Author: Dion Fortune
Trade Paperback, 128 pages
Publisher: Weiser
Publication date: November 2000
ISBN: 1578631831
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Last night I finished reading The Training and Work of an Initiate by Dion Fortune. I was deeply moved and very impressed by it.
The book is supposed to be an outline of how Fortune sees the work seekers, neophytes and candidates to initiation should do in her own mystical lodge (The Society of the Inner Light). But it has so much more than that.
It's actually a great book about the theories of magic, occultism, religious illumination and initiation. The book is very abstract, highly theoretical and sometimes I had to read a paragraph more than once to understand what exactly Fortune is trying to say. But it was food for the soul. Finally, an advanced book about the meaning of walking in the path of magic!
It deals with what it takes to become an initiate, what is initiation, what the road of the initiate entails, how to live life as an adept in magic, the importance of mental and physical training, and many other relevant issues. All from an explanatory and theoretical point of view. It's not a "how to" book.
Fortune's faith is Christian, and I suppose some pagans would find it hard to swallow when she sometimes speaks of Christ as the ultimate initiator. But for those students of magic who can get past that, I recommend this book from the bottom of my heart.
In Fortune's defence, she does not reject other faiths, including pantheist ideas, but seeks to see them all as part of an entire whole of Divinity.
I enjoyed every bit of The Training and Work of an Initiate, and was very disappointed that it's such a thin volume.
Reviewed by Loreley
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