Over seventy-two years ago, beginning on the Vernal Equinox in Glastonbury, Dion Fortune started receiving communications from the Inner Planes concerning the creation of the universe, the evolution of humanity, natural law, the evolution of consciousness, and the nature of the mind. Her written record of this experience forms the basis for The Cosmic Doctrine.

Fortune examines the limbo where Science and Magic interact, where the cosmology of the "Big Bang" and chaos theory run parallel to the evolutionary process. She also illustrates the true nature of Good and Evil, which is generally viewed from an individual's own highly subjective and very personal perspective, and provides further insights into the interaction of the positive and negative polarity within the universal scheme of things. A cryptic warning accompanies these clearly outlined concepts: this book is designed to train the mind rather than inform it. In other words, it is intended to induce in the reader a particular attitude to both the inner and outer world.

Unpublished until 1949, and then only in a privately printed edition, Fortune and her followers considered the material too dangerous for general release. This revised and definitive edition includes original material left out of previous editions and illuminating diagrams by one of Fortune's closest collaborators.

Dion Fortune (1890-1946), born Violet Mary Firth, founder of the Society of the Inner Light, is recognized as one of the most luminous figures of 20th-century esoteric thought. A prolific writer, pioneer psychologist, powerful psychic, and spiritualist, she dedicated her life to the revival of the Western Mystery Tradition. She was also a member of the Order of the Golden Dawn, whose members included A.E. Waite, Aleister Crowley, and W.B. Yeats.