Satanism Today - An Encyclopedia of Religion, Folklore and Popular ...

94 Fraternity (Society) of the Inner Light
See also Magic and Magical Groups
For Further Reading:
Clark, Paul A. The Book of the Rose. Covina, CA:
Fraternity of the Hidden Light, 1985.
Fraternity (Society) of the Inner Light
Violet Mary Firth was born in 1891 to a family of
Christian Scientists. In her twenties she was a law
analyst at a medical-psychological clinic in
London, and began to study psychology to work
on her own development. In 1919 she was initiated
into the Alpha et Omega Lodge (AEO) of the
Stella Matutina, the HOGD offshoot presided over
by Mathers’s widow, Moira Bergson Mathers.
Taking the name Dion Fortune (adapted from her
“magical motto,” Deo Non Fortuna, taken when
she joined the lodge), Violet studied under J. W.
Brodie-Innes. In 1922 she organized the
Community of the Inner Light as an “outer court”
for the AEO. She and Mrs. Mathers clashed more
and more as Violet matured as a leader; when Mrs.
Mathers expelled her in 1927, Firth, now using the
name Dion Fortune, took the (now) Fraternity of
the Inner Light with her. It is still active in London
as the Society of Inner Light, and is the ancestor of
many other important magical organizations now
functioning in England. Fortune worked as a
psychiatrist, specializing in helping people recover
from and counter “psychic attacks,” the topic of
her best-known book, Psychic Self-Defense.
See also Magic and Magical Groups
For Further Reading:
Fortune, Dion. The Esoteric Orders and Their Works.
St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1971.
———. Psychic Self-Defense. London: Aquarian
Press, 1957.