In 2002, Olivia Robertson wrote "Isis of Fellowship, How the Fellowship of Isis was Founded." She wrote this Foreword in April of that year:
"In my eighty-fifth year, I feel the time has come for me honestly to describe how my brother, his wife and myself founded the Fellowship of Isis.
"This is a question I am so often asked and as often brush the query aside with a recommendation to read our Manifesto, study the Liturgy or join a centre! What I have avoided as a matter of principle is to be personal.
"I had encapsuled my personal experiences within a framework of ideas in my book 'The Call of Isis'. I refused to write an autobiography. I wished to give the rest of my life to promoting the Fellowship: not on encouraging a cult of personality, bugbear of our media-crazed society.
"Mystical awakening is impossible to describe to those who have not experienced it. Suffice to say that during my life, like thousands of other people, I have had a series of awakenings into 'The Real World.' The ever-living Now, the eternal reality that exists beneath our dreams and nightmares we call 'life' is ever present, awaiting our recognition.
"It is the source of our being and all that we hold to be good, noble and true. Most people have had moments of this blessed enlightenment. But everyday living smothers our true awareness, and too many bury their lovely treasures of 'living time', fearing that disbelief, ridicule and suspicion will sully their hidden jewels. Like love, mystical experiences are best guarded beneath the veil. To expose is to cheapen.
"When someone queried a yogi why he was breaking customary secrecy by publishing his knowledge, he replied: 'When the house is on fire, you throw your valuables out of the window.' This fateful era is just such a time of crisis.
"In 1946 I was alone. In 1952 I was joined by my brother, an Anglican rector, who also had the Great Awakening. We were joined by his wife, who for a whole month was able to sustain the experience. We awaited spiritual guidance, wondering what we were to do. To quote a new version of the words of St. Patrick: 'On earth at this fateful hour, Isis cometh in Her power.' The Goddess came to us. In 1976 we were ready to begin."
FOI Homepage Online Bookstore:
http://fellowshipofisis.com/bookstore.html
