A Teacher
Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki
Pathworking & guided inner journeys
The transmission
Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki (1929–2023) was a British occultist and the long-serving Director of Studies of the Servants of the Light (SOL), a Qabalistic mystery school she led for decades after taking over from its founder W.E.
Butler. Trained in the lineage descending from Dion Fortune’s Society of the Inner Light, she became one of the most influential teachers of practical Western mystery-tradition work in the English-speaking world.
She authored numerous instructional books, most notably The Shining Paths and Highways of the Mind, which systematized “pathworking” — guided, structured inner journeys through symbolic landscapes (often keyed to the Tree of Life) used for self-transformation and contact with archetypal forces.
Her work made the disciplined use of trained imagination a teachable curriculum.
What they gave
Pathworking systematized: Turned guided inner journeying into a rigorous, repeatable practice with clear structure and purpose.
- Trained imagination: Emphasized the magical imagination as a controlled faculty that can be developed, not mere daydreaming.
- Mystery-school curriculum: Through SOL’s correspondence course, delivered a graded path of inner development to thousands.
- Symbolic inner cartography: Mapped consciousness onto the Qabalistic Tree, giving practitioners coordinates for inner exploration.
The line they stand in
Influenced by: W.E. Butler (her teacher); Dion Fortune and the Society of the Inner Light; Hermetic Qabalah.
- Influenced: Servants of the Light students worldwide; the modern guided-visualization and pathworking field.
Revelations they taught
Orders & Societies
Essential Works
- First Steps in Ritual1982
- The Ritual Magic Workbook1986
- The Shining Paths1983