Gareth Knight has died

Gareth Knight (Basil Wilby) has died at his Essex home on 1 March. He was 91.

It is hard to find a place in the British Western Mystery Tradition where Gareth Knight did not influence.

He trained in Dion Fortune’s Society of the Inner Light and his follow-up to her Mystical Qabalah with Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism. Knight became Fortune’s post-war interpreter, providing many footnotes and making her unpublished works accessible. He was her biographer.

In the 1980s, Knights books were among the few which captured an authentic flavour of magic and esotericism. There was a certain “hands-on” about his approach to British mythology.

He wrote more than forty books covering topics as diverse as Qabalah, the history of magic, Arthurian legend, Rosicrucianism, Tarot, the Inklings and the Feminine Mysteries, and several practical books on ritual magic.

While no modern esoteric group will admit it, most of them followed Knight’s approach. His system can be seen in the work of Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki, Marian Green, Josephine McCarthy, Wendy Berg, Bob Stewart, Alan Richardson and many others.

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