See A ppendix 3.

41 He describes the Goddess as the source o f all Love, Beauty, Pleasure, Intoxication; She is the H oly Grail, the Cup Cadmean, the Lotus-Throne o f Buddha, and o f Harpocrates. She is the M oon in her fullest and H oliest aspect, the perfect sphere o f pure light - mirror o f my pure light! . . . She is Isis, Astarte, Ashtaroth (1972: 177).

42 Though Crowley used and abused women at w ill, practising sex magic with respectable married w om en, prostitutes, chorus girls, sisters o f the Order, Scarlet W omen, potential scarlet w om en, and men as well as by him self.

Wicca’s Magical Heritage

integrated Eastern philosophies and practices with the western esoteric and magical theories which formed the foundation o f his Thelema.

In general, however, there was a largely amicable split between Western magic and Eastern philosophy in the occult community o f the fin de siecle: those interested in researching and studying the wisdom o f the East, and perhaps ‘converting’ to Hinduism and Buddhism joined the Theosophical Society; those who wished to study the Western Esoteric Tradition and perform ritual within an initiatory system joined the Golden Dawn. Relations between the two seem to have existed on friendly terms for the main part, and there were a few occultists who were members o f both organisations, bringing together the traditions in a more global fashion, a trend which became more popular after the First World War. One o f these was Violet Mary Firth, better known by her magical name o f Dion Fortune.

Dion Fortune

Dion Fortune (bom Violet Mary Firth) was a member o f both the Theosophical Society and o f a Golden Dawn offshoot, the Stella Matutina, before forming her own Fraternity o f the Inner Light in 1924. She paid tribute to the work o f both the Theosophical Society and the Golden Dawn in Esoteric Orders and their Work, in which she traces the Western esoteric systems to,

three main roots, the Qabalistic, the Egyptian, and the Greek . . . The m odem stream o f Western esotericism contains a blend o f all o f them, but also much that has been derived from Eastern sources through the mediation o f the

Wicca’s Magical Heritage

Theosophical Society. . . Analytical psychology and N ew Thought have also been laid under contribution, and the result is a kaleidoscope philosophy which needs much sorting before it reveals any coherent pattern (1995: 166).

Prior to the publication o f Golden Dawn rituals by Israel Regardie in 1937-40, the Fraternity o f the Inner Light used mainly Golden Dawn rituals and retained relatively strong links with the Stella Matutina. Gradually, however, the Inner Light rituals altered until they bore no resemblance to those o f the Golden Dawn, and Francis King considers that '[tjoday the Inner Light can no longer be considered a magical fraternity, it rather more resembles a heterodox semi-Christian cult, rather like the Liberal Catholic Church o f the Theosophists' (1989: 158). Fortune's main contribution to the influences on Wicca, therefore, are to be found in her perpetuation o f the Western Mystery Tradition and her self-identification as a 'priestess'. Since psychoanalysis, according to Richardson, was 'the Alternative Therapy o f the time' (1991: 51), a fad for Fortune's generation, it could also be the case that she began the process o f integrating psychology into the current o f western esotericism. She does not appear to have considered herself 'pagan', although Vivianne Crowley refers to Dion Fortune as a 'proto-Pagan' (1998: 170), and her writings, particularly her novels The Sea P riestess

and Moon M agic, can be found on the bookshelves o f many Pagans and are standard reading for most Wiccans. Fortune was, however, as much involved in esoteric Christianity as she was in specifically pagan ritual and magic; her flirtation with Christian Science, which came to Britain in 1898, 'was the first manifestation o f the dichotomy which ran right through her life: between the Gods and the one God;

Wicca's Magical Heritage

between the Mystery at Bethlehem and those o f Kamak, Atlantis, and Avalon' (Richardson 1991: 42).

The Golden Dawn, the Theosophical Society, Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune can thus be considered the most important organisations and figures o f influence in the British occult revival, which began in the previous fin de siecle and continued until Dion Fortune's death in 1946 and that o f Aleister Crowley in 1947, shortly after the end o f the Second World War. By this time, Gerald Gardner had returned to England from the Far East and begun his association with the N ew Forest coven: the development o f Wicca was already underway. W icca is therefore, according to Hutton (1996: 13), 'neither the descendant o f a continuous sectarian witch cult, nor [was it] bom fully fledged from the imagination o f one man in the 1940s. It is, on the contrary, a particular, and extreme, incarnation o f some o f the broadest and deepest cultural impulses o f the nineteenth and twentieth century British world'. Certainly, as far as the recent history o f Wicca over the past century is concerned, we would concur wholeheartedly with this statement; yet there remains behind this modem history o ffin de siecle occultism and the development o f Wicca streams o f influence which reach back into antiquity43. In order to understand the Wicca o f the 1990s - a W icca which has, for the most part, embraced its occult heritage and dropped its pretences to pseudo-historical links with early modem witchcraft - w e need to return to that same

43 We are not, o f course, suggesting that Hutton is unaware o f these streams o f influence; as w e noted