An occult classic and a Dion Fortune bestseller of strongly growing interest. Fortune was one of the first to bring this “secret tradition” to a wider audience with her clear and comprehensive exploration of the Qabalah tradition. The Mystical Qabalah remains a classic in its clarity, linking the broad elements of Jewish traditional thought—probably going back to the Babylonian captivity and beyond—with both Eastern and Western philosophy and later Christian insights. The Qabalah could be described as a confidential Judaic explanation of the paradox of “the Many and the One”—the complexity and diversity within a monotheistic unity. Whereas the Old Testament outlines the social and psychological development of a tightly knit “chosen group” culture, the supplementary Qabalah provides a detailed plan of the infrastructure behind the creative evolutionary process. The Mystical Qabalah devotes a chapter to each of the ten schematic “God-names,” the qualities or Sephiroth which focus on the principal archetypes behind evolving human activity: the Spiritual Source; the principles of Force and Form; Love and Justice; the Integrative principle or the Christ Force; Aesthetics and Logic; the dynamics of the Psyche; and, finally, the Manifestation of life on Earth in a physical body.
Author
Violet Mary Firth Evans (better known as Dion Fortune), was a British occultist and author. Her pseudonym was inspired by her family motto "Deo, non fortuna" (Latin for "by God, not fate"). From 1919 she began writing a number of novels and short stories that explored various aspects of magic and mysticism, including The Demon Lover, The Winged Bull, The Goat-Foot God, and The Secrets of Dr. Taverner. This latter is a collection of short stories based on her experiences with Theodore Moriarty. Two of her novels, The Sea Priestess and Moon Magic, became influential within the religion of Wicca, especially upon Doreen Valiente. Of her non-fiction works on magical subjects, the best remembered of her books are; The Cosmic Doctrine, meant to be a summation of her basic teachings on mysticism; The Mystical Qabalah, an introduction to Hermetic Qabalah; and Psychic Self Defence, a manual on how to protect oneself from psychic attacks. Though some of her writings may seem dated to contemporary readers, they have the virtue of lucidity and avoid the deliberate obscurity that characterised many of her forerunners and contemporaries.
