View From The Big Hills

This fourth lecture was given in Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London on the 28 th  of May 1975. As mentioned previously, like most genuine esoteric fraternities, the thinking and practices of the group developed and changed over the next forty years. Some elements of what was said then are perhaps a little dated now, but essentially these lecture notes remain of historical interest and  may also provide some practical pointers for those  with eyes to see, particularly the points on "contact".  *      *      * This evening, we continue our series of inaugural lectures with a talk on Elementary Esoteric Physiology. 1.   The Individuality   What is it? Essentially, those aspects of a person which developed in the earlier part of the current evolutionary phase, and which will persist until the end of this phase. It is sometimes called the “Higher Self” in contrast to the “Lower Self” or Personality, and it comprises the den...

Continuing my series of posts on the inaugural lectures of the London Group, included below is Lecture 3, which Alan Adams presented at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London on the evening of 7 th May 1975. Like all healthy esoteric fraternities, much changed and developed in the thinking and practices of the group over the next 4 decades. Some elements are now dated, but essentially this lecture remains of interest historically and  to any seeker after wisdom. It is after all one of a handful of inaugural lectures which hooked the “fish” who subsequently joined the three adepts who seeded the group from Dion Fortune’s Society of the Inner Light. This is where it started.  ELEMENTARY ESOTERIC ANATOMY Clearly, the world and humankind were once very different from what they are now. As the Earth developed, so did the bodies of humankind. In every one of us there was developed a response to each phase of evolution — a vehicle to enable us to live and work in the conditions of...

The London Group was formed by previous members of two esoteric groups strongly linked with Dion Fortune -- the  Society of the Inner Light and the Society of Western Mythologists.  The former of these groups had changed its direction, teachings and  practices, resulting in a number of members leaving to pursue avenues they believed were more appropriately aligned to serving the needs of the emerging Aquarian Age.  The latter had closed its temple in the early 1970s. It had been a working group founded by three previous members of the Society of the Inner Light, two of whom had lived in Queensborough Terrace.  They left the Society, feeling that new forms were needed for a New Age, and that the Society was running in contradiction to this need. Similarly, Basil Wilby, more well known as the author Gareth Knight, also left the Society shortly after them for the same reasons.  There was new work to be done, and new people were needed to do it.  To that e...

In Summer Term 1911, a young Violet Firth joined Studley Horticultural College For Women in Warwickshire. Gareth Knight's book, Dion Fortune and the Inner Light, dedicates a whole chapter to this part of Violet's life. Alan Adams (writing as Charles Fielding), Janine Chapman and Alan Richardson all touch upon aspects of this time with varying degrees of success and accuracy. With the recent improvements in records accessibility and research capabilities, Knight's telling seems by far the most accurate . However, the other works remain of interest and use. A photograph of the College from the turn of the last century is pictured below, giving a sense of some grandeur.   It was at Studely College that Violet allegedly met Evelyn Heathfield who would become a lifelong friend and stalwart. However, there is also some suggestion that the two may have been family friends before Studely. It was also here that she would meet the allegedly overbearing Dr Lillias Hamilton, War...

Toni Sussmann, the erudite Jungian practitioner and psychotherapist, remains relatively unknown outside Jungian circles. I think that’s rather a shame.   Arriving in England with her husband in 1938, Toni was one of many refugees fleeing the rising tide of Nazism, who settled and managed to thrive in the bubbling cauldron of London. Importantly, to anyone with an interest in the esoteric history of England, Toni undoubtedly had a quiet and unassuming influence on the thinking and practice of some of the players at the time. For those interested in the wider story of Dion Fortune, Toni Sussman was on record as a colleague of Dion’s student Helah Fox. Helah had been a member of the Inner Light’s community for a number of years, having lived at both Chalice Orchard and 3 Queensborough Terrace. Helah told the late Janine Chapman in 1973 that Dion Fortune had consulted Toni Sussmann in about 1943 or 1944 as “the best Jung practitioner who there was in London”. That would h...