The Winged Bull

by Dion Fortune

The Winged Bull is a tale of magic and sexuality. Down on his luck, Ted Murchison invokes the Winged Bull, a god of ancient Babylon, to come to his aid. Immediately, he is drawn into a vortex of weird events in which he is asked to rescue the daughter of an old friend from the clutches of a black magician.

Genres: Occult, Fiction, Magic, Fantasy, Magick, Witchcraft

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1935

About the author

Violet Mary Firth Evans (better known as Dion Fortune), was a British occultist and author. Her pseudonym was inspired by her family motto "Deo, non fortuna" (Latin for "by God, not fate").

From 1919 she began writing a number of novels and short stories that explored various aspects of magic and mysticism, including The Demon Lover, The Winged Bull, The Goat-Foot God, and The Secrets of Dr. Taverner. This latter is a collection of short stories based on her experiences with Theodore Moriarty. Two of her novels, The Sea Priestess and Moon Magic, became influential within the religion of Wicca, especially upon Doreen Valiente.

Of her non-fiction works on magical subjects, the best remembered of her books are; The Cosmic Doctrine, meant to be a summation of her basic teachings on mysticism; The Mystical Qabalah, an introduction to Hermetic Qabalah; and Psychic Self Defence, a manual on how to protect oneself from psychic attacks. Though some of her writings may seem dated to contemporary readers, they have the virtue of lucidity and avoid the deliberate obscurity that characterised many of her forerunners and contemporaries.

Reviews

[Mir]

My bad. I thought I was picking up a pulp-type novel, not a fiction designed to lead people into mystery cults. I am not interested in worshiping Pan (no offense, Pan, you're awesome, I'm just not a joiner) but even if I were I don't think I'd enjoy this book. The prose is so-so, not bad but not good enough to get me past the sullen whining of the main character and the needless* misogyny and racism. I'd recommend this for people who have a particular interest in occult novels and practices rather than casual readers. The author seems to have been a member of some of these groups, so that aspect is probably accurate. I mean, if you can't rely on the information passed on by the Ascended Masters, whom can you trust, right?


*Like, really needless, in that as far as I've read there have been no female characters and the men are just slurring women in the abstract. Actually, their complaints are almost amusing because they gripe about things like how women nag if you don't pay the rent on time. Shrews! I was mildly surprised that the author was a women.

Dagos are servile and badly dressed. Kids need to be spanked more. That kind of dated stuff that you're probably familiar with if you read much Brit Lit from this period.

[K.J. Charles]

Novel about sex magic'k' and Black Mass and suchlike, which is fascinating both for the view it gives of interwar British occultism (Fortune was a true believer) and for the unintentional self-revelation of the whole thing. Fortune believed, and used the book as a mouthpiece to argue, that sex was not to be seen as shameful but as a God given part of a spiritual bonding etc etc. What we get on the page is a much older stepbrother with a fantastically creepy obsession with getting his younger sister laid, a hero who veers between brute and creepy worshipper as part of his spiritual development, and the heroine who is pretty much there to be taken down a peg or two with her la-di-dah belief in things like having her own choices, ooh get her. The entire book is redolent with the injustice of Murchison not having a career because of the War and how he, a noble man, was forced into degrading jobs, but every man in the book (ie all the characters except the heroine) agrees the wealthy and educated Ursula needs to be made to scrub floors for her own good.

Staggeringly misogynist, basically. Dion Fortune reeks of 'not like other girls' and just loves to emphasise male superiority. Also solidly racist.

There are some good occulty sequences (though the Black Mass is a sad disappointment, as for all the big talk, Fortune was clearly not able to write about sex at all, and not just for fear of prosecution imo.) The best parts are the bits about Aleister Crowley, who appears incredibly thinly disguised as the bad guy, but with added racism, and is depicted as contemptible on every possible level yet still has about four times the vitality of any of the other characters.

[Tim Pendry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published in 1935, this straddles the territory between popular and serious fiction (or an attempt at it at least). It is best given its rating as the former because this is not great literature but rather a fascinating insight into the sexual attitudes of a long-gone era.

Put to one side the casual racism and sexism and the very binary view of what it is to be a man and a woman and enjoy a romantic adventure, albeit one built on the somewhat simple sub-Lawrentian and post-Freudian theories of its occultist psychologist author.

There is an erotic charge in at least the first third of the book and, although the romance does not quite ring true, it contains nuggets of well observed psychology some of which applies today as much to the 1930s. But it is the down-at-heel soldier Murchison who interests most.

This is a picture of a thirty-something who has been given a taste of life as a berserker soldier in the Great War and been disappointed ever since, finding not a 'land fit for heroes' but submission to harsh economic reality and a culture of sexual repression.

This is the sort of man who would have swelled the ranks of national socialism if he had been born a German but he is born a Briton instead and so into a very different set of class, emotional and sexual constraints.

The characters of Murchison, his slightly effeminate and manipulative boss Alick Brangwyn and the confused and passive half-sister Ursula Brangwyn create a sexual dynamic offset against the manipulations of darker forces.

The criminal is always just below the surface. Murchison could turn to crime out of economic desperation. He makes clear that he would do so to survive but his opponents are criminal by their very nature. Love redeems, of course, but he has to have the basic character for it.

Murchison is saved (rather too obviously in the final symbolism) by a form of gnostic Christanity rather than the socially dominant Christianity of (his) contemporary culture because he is taken in hand by Brangwyn the manipulative occultist and therapist.

On the other side is a sinister and evil character, Astley, no more nor less than a satirised Aleister Crowley. The attempt at a Black Mass ritual is the seedy ancestor of Dennis Wheatley's horrors - not true esotericism but mere psychic and physical thuggery.

For Fortune, the occult was just hidden spirituality of a gnostic type in which magic was a matter of the manipulation of the psychological dynamic in a sexual situation. The cause of change would be spiritual in the classic sense. Evil magicians could use that same dynamic.

The underlying theme is one of sex magick and, though never explicit and clearly undertaken within the bounds of matrimony, there is an ambiguity about whether the matrimony may actually require a church service if it is a magically charged spiritual encounter.

As you would expect in a published book of the era, the sexual magick is ritualised in the abstract and largely alluded to rather than directly presented but it is there. The theme is clear - sex is a positive force for spiritual change.

The theory is not going to persuade many twenty-first century readers - too much intellectual and social change took place in the intervening eight or so decades but it remains an interesting contribution to the occult thriller genre and still reads well.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

The very beginning scenes at the British Museum are probably the best part of the whole book, sadly. After that, there is never again as much mythologising, if one should use such a word, again. The so called rituals propposed get talked about but not many get performed and while the book is free of much spiritualist jargon, it's a bit light on anyting else. A kind of love story, with a rather weak antagonist thwarted pathetically easily a bit of a ways before the book's end, after most of the novel is spent on people sitting around and discussing what to do about him.

[Kylie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Way too much emphasis on the romance, but I still enjoyed reading it. Not so much the plot, but the almost arcane style and language. I snagged myself a beautiful 1970's hardback of this and will be pleased to add it to my collection. None of her fiction has beat the Sea Priestess so far for me.

[Calvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a romance novel that touched on some esoteric lore. I had expected rather more esoteric lore and less romance novel. However, the story was charming, and the characters were wonderful. I especially liked the Yorkshire man main character, and the scenes in the Welsh countryside. I think insofar as I was expecting more weirdness, perhaps Robert Anton Wilson's fantastic novels have spoiled me. But this was a good read, if a tad anachronistic with regard to speech patterns and attitudes toward race and gender.

[Carmilla Voiez · Rating 3 out of 5]

“The Winged Bull” reveals hidden worlds of ritual magic without the slightest hint of pretension. It is also a decent suspense story. In spite of this, the novel is deeply flawed. Sadly, the narrative style is far from polished. The author simply tells her story rather than showing it to us through action and dialogue, which would allow the reader to feel part of the world. The villain, Astley, reputably based on Crowley, is mixed race, although Fortune uses a racial slur to describe him. His butler too is described with Enid Blyton style overt racism. I am not one of those readers who attempts to justify this as a product of its time. While the book is ok, it didn't live up to my expectations.

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

I tried but I only got through a third of the book before giving up. I was confused and couldn't get a handle on what was going on. I have too many books in my TBR stash to persevere. This book simply wasn't for me.

[Ariel Gargallo Perez Valeiras · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing thriller/mystery embedded with occult truths!

[Lissa Notreallywolf · Rating 3 out of 5]

Warning: This book contains a heavy dose of racism, nationalism and is definately part of the time it is set in. The "n" word appears in a very racist portrait of the enemy's butler. Germans are characterized as sheep. She set the book in the gap between the Great World Wars, and presumably the attitudes were prevalent in England at the time, complete with Italian restauranteers providing comic relief. My favorite line in the book is about the Welsh-"Do anything for you if they like you and anything to you if they don't." (175)
So historical context aside, and the use of a heavy duty metaphorical clothespin, the book details the redemption of Ted Muchison, an out of work WWI soldier who is discovered by his old CO bellowing for Pan outside the British Museum. Colonel Brangwyn has his own problem in the form of his half sister or step sister, Ursula. They been experimenting with magic rituals and her magical mate, Fouldes, shifted loyalties to the dark side. The novel is heavily romantic, dealing with the tumultuous relation ship between Ursula and Ted, and the machinations of Fouldes and his handler, Astley. All of these people seem to have temples in the basement, although they use them for differing aspects of the pagan gods. They also appear to be wealthy, but Astley and Fouldes are corrupted by the use of drugs and alcohol, while Murchison's magician is hale. Ursula is not terribly well developed as a character she is more a icon of spiritual femininity, although nor entirely in it's passive aspect like Dan Brown's heroines. There's a lively confrontation between the down and out war hero and the mink-wearing Ursula. The esoteric aspects of the novel read like unending sacristy nightmares and this novel features a Black Mass, mercifully interrupted. I was reminded of a Steven Speilberg movie, but I can't recall which one. Too heady to be made into films, Fortune's novels have probably inspired film makers. On the title of the Winged Bull, this novel approaches the microcosm microcosm of man and God, and offers a solution in romantic love. I'm not a big fan.

[Jeanne Thornton · Rating 3 out of 5]

I described this book to my girlfriend as like "a YA novel, but for people who are older and more sad." I like the plot, which my instincts tell me was invented more or less in the act of writing the book--the whole business about Murchison maybe becoming a "car bandit" shows up out of nowhere, I like that the adorable sheepdog completely runs away with the plot for like forty pages toward the end, and I'm really really well disposed toward any book wherein the "climax of the action" more or less ends up with the villains just being kind of embarrassed that the Evil Sex Ritual they've been working for three hundred pages to bring off (with lots of hypnotism, daring abduction attempts in the Black Country of Wales, double agents, etc.) gets interrupted, so they call a cab for the hero and heroine and grumble about how they'd rather not see them for a few days.

Reading this novel is kind of like reading Chris Claremont's X-Men comics crossed with The House with a Clock in Its Walls: i.e., I eagerly await the really, really guilty pleasure of reading the rest of Dion Fortune's wacky occult fiction.

(Two stars off for really extravagant 1930s British racism)

[Jai · Rating 4 out of 5]

At night my partner reads to me from The Winged Bull. We are moving slowly through the story. This tale is about four men, one woman and their journey using an ancient magic and ritual to save the woman from a kind of possession by one of the men. The man who possess her was involved with rituals that bind people together on the inner planes. But that man was overtaken by a magician who uses his knowledge and force to control others. Our damsel in distress was well partnered, on a personality level, with the overtaken man until he lost all self control and became a pawn for the magician. In steps the stepbrother with his idea of how to save her. He introduces a male friend that is a diamond in the rough. This new man is clothed in tatters, has a crude & brusk manner, and is terribly internally conflicted. How is the brother to pull this coupling together? The story has many seemingly impossible conflicts. Will White magic prevail?

[Nicole Diamond · Rating 1 out of 5]

If it has one star I liked it a lot
If it has two stars I liked it a lot and would recommend it
If it has three stars I really really liked it a lot
If it has four stars I insist you read it
If it has five stars it was life changing

[Lesley Arrowsmith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I know this is a classic of a sort - but I wanted to slap Ursula, and I wasn't too happy about her brother bringing the hero into the affair without explaining to him exactly what he was getting into.

[Ruby Hollyberry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just ordered a replacement copy for the one that fell apart from much love and poor gluing!

[Ro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to remember that this book was written in the 1930's and that gender roles were more pronounced. I LOVED that I had to get put the dictionary.