View From The Big Hills

The year following the end of the horrific First World War marked a pivotal time in the development of British Occultism. In 1919, Violet Mary Firth was initiated into the London A.·.O Lodge of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. It was at this point in her life that she made an important connection, for participating in the young Soror D.N.F.’s initiation was a certain Maiya Curtis Webb.  Maiya’s magical motto at the time was, “Ex Fide Fortis,” essentially meaning, “Of Strong Faith,” and she is understood to have also become Violet’s superviser after her initiation. The two worked the Mysteries together on and off over the subsequent two and a half decades. Further biographical details from my earlier researches can be found here . At the time, as is still customary in many magical groups nowadays, Violet was required to choose a Mystery Name by which she would be known to her fellow Brethren and also to the Inner Planes. Making a relatively unoriginal choice, she ad...

London. The year is 1977 and the Sex Pistols, Damned and The Clash are taking on the disco, pop and rock establishment. Bowie is across the Channel in Berlin recording Heroes with Brian Eno. One person seems fairly much oblivious to the noise in the bedsits, pubs and clubs. Zachary Cox is frustrated. His love of good poetry has taken him on a quest for more published works from Swinburne yet he becomes increasingly dismayed at what he finds some 70 years after the poet's death. His thinking at the time is summarised in his own words within the foreward of “Swinburne 77,” a little book he subsequently publishes that year:- “It is a sobering fact that ….there is no complete edition of the work of Algernon Charles Swinburne in print nor even an edition of any one of his complete volumes of verse. All that can be found are 'selections' – selections made by lesser and later poets, who appear to be determined to select only those works which match up to the em...