The Keys to the Temple: Unlocking Dion Fortune’s Mystical Qabalah Through Her Occult Novels

The non-fiction works of Dion Fortune, occultist, writer, and one-time member of the Golden Dawn, have mystified, educated, and enthralled readers for many years. Her common sense and winning personality shines through the pages of her books and somehow makes readers feel she is speaking to them. Many of her readers no doubt wonder what her works of fiction are like and why she decided to write fiction at all. Was it just to entertain, or was it to further educate her readers via an alternate vehicle? Luckily for those who would like to answer these questions and do not have time or ability to analyze literature, Billington and Rees have done the work for them.

Both authors are well qualified to analyze Fortune’s works. Ms. Billington is a druid and a writer. Ian Rees is a psychotherapist, which comes in handy since Forture’s works so often harken back to the tenets of Jung and Freud.

The authors guide readers by discussing elements of Fortune’s life and non-fiction and then as they state: “Find their reflections in the stories.” In addition, they draw comparisons to how these same issues are reflected in the lives of Fortune’s readers.

It would be impossible for the authors to analyze every one of Fortune’s tenets and every one of her books in this one text. However, they do offer readers examples of how to read Fortune’s novels by supplying them with the basic knowledge needed and by modeling the procure so that readers can create their own knowledge. In addition, the authors include a bibliograpny and footnotes to scaffold the readers learning process.

This book meets a need that has been lurking in the shadows for many years. However, to take advantage of the this learning process, readers must first read and study Fortune’s non-fiction writing so that they have a baseline of knowledge necessary to participate in the learning experience.

I'd recommend The Keys to the Temple for mid-level to advanced students of the Qabalah. As simple as the authors have made it, they still assume that you know the worlds, paths and general theory. If you haven't studied The Mystical Qabalah, this won't make any sense at all.

If you have the background and the interest, The Keys to the Temple may be of great interest to you. This book contains one of the clearest explanations of the path of the spiritual journey that I have ever read.

I'm excited about this book and its potential. The Western Mystery tradition never gets its own shelf in the book stores. The new textbooks, what few there are, are mixed in with the New Age/New Thought works. But, that's not quite right. It's truly a category all of its own.

I think the time has come for these practices to be re-introduced to the world. The Keys to the Temple is a step in the right direction.