The Watchers and the Occult Police

Dion Fortune 1890-1946

Sometime in the 1920s, during her initial research into occult abuse, Dion Fortune: 

...became aware of the existence of an inner-plane and an outer organization of initiates which was called the Occult Police. 

Most of its operations were on the inner-planes, with adepti whose job it was to try to seek out occult abuse and spiritual wickedness and then to put an end to it wherever possible. 

Certain occults groups in the physical world had their own inner section to work with the Occult Police and these were called Hunting Lodges. They were the physical plane terminals for the inner-plane Occult Police organization. 

Another inner-plane group to help to control abuse was called The Watchers. They seemed to act as part of the Occult Police and their specific role seemed to be to seek out occult abuse, misuse of powers of the mind, and general misconduct in the field.   

The Watchers would then hand over the information either to the Occult Police or to suitable individuals on the physical plane who would then take the necessary action to put the matter right...

The Watchers and the Occult police did not die with Dion Fortune, in fact they are still [1998] very much in evidence...

Dion Fortune was instructed in the procedure she should use should she ever need to get in touch with the Occult Police to report abuse or ask for protection...

While using the resources of this inner organization, Dion Fortune was able to obtain a great deal of information about occult malpractice, as the Occult Police headquarters seemed to be the clearinghouse for all messages. 

Her connection with the Occult Police continued throughout her lifetime. 

From The Story of Dion Fortune by Charles Fielding and Carr Collins (1985). Second edition 1998, Thoth Publications: Loughborough, UK.

"Those who prefer security to freedom have lost both" - Dion Fortune writing during the Battle of Britain

From a letter of August 4th 1940 

There is something very strange about this war. The nations that have been subjugated were not beaten in the field, they fell to treachery and internal corruption; to lack of morale and lack of the will to victory. 

The key to their fall may be found in the words: "he who would save his life shall lose it, and he who will lose his life for My sake shall find it."

Those who prefer security to freedom have lost both. 

England stands alone and happy. All war gloom has gone. There is confidence in the future and pride in the present. Power is rising within us like a tide. The inflowing of a new life impulse is making itself felt. 

**

Letter 36 from The Magical Battle of Britain, by Dion Fortune. The war letters of Dion Fortune, edited by Gareth Knight.  

**

This insight of Dion Fortune referring to a very particular and unusual time and place has general validity. After the Second World War, there was a massive and (so far) irreversible collapse of Christianity in Britain. It was replaced by an overwhelming focus on this-worldly and material matters - i.e. what DF here terms "security". 

Nothing mattered to post-war people except security, happiness, prosperity, comfort, convenience and diversion. 

And, as predicted, this has led to the erosion, and incipient near-complete loss, of all of these - but especially security. 

Dion Fortune was talking about nations - but the same applies to individuals. 

Although we all (to some extent, sooner or later) crave security: there is none to be had in this mortal world; and the attempt to ensure it will bring the opposite - because by seeking security primarily, we will become oriented away-from reality. 

Unless the material is located in the spirit, unless the mundane is situated in the divine, this-world in eternity - then the material, mundane, this-worldly Goods will not merely be lost - but thrown-away. 

 

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.

Implications of Modern Man's waning capacity to pool consciousness and generate thought forms/ elementals/ egregores/ dynamic archetypes

I have been re-reading Dion Fortune's Applied Magic - and thinking about her descriptions and discussions of 'thought forms'. These are essentially the same phenomena variously called elementals, egregores and dynamic archetypes. 

These hypothetical entities are generated by the pooled consciousness of a group of people, attain some kind of separate agency, and then act back to influence or indeed control that same group. 

So, a group of people whose attention is focused and motivated is posited to undergo a merging of thought to generate an entity that then develops 'a life of its own' such that - depending upon its nature and orientation - will then drive the group towards those goals (and by those methods) with which it was established. 

In sum: there is a reciprocal relation between group and thought form; and the though form depends on the group for its original form, energy and continued existence - but the thought form may develop in new directions and impose these on the group; and the individuals in the group are also subjugated to the thought form and cannot (or cannot easily or always) withdraw assent and membership. 

I will here assume that, if not an exact formulation, these thought forms are at least potentially real phenomena. 

In fact I am going to argue that the ability to generate thought forms was essentially universal among Men, at least until the end of the Medieval period in Europe - but that this was a phase in the development of human consciousness that has now dwindled to almost vestigial levels of power. 

This is because the ability to generate thought forms by group pooling of consciousness is double-edged; because it is also a vulnerability to control-by thought forms - directly a vulnerability to being controlled by an irresistible thought form; and indirectly to being-controlled-by the group in which an individual is participating. 

Which is to say that thought forms are experienced as overwhelming, universal (to the group), mandatory - and, in a word, as objective reality. 

Therefore, thought forms of this kind are what Owen Barfield - in Saving the Appearances - calls collective representations. 

Taking up the ideas of Owen Barfield (and Rudolf Steiner) concerning the 'evolutionary development of human consciousness; I am struck by how deftly this can be applied to the changing capacity/ vulnerability of humans to thought forms. 

In brief; I regard known history as one in which humans (at different rates in different places and among different peoples) are gradually losing the pooled consciousness that was at first natural and spontaneous; then became a product of ritual, symbolism, use of sacred texts and traditions etc - which can be understood psychologically as inculcating associations and building them among groups to reach the desired state of pooled consciousness. This then because the basic of social cohesion and purpose. 

Dion Fortune was writing as a 'ritual magician' active in the 1920s and 30s; and at that time it was still possible for selected and highly-motivated groups of people (i.e. members of magical lodges) to be trained in concentration, control of emotions, and the use of symbolism and ritual - to attain that pooled consciousness and generation of 'objective' thought forms, which had receded from the population at large. 

The thought forms might be positive and benign - as with the Hite magic Dion Fortune's Christian mysticism; or negative and malign (self-gratifying, and manipulative) - as with Aleister Crowley and other Black Magicians.  

But generation of benign, positive, and overwhelmingly powerful thought forms by groups became more difficult and rarer though the twentieth century - and (I infer from my reading in the field, not from experience) had essentially ceased by the millennium. Nowadays, White magical rituals apparently have an as-if quality; more like attending a drama than being irresistibly affected by objective reality.

And the same applies to Western churches. Whereas they once had the ability to generate positive thought forms that would then impose upon members - not this has waned in strength such that all the churches are overwhelmed - and have been re-orientated - by the mainstream globalist totalitarian ideology. 

What of this totalitarian ideology? Is this a thought form? If so, is it really weak? 

The answer is yes - it is a thought form and it is weak. The fact that the totalitarian ideology must command the attention and motivation of 100s of millions of people is precisely because the levels of attention and motivation are so weak. Yet people no longer experience this ideology as objectively real, and require a continuous and escalating level of media propaganda combined with exclusion of alternatives in order to make it effective. 

Furthermore, the content of the mainstream ideology is negative - it can only generate even minimal levels of motivation by inducing negative (sinful) emotions such as fear, resentment and despair. And - even so - these strategically-induced mega-mass thought forms are only temporarily effective, and need to be swapped around, and novelties introduced - every few months.   

What, then, is God's positive purpose behind this development of consciousness away from groups pooling and making thoughts forms? 

The answer is that the loss of pooling is a consequence of the increased autonomy of thinking: the greater potential strength of individual thinking. We are less passively controlled, because we are more actively generative. Less immersed-in what seems 'objective' because we are able to range across reality in the primary thinking of our divine-selves.  

We are now more able to resist the influence of thought forms, and domination by 'the group' - and this works both ways - resistance to good group influences and evil. 

We choose and make that reality we live-by. This choosing is necessary - because we cannot pool with a group; and also, therefore, the direction of choice is also an unavoidable personal responsibility. 

Each Man now has the capability consciously to resist any and all external influences; to think 'for himself'; and therefore to become able to pursue his own unique destiny through this mortal life. 

This is possible, despite that vastness of negative global totalitarian thought forms - because these are low-density elementals, they are experienced as diffuse archetypes - that, at the point of impact upon us, are not able to exert the irresistible (and often unconscious) pressure of ancient thought forms. 

Now, exactly because modern consciousness is cut-off and self-conscious; the thought forms generated by our attention and chosen source of motivation, are unique and individually-tailored. 

Each person's positive, God-aligned, thought form is (by analogy) high in density, resistant to subverting influences, and in its motion powered by that which our deepest intuitions tell us is true, beautiful and virtuous.  

An individual thought form can therefore work like a knife whose edge can penetrate through any amount of the toxic gaseous influences of mega-mass ideology. 

In other words; our positive personal thought form - when motivated by faith and harmonious with divine creation - can 'beat' a whole world of shifting negations. 

Dion Fortune's description of Direct Knowing, from the 1930s

I have quite often tried to describe what I call Direct Knowing, which I regard as the most fundamental form of understanding, the bottom line, the ultimate (and divine) way of knowing. 

Yesterday I found a passage of writing which seems to describe how Direct Knowing feels and operates, written in the 1930s by Dion Fortune. 

She says there are three basic ways that the mind works: in words, in picture images; and a third and higher type of mentality, "which comes to all of us occasionally at times of stress". 

This is a thinking in terms of pure idea, in which the idea arises in the mind complete and does not have to be thought out; but comes in a flash of realization which we apprehend in a sudden glimpse of insight; which will then gradually unfold and realize in all its implications. 

Edited from page 21 An Introduction to Ritual Magic by Dion Fortune - edited by Gareth Knight, 1997/2006.   

Psychic attacks - and self-defence

"I am of the opinion that psychic attacks are far commoner than is generally realised, even by occultists themselves. Certainly the general public has no conception at all of the sort of things that are done by people who have a knowledge of the powers of the human mind and set to work to exploit them. 

"I am convinced that this factor played a large part in the witch-cult, and was the real cause of the universal horror and detestation of the witch. These powers have always been known to students of occultism, but nowadays they are known and used by people who would be exceedingly surprised to find who are their fellow-practitioners. 

"Mrs. Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, stumbled on to these methods empirically without ever acquiring any rational knowledge as to their modus operandi. She endeavoured to teach them in such a way that they could only be used for good and their power for evil should be concealed; but that she herself was well aware of their possibilities if abused is witnessed by the dread of what she called "Malicious Animal Magnetism," which shadowed her whole life. The methods of Christian Science, without its strict discipline and careful organisation, were developed and exploited by the innumerable schools and sects of the New Thought Movement. 

"In many of the developments the religious aspect was lost sight of, and they simply became a method of mental manipulation for purely personal ends, though not necessarily deliberately evil. Their exponents advertised that they would teach the art of salesmanship, of making oneself popular and dominant in society, of attracting the opposite sex, of drawing to oneself money and success. 

"The amazing number of these courses advertised shows their popularity; in a recent issue of an American magazine I counted advertisements for sixty-three different courses in various forms of mind-power. They would not be so popular if they achieved no results at all."

From Psychic Self-Defence, by Dion Fortune, 1930

I believe that psychic attacks, of the kind described by Dion Fortune a century ago (together with suggestions for defeating them) are nowadays much more common and much more effective. 

The reason is that materialism - the absolute exclusion of the "Psychic" or Spirit World from all mainstream public discourse, is much more complete than it was in Dion Fortune's day; and this renders people wide-open and helpless in the face of those who employ these spiritual methods of mental manipulation for selfish and evil ends. 

This explains why mainstream Christians are equally helpless against such manipulations - because the major churches have also excluded participation in the Spirit World as a valid goal - regarding this realm as necessarily evil, and therefore suppressing awareness of its reality and power. Christians mostly dwell in a world just as devoid of spiritual beings, as that of atheists.  

What this means is that normal, common-sensical, ordinary people - who pride themselves on being "down to earth" and realistic; are typically utterly convinced by whatever incoherent and evil-intending beliefs that are currently emanating from politicians, officialdom, corporations, the mass media and "celebrities". 

This is why so many people conform their lives and religions to such manipulations - why they have been so easily, repeatedly and fully hoodwinked into intense yet fluctuating and contradictory mass attitudes (including fear, resentment, self-hatred, promiscuous abstract altruism, and strategic self-destruction) - and why they ignore and deny what is being-done to them.   

The answer to endemic mental manipulations via the Spirit World, includes acknowledging the reality of Spirit World, and then becoming aware of it. 

And including the possibility of Psychic attack as among the valid possibilities that affect ourselves and the world. 

**

NOTE: Psychic attacks emanate from the Spirit World - which is occult/ hidden, and immaterial; but needs to be distinguished from the Spiritual War of this mortal life that relates to the Divine World. 

The Spiritual War is about eternal salvation and damnation, and evil need to be invited-in (to some extent). But Psychic attacks come from within this mortal world; and are largely to do with earthly manipulations and shorter-term motivations such as power, sex, greed, spitefulness etc. 

I am no kind of expert on Psychic defence; beyond recognizing that By Far the most important aspect is to recognize that one really-is being-attacked. 

The pathetic vulnerability of the mass of mainstream modern people stems principally from their refusal to acknowledge even the possibility of Psychic attack - and then an extreme absence of awareness of its likely sources, and probable intentions. 

The nature of Grey (neither Black nor White) Magic according to Dion Fortune - and a peril of asking God for 'blessings' etc.

From Applied Magic, by Dion Fortune 

One cannot divide magic into white and black by a clear-cut dividing line; there is what may be described as grey magic, which people embark upon out of ignorance or love of sensation. 

One must therefore recognize the grey variety, of which there is a great deal more in the world than either the white or the black; but we must also say this of it; that while white is white, it is only a question of degree for grey to shade into black. 

There is one acid test which can be applied to every variety of operation— in white magic the operation is always designed and carried out with due regard to cosmic law; any operation which takes no account of cosmic law but goes its own way regardless of what the spiritual principles of the matter may be, can be classified as grey; and any operation which deliberately defies cosmic law can be classified as black. 

Let us make this clear by examples. Some people, finding the mental diet of modem life deficient in spiritual vitamins, turn to the inspiration of the ancient pagan gods. This is not [necessarily] black magic...  It is, in fact, a very useful corrective medicine for the modem mind. It is one, moreover, that we take in constant small doses without knowing it, because so much of art and poetry draws its inspiration from the classics...

On the other hand, indiscriminate dabbling in seances, fortune-telling psychism, and suchlike is classified as grey under our definition, because it takes no account of anything save personal desires, and never asks itself what may be the spiritual quality of what it is doing. 

No obvious evil being immediately forthcoming, and in fact a plentiful amount of specious piousness being very much in evidence - a form of piousness wherein God is called upon to bless what is being done, but is never asked whether it is according to His will. 

It is taken for granted that what is afoot is a harmless entertainment, or even actively edifying as tending to raise the mind above materialism, thus reinforcing faith; the after-effects are far-reaching and though they may not necessarily involve moral deterioration in persons of naturally wholesome character... they do cause a marked deterioration in the quality of the mind, and especially of the capacity for logic and judgment. 

Any form of promiscuous psychic or supernormal dabbling is definitely undesirable, in my opinion, and unfits the person who indulges in it for serious work.

**

Comment: The above strike me as wise words, from an often-wise (and always good hearted) esoteric Christian of the early 20th century. 

The principle of 'grey' activity can be applied beyond her theme of formal or ritual 'magic' (which has, anyway, become much less effective and essentially obsolete by now, as a path of Christian living). 

In particular; I was struck by her distinction between the pseudo-spirituality of asking God to bless what one has already-decided to do; in contrast with asking God whether or not it should be done in the first place. 

This could be extended very generally, in terms of prayer. In my experience of intercessory prayers at church, where the congregation is asked to pray for something or another (usually relief of suffering, or cessation of some conflict - typically an item drawn from mass media sources, and interpretations).

Yet the choice of subject often prejudges that such an outcome would (in that particular instance) be in accordance with God's will - when that may well not be the case. 

And - in retrospect - the same also applies to many of my own private prayers. 

Something well worth thinking-about.

An area of genuine supremacy of Girl Geniuses - spiritualist mediums and psychics of the past two centuries

Genius is much commoner in men than women. 

Indeed, in Charles Murray's historical survey of Human Accomplishment; English literature was the only one of the subjects surveyed in which women made a strong showing. 

And, even there, women did not feature among the very highest literary geniuses such as Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe. 

But there is one neglected but culturally highly significant area in which it seems as if women geniuses have been supreme, in terms of ability and influence; and that is as spiritualist mediums and psychics. 

1. The Fox Sisters, who from 1848 were the origin of Spiritualism, which became a global phenomenon for a century, and still persists (there is a spiritualist church within ten minutes walk of where I write).  

2. Madam HP Blavatsky - the founder of Theosophy; whose international influence is so vast as to be difficult to calculate and of extraordinary breadth. For instance; much of Rudolf Steiner's vast oeuvre derives from Theosophy; and it was the Theosophical Society in London that converted a secular-minded Gandhi to Hinduism. 

3. Mary Baker Eddy founded Christian Science, which grew very fast and went all around the world in a couple of generations to become extremely widespread at its peak - and, although much diminished, it still continues. (There is a Christian Science Reading Room about a mile from here.) 

4. Ellen G White was the prophetess whose insights underpinned the Seventh Day Adventist church - global in reach and apparently still growing, especially in the third world.  

5. Dion Fortune - who was the leading Christian magical occultist of the twentieth century. Her teaching and Fraternity of the Inner Light gave rise to multiple other major magicians and magical societies. Nowadays DF's influence appears to be growing in New Age and Neo-Pagan media.  

These five women (to which some others could be added) constitute a pretty formidable tally in a short space of time.

And the contributions of these women was apparently of a fundamental and foundational (rather than derivative) nature. 

This also fits with the oft-noticed fact (across several religions and churches) that women are intrinsically more often naturally psychic and mediumistic; and can also (like Dion Fortune, who was not naturally a medium) become psychic by effort and training. 

It is no coincidence that the (currently) best known, most beloved, English Christian mystic is Lady Julian of Norwich. 

Although genius is always rare, and in most cultures for most of the time (including our own, now) essentially absent; there are, indeed, solid psychological reasons (e.g. innate personality and intelligence) why genius is overall much more often to be found in men.   

Despite which, over the past half century, it has become a rather dodgy academic-journalistic pastime to manufacture and fake women-"geniuses" in science and the arts (and culture more generally). 

This has been attempted even in several fields in which there are zero women of the first, or even second, rank (such as mathematics, and the composition of classical music). 

Meanwhile, there has been this area in which women really do excel; but which has been ignored!

...Albeit for fairly obvious reasons; in that their activities seem fake, mad, or wicked both to the outgoing Christian traditionalists and the incoming Leftist materialists. 

Nonetheless, if evaluated by the normal standards of our culture; these womens' achievements clearly emerge as both socially significant and distinctively creative - and can then be recognized as products of genius.

  

An example of specific divine guidance in my life

I do not like blogging about my own spiritual experiences; partly from reticence and partly because spiritual guidance is designed for the benefit of the recipient not as general teaching. 

Furthermore, each experience of personal miracles, or of the guidance of the Holy Ghost, has been so different in its specifics; that the major lesson for me has been that there is no method for such matters. 

(Indeed, to teach or assume generic methods for the Christian life, or to convert personal mystical experiences into advice, seem likely to do more harm than good.) 

On the other hand; it may somewhat encouraging for other people to know that a long-term and deep personal question for which I sought a response for some years did, in the end, receive an answer - albeit slowly and by a very indirect and not-replicable route.

I am not going to discuss the answer I was given; but I will describe something of the strange and unexpected way that an answer was communicated to me - in such a way that the process got past my fundamental misunderstandings and false pre-conceptions, and convinced me intuitively of its validity. 

I have often observed that when a question does not get an answer from divine sources; this is almost always because the question is ill-formed, and contains fundamentally wrong assumptions. These are why God cannot answer us - despite His vast resources. 

Furthermore; we are (nearly always) looking for the wrong kind of answer - and often something which is self-gratifying, or perhaps fits with false ideas of our own nature and destiny. 

This may explain why I was not able to get an answer of value or validity to the question oft what I ought to be doing in my life. I had too many fantasies and day-dreams that blocked my understanding. 

So, God's problem, in trying to help me, was to work past a great mass of such preconceptions, false understandings, wrong notions of the kind of thing I sought; and the tendency to ignore the true answer if given me straightforwardly, because the simple truth 'wasn't what I wanted to hear'... 

The only positive thing I was able to do to assist the process was to maintain my intent to find an answer over a period of years. I didn't give up. 

Admittedly I wasted considerable time, money and effort on dozens of false leads; but I kept plugging away - and followed hunches. 

What proved essential in the end; I let myself pursue lines of enquiry that had some kind of here-and-now interest to me; even when these appeared 'rationally' to be dead-ends, or trivial. 

Thus I have recently been re-reading around the subject of Christian 'ceremonial magic' - in particular the books of Gareth Knight and Dion Fortune, who I regard as admirable people. But I had already read these authors in the past couple of years, and had become clear in my mind that such a ritual and symbol, organized, approach to Christian living was now obsolete: it simply does not work anymore. 

I have also been re-reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, and focused on the episode when Childermass uses his 'Cards of Marseilles' (i.e. Tarot cards) to tell the fortune of Vinculus, and later to discern dishonesty and theft by Lascelles. 

Such reading led me to re-watch some DVDs of a nostalgic children's TV series from the early 1970s called Ace of Wands; which featured the hero 'Tarot' - a professional stage magician who also had some psychic powers such as telepathy, remote visualization and telekinesis. 

Having enjoyed this; I then got-out my Rider-Waite Tarot Card pack, which had featured in the TV programme; and looked-through some of its pictures.

Having replaced the cards, I absent-mindedly attempted to place it on a table; when the pack accidentally fell to the ground, and two cards jumped-out - and lay face down on the floor.  

It then came to my mind that these two cards would answer my question about what to do in my life.

I immediately thought that this was stupid, because (no matter how valid the process) I would always read-into the cards whatever answer I wanted: in other words, I would fool myself, and therefore the exercise would be useless. 

I don't believe in fortune telling; I don't believe that divination works (nowadays - although it did work in ancient times - up to the early years of the Roman Empire); and I certainly was not seeking 'guidance from the cards'.  

Nonetheless, I picked-up the cards one by one; and immediately recognized that the first card depicted myself and my condition: not as I fondly imagined myself, but as I actually was. 

This came as a shock, and I turned over the second card with some curiosity. 

The second card was one of the Greater Trumps, and I did not know its (supposed) meaning; so I looked it up in the leaflet provided - all the while thinking that it would be futile, because the descriptions are (like newspaper horoscopes) always so vague and ambiguous that they cannot possibly be sufficiently specific to serve as clear guidance for life...  

I read the sentence describing what the card meant, then - after a couple of seconds of dawning recognition - I realized that this was exactly the answer I needed and it was true. 

The generic phrases each and all had specific relevance to my condition.

The answer was obvious, banal, simple - and it was clearly the truth; yet I had missed it and missed it, for a very long time. 

I had to be set-up for this knowledge, in the right frame of mind and expectation; and I had to be surprised by the answer. 

What I think can be learned from the above is that if we persist in seeking an answer to an important question; then God can and will find a way to get that answer to us; and will prepare us to receive that answer. 

And God can do this even when we are (as I was) asking almost exactly the opposite question to the one we needed to ask; and when the mind is clouded and confused by innumerable wrong notions and hopes. 

Therefore; don't give up, and be prepared to follow where inner promptings indicate - even when these are pointing in apparently trivial or useless directions. 

And I think it is worthwhile to recall that the answer will be personal, very exactly tailored to you as an individual and your circumstances.

Also; the method by which God works to deliver the answer will be... Whatever does the job - and that method, too, will be one-off, unique - hence completely unpredictable.  

Which is exactly what is necessary. 

A comment for GunnerQ on "esotericism"

I cannot induce GunnerQ's Substack blog to accept an extended comment on his recent posting; so I shall reproduce it here:

@GQ - 

You seem to be working something out at present, using over-inclusive and scattergun principles and arguments that (I predict!) you will discover fail to discriminate between what you value/ want to preserve and what you (IMO rightly) abhor and wish to exclude. 

Thus, I think you are painting yourself into a corner; as you will realize sooner or later! 

And I am confident you Will realize this, since you are clearly honest and well-motivated. Nonetheless, speaking from experience, this "painting oneself into a corner" is sometimes the best way to learn - learn deeply, that is. 

I painted myself into a very terrible corner in the early 2000s (eg in my book The Modernization Imperative) but it was, apparently, necessary for me to plumb materialism to the very dregs before I could recognize its innate nihilism - and could choose to become a Christian. 

More generally, that has been the usual way for me to learn - throw everything in, trying to make something work, and only when it has collapsed (collapsed, that is, from my POV) will I abandon it. 

Anyway; I certainly agree that there is a kind of black magic cult near the top level of totalitarian control in the world - mostly western world. This is very important to recognize. I've written about this variously: https://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/search?q=steiner+brotherhoods. 

But you notice that these insights came from Rudolf Steiner, who himself had an esoteric (albeit not secret) society - and, IMO, one with not a few undesirable aspects. 

(Plus, ninety-something percent of what Steiner wrote is, so far as I can tell from the large but minority sample of his writings I have read, completely - and sometimes perversely - wrong!) 

My point is that there is (I have found, and continue to find) a good deal to be gained from reading Steiner and other occultists who are on the Christian side, the side of Good (Dion Fortune, Gareth Knight) - while avoiding, completely - or almost so, those on the dark side, the Left Hand path. Indeed, these are some of only a handful of authors I would regard as personal mentors, to a greater (Steiner) or lesser (DF and GK) extent. 

Reading, as always, must be with discernment - because (speaking personally) there is nobody, not one single individual*, in the whole world, past or present, whose core views I accept in toto - and typically I reject (later, if not sooner) most of what anybody writes. 

In conclusion, occultism and esoteric organization is a method, not a goal; a means not an end; and well-motivated and real Christians may (or may not) choose to engage with esoteric/ occult material and methods according to preference. 

As always, motivation is primary, and discernment is necessary - because discernment is just another name for taking the fullest possible personal responsibility for our spiritual life. 

Esoteric/ occult activity is neither more, nor less, dangerous than the far more pervasive and equally-deadly literalism/ Pharisee-ism and institution-worship/ obedience; to which too many Traditionalist Christians are not just prone but explicitly dedicated.  

*(Not even the Fourth Gospel, that greatest of all Christian texts... greatest of All texts, do I accept in its entirety - because I'm sure there are errors and later alien additions - even in the divinely-inspired "King James" translation.)

A History of White Magic by Gareth Knight (1978)

The prolific author Gareth Knight (a pen name of Basil Wilby) died recently at the age of 91; and this was one of his earlier books. I found it very enjoyable, and spiritually stimulating. 

Knight was himself a Christian ritual magician (initiated in The Society of Inner Light - which was founded by Dion Fortune; and his Christianity is foundational to the argument of this book. It takes a very broad view of 'magic' to include imagination generally, the development of human consciousness; and is indeed a history of these matters from a Romantic perspective. 

Structurally, the book is woven around summaries of a very large number of authors and religious/ spiritual movements across a span of history from the ancient Hebrews and Greeks; through the transformative coming of Christianity, the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and the 18th and 19th centuries; right up to some significant books of the middle 1970s such as Robert M Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. 

Throughout, and particularly in the closing chapters, Knight makes thoughtful analyses and commentaries, in pursuit of a thesis concerning the proper and desirable nature of Good/ White/ Christian magic - and the pitfalls of other kinds. 

In this respect, AHOWM reminded me of Colin Wilson's Outsider series, and his books on the Occult/ Mysteries theme. Anyone who likes Wilson's style of writing philosophy, will probably enjoy this in a similar fashion.  

As I have said elsewhere, reflecting on Knight's and other accounts, I think that ritual magic had been a valid mode of Christian life from the late 19th century and up to the middle of the 20th - but that from around the 1980s it began to cease to 'work'; in a fashion that parallels (and ultimately has the same causes as) the decline in all forms of positive and desirable groups and institutions (including the churches). 

I mean that the rituals of White Magic seemed to lose objective efficacy, and became instead essentially psychological (therapeutic, or creative-stimulating) in nature - and often explicitly so. The ability of magicians to work formally, and reliably, in institutional groups, and by organizational rules, began to dwindle considerably. 

In his later life, it seems that Knight's 'magical' practice became something ever-more individual, improvisatory, and like meditation - when compared with the formal rituals of his early training. 

As such, this history of magic is a fascinating instance of the 'evolution of consciousness', the innate development of Man's thinking and relationship with the divine - as described by Owen Barfield - who gets a single mention here for Saving the Appearances. 

Indeed, Gareth Knight's The History of White Magic could be regarded as one man's account of the genealogy of Romantic Christianity. 

Note: Later Knight came to know Barfield personally, and wrote insightfully about his ideas in The Magical World of the Inklings (1990, 2010.) 

Ritual-Ceremonial Magic is nowadays (yet) another externally-imposed and institutional belief-set - hence probably net-evil

I continue to be intrigued by 'ritual' or 'ceremonial' magic, which in the UK was,  I believe, often (in the practice of such as Dion Fortune and Gareth Knight) a valid means of Christian living - up into the middle 20th century. 

But (I think) is nowadays insufficiently-effective (that is; insufficient to resist the strategic evils of our society and civilization) - or net-malign an influence (i.e. when it has 'converged' with the values of globalist-media-totalitarianism). 

This is because ritual magic was (it seems) rooted in the learning and repeated practice of directed imagination. Initiates were trained by being told what to do, and what to think about or imagine: what to visualize and to feel - while doing prescribed rituals or exercises. 

And the rituals or exercises were repeated multiple times; so that performing them either in real life, or in imagination, would lead to these inner sensory and emotional outcomes. At the end of such training, initiates were able to control their own responses to rituals, symbols, narratives ("path-workings") so as to experience them intensely. 

Beyond this, magic works by making 'contacts' with spiritual beings; and these beings were traditionally specifically named and sought - although in later years there was also the possibility of seeking a contact, making contact, and then (perhaps) finding out who that was (to a greater or lesser degree). (By this stage, Magic had begun to overlap substantially with New Age "channeling", in its various manifestations.) 

The purpose of these spirit contacts was perhaps instructional - intended to get information from the contacts; and partly the actual process of interaction with a contact may itself provide intense experiences of consciousness.  

So, for its adherents, magic could provide information about the nature and functioning of the world; and enable the initiate to have experiences of more intense consciousness - imaginations that are visual, auditory or via any other perceptual sense; and accompanied by strong emotions. 

Consequently, the motivational power of a magical kind of Christianity could be enhanced - in directions that depended upon the content of material that was being inculcated, top-down; by the magical society or individual leader.  

This type of Magical practice recognizes that Modern Man can and does (unavoidably) 'make his experienced-reality'; which is the 'reality' he knows and lives-by. Magic responds to this, by attempting to train people to make a more-or-less standard particular and desired reality for the members of a particular magical group. 

In other words; reality is given to magical adherents in a top-down fashion, analogous to the situation ins a traditional church. 

And this is exactly why I believe that ritual/ ceremonial magic has become essentially obsolete. 

Almost all institutions and formal groups have nowadays become converged with the secular-leftist materialism and its Litmus Test issues via which this agenda-of-evil is being pursued throughout Western civilization, and the places and people influenced by it. 

Since organizations are compulsorily politicized by bureaucratic means and through relentless mass-social media pressure (and usually politicized willingly, enthusiastically; since this evil corruption is so widespread among the masses); then this will affect more and more of the activities of ritual magic - the content of which is more and more leftist hence evil. 

In other words; ritual-ceremonial magic is susceptible to exactly the form of corruption that are the "Christian" churches; and for the same reasons. 

Men make their own experienced-reality - but the only true reality corresponds with that of God's creation. All others oppose created-reality, and lead away from resurrection to eternal Heavenly life. They lead, indeed; to self-chosen, self-made, self-imprisoning hells - of various kinds. 

I believe that already and increasingly; all forms of top-down influence are net-evil (that is, they contain some Good, because all that is created contains some Good - but overall and by motivation they are evil); that is. they are encouraging and enforcing one or many of the false realities in opposition to divine creation. 

As of 2023, these top-down experienced-realities are not just destructive of truth and Goodness; but often invert real values: therefore the methods of ritual magic, insofar as they retain effect, will tend to be dishonest and enforcing of lies; will tend to support and promote sin; will call ugliness beauty and reject the truly-beautiful as being ugly and oppressive.  

My conclusion is that here-and-now we cannot trust the content or motivations of any external sources - including magical traditions or societies; because they will very probably, implicitly if not explicitly, be training us in ways-of-being that net-oppose divine creation and serve the powers of evil.  

Group-ish and top-down (e.g. initiatory) practices that were possible, effective and overall Good just a century ago, or eve more recently; now almost always are the opposite; and are either merely ineffective or feeble, or else their power is harnessed against the divine and transcendental values. 

Like it or not; we are forced back upon our own powers of discernment; and the taking of active personal responsibility for our beliefs and practices.

And - as part of this - a recognition that our defense against corruption and possibility of pursuing Good is almost always by becoming aware-of, and actively-choosing-of, much that used to be unconscious, passive, taken for granted, taken on trust. 

Gareth Knight (reigning Greatest Living Englishman) has died

I have just heard that Gareth Knight - real name Basil Wilby - died on 1 March of this year at the ripe old age of ninety-one. 

Knight was a continuation of the 'pantheon' of Romantic Christian writers - and was for me, after the death of Geoffrey Ashe, a strong candidate for Greatest Living Englishman; albeit holding that title only for a few weeks... 

And now that GK has left this mortal life, there are no obvious candidates to take over the role. 

I have written about his work several times on this blog; and William Wildblood wrote about his books on Albion Awakening. GK was a ritual magic practitioner, scholar and author - probably the most known and respected 'magician' in the British Isles. 

(Despite or because of which; his passing seems to have gone unremarked in the mainstream mass media.) 

William and I agree that Experience of the Inner Worlds is probably the best of his many worthwhile and enjoyable books. Others I especially liked included his autobiography I called it magic, and The magical world of the Inklings; also his books about Dion Fortune (to whom he was probably the spiritual successor); these served to introduce me to the life and work of this brilliant and appealing woman-genius. 

Knight convinced me of two things. 

First; by his life, writings and example; that magic could be a valid path of Romantic Christianity; albeit that the roots in Christianity seem substantially to have disappeared from contemporary magical practitioners - and indeed a hostility is more evident. 

(Like all institutions over the past century, the world of ritual magic practitioners has by-now 'converged', and substantially assimilated to (subordinated to) leftist politics.) 

Secondly; that the power of ritual magic dwindled through the twentieth century. 

Magic began as practiced by highly organized and hierarchical societies, practicing formal rituals that reliably producing highly objective-seeming results; and being almost a vocation (like a priesthood). But later, incrementally, magic became more improvisatory, more subjective; and more dependent on charisma, surprise, shock, even trangressions; in effect more like a dramatic pageant, a 'happening' or avant garde performance... and the effects more psychological and interpersonal.  

Therefore my conclusion, overall, is that magic was, but is no longer, a possible and effectual spiritual path for Christians. 

This because of the waning objective power of ritual, symbol, allegory, disciplined mental-training etc; but also because of the corruption of institutions and the consequent necessity (and waxing power) of individual human consciousness - of 'primary thinking' - which is free, generative, creative and more fundamental than externally, or socially, defined structures.  

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. 

Gareth Knight binge

Regular readers will know that when I re/discover an author to my liking, I tend serially to binge on their work; including any biographical material, and critical evaluations, where available.

A few months ago this happened with Philip K Dick, and currently I am reading Gareth Knight. I began by re-reading his book on the Inklings (which I already owned) then went on to another half dozen or so; including his autobiography and selected letters.

Gareth Knight is the pen-name of Basil Wilby; and he is probably the leading expert on the broad subject of 'magic' - including ritual and symbolic magic, such as the work of Dion Fortune, the Qabalah, Alchemy, the Tarot and the like. He is (or was - he is ninety now) a practising magician; and has been a member of and led several groups; run courses, and published magazines - along with a several dozen books.

Knight is a Christian (Church of England), and comes across as a thoroughly likeable and decent person; so I would add him into my 'lineage' of Romantic Christianity.  

Of his many books; the ones I would recommend to readers of this blog interested in giving him a try, would be: The Magical World of the Inklings (for a gentle introduction) and Experience of the Inner Worlds to get a stronger and deeper impression of Knights special contribution to Romantic Christianity.

"Contacts" seem to be the potential basis of experiential understanding; as well as participation in the world of spirit

For the past couple of years I have been reading considerably about what Dion Fortune and Gareth Knight (and other ritual magicians of their kind) call "contacts" - or sometimes "Masters". The experience is of individual communication, or sharing of consciousness, with a spiritual being. 

The phenomenon seems various in its details, and may occur in a full trance (i.e. when the human becomes unconscious, and speaks or writes without awareness of what is being communicated). Or it may happen in more alert trance states, with awareness of what is going-on. This is apparently broadly the same as "channelling" (i.e. what is channelled, is "a contact"). 

And contacts seem to underlie, and blend-with by degrees, much commoner and more normal phenomena such as an intense fascination, empathy, communion with some not-present personage; who might be alive or dead, real-life or fictional. 

Contact may be sensory (in the form of spoken words or conversation (clairaudience), of visual (clairvoyance - perhaps of visions, symbols, written words); or non-sensory - as what I call "direct knowing". 

What seems to be the essential common factor is experienced person-to-person (or person-to-being) contact. 

Having read quite widely on this subject, it has become clear that (contrary to common claims, and despite that contacts are often sought purposively as a path to knowledge and guidance) such contacts are not necessarily, indeed only seldom, the basis for accurate or valid information. 

This is obvious from the apparent wrongness of much specific (and indeed abstract and generalized) information of this kind; but it must be true from the wide range of contradictory information cited between different (but apparently honest and competent) people; and the same person at different times. 

So I have concluded that contacts ought Not to be regarded as a pathway to factual or conceptual knowledge or true guidance. 

On the other hand; I have concluded that experience of contacts are not only of potentially primary personal significance; but are probably necessary to the development of true knowledge. 

In other words, unless we experience a phenomenon that could be characterized as a contact, we shall never really understand anything. 

I concluded this from examining my own work in science and literature, as well as theology, philosophy, and mystical religious experience. Even from when I was an atheist - from more than a decade before I was a theist, or a Christian; I never really understood the meanings of things until I had had this kind of contact experience. 

For instance, if I was working on theoretical science; it was all just a matter of "comparing models" - an activity that had no end, and brought no sense of validity - until I had reached an empathic contact with those scientists (living or dead) whose work I was critiquing or using; and the same applied when I had developed a theory that I regarded as valid. 

Truth needed to be "checked" by a very inner process, much as I later called heart-thinking; and until a proposition had passed this "test" I was never confident of it. 

True knowing needs to be known in the heart, and no amount of head-knowing (logic and "facts") can replace this requirement.  

Something closely analogous seems to be at work when I am trying to understand a writer. Unless and until I can attain an inward sense of contact and communion with that person; then I never really feel I know what they are saying. 

For instance; it took me about a decade before I "got" Owen Barfield, and felt that I really understood what he was thinking and asserting - and this understanding came as a consequence of getting onto his wavelength by a kind of sympathetic resonance, by thinking "with" him as I read his words or contemplated his writings. 

Much the same applied with William Arkle; I had to immerse into his writings for some years before, quite suddenly, I "contacted" his spirit and had the basis for understanding. 

But with other authors - such as ST Coleridge - I have never attained this sense of contact, therefore I have never (so far) been confident of understanding him: it is all second-hand, hearsay, "models" of what he was doing. 

It is certainly Not the case that contact leads to correct understanding. Contact with Barfield and Arkle was just the basis for understanding them. I needed to study, read, re-read, and think hard. 

So having experienced "contact" should Not be used as a "proof" that one's understanding is correct. 

But without that contact, there never would have been genuine understanding.

Furthermore, once one has attained contact, and followed it with serious study; one can recognize when others have not attained contact; and are merely parroting and playing-with second-hand summaries and models.  

Contact therefore seems to be necessary but not sufficient to knowing. 

Contact is also perhaps one of the commonest and most readily available modes of direct spiritual experience: a kind-of evidence of the reality of the spirit world.  

And this is just how things would be expected, in an animated, living reality - in this created universe ultimately composed of Beings in relationships. 

In sum; I conclude that he ways that contacts are usually regarded, seem to be mistaken. It is usually an error to seek contacts as a source of factual information. 

However, contacts - properly regarded - can be an experience of the living world of spirits, an active participation a world of conscious Beings: recognition of a relational world, in which we are never alone. 

And a way of inhabiting a world where we can truly understand purposes and meanings - at least to the extent of our individual cognitive capacities, biases, defects and particular perspectives.

All this depends on our regarding it as metaphysically possible - that is, our fundamental assumptions need to allow for such potential: we need to realize that this fits how reality is structured and operates. 

Gareth Knight - Romantic Christian

In 2011, Gareth Knight (1939-2022) published an autobiography titled I call it Magic which is easy and enjoyable to read on the surface; yet contains several deeper layers of implied content that have only revealed themselves on re-reading.

Of particular interest was his account of the transformation in his own 'magical life' throughout his adult life; especially the changes in what he 'called' magic, the means by which he reached the state of enchantment or poetry, and the actual content of these magical-states. 

Knight began as a formal ritual magician, ascending through the prolonged training and initiatory steps of the Society of the Inner Light (founded a generation earlier, as a Christian organization, by Dion Fortune); he went on to found his own ritual magic group - on similar, though looser, lines; then to 'staging' much larger annual weekend events (almost 'happenings') at an anthroposophical centre called Hawkwood. 

By Knight's own account, in the 1970s to the early 1980s, these weekends attained a very powerful level of magical activity among the participants (who had been trained in the requisite methods of concentration and visualization). He then stopped doing this, and moved on to less formal and more improvisatory styles of magic either alone, with his wife and daughter, or in small and private groups. 

After the turn of the millennium his magic practice had changed further. In December of 2004 he was invited back to the Hawkwood weekend; which had changed considerably over the previous couple of decades (the following quotations are from Chapter 31 of I called it Magic) :

The occasion was a jolly romp, with the place filled to capacity, and a rich variety of activity. [But] Power was not ramped up to the degree that it had been in the early Hawkwood days...   

In other words, the experience was less-strongly magical, less enchanted than it had been. In other words; this corresponds to my observations on the declining power of symbolism and ritual through the late 20th century.  

Knight does not draw attention to the meaning of these changes for his inner life; but describes how in fact his practices changed - in the direction of becoming more individual, personally based, and exploratory (rather than relying-on an established and quasi-objective system of symbols, rituals, and group activity). 

Rooted in his study of French language and literature (in which subject he did a degree in later life); Knight embarked on an engagement with the medieval French Arthurian poet Chretien de Troyes:

I took upon myself the task of going through each of Chretien's romances as if both he and I were present, travelling through the whole scenario from start to finish as a kind of directed visualization, and writing it all down...

It then filtered into my head the realization that much that I had witnessed in this was was not chivalrous knights going to the aid of damsels in distress but accounts of their initiation into fairyland - for there was a strong case for seeing the principal female characters as faery rather than human. 

This led on to what Knight termed faery 'contacts' - which then led to writing several books deriving from these contacts. What this meant he explains further: 

It dealt in imagery but with a philosophical intent, yet a wisdom expressed more through the medium of a story than by intellectual definitions. To make the contact it was necessary to build a scenario [i.e. in imagination] something like a questing knight discovering a castle in a particular symbolic shape, and then entering into it... with a ... direct feeling of relationship with the fabric of the building itself. 

After further description of his imagined but real-seeming experiences; Knight elaborates the resulting new and deeper engagement with nature:

This kind of thing was at a different level from local countryside experiences where contact was virtually devoid of intellect but impacted more on the emotional and etheric levels... Along with contacts... came a greater sense of presence and communion with the world of nature, and particularly trees...

It may well be that experience and wisdom of this nature comes with age, which is [an] aspect of the Merlin and Nimue story... But there is no real need to await one's dotage for a realization of these things.

  

What Gareth Knight seems to me to be describing here, is a kind of recapitulation of Rudolf Steiner and Owen Barfield's scheme of the development of consciousness. The ritual magic was the Intellectual Soul era, characteristic of classical and medieval culture. 

Contact bears some relationship to 'channeling' of spiritual Beings - which he also did for example in a channeled series of direct communication (much like taking dictation) of 1993, published as The Abbey Papers. 

But 'contact' comes across to me as much more of a two-way interaction between himself and a spiritual Being - and not necessarily in words, nor in images - i.e. more direct than language- or symbol-mediated. 

Knight then moved towards what sound very much like Final Participation - which is something like a recapitulation in conscious thinking of what was a much more passive and unconscious in the spontaneous animistic Original Participation of early childhood and tribal Man. 

Animistic, because it recognizes the world as consisting of living, conscious Beings with which one may have relationships and communication. Knight also seems to be moving towards a communication less based on perceptions and visions, and more a matter of what I have called Direct Knowing: that is direct, wordless and imageless communication in thinking. 

In other words, a direct communion between Beings, such that the thinking of one is participated-in by the thinking of another. 

Once Gareth Knight had reached this kind of 'magic' I think he has largely left-behind the formal and institutional roots of his practice, and indeed its 'objective' aspects, where experiences were shared via a common language and symbolism that could be relied-upon to evoke the same inner states in its participants.

It seems he has - in practice, if not in terms of theorization - fully Romantic Christian; in that he takes an inner, intuitive and personal responsibility for whatever 'methods' he uses to attain magical states of mind (within the over-arching and primary Christian metaphysical framework).   

Knight puts this change down to his own personal development, experiences, expediency, and ageing - but such is the generality of such a development that I interpret it as driven by inner and divinely-destined changes in the human consciousness of Western Man. 

What all this seems to mean is that (here and now) we cannot rely upon external and institutional forms of spirituality to attain 'participation' in the world; and the language of 'objective' communication of spiritual experiences has weakening and withered. 

Yet, on the positive side, we can develop distinctive (perhaps unique) personal 'aids' and methods (i.e. 'contacts' occurring inside thinking, rather than as external 'events), that will achieve the participation which is natural, good, and divinely-intended. 

Also, that strong forms of achieved participation are likely to be more animistic and personal - engagement with particular Beings - than the abstract forms of earlier symbolism. 

     

Whether Gareth Knight would have agreed with my interpretation of his life and development is perhaps doubtful... 

It does rather involve a cutting-off of the branch upon which his life's work rested: that is, the general validity of some particular kinds of ritual, symbols, group-activity; and the communication of these in abstract and written forms, and by speech. 

But his desire to use more narrative story-like communications; his primary mode of magic in later life being a personal, inter-Being and two-way 'contact'; and the continually-evolving nature of the subject matter and formal techniques of his magic - all suggest that there was exactly such an evolution; and that Gareth Knight's life ended with him being implicitly a genuine and fully-realized Romantic Christian. 

The problem with magical 'contacts' (and, by contrast, how simple intuitions can be valid)

Two twentieth century Christian ritual magicians I like as people and whose work is valuable are Dion Fortune and Gareth Knight. Having said this; I regard them both as of-their-time, and their methods as no longer effective or valid.  

Both worked (partly) via what they termed 'contacts' - that is, spiritual beings with whom they made contact and who provided instruction, advice and conversation - using language. Such contacts were achieved by persons of suitable ability and motives, and also as the culmination of a long period of mental training that encompassed concentration and visualization. 

(I regard such magical contacts as a more active and conscious form of the varieties channeling and automatic  writing that have been a part of New Age spirituality, generally.) 

While I acknowledge that such contacts had some valuable effects and consequences up to the later parts of the twentieth century; I believe they are intrinsically prone to error - and these errors are amplified when the results are transmitted to a wider audience. 

Even assuming that the magician is well-motivated, that the spiritual contact is genuine, and that the spirit contacted is of a good and competent nature; then there are nonetheless two layers of problems about the use of language in these communications. 

Contacts work by a double-translation. In the first place; the spirit must translate from his thinking into words - in the second place the magician must understand the words, and translate into his own understanding. Thus thinking into words, then words back to thinking - before the recipient can know what is being communicated.

And the training of magicians is double-edged; because the capacity to concentrate and visualize entail a mental discipline that tends to perpetuate any distortions or errors in the magician. In particular; when the magician has not fully formulated his questions, or asks an unanswerable question (because the question contains false assumptions) - then there will nonetheless an answer will be generated - because that is how the training has made things. 

So the recurrent problem with magical contacts seems to be that of generating too-precise answers to too many and poorly formulated questions.   

 **

By contrast, what I mean by intuitions operate in a wordless sense, without language. As I have written before; almost everything hinges on the 'question' which needs to be fully, clearly and validly understood. 

It may take someone a long time to become clear about what exactly it is that he needs to know. The question needs to be clarified to the point of being wordlessly grasped as a whole and held in mind. And motivations need to be clarified - because only genuinely Christian motivations will lead to Christianly-valid intuitions. 

In practice such questions seek equally simple - binary-type - answers such as Yes-No, True-False, Good-Evil.  

And in practice - as soon as the question has been clearly and simply known - the 'intuitive' answer is immediately forthcoming. 

No media, language, technologies or symbols are involved; therefore no training in concentration, visualization, meditation etc is needed - indeed such training will do more harm than good insofar as it has become an unconscious habit. 

And any attempt to explain the reasons for the intuitive understanding will therefore necessarily misrepresent the situation - and tend to reduce the solid assurance of the intuition. Because as soon as the intuition has been reduced to words, it will be distorted and incompletely represented; and these wrong reasons may then become a target for rationalistic-public critique such that the knowledge is no longer intuitive. 

Therefore true intuitions are private, clear and simple; and cannot be captured in language, nor can their intuitive nature be communicated. In a sense, each is a personal miracle that sustains faith, and potentially guides thought and conduct.  

"The hand follows the eye" - To navigate life, we need to look where we are going

The only way to talk with the subconscious mind is through the pictorial imagination, because it has a very archaic mode of mentation that developed before speech had been thought of. It is unresponsive to logic, or argument, or appeals to its better nature. But show it a picture, and it understands and is only too ready to cooperate - now that it knows what is required of it. 

This is an exemplification of the well known maxim that the hand follows the eye.

If you look over the hedge when driving a car, you will end up in the ditch because, all unconsciously, you will steer in the direction in which you are looking. 

The novice keeps his eye on the kerb in order to avoid running into it, and follows St Paul's example in doing the thing he would not. 

The expert looks where he wants to go, and gets there. 

Edited from page 21 An Introduction to Ritual Magic by Dion Fortune - 

edited by Gareth Knight, 1997/2006 

**

This is a metaphor for the role in our mortal life; "where we want to go" means our desire for, and confident belief-in, salvation. 

The hand follows the eye... "The hand" is what we do in life - all that complex and potentially bewildering combination of attitudes, and knowledge, and actions. 

"The eye" is what is the subject of our attention. 

If we "look over the hedge", looking around instead of looking ahead; we shall be distracted by the temporary contingencies of mortal life, and will end up in a ditch... 

If our attention is focused on the close-up and specifics of life - such as the avoidance of sins, or doing particular good works - then we will drive into the kerb... 

We need instead to focus on where we want to go. 

And for a Christian: where-we-want-to-go comes after death: and is Resurrected Eternal Heavenly life.  

When we know where we want to go, are confident that we can get there; when we look at it and keep this vision before us - then we will get there.