Ashcroft-Nowicki, Delores (1929-)
Ashcroft-Nowicki, Delores (1929-)
Delores Ashcroft-Nowicki, the head of the Servants of the Light, a contemporary school of ritual magic, is a sensitive psychic who came from a family of psychics. As a youth, she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and later at Trinity College, the course of her education being interrupted by an early brief marriage. She later studied fencing, through which she met her second husband, whom she married in 1957. Around 1963, the pair came into contact with the Fraternity of the Inner Light, the magical organization founded by Dion Fortune. They took the study course and were formally initiated in 1967. They also came to know William E. Butler and Gareth Knight, both former members of the fraternity, and took the course of magic the pair developed, then known as the Helios Course. Taking the course led to their break with the fraternity. They continued to work with Butler, founder of the Servants of the Light, and Ashcroft-Nowicki soon established direct contact with the same inner plane adept that had guided Butler.
Ashcroft-Nowicki decided to dedicate her life in service to the inner plane adept with whom she had come into contact. She began to work full-time for the Servants of the Light School of the Occult Science and shortly before his death in 1978, Butler named her his successor as the school's new director of studies. Her husband was named the school's guardian.
As the head of the school, she began to travel and speak at various conferences and seminars, and to expand the school internationally. She authored a number of books through the 1980s including First Steps in Ritual (1982), The Shining Paths (1983), and Highways of the Mind (1987). She has continued her productivity through the 1990s with such works as The Tree of Ecstasy (1991), Daughters of Eve (1930), and The Initiates Book of Pathworkings (1999).
Sources:
Ashcroft-Nowicki, Delores. First Steps in Ritual. Wellingsborough, Northamptonshire, UK: Aquarian Press, 1982.
——. Highways of the Mind. Wellingsborough, Northamptonshire, UK: Aquarian Press, 1987.
——. The Shining Paths. Wellingsborough, Northamptonshire, UK: Aquarian Press, 1983.
——. The Tree of Ecstasy. Wellingsborough, Northamptonshire, UK: Aquarian Press, 1991.
Servants of the Light. http://www.servantsofthelight.org/. May 16, 2000.