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Summary: Pure Magic!
Review: Take a powerful journey through the eyes of a priestess. Discover the magical being within nature, and the mysteries between man and woman. If you are open to experiencing this knowledge, this book will make you feel the pulsing presence of life and its magic. Written by a Queen among authors, Dion Fortune has left this gift (and others) for those who are ready to learn about the essence of life. Open your soul and take the journey. Dion has laid down the path for you.
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Summary: Good book, but a slow read
Review: This book is an occult classic. But I will tell you it is not the easiest read and can drag at times. So be patient.
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Summary: Ancient magic mysteries revived
Review: When estate agent Wilfred Maxwell is recovering from severe asthma his mind opens up to new psychic currents .Then he meets the ageless Vivien Le Fay Morgan and helps her turn an old fort by the sea into a temple.Vivien is a Priestess of Isis from an ancient Moon cult.She initiates Wilfred on the inner planes in her magical rituals.She teaches him the esoteric significance of the magnetic ebb and flow of the moontides.After Vivien mysteriously disappears Wilfred marries the homely Molly.Because "All women are Isis", Molly is able to learn the rituals and perform them with Wilfred.The mystic power of the sea is evoked in this novel and pervades the whole story. Some regard this as not only Dion Fortune's best novel, but the best occult novel ever written.
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Summary: One of the best novels on magical rituals
Review: When the wimpish estate agent Wilfred Maxwell is recovering from asthma his mind opens up to new psychic currents.He meets the ageless and mysterious Vivien Le Fay Morgan and helps her turn an old fort by the sea into a temple.Vivien is a priestess of Isis from an ancient Moon cult who has re-incarnated many times.She and Wilfred conduct magical rituals whereby she initiates him on the inner planes.She teaches him the esoteric significance of the magnetic ebb and fow of the moon tides.Wilfred becomes a new man, full of vitality and confidence.After Vivien mysteriously disappears Wilfred marries the homely Molly.Because "all women are Isis" Molly is able to learn the rituals and perform them with Wilfred.The mystic powers of the sea pervade this story.The sea stands for the unconscious mind and deeper levels of being.Alan Richardson, biographer of Dion Fortune, calls this her best novel on magic, if not the only novel on true magic, and I agree with him.Dion Fortune was a leading initiate and all her novels are well worth reading for their esoteric content.
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Summary: A Powerful Pagan Novel of Nature-centered Goddess Worship
Review: Wow! I recently started looking through deTraci Regula's book, The Mysteries of Isis: Her Worship and Magick. In the preface to that book, she mentions that her beliefs and practices were first sparked by two books written by Dion Fortune: The Sea Priestess and Moon Magick. Remembering that I owned these books but had never read them, I got them down from my book shelf. A quick look at them revealed why I had not read them before. Both books were first professionally published in 1950's England and The Sea Priestess was actually first written and self-published in the 1930s. Also both books have a male central characters and the Priestess is a woman who comes into his life further along in the book after you have endured the stories of his life and why he is who is he is at this point in his life. In style and structure, it is obvious that The Sea Priestess was a book written by another generation. Before wandering into the worlds of magick, we, the readers, must first learn the reasons that Wilfred Maxwell never followed his dreams to leave his small family business and his small life in this small British town. However, we soon find that it is his development of asthma that opens up his psychic abilities and brings to him his first past-life flashes. Then his dream begins coming to him as the daring Vivien Le Fay Morgan makes her entrance into his otherwise boring life and gives him a reason to once again begin to create his own life apart from the opinions of family and community. Suddenly we are in the middle of a book about a mysterious yet openly Pagan woman who follows a Hermetic path. What I believe is most notable is that her beliefs are clearly stated in a book that originally pre-dates by at least a decade the repeal of the Witchcraft Laws in England and the publication of Gardner's works on Wicca. I found myself taking out a highlighter and marking passages that very much reflect my own beliefs, such as the following: '" 'Do you not know the Mystery saying that all the gods are one god, and all the goddesses are one goddess, and there is one initiator? Do you not know that at the dawn of manifestation the gods wove the web of creation between the poles of the pairs of opposites, active and passive, positive and negative, and that all things are these two things in different ways and upon different levels, even priests and priestesses, Wilfred?'" - and - " 'What are the gods?' Said she. 'God knows,' said I. 'I think they are natural forces personified, ' said she. 'So to be made one with the gods is to become the channel of natural forces. And that is not as rare as you might think.'" The book also quotes the basic Magickal Law of "As above, so below," from the Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus, although it is referred to in the book by a slightly different name. I also noticed a line in the description of the One where phrase "whence all life proceeds and to which all life returns" mirrors the line in Doreen Valienté's "Charge of the Goddess" which goes "from me all life proceeds and unto me they must return". There is much more and I am sure there are many more things I have not noticed, yet all this is included in what was presented as a work of fiction. After reading the book, I can easily see how it could have impacted deTraci. I personally had a feeling of finding a wonderful treasure. It is a fresh, clean presentation of the most basic of Wiccan, Goddess-centered, Natured-based beliefs in a way that is obviously based on and tied to High Magick, Atlantean and Arthurian magical practices. Yet the book still leaves them open for interpretation and without dogma. And as I look back on it, even the structure of the book is magickal because like any initiate must, there is the toil through the beginning introduction before one gets to the true Mysteries and then we are finally shown how they can be passed on to others. A true classic.
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