Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #283379 in Books
• Published on: 2003-06-01
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 260 pages

Customer Reviews

The Sequel to Sea Priestess
This is the excellent sequel to Fortune's own Sea Priestess. This is the last book Fortune wrote before her untimely death. The last parts of it were allegedly channeled through Fortune's dying body by a psychic. If you like Aleister Crowley, Fortune was one of his contemporaries and arguably just as good and influential. Though the Society of Inner Light is more obscure than Crowley's O.T.O. Fortune, especially her fiction, was a big influence on even modern day neo pagans such as myself. These days wannabes are into Harry Potter. Even supposed "real" local "covens" are little more than a gimmick for social events. While Harry Potter is rated PG, this teters on an R rating not for vulgar language, but for the more mature content in it, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone under 17 or 18 years old. I liked it because it stands the test of time as a sign of good taste amongst the wannabes of today.

Disappointing
Moon Magic is the sequel to Fortune's excellent "Sea Priestess". Vivianne LeFay Morgan returns, this time using the name Lilith. Through her magickal intervention, Rupert Malcolm, a doctor of great distinction, overcomes some serious psychological problems and realizes his innate psychic talent.

Regretfully, I cannot regard this book as even close to equal to its predecessor. Fortune did not finish this book while she was alive, and it reads like what it probably is: a first draft. The various middle chapters revolve around highly repetitive conversations between Lilith and Malcolm. The two circle around the same two or three themes, never really coming to a perceptible meeting of the minds. There are, however, some intense ritual scenes that are as good as anything in the Sea Priestess.

It's not that I think the book is utterly without worth. I wouldn't be reviewing it if I did. I simply feel it needs a touch up, and a talented author to smooth out some of its rough edges.

The current (2003) Weiser edition does almost the opposite. There are so many typographical errors that I was left wondering whether the Weiser copyeditors were on strike, and the publisher had hired the butchers at Llewellyn. The third section of Moon Magic was completed after Fortune's death. In fact, it was "channeled". Fortune's voice is nonetheless clear, and there is no jarring change between the sections completed by more mundane methods and the final part. Only, the editors seem to have missed the fact that the sixteenth chapter has two sections which describe the same action in two different ways, with no explanation. This is distracting, to say the least. Perhaps those who channeled this section felt too much reverence for Fortune to dare edit her?

The relationship between the two characters does not get resolved satisfactorily. We are left with hints, when the explicit purpose of the final working is to bring the power to earth.

This book left me cold. Still, it's not bad for a first draft. Perhaps one day, someone will finish it, and it will take its place as another of the jewels in Fortune's fictional crown.

BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE SEA PRIESTESS!
MOON MAGIC is one of several fascinating and beautiful novels written by the renowned Esotericist and Psychologist, Violet Mary Firth, better known to the world as Dion Fortune. Fortune, notorious for her use of the novel format as a vehicle for conveying complex and highly controversial esoteric (and often overtly pagan) secrets, struck pure gold with MOON MAGIC. In the author's own words, "... there are some very curious things if you read between the lines. Writers will put things into a novel that they daren't put in sober prose, where you have to dot the I's and cross the T's." (see THE GOAT FOOT GOD).

On the surface, MOON MAGIC tells the story of a lonely, yet privileged man. A renowned doctor and professor of medicine, he has an uncanny ability to diagnose illness but lacks in capacity to heal. He is trapped in a failed marriage, disliked by associates, students and patients alike for his brusque demeanor and his utter lack of etiquette and social skill. In short, the good Doctor has no bedside manner. With the aid of Lilith Le Fay (last seen in THE SEA PRIESTESS as Vivien Le Fay Morgan), he embarks on a perilous journey toward spiritual enlightenment. Lilith, a thoroughly modern woman trapped in a Victorian world, serves the role of "Initiatrix", as the modern incarnation of the veiled Isis, as Adept and pagan priestess in a re-enactment of ancient rituals designed to free the good Doctor from the jail forged by his own karma. And in the process, Lilith herself achieves transcendence. This novel has everything to make it sell to a modern audience - mystery, action, and even eroticism. But at a deeper level, MOON MAGIC represents a primer for the seeker looking to reclaim lost spiritual knowledge - a "How To" guide that quite eloquently reveals some of the ancient arcane secrets and practices long held sacred by Western secret societies and mystical orders.

MOON MAGIC is an amazing achievement. First, it is quite remarkable that a woman in post WW-I England authored this controversial and thought-provoking novel and succeeded in getting it published. What is nearly unfathomable, however, is that MOON MAGIC, like it's prequel THE SEA PRIETESS, was written at a time when the witchcraft statues still existed on the books in England. Engaging, and deeply philosophical, MOON MAGIC holds value for even the casual seeker of enlightenment. In addition, the book is well written and entertaining. When read with it's companion novel, THE SEA PRIESTESS, the alchemical prerogative is complete. Approach this book like you would approach the Philosopher's Stone. There is much to learn here, but apply what you learn with care. As Fortune reminds us, Nature can destroy as well as create.