Dolores Ashcroft Nowicki has died; she was 96.
Tributes have been pouring in for her, leaving me slightly perplexed and putting me in a position to bluntly speak my truth (which always ends up badly). There is no doubt that she was hugely influential in the Western Mystery Tradition, both as a writer, Director of Studies for the Servants of Light and organiser of courses. But her story was complex and affected many people, and sometimes not in a good way.
I was a bit player in her story. In 1988, I joined Servants of the Light and was so impressed that I decided to come to the UK to attend all the workshops that were being run by DAN. I was hugely enthusiastic, and between Dolores and her number two, David Goddard, I learnt the basis of magic that I would use for the rest of my life and for that I am hugely grateful.
DAN’s writing was a brilliant approach to practical magic for beginners. Her ritual magic workbook (ritual) and Shining Paths (pathworking on the Tree of Life) are still essential reading material.
In her workshops, Dolores had a genius for taking a ritual and expanding it so everyone could take part, even if it was just a line to say. This allowed people attending her workshops, who had no ritual experience, to feel what it was like to stand up in front of others magically as a godform. At the time this was a big deal for many.
Another important point was that, despite being extremely conservative in many respects, Dolores Ashcroft Nowicki was eager to open the doors of the Mysteries to those who had previously been openly excluded. For example, she permitted homosexuals to join the Servants of the Light (SOL), the esoteric school she directed. This was particularly notable given that, in the UK during the 1980s, societal attitudes towards homosexuality in the occult were still largely conservative, and many organisations continued to exclude LGBTQ+ individuals. DAN’s willingness to foster inclusivity within SOL was therefore progressive for its time and helped some people access teachings they might otherwise have been barred from.
She also established a working lodge system with SOL, and in the group I was in, it worked extremely well. At its peak, there were 10 working lodges worldwide with standardised opening and closing times. It was a stage or two above Wicca, with some masonic/ceremonial effects. Perhaps the most significant thing was the use of Godforms and pathworking, which raised the rituals to a much higher pitch than the writing suggested.
All this meant that the order peaked in the 1990s, with huge conferences held in London, where everyone had a chance to take part in a major ritual. It was interesting to take part in. It was believed that there were about 1000 active members in the SOL correspondence course (we used to be told a much larger figure, but that was probably including inactive members).
But there were flaws in DAN’s life that made her story more of a warning than something to be duplicated by others. The biggest issue was that she encouraged sycophants who formed a hardcore around her and fought to be noticed by her. This was physically draining on her. At one workshop, someone else and I pretended she had to take a call from Jersey so she could sneak away from the sycophants to have a cup of tea and a moment to herself.
Generally, these people were encouraged, even if they lacked magical talent or personal skills. While I was in SOL, initiations were rare, but it was unusual for a magician to receive them; instead, they went to those who, by their loyalty and deification of DAN, were owed a favour. But this hardcore of people gave her plausible deniability and acted as protectors and enforcers when things went wrong, and for a few reasons, they did. Those who were on the receiving end of these people were unaware whether the attacks came from DAN or her henchmen, and certainly, she did little to stop them.
Some of these people suffered considerable damage, but when you talk to them about her death now, they respond with a feeling of regret that they never resolved things with her, as if they were to blame.
The other thing she had was a mercurial relationship with the truth, which was difficult to spot. I am not talking about some minor mythmaking here; I mean full-blown fantasy posing as self-aggrandising reality. One example was her unique blend of witchcraft, which was interesting as it was practical. It appeared to be based on different English folk traditions, and if you were interested in Green Ray was good stuff. However, in her eyes, it was not enough to present this material; it needed an elaborate backstory. Her initial claim was that she was initiated in a secret village that had survived the burning times by remaining hidden. This story was surprisingly similar to a book by Charles de Lint, which I knew DAN had read.
This backfired because many Wiccans in SOL wanted to know where this village was. After saying it was secret, DAN gave a nebulous location before giving up and finally saying it “was on the astral.”
This led me to question her claim that she had been trained by Dion Fortune’s Inner Light before leaving to found SOL with her husband, Michael. She was certainly associated with the Inner Light for a short time, and while there, she worked with W. E. Butler. However, I have been unable to find anyone who can confirm that she ever held a grade within the organisation. One Inner Light member told me explicitly that she could not reasonably be described as having been “trained by them.”
This is not especially important, since she did have a close working relationship with Butler and clearly learned a great deal from him. My concern is not that something was missing from her background, but that there seemed to be a need to embellish the story in the first place.
The other issue is that she would set her followers off against each other. At times, someone with genuine and obvious magical talent would appear in SOL and be given a position of responsibility, on the assumption that they would provide material or drive people to the Order. However, these “blue-eyed boys and girls” had the shelf life of yoghurt, particularly when they were designated the title of DAN’s successor. What would happen is that, for a wide range of reasons, these “blue-eyed boys and girls” became surplus to requirements; they would be fired, and the minions would be told that they were evil and go on the attack.
Before the internet, this was easily done through letters, but by the 1990s it became increasingly difficult, though outsourced attacks were more effective.
More serious was DAN’s relationship with her husband, Michael, which I think shaped many of her negative actions. While I will not go into this at this time, I think that fear of what he would do or say was behind some of her choices. This might simply be because I liked Dolores and believe that some of her worst actions were motivated by how her husband would react and by the fear of being left penniless if he left her.
I want to make it clear that any bad blood between me and DAN was resolved before her death, and we had a good and open chat about it all. Her death was unusual in that I found myself wondering what had happened to her on the day she died. It is like that sometimes with people that you owe some form of debt.
However, I do not think I can legitimately join those who would make DAN a goddess. She was extremely human, and her life holds a lesson for every occult leader and should not be glossed. Some of her stories, good and bad, have made it into my books.
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