The Sea Priestess

London: Published by the Author, 1938. First edition. Hardcover. Very good minus. 316pp. Octavo [20.5 cm] Pale blue cloth over boards. Toning to the spine and edges of the boards. Extremities moderately rubbed and bumped. Numerous short scratches on the spine. Short, thin stain along fore-edge of front cover, near the foot. Free endpapers darkened. No dust jacket. An occult novel by an early female practitioner of magic recounting the magical experiments of the central character, Vivien Le Fay Morgan. Prominent British writer, occultist, and trance medium Dion Fortune (1890-1946), whose real name was Violet Mary Firth, studied psychology at the University of London before working as a counselor in a psychotherapy clinic. She was very fascinated by the esoteric, which led her to become a member of the Golden Dawn, and the Theosophical Society. Eventually she left these groups and formed her own- The Society of the Inner Light (originally founded as the Fraternity of the Inner Light). Firth wrote a number of books both fiction and non-fiction under the name Dion Fortune. These became the main texts used by the society. During the Second World War she assembled a widespread resistance to the Third Reich, through a program of visualization and meditation, undertaken by people across the United Kingdom. (Information from the Society of the Inner Light website.).