Dion Fortune

Dion Fortune was born at Bryn-y-Bia in Llandudno, Wales on the 6th December 1890 under the name of Violet Mary Firth
She was a member of the Firth family of Sheffield, a city in the north of England in south Yorkshire. The Firths moved to London where Violet and her mother came under the spell of the newly founded Christian Science Church.

She reported visions of Atlantis at the early age of four and started to develop psychic abilities during her twentieth year, at which time she suffered a nervous breakdown. (See reference to this in her book ‘Psychic Self-Defense). After her recovery she found herself drawn to the occult.

She joined the Theosophical Society and studied psychology and psychoanalysis at the University of London and became a lay psychotherapist at the Medico-Psychological Clinic in Brunswick Square.

WW2 broke out and Violet joined the Land Army and after this returned to her physiological and occult studies it was during this time that she wrote the little know book “The Soya Bean” a means of making milk out of soya beans.

Her first mentor was the Irish occultist and Freemason Theodore Moriarty. In 1919 Violet joined a branch of the Alpha et Omega headed by Brodie Innes. One of these branches was headed by Maiya Tranchell-Hayes who taught Violet in many phases of magical work. It was during this time that Violet changed her name, inspired by her family motto “ "Deo, non Fortuna" (Latin for "God, not faith") of which Dion Fortune is an anglicized form.

After a dispute with Moina Mathers head of the Alpha et Omega in 1922 Dion Fortune left the Alpha a Omega, with Mathers consent, and with her then husband Penry Evans formed the Fraternity of the Inner Light as an offshoot of the Alpha et Omega.This group was later re-named “The Society of the Inner Light” This society was the focus of her work for the rest of her life.

She wrote many books one of which The Mystical Qabalah (published 1935) is regarded by occultist as one of the best textbooks on magic ever written.

Dion Fortune died in 1946 of leukemia and is buried in Glastonbury Cemetery.

Dion Fortunes link with Glastonbury

During the winter of 1923 - 1924 Dion Fortune spent time in Glastonbury which later became her place of retreat and she bought property in Glastonbury - The Chalice Orchard. She claimed that she was in touch with Celtic otherworlds that lay beneath the Tor. Also during this time she was said to be in spiritual contact with the Greek philosopher Socrates, the nineteenth-century Chancellor of England Lord Erksine and later the great Arthurian magus himself Merlin. She wrote many of her experiences down in the book Glastonbury: Avalon of the Heart.

She participated in the Magical Battle of Britain which was an attempt by British occultists to magically aid the war effort and which aimed to forestall the impending German invasion during the darkest days of World War II. Her efforts in regard to this are recorded in a series of letters that she wrote at that time.


Morgana West / Pauline Ross

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