Firth, Violet Mary (1890-1946)

Leading British occultist, author, and founder of the Fraternity of the Inner Light. Firth was born December 6, 1890, at Bryn-y-Bia, Llandudno, Wales. She manifested some medium-istic abilities in her teens. She later became interested in psychoanalysis and studied the work of Freud, but came to prefer C. G. Jung 's perspective. She worked for a time at the Medico-Psychological Clinic in London. She also became interested in the writings of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky but was put off by the Eastern style of occultism dominant in the Theosophical Society.

About 1919 she joined the Alpha and Omega Lodge of the Stella Matutina, an outer order of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a ritual magic group under the guidance of J. W. Brodie-Innes. He instructed her in various magic practices. Firth's pseudonym, "Dion Fortune," was derived from her period as a member of the Stella Matutina. She took the motto Deo Non Fortuna (By God, not luck), and this was condensed to "Dion Fortune" when she began to write. Under her own name she wrote one early book, Machinery of the Mind (1922).

In 1924 she founded the Community (later Fraternity) of the Inner Light to attract recruits for the Golden Dawn but eventually split off from the main body as warden of the new order. She taught her own variation of magic, based on claimed contacts from the "inner planes" of wisdom.

Firth wrote several books on magic and the occult and several occult novels, notably The Secrets of Dr. Traverner (1926), The Demon Lover (1927), Through the Gates of Death (1932), The Winged Bull (1935), The Goat-Foot God (1936), The Sea Priestess (1938), and Moon Magic (ca. 1939). Her books of occult instruction include Sane Occultism (1929), Psychic Self-Defence (1930), The Training and Work of an Initiate (1930), and The Mystical Qabalah (1935).

Sources:

Chapman, Janine. Quest for Dion Fortune. York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1993.

Fielding, Charles, and Clark Collins. The Story of Dion Fortune. York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1985.

Fortune, Dion. Applied Magic. New York: Samuel Weiser, 1962.

——. The Esoteric Orders and Their Work. London: Rider, 1929. Reprint, St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn Publications, 1971.

——. The Mystical Qabalah. London: Ernest Benn, 1935.

——. Psychic Self-Defence. London: Rider, 1930.

——. Sane Occultism. London: Rider, 1929.

——. The Secrets of Dr. Traverner. London: Noel Douglas, 1926.

——. The Training and Work of an Initiate. London: Rider, 1930.

——. The Winged Bull. London: Williams & Norgate, 1935.

Richardson, Alan. Priestess: The Life and Magic of Dion Fortune. Wellingborough, England: Aquarian Press, 1987.