Review of The Occult Battle of Britain - by Paul Weston (2019)

For the last couple of weeks, I have been reading a fascinating book called The Occult Battle of Britain - History, Magic, Mythology from the 19th century to 1946, by Paul Weston and originally published in 2019. 

The book can be considered as an extensive background to the similarly titled The Magical Battle of Britain, by Dion Fortune and edited by Gareth Knight, which I've previously mentioned. 

Dion Fortune (a woman I both like and admire, and who I regard as a genius) is perhaps the central character. 

The climax is the magical activity in which she was engaged before and during the Battle of Britain - and the timeline ends with her death in 1946. In broad terms the book is about the intersection of occult thinking with the rise of National Socialism in Germany, and its opposition from within Britain - culminating in the Battle of Britain and its aftermath. 

The method is chronological. Starting in the late 19th century, with the international spread of spiritualism; then HP Blavatsky and the (extraordinarily influential) rise of Theosophy; and the Golden Dawn and similar revivals of ritual magic (magic both white and black in nature) - Weston notes some of the main characters involved, and what was happening in Germany and in England - but especially in relation to Glastonbury and its "Avalonians". 

As well as Fortune; Avalonians Wellesley Tudor Pole and Ronald Heaver are followed; since they had a complementary role to play in the occult side of events of 1940. Also; both TP and Heaver were long-term involved in military intelligence; as were many others from both sides of that apparent divide. 

Heaver was heavily involved in the (seemingly) utterly bizarre British Israelite movement - about which I previously knew almost nothing - and it has now disappeared from public consciousness. Yet, although the assumptions and goals of the BIs strike me as almost incomprehensibly strange and misguided; this was clearly a strong movement within the British ruling class - including intelligence services - up to a high level, and had a role to play in global geopolitics.   

With the notable (and noble!) exception of Dion Fortune herself; it seems that the occult-military nexus was so common as to be normal. On the "darker side" of things; Aleister Crowley and Dennis Wheatley were also spooks. 

But some of the most significant British military people were also occultists - most notably Air Marshal Sir Hugh Dowding, head of Fighter Command up to and during the Battle of Britain, the architect of the integrated home defence radar system - and very plausibly the saviour of his nation. 

Dowding was heavily involved with spiritualism (publishing articles and a major book on the subject) and other esoteric subjects - e.g. he regarded fairies as a real and important influence on human life. 

The other side of the book charts the development of the spiritual side of national Socialism from its 19th century origins, and which reached a formalization with Himmler and the SS, and their cathedral like castle of Wewelsburg. But much of this requires to be disentangled from the distortions and fictions that have been widely propagated by early books such as The Morning of the Magicians (1960), and The Spear of Destiny (1972). 

Nonetheless, after the falsehoods have been set aside there seems little doubt of the fact and significance of occultism in National Socialism - and that there was indeed a Battle of Britain which operated purposively at this occult level - whether this phenomenon is interpreted spiritually or materialistically in terms of psychology. 

What is, for me, an open question - is the nature of the military-occult synthesis that Weston describes; not just for WWII, but extending back to encompass aspects of the First World War. 

There was surely a large element of intentional PSYOPS about the manipulations of public opinion (some very successful, both for good and ill) of British intelligence - yet there were also many instances of (apparently) sincere occult belief and activity among a surprisingly high number of very important personnel of both sides. 

The 21st century mind (from its assumption of innate moral superiority and greater insight) is spontaneously inclined to explain-away all this; as merely a mixture of cynical manipulation with the stupidity (and evil) of those unenlightened (sexist, racist etc) people of the past. 

And if this attitude is taken, there is nothing more to be said! But it is all based on assumptions about "our" modern superiority to every previous generation: assumptions that are arbitrary and without any coherent objective basis.  

Much of the fascination of this book is in the range of information provided, including aspects either neglected or passed-over by conventional histories. 

I was especially interested by the accounts of the Phoney War period from September 1939-May 1940 - and the ways that the British people were "prepared" for war. From Weston's account; the mood of the nation at this time (officially partly-feared, partly-seeded and encouraged) was very different in some respects from how it is usually portrayed - with a rampant paranoia concerning spies (leading to executions of the innocent), and wholly-imaginary fifth columnist activities by saboteurs, paratroopers, and sleeper agents. 

I was also impressed by Weston's discernments in relation to the side of the Allies. He is scrupulous about taking into account alternative interpretations - e.g. of the role of Winston Churchill, and the significance of the Battle of Britain. The he makes his decision among possibilities and explains his own assumptions. 

Therefore, Weston regards the "mythology" of the Battle of Britain as basically true, and that it was indeed a battle - spiritual as well as military - between good and evil. Consequently, after the Battle was won, there was a recognition of spiritual growth and commitment to the side of Good; and sincere hopes for a better world - spiritually better that is - to follow the war. 

Yet, Weston also feels that the purity of motive that Britain achieved in 1940, was significantly dissipated and corrupted throughout the course of the war. The alliance with the USSR was a significant downward step (Churchill explicitly likened it to a Faustian pact with the devil, yet embraced it nonetheless). 

The scale, priorities, purposes, and methods of Bomber Command (under the genuinely-delusional Arthur "Bomber" Harris) was another massive military error (a colossal misapplication of resources, causing gross neglect of more necessary and effective strategies); the whole increasingly fuelled by dark, sometimes evil, motives. 

Weston also notes that the strategic destruction of British and European geopolitical power was a sub-theme of US involvement. As was the in-practice building-up of the USSR as a world power, including by open-ended and unconditional "free gift" provision of materiel (in contrast to the sales and loans to the UK, with the consequential crippling war debt entailed). 

In some respects; by the end of the war there was a change of sides by the Allies - so that as the war progressed, not just Britain but also the real victors (ie the USSR and the USA) were spiritually, overall, also on the wrong side. 

And Dion Fortune's hoped-for beneficial spiritual outcomes of the Magical Battle of Britain... therefore didn't happen.    

The Occult Battle of Britain is not an easy read, and I spent many hours reading it; but this was mainly because I found I didn't want to miss anything. I found it to be original, gripping, and very stimulating - with implications that I need to think about much further. 

The spiritual Battle of Britain - then and now

I am reading a book that was recommended by my Albion Awakening co-authors: The Magical Battle of Britain, a selection of letters from the Second World War by Dion Fortune, edited by Gareth Knight (1993). 

Dion Fortune was the pseudonym of Violet Mary Firth, who was perhaps the most respected and influential magical practitioner of modern times to come from Britain; and importantly, from my point of view, she was a sincere and devout Christian - of an Esoteric kind.

Her idea was that - after war was declared, and as Britain prepared for the possibility of invasion, it was important to encourage people by spiritual means: to build-up the folk and racial soul of the British; by means of directed meditations of many people.


Reading the book, it seems distinctly possible to me that what she did was of genuine benefit - especially when regarded as one specific manifestation of a spiritual 'mobilisation' that had multiple facets - most obviously seen with Winston Churchill becoming the national leader.

It is noteworthy that DF herself displayed an extremely unusual, and admirable, combination of strength of character, creative inspiration, ethical solidity - and yet a disinterested and altruistic absence of ego.

What she 'asked for' in these magical-group-meditations was always, it seems, very carefully restricted to the spiritual level (not seeking specific physical results, not personal advantage); and was therefore benign. She was, in her small scale fashion, one of the rare examples of an effective and natural woman leader - a mini Elizabeth the First!


However, as I read I also developed the conviction that this Magical Battle of Britain was probably the last time that such a thing was possible. Indeed, even before the end of the 39-45 war, the British national consciousness had changed qualitatively - and in the direction of being both less spiritual, and less group-ish.

The way that Dion Fortune used symbolism (sword, sceptre, grail), the concept of a national soul which was also a racial soul, the use of visualisation (eg of guarding angels)... these are essentially the spiritual categories of an earlier, pre-modern phase of human consciousness. By 1939 they were merely residual in the spirit of Albion; and became possible and effective only briefly and for one more time, under the exceptional demands of that era.

Very rapidly afterwards there was a dwindling and disappearance of both symbolic power, and the capacity of an individual to immerse in the group-soul. Before the war was done, Britain had begun to become pretty much what it is now; materialistic and anti-Christian; hedonically aiming at 'comfort and convenience'; and its national ideology established as Leftist-bureaucratic and totalitarian (as Orwell made clear, based on his wartime experiences).


My understanding is that these changes were underlain by that developmental change in British consciousness which was only briefly interrupted by the Swan Song described in the Magical Battle of Britain.

As symbolism and immersive group spirituality dwindled and then became impossible; so the churches dwindled, leftist-hedonic-materialism waxed.

And (as I see it, anyway!) the necessity for a Romantic Christianity became incrementally more and more obvious and urgent.

More Battle of Britain reflections

Brian Kingcome, and Geoffrey Wellum in front of a Spitfire - Wellum's First Light is one of the most inspiring and beautiful Battle of Britain accounts, and he himself an exemplar of the best spirit of those times. 

Like many British people, I am "a bit obsessed" with the Battle of Britain; in that I never tire of reading and viewing media about those months of 1940. 

Part of this is a boyish fascination with the aircraft, the pilots, the air services, the nation's mood and response etc. On any given day, I am more likely than not to be reading a pilot's memoir, or another historical study of this time. 

But, unlike most people, I am also prone to think about the spiritual or inner side of the BoB. This was, I believe, crucial to the success of the defence - in context esepcially of the counter-example of France and its stunningly fast capitulation, in which resistance was undermined by a national mood of confusion, incoherence, and despair. 

I regard the Battle of Britain as the last time that the group mind of the British people was powerfully and positively motivated. 

Since 1940, the group mind has sometimes been positive and feeble, sometimes powerful and negative - but never both good and strong in the way of the BoB. 

And I do not believe it ever shall be again - indeed the group mind has all-but disintegrated; as is inevitable when overwhelmingly-most people (including most religious people) are materialist by their fundamental assumptions. 

Even when people believe in God; God's role is relegated to materialist goals and methods (socio-politics); even when people believe in the spiritual, the spirit is seen in terms of its physical effects (this-worldly benefits and harms). 

Yet I do experience a good and positive group mind of Britain (or Britain's spiriual basis - Albion); and since this is not coming from the mass of people, from the mortal Men of the nation; my assumption is that instead this group mind is located in the resurrected Dead; and also in the non-human beings of the nation - in the consciousness of some of the animals, plants, and landscapes.  

So people here-and-now can be inspired, energized, and motivated by the group mind of Albion - even now; but on an individual level, and by means of direct contact with other minds that are not living mortal humans. 

This superficially seems weird, but it also seems experientially true. 

The World War II Bomber Mafia nearly lost the war for Britain - an early instance of parasitic bureaucratic delusion

The West in 2025 is replete with parasitic bureaucratic delusions - such as the CO2 climate psychosis, antiracism and xenophilia, feminism, pseudo-healthism and so on - which each weaken, and together will probably destroy, our nations and civilization.  

An early example of the parasitic bureaucratic delusion phenomenon was the Bomber Doctrine which led to the Bomber Mafia - which in World War II dominated the thinking of Winston Churchill and those with strategic control of the UK military. 

In brief; the Bomber Doctrine was that long-range bombing could win a major war, by destroying the enemy's capacity to wage war and creating a state of national chaos - after which the Army could simply "walk in" and take-over. The Navy was consigned to a very minor role altogether. 

This hypothesis (it was hardly even that - more of a story, scenario, set-of-assertions) was warmly received after the years of mass-slaughterous infantry stalemate in the First World War; and the Bomber Doctrine became the basis for the continued-existence and expansion of the RAF. 

Unless you have read some of the things said in the years leading up to WWII and even during that war, you probably could not believe the extent to which it was seriously argued that strategic bombing was, by itself, sufficient to win the war with Germany. 

Arguing that, for instance, Fighter Command was not necessary - was indeed a waste of resources that should be directed into building more and bigger bombers. 

If it had not been for the foresight, ability, character and intransigence of Hugh Dowding (in charge of Fighter Command leading up to the war); Britain would undoubtedly have lost the Battle of Britain.  

Bomber Command even regarded the 1944 invasion of France and Western Europe as a needless waste of resources that they could better have used - and strongly opposed D-Day, tried not to cooperate with planning - but were eventually compelled into reluctant cooperation. 

The appeal of the Bomber Doctrine in WWII Britain, especially in the early half of the war - was that it clamed and promised (and the word promise is literally true) that Strategic Bombing would win the war, without need for an invasion of Europe, on its own, and despite Britain's Army being outmatched by the German Army - if only the bombing could become large enough in scale.

Therefore the Bomber Doctrine had an apparently irresistible appeal to those who were determined that Britain could and should destroy Germany and retake Europe - from its position of besieged isolation. 

The consequence was that - in practice - everything possible should be sacrificed to the bombing imperative. Whatever the national emergency or military crisis, for believers in the Doctrine and their supporters; the answer was always the same: more bombers, more strategic bombing. 

The Bomber Mafia fought, with considerable success - to suck resources from all the other branches of the RAF; and from the Army and Navy in general. 

Indeed it has been estimated (it is hard to be exact, but this is not implausible) that the total resources consumed by RAF Bomber Command during WWII were greater than the entirety of the rest of the armed forces put-together - i.e. greater than the British Army, Royal Navy, RAF Fighter Command, and RAF Coastal Command, combined. 

And that this was largely responsible for the national debt that delayed UK recovery from the war for so much longer than anywhere else.    

As it was, Britain very nearly lost the war in early 1943 by severance of the absolutely vital ship-borne supplies - ie. defeat by the U-Boats in the Battle of the Atlantic. It seems that the nation came very close to collapse - it was a real emergency, for those not blinded by the Doctrine*.  

What is horrifying to me is that this near-loss was preventable; and had been caused by the domination and intransigence of the Bomber Mafia, and the psychological hold the Bomber Doctrine had on Churchill - and those responsible for the allocation of resources and priorities between the various competing demands of the war effort.  

With the escalating U-Boat threat; air cover was essential to successfully defending naval convoys. This was perfectly possible - but until late in 1943, Coastal Command was starved of resources and aircraft by the insatiable maw of Bomber Command - which took nearly-all of the suitable escort and anti-submarine aircraft, and all of the best aircraft. 

What was needed was a very long range four-engined aircraft that could provide air-cover across the whole Atlantic; and it was well within technological capabilities to provide such machines quickly and in large numbers; and thereby protect the vital convoys. 

But the Bomber Mafia fought bitterly and tirelessly to keep all such aircraft for its own allegedly war-winning effort - and were, overall, supported in this by Churchill. 

(Eventually Coastal Command got sufficient Very Long Range Liberator aircraft to provide full air-cover, hunt and destroy the U-Boats, and win the Battle of the Atlantic.) 

My point here is that the very-nearly war-losing and delusionally-false Bomber Doctrine was never more than a purely-hypothetical, un-tested and un-evidenced, dreamed-up narrative.

But it was a make-believe tale that was adopted and sustained by a powerful bureaucracy - which "sold" the idea to those who wanted it to be true - for whatever various reasons of their own. 

Once the Bomber Doctrine was established and psychologically-accepted, and the Bomber Mafia had become entrenched and powerful - then logic, evidence, even the imminence of national collapse - could not dent it. 

The Bomber Doctrine was a psychosis, that fuelled a parasite (the Bomber Mafia), which all-but annihilated the nation that hosted it. 

The Bomber Doctrine was, then, a literal psychosis - and one that (at least) twice very-nearly lost Britain the war - and by bankrupting the nation, lost us the peace that followed - but this made literally zero difference to its proponents... Except to increase their fanatical zeal.

The analogy with our present situation is obvious. 

Nothing short of the actual collapse of the nation and civilization will stop the delusional bureaucratic parasites from their work of destruction. 

And looking-out from the ruins, upon the chaos they helped cause - still they will never admit that they were wrong all along.

*Bomber Command seemed unable to grasp even that they themselves needed to win the Battle of the Atlantic in order to function. Britain imported all her oil and petrol by ship, without which bombers would - obviously - be unable to fly! Yet such was the delusional nature of their thinking that simple self-interest could not overcome it... Again this psychotic incoherence is something seen in analogous bureaucratic situations, here-and-now. 

  

The Spear of Destiny and the National Socialist German Workers' Party

I've just re-read an enjoyable light novel called Looking for the King; which is set in 1940 just before the Battle of Britain, It concerns two Americans (young man and woman) visiting England, getting caught up in a quest for the Spear of Destiny, and being helped in this search by The Inklings (and falling in love). 

Over the years I have heard, from several directions, about the real and imaginary occult and magical propensities of the "National Socialist German Workers' Party" (NSGWP)*. 

The idea is that there was an occult battle going-on - directed against Britain - at the same time as the war was being fought on the physical level. 

Some of this material is real: for example, there was Dion Fortune's Magical Battle of Britain; or Churchill's "silent minute" - which were both supposed to mobilize the power of mass meditation and prayer, against presumed counter-forces. 

On the other hand, a fair bit of the material I have encountered seems to be descended from a fictional (pretending to be factual) account by anthroposophist Trevor Ravenscroft * about Adolf's supposed quest for the Spear of Destiny Indeed this strange book seems to be a concealed and unacknowledged, but highly influential, pop-history classic. 

As I mentioned before; there was indeed an important and socially-motivating spiritual dimension to the socialism and nationalism of the NSGWP; which was completely absent from the other (and even worse) totalitarian dictatorship of Lenin and Stalin in the USSR. 

This means that it was rational to fear the potential for occult spiritual attack from Germany (as well as the threat of material invasion), whereas the idea would seem absurd with respect to the USSR - who had slaughtered (etc) many thousands of priests, monks and nuns; and many millions of devout Christians - in their attempt utterly to eradicate the spiritual. 

But to my mind this unspirituality does not reflect to the credit of the USSR. The Communist ideology was indeed more advanced in its materialistic-evil, than was the partially-reactionary (because anti-communist) socialism of the NSGWP. 

Plus, there is, and was, the influential crypto-communist aspect of the British and American ruling classes; which put the USSR as a higher priority than Britain and America. 

So, even though the USSR was on the same side as Germany in 1940; and even though the USSR had, by the Battle of Britain,  invaded and occupied 2/3 of the British ally Poland -- the UK did not declare war on the USSR, hardly seemed to recognize them as an enemy - and since airbrushed history and national memory accordingly. 

While unconstrained fantasies of the occult and magical evil of the NSGWP (and allegorical equivalents) constitute a staple of mass media, movies, TV and novels - the greater, more enduring, and still-with-us cancer of the ideology of Communism (and its evolutionary descendants) have (during my lifetime) been almost washed-away from Western consciousness. 

* I like to use the full name of the party - here in an English translation - to emphasize just how explicitly leftist they were. Socialist Worker Parties are leftist parties - but Nationalist SWPs are usually left-anti-communist. But not always. In Scotland, the Nationalists were originally also (substantially) communists (or similar); and nowadays are mainstream pro-totalitarian leftist. Anyway, the point is that the hatred between fascist and communist was a civil war of the left; not a difference between extremes.  

** Trevor Ravenscroft's son, saxophonist Raphael, was also a massive, covert social influence via his solo on the bluesy single Baker Street. 

Londinium: The Fourth Rome? Guest Post by John Fitzgerald

Life is no dream, but it could and maybe should become one. 

Novalis 

******* 

It feels, in many respects, as if Britain today is in an analogous position to that of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s, with the power of the federal centre waning and that of the constituent nations waxing. The same applies to the European Union too - its prosaic, dryly-secular approach unable to provide a frame of reference for the atavistic stirrings bubbling up in the European psyche. A similarly centripetal process could easily begin in the USA as well. 

A profound shifting of national and international tectonic plates is taking place. Here in the UK, the idea of 'Britishness' appears to be losing its hold on the popular imagination. Perhaps the only element holding the Union together at the moment - psychologically speaking - is the Crown. It will be fascinating to observe, as you have previously enquired, how the country one day copes without Elizabeth II, a permanent presence for as long as most of us can remember. 

An interesting way, for me, of reimagining the UK and its connection with Europe is to reflect on the original 'Britain' - the Roman province of Britannia. I find the novels of Rosemary Sutcliff, set in Roman and post-Roman Britain, a great imaginative stmulus here. They delineate superbly the ambivalent nature of Britain's relationship with the continent. In The Eagle of the Ninth (1954), for instance, a young Roman and his British friend discuss the differences between the Roman and Celtic mindsets: 

'But these things that Rome had to give, are they not good things?' Marcus demanded. 'Justice and order, and good roads; worth having, surely?' 

'They be all good things,' Esca agreed. 'But the price is too high.' 

'The price? Freedom?' 

'Yes - and other things than freedom.' 

'What other things? Tell me, Esca; I want to know. I want to understand.' 

Esca thought for a while, staring straight before him. 'Look at the pattern embossed here on your dagger-sheath,' he said at last. 'See, here is a tight curve, and here is another facing the other way to balance it, and here between them is a little round stiff flower; and then it is all repeated here, and here, and here again. It is beautiful, yes, but to me it is as meaningless as an unlit lamp.' 

Marcus nodded as the other glanced up at him. 'Go on.' 

Esca took up his shield. 'Look now at this shield-boss. See the bulging curves that flow from each other as water flows from water and wind from wind, as the stars turn in the heaven and blow same drifts into dunes. These are the curves of life, and the man who traced them had in him knowledge of things that your people have lost the key to - if they ever had it.'  (pp.92-93) 

In The Silver Branch (1957), set at the end of the third century and based on the political upheavals in the Empire at that time, the Imperial usurper, Carausius, recognises the reality of Roman (European) decline, the singular position Britain occupies vis-a-vis the continent and the concomitant need for independence: 

'The Wolves gather,' Carausius said. 'Always, everywhere, the Wolves gather on the frontiers, waiting. It needs only that a man should lower his eye for a moment, and they will be in to strip the bones. Rome is failing, my children.' 

Justin looked at him quickly, but Flavius never moved; it was as though he had known what Carausius would say. 

'Oh, she is not finished yet. I shall not see her fall. My Purple will last my life-time - and not, I think, will you. Nevertheless, Rome is hollow rotten at the heart, and one day she will come crashing down. A hundred years ago, it must have seemed that all this was for ever; a hundred years hence - only the gods know ... If I can make this one province strong - strong enough to stand alone when Rome goes down, then something may be saved from the darkness. If not, then Dubris light and Limanis light and Rutupiae light will go out. The lights will go out everywhere.' He stepped back, dragging aside the hanging folds of the curtains, and stood framed in their darkness against the firelight and the lamplight behind him, his head yet turned to the scudding grey and silver of the stormy night. 'If I can steer clear of a knife in my back until the work is done, I will make Britain strong enough to stand alone,' he said. 'It is as simple as that.' (pp.36-37) 

A complex mesh of emotions is in play, as shown in the next book in the sequence, The Lantern Bearers (1959), set a century and a half later. Aquila, a Roman auxiliary of British birth, discovers something non-negotiable about himself when ordered to leave Britain with his cohort:  

One didn't hear the sea much in the daytime, save when there was a storm, but at night it was always there, even in a flat calm, a faint, persistent wash of sound like the sea in a shell. It seemed to be out of that faint sea-wash in the silence that the knowledge came to him that he belonged to Britain. He had always belonged to Britain, but he hadn't known it before, because he had never had to question it before. He knew it now. 

It was not only because of Flavia and his father. Lying in the darkness with his arm over his eyes, he tried quite deliberately to thrust them from his mind, pretend that they did not exist. It made no difference; even without them, he still belonged to Britain. 'How odd!' he thought. 'We of the Outposts, we speak of ourselves as Roman - with the surface of our minds - and underneath, it is like this.'  (pp.19-20) 

After the Romans' departure and the burning of his family home by the Saxons, Aquila joins, after many twists and turns, the resistance movement led by Ambrosius Aurelianus, a chieftain (later  High King) who is himself half-Celt, half-Roman and feels acutely the tension between the two. His successor, Artos (Arthur), skips the Kingship and is crowned Emperor instead by his exultant soldiery after the battle of Mons Badonicus. 'After forty years,' he proclaims, 'there is an Emperor of the West again ... The Island of Britain is all that stands of Rome-in-the-West and therefore it is enough that we in Britain know that the light still burns.' (Sword at Sunset, 1963, p.367) 

The frustrating fact (in real life) is that if it hadn't been for a migration of British nobility to Brittany in the 460s, then Ambrosius and Arthur would most likely have had the manpower and resources they needed to drive the Saxons out and establish Britain as the inheritor of 'Rome-in-the-West'. Since I first read the history of those times in boyhood, this missed opportunity has left me with an acute sense of regret. I always feel that this is the Empire Britain could and should have had and that the British Empire known to history is a mercantile caricature of that. 

If we believe, however, in a God who takes as active an interest in the lives of nations as He does in those of individuals, then we have reason to hope that the moment might not have passed forever and that the chance may come again. Brexit could become that moment - not if we lose impetus in materialistic visions of global trade arrangements, as some Brexiteers are in danger of doing, but if we keep our focus on the spiritual longing the Leave vote was at bottom an attempt to satisfy. 

It isn't a case, as Carausius thought, of Britian 'standing alone'. It's more a matter of the nations and regions of our country finding a right relationship with themselves, with the peoples of Europe and, most importantly, with God. But he is right in another sense. Rome is indeed failing, if by Rome we mean the secularism and liberalism embodied in (and symbolised by) the EU and rejected in the UK referendum. These man-made creeds have run their course. They are 'old wineskins' now, hollow rotten. One day they will come crashing down. We await, largely unconsciously still, the re-emergence of the sacred. 'Only a god,' as Martin Heidegger wrote, 'can save us now' - 

Marcus ached for last year to be given back to him, for the old life and the comradeship to be given back to him. He moved an ivory chess piece a little blindly, seeing, not the black-and-white dazzle of the board before his eyes, but that gathering a year ago, filing out by the Praetorian gate and downhill to the cave; then, as the trumpets sounded from the distant ramparts for the third watch of the night, the sudden glory of candles, that sank and turned blue, and sprang up again; the reborn light of Mithras in the dark of the year. (The Eagle of the Ninth, p.59) 

Carausius, for all his bravura, mourned the passing of Rome. Aquila deserted his brothers-in-arms for his native soil, but he never stopped fighting for Rome, alongside Artos and Ambrosius, all the days of his life. Rome, for these men, stood for something different than the straight lines and symmetrical patterns Esca so resented. There is more at stake here than a purely administrative imposition of order and justice. Rome, in this context, stands for civilisation, tradition and nobility - a political and civic reality which creates space for the sacred and represents a higher scale of values than the scramble for comfort and security we have become accustomed to in the contemporary West. Rome, in short, is something worth fighting and, if need be, dying for -  

'I sometimes think that we stand at sunset,' Eugenus said after a pause. 'It may be that the night will close over us in the end, but I believe that morning will come again. Morning always grows again out of the darkness, though maybe not for the people who saw the sun go down. We are the Lantern Bearers, my friend; for us to keep something burning, to carry what light we can forward into the darkness and the wind.' (The Lantern Bearers, pp.304-305) 

Needless to say, such sentiments would sound wildly out of place with regards to the EU. It is precisely because the EU has turned its back on Europe's spiritual heritage that it has forfeited its imaginative hold on hearts and minds and is destined for the 'darkness and the wind'. It is for us in Britian, post-Brexit, to turn the other way, reconnect with our own religious traditions, Christian and pre-Christian, and to build bridges with those European nations where faith plays a shaping role in government policy - Russia, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, for example. 

In this way the seeds of a new Europe can be sown, one that will be there to pick up the pieces - like the Benedictine monasteries of the fifth century - after the collapse of the current dispensation. This brings comfort as well to the little boy in me who feels that Britain missed its moment. Because, after all, even if Artos and Ambrosius had succeeded, their 'Rome-in-the-West' would still have been a pale copy of the original and very much the end of something rather than the beginning. The circumstances are different today. London can never become the Third Rome. That distinction belongs to Moscow. But why not the Fourth? It is a dream worth having; an opportunity worth taking - a door held open to us by a visionary, imaginative God, who discerns and inspires the destiny and vocation hidden in the heart of every human being and of every nation - 

Save for the sentry pacing his beat, they were alone on the rampart walk. Below them the darkening city was strung with lights - dim amber window squares, and the golden drops of light that were lamps and lanterns in the garlanded streets. Lights and lights and lights away to the misty river. 'Londinium rejoices,' Flavius said. 'Surely there's not a dark house within the city walls tonight.' 

Justin nodded, not wanting to talk, his mind turning back to the start of it all ... to that strange evening with Carausius, the beat of the wind outside and the far down boom of the sea. and within, the scent of burning logs, the steady radiance of the lamps, and the stains of quivering coloured light cast upon the table by the wine in its iridescent flasks ... That had been the night it had began. Tonight was the night that it was over. 

Over, like Carausius's brief Empire in the North that had been brought to nothing by the murderous knife of Allectus. Britain was once again part of Rome ... And tonight, with the lights of rejoicing Londinium spread below them, and the Legions encamped beyond the walls, and the man with the thin white conqueror's face seated at his writing-table in the lamp-lit Praetorium, the idea of a time coming when Rome would not be strong seemed, after all, thin and remote. (The Silver Branch, pp.245-246)