Customer Reviews

The Cosmic Doctrine

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Fortune's _Cosmic Doctrine_ is among the most important works of modern spiritual literature. Yes, it's difficult - like a koan. Yes, it's dense - like the Vedas. But it yields more useful information than any other book of its size. Fortune "received" the communication of the doctrine from an ascended master, and set it down pretty much as received. It helps if you have some understanding of Magick, Qaballah and the essential esoteric traditions. But even if you don't, study of it will still yield enormous results.

Many claim that this book was channeled from a spiritual entity, or entities. It may well have been, or not; in her introduction to the book, Fortune states with admirable honesty that she doesn't know if it was channeled or if it came from her subconscious on overdrive. She does lean toward the "channeled" theory.

I am sorry to say that, although I am a student of the occult, I find much of this book incomprehensible. This does not invalidate the worth of the book; perhaps I'm not "ready" for what it offers, or perhaps it would only make sense to someone who was involved in the same magickal tradition that Dion Fortune was involved in.

In any case I can say for sure that this book is not for the casual student of the occult, nor is it even for the average person who reads Dion Fortune's works and learns from them. To be honest, this book mystifies me completely, although I have to admire the thoroughness with which Fortune and/or the Entities create their cosmology and the apparent "rightness" of some of the more comprehensible statements in the book. That is what the three stars are for.

However, I have to be honest and say that I don't understand what she's getting at (or what the Entities are getting at) here, and I seriously doubt the general reader will either. Nonetheless its cryptic nature makes it an interesting curiosity, and perhaps much more than that to those more adept than I in Dion Fortune's tradition.

I have read and studied a number of works by Dion Fortune of the Western Esoteric Tradition -- such as her excellent classic "The Mystical Qabalah" -- which could serve as a good anchor-and-check for "The Cosmic Doctrine". Of all the ones she authored, this one certainly is in a singular class all-by-itself. Of course, she states that "The Cosmic Doctrine" is a recieved doctrine -- not just authored by her. So, it does makes some sense that it is quite difficult to make more than just some sense of it.

It seems amazing that one can even make some sense of "The Cosmic Doctrine" from the start. Indeed, one can -- via some sustained study and reflection. Like the finest mystical prose, poetry, music and art -- "The Cosmic Doctrine" seems to evoke never-ending on-going Inspiration -- in a Forceful Symbolist way. Old and new ideas and ideals seem to radiate deeply from it -- but, only after one has concentrated substantial contemplation over some time upon "The Cosmic Doctrine" +++

Usually, people I meet who are at odds with this book have ignored the caveat that it was written to train the mind, not to inform the intellect. Practice the meditations available in this book for a month or two and then try re-reading it. It's meditations are astonishingly powerful, but possibly a student without the background to understand the use of the symbols might feel lost.

Hats off to Gareth Knight for getting the full text out into the light of day.

Dion Fortune should have lived nowadays. For it is in this century we begin to percieve evolution as a dynamic loop in the sense of: what is new falls on old, en therefore you get a mix. Always the same law of evolution: new falls on old, and then? Fascinating....................