View From The Big Hills

"Begin thy work, first having prayed the Gods To accomplish it." - The Golden Verses of the Pythagoreans I was delighted to be signposted to this beautiful and inspirational prayer a couple of years ago by an American colleague and ex-member of Charles Fielding’s Dallas Group. Despite having explored the Western Esoteric Tradition and much of Neo-Platonism through a 27-year period, this great piece had passed me by until a time when I needed an extra boost and some encouragement on the Path. I come back to it for meditation, prayer and general sustenance from time to time. I hope you enjoy it. “I pray to all the gods and goddesses to guide my mind in this work that I have undertaken—to kindle in me a shining light of truth and enlarge my understanding for the genuine science of being; to open the gates of my soul to receive the inspired guidance of Plato; and, in anchoring my thought in the full splendour of reality, to hold me back from too much concei...

Growing up in the North of Ireland in the 60’s and 70’s, I had a fair mix of school teachers. Some were great, others were average, and one or two of them were an embarrassment to their profession. One of my best teachers taught History and English, and something he said one day stuck with me. He told us that while Ireland had had its share of Viking marauders, Welsh raiders, Norman colonisers and English occupiers, the Romans were “the biggest non-event in Irish history.” The biggest non-event in Irish history – the Romans! In my young mind that was a truly fabulous statement. I relished the concept.  In holidays across the Irish Sea in England and Europe with my parents, and later as an adult, I have always loved to come across the Roman remains and artifacts I never experienced in Ireland. From Hadrian’s Wall, to the remains in Wroxeter, Glevum and Corinium to the Temple of Mithras in the City of London, they have all caught and inspired my imagination. Despite their accur...

“That which derives from our native folk tradition springs up like water from the soil, made alive by the good brown earth and fresh with the breath of herb and tree; it springs, it sparkles. It vitalizes a man's nature because it puts him in touch with the sun-warmed rain-wet earth -- his native earth, that his bare feet trod as a child when his soul was open and he still could feel the unseen." - Dion Fortune, Esoteric Orders and their Work, 1928 Some 50 years after Dion Fortune published her ground-breaking book Esoteric Orders and their Work, Richard “Kip” Carpenter produced a successful and fantastic children’s TV series, Catweazle. The series was called after the show’s main character, “Catweazle,” an 11th Century travelling magician. The series took arcane themes and wove wonderful tales to inspire and uplift a whole generation of children (and quite a lot of their parents and grandparents too). Carpenter was an experienced character ac...