Dion Fortune
Dion Fortune was born in Llandundno in North Wales on the 6th of December 1891. Dion’s birth name was Violet Mary Firth, However she adopted an Anglicized version of the family motto as her magical name “Deo non fortuna” (God not fate). Her parents had an active interest in Christian Science and also ran several hydro-therapeutic establishments.
Dion’s interest in occultism started in 1916 when, as a psychotherapist, she came across the work of Dr. Theodore Moriarty, who became her first esoteric teacher and inspired her series of stories entilled The Secrets of Dr Taverner. She became a student of both the Theosophical Society and the Alpha et Omega Temple the former Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
Later on she formed her own esoteric group “The Society of the Inner Light” after a falling out with Moina Mathers, ex-wife of Golden Dawn founder MacGregor Mathers. The Fraternity soon became an initiatory school of high caliber. Members attracted during the 1930s including later well known figures such as W.E.Butler, Colonel C.R.F.Seymour and Christine Hartley.
Dion possessed the gifts of clairvoyance and clairaudience and also the ability to read the Akashic Records in a manner similar to that of Edgar Cayce. She was able to operate consciously on the etheric and astral planes and project her consciousness at will. Unlike most mystics, Dion Fortune drew admiration from even those on different paths, Aleister Crowley, widely acknowledged to be highly egotistical and downright abusive, was known to admire her and sought unsuccessfully on several occasions to draw her into his work.
During the 2nd World War Dion offered her own contribution to the war effort on a magical level, with an extended meditation group, despite a bomb bringing down the roof of her headquarters in 1940. This is well documented in Dion Fortune’s Magical Battle of Britain. In January 1946 Dion returned from Glastonbury feeling tired and unwell and later died of leukemia, at the age of 55. After Dion’s death Margaret Lumley Brown continued with The Society of the Inner Light, And the society is still in operation today as an initiatory school with the same principles as it was originally founded by Dion herself. www.innerlight.org.uk