The sea priestess

Book info: The sea priestess (Hardcover, 316 pages – Red Wheel/Weiser, 1981) – Red Wheel/Weiser, 1981. Language: Eng.

Dion Fortune was born Violet Mary Firth, and took her pseudonym from the motto 'Deo Non Fortuna' (By God, Not Chance). She acted on this maxim throughout her life. Believing strongly in her own destiny she was not afraid to break from those who had first initiated her and to plough her own occult furrow. 'The Sea Priestess' is Dion Fortune's attempt to alert the uninitiated into the possibilities of esoteric wisdom. A lonely estate agent, Wilfrid Maxwell, is drawn to an apparently ageless woman of great psychic power, and embarks on a 'sexless affair' into other dimensions of reality, becoming drawn inexorably into contact with an ancient cult whose sacrifice he fears he will become. A thrilling read in its own right, 'The Sea Priestess' is, in reality (like all Fortune's fiction) a teaching novel, with very clear accounts of practical rituals. Her magnum opus, 'The Mystical Qabalah', complements this information perfectly. As Dion Fortune herself admitted, "The 'Mystical Qabalah' gives the theory but the novels give the practice. ... [t]hose who study both get the keys of the Temple put into their hands." This is a book of ancient wisdom that will profit from by being read more than once.