Dion Fortune (1890–1946) was an occultist, author, lay psychoanalyst, medium, and community leader. One of the most prolific figures of interwar British occultism, she produced a large corpus of work including novels such as The Sea Priestess (1936) and Moon Magic (1957), and non-fiction titles such as Sane Occultism (1929) and The Mystical Qabalah (1935). With these books Fortune aimed to dispel the mystique of occult work and make it accessible to those reluctant to enter one of the many occult orders which flourished in the period. Fortune is an often-unacknowledged influence on Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente and can be rightfully considered the ‘godmother’ of the British occult/new age. In her 1936 article ‘The Novels of Dion Fortune,’ Fortune stated that her occult novels—The Winged Bull (1935), The Goat-Foot God (1936), The Sea Priestess (1938), and Moon Magic (published posthumously in 1956)—had an initiatory quality and that reading them, relating to their characters, and meditating on their contents would lead to initiation, ‘a realisation of the nature of the soul.’ While initiation typically refers to religious or social rituals which constitute a ‘Rite of Passage’ for their participants, the term is also used to denote a spiritual experience which causes lasting spiritual, psychological, physical, and social changes in the subject. As Arthur Versluis notes in Restoring Paradise: Western Esotericism, Literature, Art and Consciousness, this spiritual form of initiation is often catalysed by the arts, including theatre, paintings, music, and literature. Dion Fortune’s occult novels are an example of this latter form of initiation through the vehicle of fiction.