As mentioned in the article inspired by The Demon Lover, there are scenes in Dion Fortune's occult novels that have particular relevance to some of the topics on here.
This post features another of these scenes, this time from Moon Magic (1956). It presents the idea that people with certain metaphysical powers and the right training and intention can use occult methods to draw others to them for mutual benefit.
Moon Magic contains much occult-related material that people who live entirely in the three-dimensional universe would dismiss as ridiculous rubbish, purple prose, or, as Richard Hannay describes a speech he makes in John Buchan's Greenmantle, confounded nonsense!
I skip through many of the occult scenes myself, but find this novel worth reading for the commentary-inspiring material that it contains.
Lilith Le Fay is one of the main characters. She is a priestess of Isis and a practitioner of ceremonial magic.
She needs to find someone to work with her when she performs the rituals. She advertises the job vacancy in a very unusual way:
“There was nothing for me to do but watch and wait. I could not go and find the people I wanted; I had to wait for them to find me. This I knew they would do because I was sounding the call of Isis, vibrating it on the Inner Planes as a wireless operator sounds his key-call. Those who were on my wave-length would soon be picking it up, and then curious combinations of circumstances would do the rest. They would come from the ends of the earth like homing pigeons, picking up the call subconsciously and not knowing what it was that drew them.“
The procedure may seem preposterous and the practitioner delusional, but it works! Lilith Le Fay attracts the right man for the job by broadcasting on the right wavelength: she puts out the call, and a man who has the qualities that she requires eventually appears in her life.
Most people will immediately dismiss the suggestion that some people can communicate via other dimensions as very unlikely indeed - or even crazy. However, when people who are interested in unseen influences and have had certain unusual experiences are first introduced to this idea, they find that it makes sense and could explain a lot.
Further consideration by such people may cause them to realise that, assuming it is correct, this proposition has some alarming implications; they may rightly suspect that the forces involved do not always work for the benefit of the people using or affected by them.
In particular, there is a negative or shadow side to the calling phenomenon.
Lilith Le Fay calls the co-worker to her consciously and deliberately. It may seem that he is caught in her net, but both sides are happy with the outcome. Both of their lives are enhanced: she gets exactly the sort of person she needs to help her with the magical rituals and he gets someone who understands him and brings meaning and an opportunity to exercise his latent occult powers into his life.
However, the calling and receiving can operate unconsciously and at a much lower level. When this happens, the operation often backfires or goes into reverse and at least one person is the worse for it.
There may be an element of compulsion on one or both sides.
An unwitting caller may broadcast on the wrong wavelength, draw in the wrong people and receive unwelcome attention from them. An unprotected receiver may be drawn to the wrong people and sleepwalk into unpleasant situations.
The caller may feel pursued and harassed; the receiver may feel sucked in and trapped. The caller may feel stalked and besieged; the receiver that they have been pulled into someone's orbit against their will and best interests. One side at least may feel that they are stuck with the last person they would want to get involved with; one side at least may need to realise that the other party is the last person to be able to meet their requirements.
Anyone who has been on the receiving end of unwelcome approaches such as are mentioned above would do well to consider the possibility that they have - inadvertently – brought disappointment and trouble on themselves as a result of being connected to the wrong network and transmitting on a wavelength that only people who are no good to them can receive on.
The scene in which Lilith Le Fay uses metaphysical methods to call the right person to her indirectly supports the proposition that distress signals often attract predators. In these cases, people who are suffering may get the opposite of what they are desperately calling out for: the distress signals that they broadcast attract exploiters rather than saviours because they are being sent out unconsciously and on the wrong wavelength.
Then there is the converse scenario, where vulnerable, unprotected people are pulled towards a predator – or at least into unwelcome company.
This edition of Moon Magic has a cover by Bruce Pennington:
