View from the Big Hills

Two key shadowy figures skirt fleetingly and mysteriously around the history of the Society of the Inner Light. The level of influence the two had on the Society’s development is unlikely to ever come fully into the light of day. However, there have been some chinks in the curtains over the past few years which have let enough light through to enable us to have a clearer picture of both characters. I shall take a look at the first and perhaps most influential of these figures before moving on to the Hibernian Adept in my next blog entry. The industrious Alan Richardson has written a little about Maiya Tranchell Hayes, the first of these initiates, in his 2009 book “Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune – the Logos and the Shakti of the Age” (Llewellyn Worldwide).   Alan suggests that Maiya may have been the inspiration for the main heroine in Dion Fortune's classic novel, "The Sea Priestess," based around Brean Down pictured below.   The first photograph taken on a trip t...