I am preparing to do a podcast episode on Dion Fortune’s Applied Magic as part of the She Speaks Volumes series on the feminist voice in witchcraft, magic, and the occult.

I first read Applied Magic in the late 1980s, when I was in my teens. I was just starting to get in to witchcraft at a time when a rise interest in witchcraft was emerging through the feminist-adjacent ‘women’s spirituality’ movement.

Back then, her non-fiction work didn’t really land with me, ideologically she had fallen out of favour, as had many of the spiritualists who channelled ‘masters’. Fortune, along with her contemporaries were seen as being fairly patriarchal.

Her novels, however, really captured my imagination. I was enchanted with The Sea Priestess and her descriptions of the remote house on the craggy shoreline, with gorgeous interiors, that were the backdrop of exuberantly occult rituals and the mysterious woman who performed them.

For the podcast, though I will be focusing on Fortune’s non-fiction work as my current obsession is a deeper understanding of the workings and boundaries of magic. I am re-reading Applied Magic (1962, Inner Light) because I have been having exciting thoughts about magic lately and I thought it might be interesting to revisit her work now that I might have a more sophisticated understanding of magic and consciousness than I had at eighteen.

I am on chapter one, and though I don’t expect to have a major revelation every chapter, Applied Magic begins with the observation that there are two paths that ‘seekers’ follow, and the most common path ‘the mystic way’ is based on the idea that god is an abstract essence and not manifest in matter.

The ‘mystic way’ is responsible for a great deal of human trauma, even if it also has inspired great work. The mystic way is easily mistaken for the ‘true, right, and only way’ to divine revelation leading to devastating conflicts. Approaching teh divine by seeking ‘enlightenment’ can often disconnect us from the corporeal reality of being human; It is much easier to aspire to ‘god’ when HE is a remote idea, free of the flaws of imperfect flesh than when he is begging you for spare change on the corner.

What Fortune calls ‘the occult way’ by contrast seeks divinity in matter. The belief that ‘god/goddess/divine/universal consciousness’ (call it what you will) is present in all things. This path, rather than transcending the corporeal world, seeks to master material reality. Fortune draws the distinctions that mastery here refers to mastering the skills, like a musician, and not domination by brute force like a slave-master.

In this chapter I believe Fortune has clearly articulated the difference in ideology between judeo-christian ideas of god and paganism. The idea of ‘mastering material reality’ is a concept that seems like it would land in these days of self-helpery, and personal development.

I find myself really looking forward to reading this and sharing my thoughts in the podcast episode.