FT267

Fundamentalists sometimes assure us that “There is War in Heaven.” Jesus and Lucifer are perpetually at each other’s throats, and the archangel Michael has his sword drawn at all times. Similar imagery can also be found in occultism, where motifs such as the ‘magical attack’ or the stereotypical figure of the ‘magical warrior’ are commonplace. Such martial symbols most often derive from purely personal conflicts – the products of egotism, paranoid imagination or persecution complexes. However, on the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, this article looks at the ways in which magic was used in the wider conflict of World War II.