Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki was born and lives in the Channel Island of Jersey, off the coast of France.She spent World War II on the Wirral Peninsula in the northwest of England. She studied acting in London and also took opera training at Trinity College of Music. She also enjoyed the sport of fencing when young.

During the 1960s, she and her husband Michael entered the Fraternity of the Inner Light, an esoteric order founded by Dion Fortune. In 1965 she became associated with the Fraternity of the Inner Light and its founder Walter Ernest Butler, and with Gareth Knight in the Helios School. In 1971 this became the Servants of the Light School. In 1976, when Butler retired, Ashcroft-Nowicki became Director of Studies of the SOL, a position she holds to this day.

Perhaps her most important contribution to modern occultism has been her popularization of pathwork as a training tool for the study of the Qabalah.

Politically, she describes herself as "a steadfast supporter of the Monarchy and the Sovereignty of Britain," with a "profound dislike of the whole idea of the European Economic Community."

To date Ashcroft-Nowicki has written 17 books and designed two tarot decks, the SOL Tarot Deck with Jo Gill and Anthony Clark, and the Shakespearean Tarot with Paul Hardy.

• The Shining Paths
• The Sacred Cord Meditations
• The Servants of the Light Tarot
• The Ritual Magic Workbook
• Illuminations
• Magical Use of Thought Forms