well as Religion, Science and Art. They are rooted in the Mystery of the Trinity and are worked in a very spiritual way in the Hermetic Mysteries, but Dion demonstrated their reality and practicality, their near-to-us tangibility in three ways
1) a practical and scientific presentation of the Hermetic philosophy in the Mystical Qabalah and many other occult writings. She showed that esoteric teaching explains much of our ordinary lives, and that a little theoretical knowledge can give very practical results.
2) the devotional heart of her work in spiritual group work - manifested in the Guild of the Master Jesus, the Fraternity of the Inner Light and evoked in her writings such as Avalon of the Heart and the Mystical Meditations on the Collects.
3) the evocation of the 'Green Ray' and the power of the elements in her novels and her clear understanding the sex and psychology are key to the energies of magic that drive Initiation and the work of spirit in the world. Beyond our own minds, and the bonds of human fellowship and devotion is the sheer power of Nature as a whole - the basic vitality which lies both at the beginning and the end of the Way.
Hermetic Wisdom, Spiritual Fraternity and the Eros of Art! Three Mysteries that must never be separated. Yet they have been repeatedly, and every time this is done, Dion Fortune's work is obstructed.
1. Some authors have simply rehashed The Mystical Qabalah and her method of Pathworking over and over again, in a downward spiral of diminishing returns - forgetting that her work was a provisional reworking of Qabalah in terms of early 20th Century thought. To be true to Dion Fortune's Hermetic teachings nowadays, it is helpful to go back to her Judaic and Hermetic sources and study Theosophy - to understand what she was doing and copy her method without copying her! Dion's work was powerful but provisional and it must be updated in not rehashed.
2. Christian devotion - and devotion in general apart from Indian cults of Bhakti Yoga - is pretty unfashionable in the New Age; yet Dion's whole work is under the banner of the Master Jesus! But how many followers of the "Western Mystery Tradition" today make a serious examination and practice of religion, which is the spirituality of the heart?
Writing in 2016, it probably does not matter which religious or mystical path a person follows. If a person connects deeply with Isis and is able to follow a mystical and devotional path to Deity in this way that makes the world a better place, then the heavens rejoice. There is no need for religious dogmatism. Apart from anything else, a people's values and the beliefs of their heart change and develop throughout life. But the simple fact is that without Devotion to Deity (however you imagine it) the Angelic Hierachies and the Masters (who are both female and male, and essentially neither), you cannot make it past the beginner levels of magic. A little genuine devotion in any tradition - Sufi, Yogic, Qabalistic, Pagan or whatever - will soon teach the student the value of all great religions, and to refrain from denigrating any that one doesn't know from within. And that all great religions lead to the inner Mystical way beyond religion - and beyond occultism.
3. Her Green Ray work on themes such as the elemental and faery realms, polarity magic and the Goddess struck deep chords especially in view of the rise of Wicca, feminist spirituality and the role Dion Fortune acquired as a kind of patron saint. Dion was one of many women - and men - who worked hard to undo the traditional, disastrous exclusion and denigration of women and female mystical insights.
Yet this is only one side of her work. Many pagans denigrate Christianity, even the highly occult Mysticism and Rosicrucianism that was so important to Dion Fortune and her colleagues. But if someone wants a non-Christian or an anti-Christian occultism, they should not take from Dion Fortune, because this only proves they misunderstand her whole work. They may also denigrate the supposedly 'over intellectual' work of Hermeticism. Yet Dion was a Master of Hermetic intellectuality, and had little time for sloppy, lazy thought that hadn't mastered its disciplines!
Dion Fortune was remarkably unbiased and very far beyond ego - so her teachings reflected the Universe and Deity in its multiform wonder. But from time to time, sadly, some people come to Dion Fortune to take things from her and make her in their own image. Partial systems cannot fully transmit the energies of Initiation because it is the whole soul - thinking feeling and willing - that is initiated. And it is far better not to be initiated than to be 'born again' as a misshapen form, lacking a head or heart, a danger to oneself and others. Fortunately there are intrinsic guards in Dion's work that will tend to stop her work from being used that way.
It is a terrible thought that people could ever use Dion, even unwittingly, to bolster their own own career or ego. Over 70 years after her death, the time has come for everyone - not just occult Orders or individuals who put themselves forward as teachers and experts but everyone inspired by her work - to come together and further this aspect of her life's work we have been considering in this blog.
For this reason, it is encouraging that there is a new website and forum devoted to the great Dion http://www.dionfortune.co.uk/
For a deeper look at how Dion's work forward, stay tuned for Part 2 of this blogpost, coming soon.
JN 22 September 2016