View From The Big Hills

Going through my London Group archive papers this weekend, I came across a simple guide to drawing your own Tree of Life. This was first published in 1975. I remember following a similar set of instructions while I was working through the Outer Court programme in the 1980s, although this was by then metric!  In these strange times of COVID-19, self-isolation and quarantine, readers may enjoy experimenting with their own drawing skills. Here are the instructions:-   Materials:             Sheet of paper. Pencil (preferably 4H) . Ruler. Compasses.   Stage 1:                   Draw a vertical base line AD, say 8 inches long.   Stage 2:                 Mark the centre point B.   Stage 3:          ...

"The real battle lines are not between East and West, "Socialism" and "Capitalism", or even between "a-theism" and "theism"; but between enlightenment and ignorance, between imagination and blind short-term greed, between vision and bigotry; and in this battle it is vital that the forces of Light should join hands at every possible point, and stand together in whatever context they operate." ~ Zachary Cox Deep in the hubbub of North London during 1988, Zachary Cox published No. 26 of  Aquarian Arrow , with the Shield of Gaia shining brightly out of its pages. As I've reflected on Zach's life in the past few days, my memory of this edition of Arrow has perhaps been one of the strongest in light of what many of us did as a result of it. Now Arrow was a forward thinking journal published by the  Neopantheist Society from 1978 until the early 1990s, featuring occult thinking of the time, wicked satire, poetry, letters, decent...

Fare thee well friend... "Life is too short for endless haggling. Take Reason's sword in hand and dare to cut the Gordian knot of language. Leap to the truth, if you can, if you dare, within the confines of a single page. Glance down in passing at the tortured labyrinth of twisted words where generations of philosophers have wandered. Glance down, but do not fall. Do not swoop. Life is too short, and our need too urgent now."  ~ Al Ewigkeit Photograph (c)Ruth Bayer, from Tanya Luhrmann's Persuasions of the Witch's Craft  

One of the reasons for writing these three blog posts was to look at the occasionally overlooked esoteric Christian side of Dion Fortune’s work and beliefs.   In undertaking this, I’m also suggesting that we can’t really appreciate her work and general legacy if we turn a blind eye to her esoteric Christianity, much of which was undoubtedly seeded through the Christian Science of her early life. Arguably, some people miss a whole aspect of Dion Fortune when they confuse her with the fictional character, Vivien Le Fay Morgan.   Similarly, people miss out on much of the wisdom, power and love that can be found in the esoteric aspects of Christianity which she clearly relished. In the first blog in the series I looked at her war against The Star in the East – at times a thing difficult to comprehend in today’s global village of catholic (with a small “c”) beliefs. In the second blog, you may recall that I summarized the content of a lecture she gave to a Theosophical Lodge ...

“Today …. taboos and terrors still linger, many of them, in the form of conventions of morality, uneasy strivings of conscience, doubts and desperations of religion; but ultimately Man will emerge from all these things, free-- familiar, that is, with them all, making use of all, allowing generously for the values of all, but hampered and bound by none. He will realize the inner meaning of the creeds and rituals of the ancient religions, and will hail with joy the fulfillment of their far prophecy down the ages-- finding after all the long-expected Saviour of the world within his own breast, and Paradise in the disclosure there of the everlasting peace of the soul.”   -- Edward Carpenter, Pagan and Christian Creeds; Their Origin & Meaning, by Brace and Company: New York [1920]