The best books of metaphysical fantasy, thought, and fiction

First published in 1956 Dion Fortune recalls her heroine Vivian le Fay, first introduced in The Sea Priestess fifteen years earlier.

In Moon Magic she is conjured as Lilith le Fay, mysterious and alluring. Interestingly, considering Dion Fortune died before finishing the book, its completion was brought about by an acolyte ‘channeling the author’ after her death. 

Her play on the dynamic of the male and female polarity allows the story to evolve on different levels, as an interesting, if dated view of a society in need of a spiritual revelation, and a treatise on genuine esoteric practices. Fortune’s clipped prose style gives the reader's imagination free rein, allowing her to influence our understanding of certain concepts and provide an entertaining tale to boot.

John and Caitin Mathews have a vast body of work on the subject of spirituality. This is one of their first and, in my opinion, one of their best.

I recommend this title to anyone who feels a deep connection to Celtic heritage and the old Gods and Goddesses of early British and Welsh ancestry. I was especially entranced by the pathworking techniques, a guided visualisation journey into the ‘otherworld’ of our native ancestors. Having undertaken several of these guided visualisation journeys, I had some deeply personal and life-enhancing experiences that I still vividly recall some thirty years later.

A great introduction to the Western Mystery Tradition.

I cannot recommend one particular book of the first three that tells the tale of Thomas Covenant and his trials and tribulations in both his real world and that of the ‘Land’ which he magically travels to.

Each book has its own merits. The overall story between the three books is epic fantasy at its darkest and its best. I remember being in shock for several days after a particular part of the story that involved an act of genocide. I loved the level of engagement.

This first trilogy gripped me from start to finish. The protagonist is a little difficult to relate to but I think this is what made it memorable for me. First-class characters in a magnificent setting.

First published in 1818 this tale is a Gothic masterpiece of morality and mortality.

A haunting rendition of a creator and his creation, extolling the unforeseen and tragic circumstances of playing God. Elevated in status from a character in a novel into an icon of the horror and science fiction genres, I doubt there is a citizen of the modern world today who does not know the tale of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster over two hundred years after its publication.

Love, isolation, loneliness, and ultimately revenge and death all converge in this story from the mind of an eighteen-year-old girl written in response to a literary challenge over two centuries ago.

Few people can claim the title The Wickedest Man in the World bestowed upon one of the most vilified and revered characters of the nineteenth century, Alistair Crowley.

Writer, mountain climber, occultist, and dare I say visionary, Crowley has rubbed shoulders with both literary giants and personalities of the early nineteen hundreds. A member of several secret societies and founder of his own Temple of Thelema and surrounded by some of the strangest characters one could hope to meet in a single lifetime.

This biography recounts passages from his own diaries and manuscripts bequeathed to the author after his death and anecdotes both funny and disturbing about a man who lived a most extraordinary life. Eventually dying in poverty at a rooming house in Brighton.