View From The Big Hills

Upon Westminster Bridge by William Wordsworth Earth has not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth, like a garment, wear The beauty of the morning: silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!

There she is staring out at you...or maybe that should be "in to you"! Whether writing as Violet Firth, Violet M Steele or Dion Fortune, the person behind these names was a prolific author, with some 20 plus works of non-fiction and a further 9 works of fiction. Just in case you can’t get above 20, don’t forget her two lesser known works of The Soya Bean: An Appeal to Humanitarians and  The Psychology of the Servant Problem: A study in social relationships . Not a bad track record for someone who was busy lecturing and teaching, as well as setting up and running her own esoteric fraternity. Most readers seem to appreciate her no-nonsense, down-to-earth and eminently readable style. It tends to lack the occasional pomposity and arrogance peppered throughout Crowley’s highly impressive output. True, some of her writing is now woefully dated in ways that much of Crowley’s isn’t. Similarly, some of the “facts” she presents have not withstood the test of time. Howeve...

On the 6 th of July 1941, almost two years into the bloodshed and destruction of the Second World War, Dion Fortune sent out her 80 th war letter to members and friends of the Fraternity of the Inner Light. Over 70 years later, in a seemingly vastly different world to the one she knew -- at least on the surface -- much of this particular letter’s content has a fresh poignancy and strong sense of currency for where we find ourselves in the 21 st Century. "This is the basis of the psychological leadership of democracy. Its use demands of the leaders two things: firstly, a realisation that life is governed by certain principles which are universally and eternally prevalent, and that the departures therefrom are no more than the rise and fall of the waves on a tidal beach -- it is the tides that count, not the ripples. Leaders must trust and be true to such principles, and never, in a spirit of short-sighted opportunism, avail themselves of the ripples. Secondly, such leaders m...