The Devil's Mistress

Isabelle Goudie has married dour farmer John Gilbert, and life is dull, drab and celibate. A beautiful, young woman, full of life, she dreams of love and excitement. How can she possibly find a way to realize her dreams? Enter the Devil. And before she knows it, Isabelle is head-over-heels in love and lust with the King of Darkness. And He, too, has become smitten with Isabelle, whose spiritual powers perfectly complement his own energies. But there are choices for Isabelle between the powers of good and evil. Which path will she choose? This 1915 tale is based on facts concerning the real woman who became caught up in the Scottish witch trials. Brodie-Innes, a dabbler in diabolism through his association with the Order of the Golden Dawn, recreates the climate of anti-witchcraft and anti-Catholicism in 17th Century Scotland.

John William Brodie-Innes (1848 - 1923) was a leading member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's Amen-Ra Temple in Edinburgh. Born in Moray, Scotland, he was a lawyer by profession. He was a member of a bibliophile society, the Sette of Odde Volumes, London, and was its president in 1911. He wrote several novels on witchcraft and magic and is believed to have been Dion Fortune's occult teacher, becoming the model for the character of Dr. Tavener in her 1926 book The Secrets of Dr. Tavener. Throughout the dissensions of the Golden Dawn, Brodie-Innes remained loyal to MacGregor Mathers, and on the death of his chief in 1918, published an affectionate obituary in the Occult Review (vol. 29, no. 5 [May 1919]).