She is argued by many to have been one of the leading occultist's of her time. Born in Bryn-y-Bia which is Llandudno, Wales (UK) but described herself as a Yorkshire woman (her father was a Yorkshire man). The family motto was 'Deo, non Fortuna' translated means 'By God, not by Chance', this is where she obtained her magic name (Dion Fortune), her mother was a Christian Scientist.

Very little is known of her early life except that she is reputed to have had visions of 'Atlantis' when she was four and later in her life she believed that she had been a temple priestess there. During puberty she is said to have developed mediumistic abilities. In AD1906 she joined the Theosophical movement when her family moved to London but did not find their ideas inspiring. When she was twenty Dion worked under a woman who had travelled to India and studied occult techniques which Dion claimed she used against her in the form of 'Psychic Attacks'. Dion fought off these attacks suffering a nervous breakdown in the process. By the age of twenty-three she was a lay psychoanalyst having studied psychology but felt that neither Carl G. Jung or Sigmund Freud really understood the complexity and ability of the mind. During the end of World War I she met and worked with Irishman, the occultist and freemason Theodore Moriarty which led to her write her well known book 'Psychic Self-Defence' (AD1930) which is seen as her magical autobiography.

Fortune was initiated an outer order of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn known as the London Temple of the Alpha and Omega Lodge of the Stella Matutina in AD1919, but she formed her own order known as the 'Fraternity of the Inner Light' which was based upon esoteric Christianity, originally part of the Golden Dawn but eventually forming itself as an independent after Moina Mathers (one of the founders of the Golden Dawn) asked Dion to leave.

During the winter of AD1923/24 Dion then spent time in Glastonbury which became a place she would retreat to regularly involving her own thoughts in the Celtic Otherworld (See Otherworld) she claimed lay beneath the 'Tor' (See Tor). During this time she claimed to have been in spiritual contact with the Greek philosopher Socrates, the nineteenth-century Chancellor of England Lord Erksine, and later the great Arthurian magus himself 'Merlin' (See Merlin). She wrote many of her experiences down in the book 'Glastonbury : Avalon of the Heart'.

Fortune married Thomas Penry Evans (AD1927). He became nicknamed Merlin/Merl by many of Fortune's followers. Unfortunately he divorced her in AD1939 after many reputed arguments, he re-married later.

Fortune also formed a pilgrim centre known as the 'Chalice Orchard Club' whilst in Glastonbury, along with a temple dedicated to the 'Mysteries of Isis' in West London known as the 'Belfry'. During her life, and since, she has received a large following. Many of her books are still read by occultists/neo-Pagans. Just after the World War II she was struck down with leukaemia and died at the age of 54.

The now 'Society of the Inner Light' (originally a fraternity) based in London still meets and explores the teachings of western occultism, but stress that Fortune was not a Witch and they themselves do not associate with Witchcraft practices.

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