Thresholds, Guardians,
and Obstacles
The thing in which he was really interested, the thing for which he had bought the book—was its title, ‘The Prisoner in the Opal’; the hint of escape—a glimpse of fire from the heart of the stone—the gates of life ajar—. 64
A good place to work is tremendously important, for it should allow our minds to expand into a wider consciousness of the reality behind the reality. When it comes to choosing the physical space, we find that the characters’ needs mirror ours. One thing that makes the books so satisfying is the time spent setting the scene, with every detail chosen for its resonance. Characters and readers respond on a deep level to the concept of “home.” But for each of our characters, there are initial obstacles to be overcome if they will cross the threshold into magic.
Guardians and Obstacles
In occult books, as in magical reality, there are thresholds to be crossed, and wishing to pass does not guarantee admittance: we must prove our worth to the guardians of any path. There is a tradition of guardians who hold the portals of the inner planes, but it is sensible first to consider that what stands in our way are demons from our own subconscious, in spite of a sincere wish to advance. Projections of our personalities, desperately trying to keep the status quo, are adept at preventing our progress.
Dion Fortune, far from mythologizing her characters’ psychological states—with dragons at portals, for example, as in popular fantasy fiction—writes clearly about them. We need clarity of mind for magical work and must be able to identify our own weaknesses; reading about the characters’ shortcomings invites us to examine our own.
We notice in the stories how often, after a breakthrough, the characters revert to their former blinkered thinking. This is part of the gradual nature of magical change that reminds us of our own psychological patterns. We cannot eject our rigid ways of thinking once and for all; it takes sustained effort and awareness to progress, for they constantly try to reassert themselves.
Hugh’s deep instinct takes him to Jelkes’s shop, but he is turned back from the portal after entering. When Hugh inquires about the Black Mass, Jelkes becomes the obstructing guardian of the mysteries: his face closes like a shutter and he repeats that there is nothing written on the subject. Hugh finds himself out of the shop, making his way through the darkness and rain to the hotel. As he skims the book he bought earlier, we see his facile approach; he is intrigued by the Black Mass but regards it simply as “music hall.” He has no understanding of the psychology behind it—and, by implication, the magical connections forged, whether ritual is considered black or white.
Hugh has been ejected from the shop because of his lack of understanding and his search for sensationalism. But his deeper instinct prompts him to go back, in a more appropriate state of mind and on foot, a traditional and humble way to approach something sacred.
The return walk plunges him into examining his neglected inner self, and the moment he realises that his real problem is not his marriage, but his life, he finds himself back at the shop. Both his leaving and returning seem a destined path—he returned without knowing how he got there. In his altered state, he felt his mind slipping its cogs when challenged, but stumbled through an answer. He found the door unlocked, Jelkes welcoming. He is literally allowed through to the inner sanctum at the back of the shop: he has arrived.
Hugh recognises the relationship they fall into as intimate, something on a deep level that his been denied him in adult life. He begins the experience of treating his inner life seriously and seeing what is authentic, of dreaming and allowing his intuition to lead him forward. He begins to listen to his dreams and unprompted thoughts. The process of treating his inner life seriously creates a basis of integrity that is the foundation for Hugh, as it will be for us. The setting of the shop is profoundly therapeutic and sets him on a path that has hitherto eluded him. It has carried Hugh through his crisis, removing him from a sterile environment to one that is rich and organic. His new possibilities are symbolised by the books, which are repositories of ancient knowledge and wisdom. Jelkes stands for the grounded, sane, and puritanical mentor: his relationship with Hugh is that of a father. He guides Hugh’s reading and experience; he sets his feet firmly on his new path and introduces him to Mona, who will be his magical partner.
Hugh will leave Jelkes and Mona only to put in train the packing up and selling of his Mayfair house. He is free to pursue his new life.
From now on, Hugh’s main limitation or obstacle will be his lack of self-worth. He cannot imagine anyone having any use for him, except for his money. His is a journey to his deep self—of power and potential. And we find, as in The Winged Bull with Ted, Ursula, and Brangwyn, that once a magical connection has been made with the magical partner, the mentor will increasingly take a back seat, leaving the student to the full flowering of his abilities. And so Jelkes quietly disappears back to his bookshop to leave the way clear for the conclusion of the story.
Wilfred seems set fair for his story when, from the deep promptings of his subconscious, he sets up the practical steps that give him independence. His hidden refuge at the bottom of the garden comes complete with the guardian his sensitive nature needs—the ancient Sally, who guards the door from his family. On her death, the support he needs changes from the purely physical to the empathic and emotional barrier that the love of his secretary, and later wife, Molly, supplies. Like all of Dion Fortune’s main characters, Wilfred attracts the help that he needs.
Wilfred’s main obstacle to a relationship with Miss Morgan, who will become his priestess, Vivien, is his estate agent’s small-town mentality. Before meeting her, his fantasy life was focused on an escape to London and the literary scene—artistic fulfilment, adventures, and fascinating women. Vivien is just such a one, and he is unprepared for the collision of his daydreams and everyday reality.
Time and again in their early meetings, his pragmatic side is uppermost, mixed with his limited knowledge of “women of the world.” Wilfred suspects Vivien of trying to “vamp” him, and of a lightning change of tactics when she sees this is not working. He retreats into estate-agent mode frequently, ignoring her friendly approach. He realises, “Theoretically I am entirely unconventional, but never having had anything to do with unconventional women, I was thoroughly off my stroke with her, and as prim as a curate. … This was the very thing that I had wanted to go to London for, and yet I couldn’t break out of my shell and meet it half-way.” 65 The word “shell” reminds us again of the world of illusion and scattering before we start our exploration of the Tree. Shortly afterwards, the drugs in Wilfred’s system override his caution, and he shares his vision of the sea cave with Vivien: it is the first evidence of their telepathy, a theme thoroughly explored later in Moon Magic.
Yet his habitual small-town stance returns with his health. The chauvinistic attitude to women that Wilfred, and Ted in The Winged Bull, sometimes assume is unattractive. They are still paying homage to the status quo in a society that says that the man must be the top dog; they vacillate between this state and a more enlightened relationship as they get to know their priestesses. In Wilfred’s case, he decides to “bet” on Miss Morgan, for either a genuine fourth dimension experience or a bit of vamping; pragmatically, he is prepared to pay for his fun, but not to overpay. This distasteful attitude comes from his fantasies, not his present reality, and he feels shamed by Vivien’s sincerity.
Through an act of petty subversion typical of the small-town mentality, the deus ex machina who ensures Wilfred’s first more intimate meeting with Miss Morgan is the office boy, who shows her to Wilfred’s flat. Wilfred is weakened, his guard drops, and he shares past-life memories, reverting again to his habitual state as he recovers. His earlier solitary training helps him to overcome this finally: because he has already been getting in touch with the nature side of things, his perceptions alter completely as they cross the bridge into the marshes. Entering the liminal land of his earlier vision, away from the poisonous atmosphere of the town, his mood is liberated and he discusses, with absolute naturalness, their meeting in his vision. Exploring the site that will be the magical temple, the scene of the next stage of his spiritual growth, they get into rapport.
Ted’s advancement could not appear smoother: he is welcomed into Brangwyn’s flat and is quickly accepted as a student and potential magical worker. Having been down on his luck, suddenly his fortunes have changed in every respect; the work should be plain sailing. Yet his relationship with Ursula suffers fits and starts that keep halting its natural progression. The guardians are not those protecting any inner magical plane, for he takes naturally both to mythological study and to the imaginative work of ritual.
Ted’s need and Brangwyn’s work in the British Library have together ensured his contact with the inner worlds. Even before they meet in the courtyard, the sincerity and focus of them both—Brangwyn’s search for a student, Murchison’s for entrance into an enlarged life—have synchronised to ensure the magical meeting.
Both Ted and Ursula suffer from the guardians of proper behaviour—the ogres of conditioned responses to class and appearance in their own psyches. Coming together and the accommodation of opposites is the novel’s theme, and Ted and Ursula are evenly matched in the entrenched societal attitudes that prevent the work from flowing. Their magical mentor might have smoothed their way, but Brangwyn, the adept, is “in the world but not of it.” He has higher priorities and an income that bolsters him against the diktats of society, so that he can’t relate to or understand the pressures and motivations of the two. He doesn’t understand Ted’s resentments, nor his invidious and inhibiting position as employee, but Dion Fortune’s original readers certainly would: and they would probably be far more in sympathy with the snobbish Ursula, repelled by Ted’s shabbiness, than we might be. It is impossible for us today to understand the importance placed on appearance in that society, but being correctly clothed so as to identify oneself to one’s peers was so fundamental that it was often a main theme in light romantic fiction in the inter-war period. As a social indicator, it was vital; witness Hugh Paston’s instant assessment of Jelkes’s “honest” tweed jacket.
The inexperienced Ursula fails, through a lack of discrimination. She judges Ted solely by his outward appearance. Her more authentic, deeper response to him is revealed later: when the cause of the grime on his trench coat sparks childhood recollections of exhausted soldiers, she remembers how highly she valued them for shielding her from an unknown terror. She is aware of her own shortcomings yet is powerless to overcome them, despite such moments of awareness.
Ted’s resentment of Ursula makes every talk fraught with awkwardness, and he recognises early on that their easiest communication is through physical contact. In comparing himself to a gigolo, Ted is putting the world’s worst construction on Brangwyn’s plan for him, but it shows that we, like Ted, can advance in our magical work only as far as our understanding will allow. It is Ursula, not her brother, who gently helps his worldview to shift. Ironically for an inhibited man, the leveling effect of discussing sex and the breeding question puts him more at ease; for the first time the two relax and talk as equals. When Ted forgets that she is an attractive woman and talks “man-to-man” to her, they break through the barrier into authentic communication—foreshadowing Ursula’s magical teaching on the subject of sex that eventually causes Ted’s final transformation.
Ted’s task is to embrace his role as the man of action and recognise that this is the way forward for their relationship, not by intellectual rationalizations. By saving himself, he will save Ursula. Action on the outer plane must come from Ted, and on the inner from Ursula. The book emphasizes Ursula’s need for the protection of the soldier, but his hostility delays the sacrificing love-element of their magical working. The ogre of class consciousness prevents his going through the portal to the next stage. Yet every time he is activated by compassion, his instinctual and higher self together ensure that he acts impeccably.
Finding a way past society’s differences to the nature of true connection will be the culmination of the book. And it is in the sanctum of Brangwyn’s flat that Murchison learns the techniques that will aid him in the journey.
The Relationship in Qabalistic Terms
Ted and Ursula are the clearest example of what happens to us all when we begin to develop a connection to our inner life. We become aware of the experience of opposites within us, and in particular the interrelationship of thought, emotion, and image.
In Qabalistic terms, we touch on the sephiroth Hod (related to thought) and Netzach (related to feeling). Their relationship is one of a spinning wheel of tangled associations in which image (Yesod) stimulates thought and feeling, which in turn stimulate the other two spheres ad infinitum. This tangle of inner material relates back to past experience rather than treating each new experience on its own merits: it holds the momentum of our lives. It is the source of our habitual thinking and explains the resistance Ted and Ursula constantly encounter when they sincerely seek to penetrate more deeply into their inner lives. Understanding this will help us look more deeply into the journeys of all the other characters.
All these sanctuaries are stopping points along the way. The flat of The Winged Bull is Brangwyn’s home, not Ted’s. For Wilfred, the age of Sally—the servant/guardian who ensures privacy from Wilfred’s family—will always mean that his tenure of the flat must soon end. The bookshop of The Goat-Foot God, so primitive and basic by Hugh’s usual standards, can only be a temporary measure, as Jelkes realises immediately. And the surroundings are too limiting: the characters need a broader stage in which to fulfil their potential.
Rupert Malcolm’s threshold moment is clear: he literally forces his way across the threshold to Lilith’s private home, is turned back by her, and flees, ashamed—yet that act advances his clairvoyance. His other psychological thresholds occur as he rationalises the “daydreams” that he is pursuing.
Rupert’s puritanical upbringing and high moral sense mean he suffers even more than Wilfred in synthesising the real woman with the fantasy of his dreams. And the problem is exacerbated by their erotic quality; he has never fantasised even about his wife in a way that might offend the bounds of propriety. The shock of meeting his dream woman provokes an instant connection with his past life: thinking that her reality will destroy his dreams, he looks with the eyes of the butchering priest—a reflection of his actual role in the distant incarnation when he first knew Lilith.
Fear of the strength and violence of his own reactions holds him back. Humiliation and his rending emotions resonate deeply with the torture that put him to death in that past life. Eventually that process and the blessing of Lilith starts his reintegration. She is ruthless in pursuit of the higher aim, and needs to unlock his strength, generosity, and talent for the “great work” of helping to birth the new aeon.
Rupert is Lilith’s equal from the start, through his strength, discipline, and intelligence. He is also a catalyst, for it is only after nearly knocking him down that she recognises the building that she has previously rejected. Rupert’s perception of Lilith as a priestess is necessary for her to access the magical personality: it is the fuel for her part of the work.
Significantly, Rupert’s next advance is when he is criticized at work —the one constant marker of service in an unbalanced life. When that criticism shakes his self-confidence “to its foundations,” his mystery woman at last appears much closer on the Embankment walk. His pursuit of her along the River Thames—from Blackfriars to Lambeth Bridge —has the recklessness of desperation. Through memories of his reincarnation as the butchering priest, we know that Rupert has lived this pursuit of a priestess before and committed desecration.
Rupert is constantly at odds with his own nature. He is both affronted and relieved by Lilith’s disinterested kindness, a response to his emotional upheavals that removes any moral pressure. He dislikes Lilith’s distance, her cold surgeon’s instinct, and distrusts her past worldly experience. But speaking man-to-man on all topics, especially about sexual and emotional needs, is the portal to their intimate relationship, for authenticity of communication is a constant theme in all the books. He struggles throughout with Lilith’s essential adept’s nature, which makes romantic attachment impossible. He will not come to terms with this or the conflict of being a puritanical man in love until he experiences the profound peace their magical work brings. Ultimately Rupert capitulates completely to the work, as he has already done in vision. He may not possess Lilith, yet he is completely satisfied by becoming subsumed in the work.
When they finally meet in his consulting room, she leads the way to her car and takes him to his spiritual home. Thereafter, their rapport is limited only by his conscience. She explains the finer points of magical working as she allays his fears, and we can all benefit from her exposition. Rupert’s gradual understanding of Lilith’s cosmic responsibilities and the part he can play brings a conclusive final ritual. The implications are more far-reaching than in the other books, for the story doesn’t end by earthing the magical current in physical marriage but promises ongoing magical activity.
The process for the hero as student, or for the reader, is to begin to move fluidly, gradually overcoming obstacles and opening the pathways between the planes. We can become aware of our own inner dialogue, that habitual “spinning wheel” of reactions based on memory of past experience and programmed responses. We can learn to look gently at our defects of personality and ingrained attitudes.
Simply becoming aware of our limitations and examining them kindly, coupled with the wider perspective gained from inner work, helps to disperse the rigidity that may have hindered our progress in the past. And our first task will be to designate a nurturing space in which we can relax into allowing …
We need to allow the space and time for the development of imagination, to make a pathway of emotional connection with our inner life, to unravel ourselves gently from our habitual responses and habits. Finding the time need not make unrealistic demands on us, although the effect, as with learning any new skill, will be in direct relationship to the effort we put in.
As within, so without; as our attitudes change, so our lives will become more magical.
And, emulating the characters, once we start to free ourselves of our psychological constraints, we can begin to engage with the sacrifice necessary for all true magic: in our case, the making time and space and the willing surrender to the mystery of deep connection, which is the precursor to a joined-up and magical life.