Yesod and
The Sea Priestess:
Making a Foundation
There was the pyramidal pyre of burning drift, blue-flamed from the salt. And the slow waves licked towards it … till at last the high fiery crest fell sparkling into the water, and all was still save for the slow quiet wash of the dark waves on the rocks again. 20
The Sea Priestess is the novel focused on the sephirah Yesod, a word that means “foundation”: it is aligned with the energies of the moon, and one of its titles is “the machinery of the universe.” In this book, Dion Fortune looks deeply into the mechanisms of inner work and the construction of magical images.
The experience of Yesod is a complex one; it is an encounter with deeper life and energy—and it is also the foundation stone of our sense of identity, of our images of self and the world we live in. Its planetary archetype is the moon and all that is moonlike; indeed, we see that the moon itself is a powerful player in the book.
As with the other novels, there are four levels to this work of Yesod:
• Malkuth of Yesod is the ground or matter that needs transforming, here represented by Wilfred’s family home.
• Yesod of Yesod is the entrance into the subterranean kingdom of life and dreams, here the cottage at the bottom of the garden.
• Tiphareth of Yesod is the place of healing and transformation; the sea fort.
• Daath of Yesod is the rock in the sea and the sea cave.
Malkuth of Yesod: Wilfred’s House and Home
The basis in Malkuth is the situation in which Wilfred, the asthmatic estate agent (surely the least romantic leading man in a romance novel), finds himself. He has inherited the run-down family business and has had to nurture it for years: he is responsible for his widowed mother and unmarried sister, who constantly criticize and dominate him. The book begins with Wilfred unwell as a result of his efforts. He has restored the business to health and is made a good offer by a rival firm of estate agents. His plan to invest in a publishing business in London, creating a new, more exciting life for himself, falls through when his sister and mother refuse to allow him to sell the family home to the new firm. Wilfred is apparently resigned to the situation, but shortly afterwards he has an unusual argument with mother and sister, loses his temper, and has a dramatic asthma attack that confines him to his bed. It is while recuperating that he starts to commune with the moon. The asthma attack is his descent into the body and his entrance into the direct sense of Malkuth.
The Underworld Path
The underworld path begins with the life-and-death experience of the asthma attack and continues with his lying in bed letting the moon take him inward. As Wilfred lies there, suspended between life and death, he wonders about the dark side of the moon: he contemplates the stars and interstellar space, seeing there the origin of all life. The connection with the energy of life and indeed his own life is linked to the understanding of Yesod, whose name, “foundation,” relates to the foundation of life and whose god name, Shaddai El Chai, means the almighty power of life.
In these opening scenes the Malkuth problem is revealed to us—the absence of life and living in a dull and contracted way—in effect a living death. We also see a profound distortion in male and female relationships: the emasculated masculine and the suppressed and emasculating feminine. It is this situation in Wilfred and in us all that the sea priestess addresses; and in this stage in the book Wilfred receives an important insight that we can contemplate as a seed sentence out of which the rest of the work grows:
I let my mind range beyond time to the beginning. I saw the vast sea of infinite space, indigo-dark in the Night of the Gods; and it seemed to me that in that darkness and silence must be the seed of all being. And as in the seed is infolded the future flower with its seed, and again, the flower in the seed, so must all creation be infolded in infinite space, and I along with it. 21
Here Wilfred is opening up to a deeper sense of the universe and his own soul more than ever before in words that are reminiscent of Dion Fortune’s The Cosmic Doctrine. Fortune develops Wilfred’s experience by quoting from Robert Browning:
God be thanked, the meanest of His mortals,
Has two soul-sides, one to face the world with;
One to show a woman when he loves her. 22
In this quote we see the prefiguring of the appearance of the sea priestess, and it is this side of his soul that Wilfred touches in his communion with the moon.
We see an inner progression as he moves from contemplating the moon, to encountering the sea priestess, to contemplating the depths of the sea and stars.
Following on from this profound experience, we follow Wilfred’s further steps into the deeper places of the underworld path as he moves out of his house to an old stable block at the bottom of the garden. In order to find this, he has to follow a “long-lost path,” coming to a brick wall and in it a locked door with a pointed arch, like a church door, that he has to force open. He finds there some small stables, and going up to the hayloft he opens the shutters to find the stables are set on the banks of a hidden river that runs through the town to the sea. As he renovates the place, he comes across an old woman called Sally whom he employs to live downstairs and to look after him and the stables.
This is classic symbolism of the underworld path: we go down to the bottom of the garden or turn down a road that we have never seen before and go through an unknown door. In practice this is the inner road we follow in dream and vision that takes us to the Door without a Key. As we pass through that door, we find a new place to live in and are guarded and fed by the old woman of dreams.
Yesod of Yesod: The Stables
Wilfred arrives in Yesod and discovers the hidden river, twenty feet broad: it is in a way underneath his current life and will take him to the sea. Yesod and Daath are both transition points on the Tree and they are often reflected in each other. It is a reflection of the river that begins Moon Magic, though here the emphasis is on connections to the secret life of water and the idea of the hidden rivers that run through the world. As Wilfred establishes himself here, we see also his changing relationship to the feminine in the person of Sally, who feeds him better than his mother and sister ever did. In a sense he puts himself beyond their reach, and we also see a change in his relationship to the divine masculine in his appointment of Scottie, a very grounded working-class man, as a partner in the firm.
On inner levels Wilfred embarks on a deeper communion with the moon, Fortune teaching us about the power of the moon and the practice of dreaming with open eyes. Yesod is preeminently the sphere about fantasy and dream life. Ernest Butler, the great twentieth-century Qabalist and Fortune’s student, would often say, “Fantasy is the ass that carries the ark.” 23 That is to say, fantasy applied in the right way brings us into the place of spiritual growth and transformation. Wilfred is beginning to master the art of the directed daydream, or dreaming true, referencing the then-popular book Peter Ibbetson,24 whose eponymous character “dreams true” from his prison cell, so that he and his love experience a spiritual reunion in each other’s dreams.
We also see Wilfred, under the influence of Theosophical literature, imagining past incarnations for himself. He is starting to make connection with his deeper soul, and he notices but does not really understand the process of reversing one’s awareness and going backwards through the day. When he tries to do so, he can form no connection to the deeper parts of himself, unlike Hugh Paston in The Goat-Foot God, for whom this exercise is fundamental. Hugh represents the training of the will, while Wilfred represents the training of the magical imagination; his path is not through will and action, but rather through the capacity to dwell on images and give them life.
As he deepens his capacity to flow with the image, Wilfred reads and immerses himself in story. There is an important moment when he reads the Bible imaginatively, connecting with Melchizedek in a way that he cannot quite understand. Melchizedek of Salem (Jerusalem) is a key figure in Dion Fortune’s world. The priest of priests is the wellspring of her work, so Wilfred’s connection through the story and image makes a tangible energetic link between himself and the inner tradition.
As this appears, Wilfred has an uncomfortable realisation during a Theosophical Society meeting that many of his past incarnations are probably fantasy, so he returns to communing with the moon, the river, and the sea.
These contemplations are deeper, grounded in body and land, and bring to mind the legend of drowned Ys.25 Wilfred’s imagination moves to the interplay of sea and land and brings him to the Fire of Azrael, the sea fire extinguished by the rising tide that is the gate of vision and the bringing together of opposites. This leads to a further image of the sea priestess arriving from lost Atlantis to make peace between the sea and the land.
The Alchemical Path
The sea priestess now appears on the outer levels in the person of Vivien Le Fay Morgan—anima, soul-woman, and femme fatale—who scandalizes Scottie and fascinates Wilfred. Here we find resonances of Fortune’s approach to the Arthurian legends and in particular to Morgan Le Fay, who in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s version is a great healer and teacher, the real Lady of Avalon. Vivien Le Fay Morgan is the teacher/fantasy lover who draws Wilfred onwards to the Tiphareth centre of our book, the sea fort on Brean Down. Her biological age would place her late in life, but when Scottie visits her she is seen to be a beautiful woman in mid life.
There is a very interesting small detail in their first meeting: Vivien has her collar turned up and hat pulled down in such a way that Wilfred cannot see her face. This is a reference to the Goddess, whose face cannot be seen save by those who have pierced the veil of the mysteries, and Wilfred has not done so. But as he shows her properties, they get caught by the rain and there is a moment in which she unveils and shows him her face.
Wilfred is fascinated and repelled by her—a conflict that provokes another asthma attack that leads to her visiting him in his stables. In this dream place of Yesod they exchange their experiences of their inner lives. He learns that she and the first Miss Morgan made contact with the Priest of the Moon through a Ouija board, and she describes the area in terms of sacred geography. The river beneath his home called the Narrow Dick is really the Naradek, named after the sacred river of Atlantis, and Bell Knowle, a local hill, was a sacred mountain containing a sea cave. In an echo of The Goat-Foot God, we learn that local monks were seeking to summon the sea gods when something went wrong and their monastery was drowned.
In the mutual exchange between Wilfred and Vivien that begins with her revealing her face, we see the activation of the alchemical path. The polarity working here has two fundamental aspects: for Wilfred, the waking up of his dynamism and passion through falling in love with Vivien, and for her, the establishment within her of the image of the sea priestess seen through his eyes. This inner process depends on the alchemy of longing—it is the way of the troubadours, and Wilfred gradually embodies it as he follows the path. One of the crucial aspects of this path is the destruction of the current house of life, and we see this in Wilfred as he determines to pursue her even though it means his death.
Tiphareth of Yesod: The Sea Fort/Temple
This process begins as Wilfred brings Vivien to the sea fort for the first time. The vivid description of the journey across the salt marshes to Bell Head with Bell Knowle behind it gives us a general sense of the sacral landscape they are entering and of the sea fort. Vivien draws him down to the sea, where he goes into a trancelike state and nearly falls in. There is a powerful moment when she tells him she has no ulterior motive in befriending him and he flees. At this point the path takes us to the establishment of the temple of Tiphareth: Wilfred awakes as an artist and master of images as he creates the temple of the sea priestess.
The temple itself consists of a whole landscape centred on Bell Head, land shaped like a lion with its tail facing to the sea. Inland is Bell Knowle, with its sea cave linked to the area around Bell Head by a river: on the land side at the base of the head is a small farm, on the sea side is a ruined Napoleonic fort, and further out again is a slab of stone in the sea which is the altar stone and base of the Fire of Azrael.
The fort is square in outline, with a flat roof and set around a central courtyard. The windows are converted into Gothic arches, and the tunnel leading into the courtyard is sealed by two great oak doors. On the sea side Wilfred builds a stone pergola carved with sea beasts and sea plants. Inside there is one great room alongside the bedrooms with a vast window that looks out on the sea and is in effect the temple room. Beyond it is a stairway decorated with sea horses, leading down to the half-submerged sea altar.
As Wilfred is showing Vivien the temple, the son of the old builder who created it falls into the sea and is drowned—a curious episode depicted without feeling; and just after it Wilfred has a major asthma attack and has to stay at the fort. We need to consider the consecration of the temple and the necessity for sacrifice—very often sacrifices were buried in the foundations of sacred buildings to guard and protect them. We must remember that in the larger view this book is all about the foundation of life, and Wilfred is the willing sacrifice.
In this part of the book this sacrifice is being explored and made clear to all, for this principle is key to the experience of Tiphareth—in its simplest form the surrender of some aspect of life and ourselves given in the service of a deeper truth or greater need of life. The death of the builder’s son and the link with Wilfred’s willing sacrifice is significant—the son is a skilled craftsman with stone and in a way represents the gift of Wilfred’s skill and life dedicated to the task of enabling the magical image of the sea priestess to come into being. In the same way that the builder’s son is given to the deeps, Wilfred gives himself to Vivien.
The Desert Path
The next movement begins with Vivien describing the deeper topology of the land and the soul. Sitting on the landward side of the head and noticing the sea cave, she demonstrates that it is aligned with Bell Knowle and its sea cave, so that anyone sitting there on the longest day would see the sun rise over the Knowle.
Simultaneously she teaches Wilfred the art of the Fire of Azrael, an important key to this book that is referenced a number of times. Azrael is the angel of death and portals in Jewish tradition, and the Fire of Azrael is described here as the fire arising out of the sea. The myth structure underneath this book is the loss of Atlantis, the great continent of wisdom and magic, at the heart of which in Dion Fortune’s cosmology is the island of Ruta, at the centre of which is an eternal flame coming from the centre of the earth. The sea flame represents the inspired or empowered imagination, the fiery water or the watery fire that connects us to both an ancient place and a cataclysm that needs to be put right. Azrael is the angelic figure that teaches us this art and thus enables us to move through worlds. The sea priestess comes in the wake of this vision out of the drowned world—in a way, out of the deep unconscious—to bring something back that has been lost in the cataclysm. We do not see the fullness of this return until Moon Magic, but this is the foundation of that work.
The practice of the Fire of Azrael is described as laying wood out in the shape of a cross, and the wood of three trees is needed: Lebanon cedar, sandalwood, and juniper. Wilfred’s ways of finding them are worthy of contemplation. He finds a cedar in his hometown that was brought from Lebanon, sandalwood he buys from a Tibetan in the port of Bristol, while the juniper is supplied by gypsies, one of whom reads the tarot for him, giving him the High Priestess card and the Hanged Man and telling him that a woman is preparing to sacrifice him.
The practice of finding vision in the Fire of Azrael links them with the deep spiritual traditions of the world, beginning with the Himalayas, the highest place on earth, leading to the Middle East and the roots of Sumeria and the Fertile Crescent before turning westwards to the water and soil of Britain, and all leading back to drowned Atlantis—the deepest and most ancient place. This connection with the deep roots of the tradition leads to the establishment of the temple and the creation of the Fire of Azrael at the point at which the sea meets the land. We see also the coming of the Priest of the Moon, Vivien’s inner teacher, who takes charge of the work and draws them deeper into Atlantis. In the process we see Wilfred communing with the deep archetypes and the primordial energies of life: there is a profound moment in which he is taken in vision to the part of the Atlantic where Atlantis once stood and is received by vast angelic figures. There he is consecrated in such a way that forever afterwards he perceives the sacredness of life and death.
Daath of Yesod: The Rite of Isis,
the Rock in the Sea, and the Sea Cave
The experience of Daath of Yesod is the culminating work in which both participants undergo the experience of death and rebirth. It begins with Wilfred sitting in the sea cave waiting for moonrise and sinking into trance in which he connects with the beginning of the universe. As the moon rises he feels the call of the Goddess and slowly walks to the temple, where she is waiting for him. Vivien is to him as the Goddess: in a key moment in the rite she presents herself as the veiled Black Isis, telling him that those who part her veil must die. Assenting, he feels his life flowing to her, consecrating her as the Goddess, giving himself entirely to her. He finds himself journeying into death until the energy changes and Vivien arises as the fertile mother and returns his life to him. At this point she walks out into the rock in the sea, becoming one with the sea: he never sees her again. He is taught by the Priest of the Moon, who takes him into the mysteries and implants images and thoughts in him that will later come to fruition. The vigil cave is dynamited and we do not know if Vivien is within the cave or within the deeps of the sea.
This is a powerful magical image, for it suggests that if we wish to seek the sea priestess, we must find her within the deep earth or the deep sea. There is a great storm after Wilfred leaves and the sea fort collapses, the temple having fulfilled its purpose.
Crowning: Daath to Kether
The crowning experience of this book is the partnership between Molly and Wilfred; she becomes a priestess, the pair become magical partners, and we are then shown a meditation regime whereby the sea and moon mysteries become grounded in their lives. They live in the farm at the base of the Down, and the book culminates in the Rite of Isis performed in their home.
20. Fortune, The Sea Priestess, 17.
21. Fortune, The Sea Priestess, 4.
22. Ibid.
23. W. E. Butler, Apprenticed to Magic (1962; reprint, London: Aquarian Press, 1990), 52.
24. See Bibliography.
25. A Breton version of the “drowned land” myth. Others are the Cornish story of Lyonesse and the Welsh story of Cantre’r Gwaelod.