Dion Fortune and the Vision of Avalon.

A most enjoyable weekend at Hawkwood College at the beginning of June as we  addressed the essential ingredients of Dion Fortune's Vision of Avalon and projected them to the present day with later insights of what the concept of Avalon was and is all about. A good balance of practical work and relaxation with  fabulous weather to  wander and reflect in Hawkwood's beautiful and extensive grounds and yarn with a glass or two of wine under the summer stars.  Dates for next year's Hawkwood soon! 

A most enjoyable week staying and working with the Music for the Mysteries folks in Denmark in April /May. Visits to Viking and Celtic sites, but sadly unable to view the Gundestrup Cauldron, as the exhibit in Copenhagen was closed. (think that they locked it away in case I stole it!) . Spoke at the Copenhagen Museum, explaining the words behind Music for the Mysteries excellant music...some of them mine, some from the Book of Enoch. This interaction of music and magical text is something which reached its zenith at our old Avalon haunt of the Assembly Rooms in Glastonbury, where very many years ago, a young Dion Fortune heard Rutland Boughton's operatic setting of Wiliam Sharp's Faery myth The Immortal Hour.  This year at the Dion Fortune Seminar, we shall be hearing Music for the Mysteries perform a preview to their Glastonbury concert in the Abbey grounds the following day.

Thus in a sense we start to bring things full circle (or is it full spiral??) and, in that same Avalon, put the invocations and the music together again.

Music for the Mysteries (with one time three chord guitar wonder and latterly magical lecturer Mike...the bald one in black who is being kept away from all the musical instruments) in the exotic setting of the Copenhagen museum.

You gotta read this!  It's the (fictional??) casebook of a Druid...not the original Gwion Fach, who went on to become Taliesin, but an intrepid modern Druid investigator called Gwion Dubh. Penny Billington, editor of the OBOD mag Touchstone  (and who will be a speaker at this year's DF seminar at Glastonbury), has written a very readable, tongue in cheek, yet subtly instructive "casebook" of a character who is somewhere between Philip Marlowe and every would be Merlin whoever wandered into the deeper recesses of the deep green. He does so in a bid to mediate and salve the more unfortunate interactions of the folk of Tree and Leaf with errant humanity. "Been there, done that"??? you'll nod and smile wryly to yourself!  Not been there (yet) ?.....you'll learn a lot, through Penny's amusing but sage take on Gwion's casebook.

www.druidauthors.com

Revised editions of "Experience of the InnerWorlds" and "A History of White Magic" on our RITEMAGIC ebook label...with additional colour illustration.

EXPERIENCE OF THE INNER WORLDS

EXPERIENCE OF THE INNER WORLDS when first published in 1975 came as a challenge to many as it rigorously questioned some of the oriental ideas that had crept into the Hermetic tradition, and sought to bridge the abyss of misunderstanding that had opened up between esoteric experience and religious orthodoxy. The roots of the Western tradition are firmly based on Christian belief – from Ficino and Pico della Mirandola and the Qabalistic and Renaissance magi, through to Robert Fludd, Thomas Vaughan and the Rosicrucians, Eliphas Levi and Anna Kingsford in the 19^th century, and Rudolf Steiner and Dion Fortune in the 20^th. This challenging book still packs an enormous punch with its detailed theological and historical analysis and practical spiritual exercises. It was used to train all Gareth Knight’s students, a number of whom have gone on to form groups and write books of their own. The sumptuous colour illustrations of this PDF version also make this edition a vibrant experience.

To order both titles click on the RITEMAGIC logo below

A History of White Magic

Written by one of the world’s leading authorities on practical magic this book forms a complete and authentic collection of the major trends in mainstream magical thought in the West. Magic is a middle path between religion and science – all three are needed, but magic has been neglected in recent centuries. Developed originally as one of the noblest arts and sciences the world now needs that magic as never before as a radical way of finding not only a meaning to modern life but a means of survival in it.

"It is quite a book. It deserves to do well and to be treated with respect and attention. As to its main theme, I know nobody better qualified to write it, and it is a grand sweep of very well digested and understood – and researched – information which is not available to my knowledge anywhere else in this kind of form." A.D.Duncan, publisher’s reader.

"As a chronicle of the evolution of consciousness and culture in Western Europe this may be compared favourably to Bronowski’s ‘Ascent of Man’." Sangreal Magazine.