THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF SACRED SPACE:

10. Water.

“Without exception, all temples are surrounded by invisible yet detectable pathways of underground streams of force.”

– Merle and Diot, archaelogists, 1935

 

 

 

Cleder’s holy well. Cornwall, England.

 

 

A landscape temple is created from universal forces by a creator god for humans, and generates a wider spectrum of effect than a human-engineered site. A constructed temple, on the other hand, is built by humans for humans from the distillation of universal forces. By design it is an extension, a mirror of the undiluted original — the upright obelisk represents a Sivalingam , the stupa a sacred mountain, the pyramid a primordial mound, ad infinitum .

Just because constructed temples are the product of the observation and rationalization of nature does not make them any poorer, for they allow the architect to specify a degree of control on the effect the site exerts on those who interact with it. Depending on how the elements are combined, the effects vary from temple to temple; the sensory experience at the great pyramid of Giza is far different to that of the Bent Pyramid of Dahshur or the Red Pyramid because all three are designed to different specifications and geometries, and different angles illicit different physical and mental responses. ¹

Places of power are alive. They are living, breathing organisms, environments where the initiate can be “transformed into a god, into a bright star”. ² But how?

It is well known that all temples and places of veneration are strategically sited upon the telluric lines of force that criss-cross the face of the Earth, and whose fluctuations are sufficient to influence the body’s electromagnetic field. Since these lines of force are everywhere, it is reasonable to suggest that by consciously standing on one, even in the center of a busy city, is enough to connect you with the Earth’s energy grid. This may be so, and if you recall the times you have been drawn to a particular place because it just feels good, that is often an indication your body has sourced the type of energy it requires for its own well-being; animals behave the same way, particularly on farms, where pregnant cows and sheep will seek a vortex upwelling from within the earth to facilitate birthing. ³ But temples go well beyond this because they are a combination of layers of forces at work, creating specific environments that induce a pre-conceived effect on the body’s receptive organs.

Every time you stand in a temple the experience differs. The first time, there is the sense of awe; or in the case of pyramids, disbelief followed by awe. On the second visit, you adjust to the surroundings and become aware of pockets of subtlety. Beyond that, the site will present itself in a completely different light, revealing to you what is written between the lines. Do this year after year and soon a relationship develops where the site answers you, it reveals its inner secrets. That’s when you begin to understand what makes these organisms tick.

That’s how the revelation began for many others and myself. And after years of observation, reflection and experience, I’ve noticed how a number of common principles are shared by the vast majority of sacred sites around the world.

Seven principles, to be precise.

They are a blend of forces of nature which were engineered to bring you into intimate contact with worlds unseen, where sacred is distinguished from profane, where one walks in the mansion of the gods.

Depending on cultural conventions there are exceptions to the rule, particularly where people have by-and-large been nomadic, such as the original Aborigines and most North American tribes. Such cultures were immersed with the land; to them every piece of the earth was sacred, they did not feel the need to use geometry or stone to imitate or improve on what they felt was already perfect. For them the landscape temple was sufficient. But for people like the Seven Sages and the Followers of Horus, the constructed temple brought to the rest of us a place where the ideal universe can be experienced. And later, when humanity lost the plot, these same places would serve as an insurance policy to help us remember why we are here, and the opportunity to reconnect with everything we’d forgotten.

Or, as it's written on the walls of Edfu, “We’ll keep building temples until humans recognize the temple within themselves.”

Water.

The Edfu Building Texts provide one of the most solid records of the processes by which a piece of land, infused with an energetic force, becomes sacred ground, and how the constructed temple takes on the living form of a god who is itself a distillation of the forces of the cosmos. The narrative indicates that after the primordial mound is established, an “enemy snake is overthrown.” Since the snake or dragon is the ancient representation of telluric forces that flow through and along the earth, we are told that an energy that is not conducive to the proper function of life is somehow tamed or balanced. This concept is similar to Polynesian philosophy of tabu which represents an energy that upsets the proper balance of mana (magic), what in Africa is known as baraka , and in Greece as pneuma . ⁴

An enclosure is then made on the mound and a channel dug around it containing mw , a special type of water consecrated by the protector of the site, the creator god Ptah. The text then makes a specific reference to the pth-nwyt-mw , “sanctified water that protects,” a kind of energized water with the power to safeguard the selected piece of land. Only then does Tanen (the creative force) emerge from the sacred site and the temple begins its function as the “restoration of the Ancestors.” ⁵

This consecrated water is of vital importance to the efficacy of the temple, for it contains a power which prevents “the enemy snake from approaching the domain of Horus,” ⁶ inferring that so long as the purity of the water is maintained at the site, the potentially destructive telluric forces of the earth do not interfere with the processes at work inside the sanctuary — the energized water itself behaves as a kind of force field.

The practice of surrounding a temple with an earthen mound and water-retaining ditch is common to hundreds of sacred sites throughout Celtic Britain, such as Knowlton, Arbor Low, Stonehenge and Avebury, as well as the so-called ‘hill forts’. Some argue that these sites are nothing more than mere fortifications, although they do not satisfactorily explain why these supposedly defensive ditches lie on the inside of the mounds, or why places such as Rybury hill fort sits below higher ground barely a hundred yards outside its earthen walls, rendering such a place useless if attacked.

The French archaeologists Merle and Diot published papers to the effect that all prehistoric monuments, without exception, are surrounded by underground streams; the eleven parallel stone rows of Carnac, that stretch for a mile, follow underground streams running parallel to each other. ⁷ Captain Robert Boothby, who studied sites in Wiltshire in 1935, similarly observed how every long barrow has an underground stream running its full length. ⁸ Indeed the prime energy spots in sacred sites tend to be those from which a number of underground streams form a radial pattern: “The constant presence of underground water at the exact centres of these circles and earthworks is a significant feature easily verified by others. If this is allowed to be intentional, then the selection of sites for consecration by the Druids and their predecessors no longer appears arbitrary, but dictated largely by geological conditions.” ⁹

Beneath the the Ka’Ba, the holiest of Muslim shrines, there exists a well; sacred springs exist below Temple Mount, just as they do beneath Chartres and Glastonbury Tor; the Gothic cathedrals of Wells, Winchester and Salisbury are built on marshland and designed to practically float on such architecturally unsuitable terrain; in fact innumerable pieces of sacred architecture sit on ground wholly unsuitable for such heavy structures. ¹⁰ The Egyptian pyramids sit above deep fissures of the earth through which flow hundreds of veins of pressurized water. Even stone circles amid the deserts of Nubia and Libya sit on domes of water, as does the Navajo altar in Monument Valley, situated between two voluminous sand dunes out of which bursts a serpentine gush of cold, clear water.

Wells Cathedral sits over several sacred springs, from which its gets its name.

 

 

Without exception, every sacred site is located above or beside water. Water is the foundation of every temple.

Like sacred mountains or landscape temples, holy wells and sacred springs are the epitome of the temple in its natural state, and their hypnotic power has been honored since prehistoric times. Many have been integrated within the boundaries of constructed temples, or represented in their interior by the octagonal church font with its holy water. In his delightful discourse on the holy wells of Cornwall, Paul Broadhurst describes how these places were seen by ancient people “as gateways to the Otherworld, where the vital flow of life-force could be used to penetrate the veil of matter to experience a more formative reality. And so they were used to contact unseen realms where communication could take place with the gods and spirits.” ¹¹ Celtic Britain — Ireland in particular — still venerates its ancient holy wells and sacred springs, and anyone who visits these remote shrines is often taken aback by the monastic ambience pervading their surroundings.

Direct contact with these special waters have provided healing and inspiration for poet and pilgrim alike since the days of Sumerian Eridu and its temple honoring Ea, the god of the House of Water, where the ritual of baptism was performed as an integral part of temple initiation. Ea and the Babylonian post-diluvial god Oannes share identical characteristics and attributes thousands of years later with John the Baptist via the linguistic route of the Hebrew Yohanan , the Greek Ioannes , and finally, the English John . Strange how an identical character emerges in the Biblical narrative 9000 years after the god Oannes emerges from the flood, complete with fish symbology, and an aphorism reminiscent of the act of consecration of the Egyptian temple: “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” ¹²

Throughout Britain, western France and northern Iberia, holy wells and springs came under the protection of the Celtic church, essentially a reformation of Druidism, which maintained the tradition of honoring the site to the degree that by the Victorian era physicians in London were still sending patients to be cured at such pagan sanctuaries. On my guided excursions to the wells and springs of Cornwall and southern Dorset I have watched groups of excited and inquiring minds develop an immediate languid state of mind as they approach the waters of St. Catherine’s well at Cerne, once part of a pagan temple honoring the fertility god Cernunnos. Likewise, the holy well at St. Clether, Cornwall, is a unique sanctuary where a channel of water from the outside well house passes directly through the tiny church and under a rough stone altar resembling one of Stonehenge’s trilithons in miniature.

Water at sacred sites is very different in frequency to ordinary water. Tests conducted using infrared spectroscopy show that holy water absorbs light at different frequencies. Holy well water is free from bacteria and contains natural minerals which are known to be beneficial to health and longevity. ¹³ This extremely pure water also exhibits greater properties of spin, and such vortices create an electrical charge which then generate an electromagnetic field, certainly enough to transform it into something different from ordinary liquid. ¹⁴

... and indeed it is.

 

 

Despite the world being covered two-thirds by water, it is still a mysterious element: it grows lighter rather than heavier as it freezes; its surface tension causes it to stick to itself to form a sphere — the shape with the least amount of surface for its volume, requiring the least amount of energy to maintain itself. And yet when its extraneous gases are removed from a drop the size of an inch, it becomes harder than steel. ¹⁵ Its potency can be enhanced by the use of crystals, particularly quartz, the prime material found in the stone used in temple-building. This has a marked effect on water’s surface tension, and Tibetan physicians have used this combination to make efficacious solutions for their patients. ¹⁶ Not surprisingly, enlightened kings and queens of old had water transported from sacred sites to their court by means of rock crystal bowls, which served to maintain the energy of the water during transportation. Anyone who has tried this in recent times knows just how it makes the water taste like liquid air.

In studying ancient settlements, it is surprising how the vast majority evolved around a temple or a singular menhir at their core. Paris grew around a temple dedicated to Isis (hence its original name Par-isis), now beneath the abbey of St. Germain-des-Prés; central London expanded from a mound containing a giant’s grave, long since buried beneath the Tower of London. Aside from the obvious desire of people to be close to an earthly embodiment of divinity, in light of the potentized state of water at sacred sites, the practical benefit that derived from the use of such in agriculture requires no further explanation. Indeed, modern efforts to recreate the ancient art of potentized water to enhance plant vitality and growth have proved highly successful. ¹⁷

Water veins beneath Winchester Cathedral. England.

 

 

A life-long study of the relationship between sacred sites, water and energy fields by Guy Underwood reveals how the shape of the temples regularly match underlying forces already at work beneath the soil. Using the early cathedrals as an example — for they were built over ground made sacred thousands of years before — he revealed how the width of walls, the position of fonts and altars, even the placing of doors took underlying veins of water into consideration. Over the course of time, recurring acts of prayer and veneration, in addition to the electromagnetic fingerprint left by each person’s attendance, has served to enhance the potency of the underlying water, which in turn has magnified the energy of place. Underwood’s drawings reveal a distinct relationship between underground veins of water, the electromagnetic lines above them, and the places of the site used most often by congregation and priest. Thus, halos of positive and negative charges tend to be generated and polarized around original church fonts, wells and altars, the later having been erected over the confluence of several underground springs. ¹⁸

A holy well honored with offerings and bunting. Trellech, Wales.

 

 

This makes energized water, as the primary ingredient of sacred space, a major stimulant of the human body — the element that benefits most from using the temple. Our bodies consist of two-thirds water, just like the Earth, and 90% of the brain is made up of the stuff. Since water retains information, ¹⁹ drinking it from a sacred site means one literally imbibes whatever is stored in the memory of place; that is, its natural energy as well as the energy from affirmations and prayers accumulated over hundreds, possibly thousands of years. ²⁰

The brain generates detectable electromagnetic pulses, ²¹ meaning that every thought we send emits a small packet of energy. The effects of concentrated thought and its ability to alter the shape of water has been well illustrated in thousands of experiments by the Japanese scientist Masuro Emoto. Seen under a microscope, the directed intent from ordinary people aimed at vials of water shows the ability of even a simple, everyday word such as love, well-intended, to drastically alter the crystalline structure of water. Most revealing of all are the tests conducted on water in Tokyo’s main reservoir before and after its blessing by a group of monks, in which the chaotic structure of the capital’s drinking supply was radically reorganized into a coherent and geometric shape. ²²

In water we can observe the movement of the vortex, the primary movement in the creation of matter, from galaxies to seashells. The Earth’s own vorticular energy discharges from its core at an angle of 19.47º and manifests on the surface as the most active hotspot, the Hawaiian volcano of Mauna Loa, at latitude 19.47º. This angle is reflected in water when a ship creates a wake or when it is spun in a container into a funnel. Spin gives off a magnetic field, and when water is spun, its electromagnetic charge is altered, which in turn adjusts the information stored in its memory.

Left: vorticular angle of water. Right: energy upwells from the center of the Earth and emerges at latitude 19.47º, as it does on four other planets.

 

 

Since water is a component of blood, and blood requires vorticular motion to move through the veins, it follows that contact with the energetic properties of water at sacred sites will affect the spin ratio of blood, thus altering the information traveling through the body. ²³ The body’s metabolic processes are dependent on a specific composition of basic elements, fresh water being one of them, and the taking of energized water — even being in contact with it — induces a vitality in the body, just as one feels a clarity of mind after a stroll by a waterfall or a river.

This is very important when it comes to understanding the interaction between water, the temple and its influence on the human body. Because our sensory organs need to be in a certain condition to be receptive to extra-sensory experiences, stimulating the energy of the water and the blood flow of the body makes us more receptive to the processes taking place inside the temple.

The thermodynamics engineer Pierre Mereaux spent three decades painstakingly studying the megaliths at Carnac. As well he should have, with such an appropriate first name! He discovered that a strong relationship exists between their location and alignment and the fault lines of the region, France’s most active earthquake zone. ²⁴ Identical relationships exist between sacred sites in New Mexico and the fault line along the Rio Grande, as well as Anasazi pueblos, and the pyramids of Mesoamerica. ²⁵ We know that the siting of temples over water-bearing fissures is a common feature to sites such as Delphi and Chartres, and given how these fissures cover tens, and sometimes hundreds of miles, it is worth considering how a negative impact on the water of a site could lead to the fall of the temple and, by implication, the fall of the land and the spiritual outlook of its people.

Temples that have fallen into decay have done so through a series of interrelated events, one being a sudden and catastrophic change in the pattern of weather. Whether this is due to a transgression against the temple or by natural causes depends on which side of the scientific fence you wish to stand, but from an ancestor’s point of view, everything, including the weather, worked like interconnected cogwheels. To some cultures, the imbalances of the people are reflected in the climate; the souls of the Sinagua of Arizona returned to the tribe after death as the elements of rain, heat or wind or whatever the tribe needed most to maintain its equilibrium. And yet in cases like Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, the demise of its sacred springs went hand in hand with the fall of the temple.

One can argue that prevailing arid conditions in the Near East during those times facilitated a fall in the water table, but the same cannot be said for Britain, where it rains incessantly. When a cathedral was built as the Bishop’s See on the sacred hill of Kaer Gradawk (now Old Sarum), no sooner had the last stone been placed when the weather turned violent and blew the structure down. Its replacement also came under renewed battering from the elements shortly after its consecration, with cracks appearing all over the building. Then the springs dried up and relations between factions inhabiting the mound went downhill very fast, leading the contemporary observer Peter de Blois to remark, “the church stands as a captive on the hill where it was built, like the ark of God, shut up in the profane house of Baal.” ²⁶ Shortly after, Old Sarum fell into total decline and never recovered its original glory.

Water is the blood of the earth and the life-force of the temple, and if that blood should be energized by the numinous quality of the temple’s environment, it stands to reason that the same quality is transferred to the initiate or the pilgrim, whether they imbibe it or walk upon it.

The sacred spring at the entrance to Kura Tawhiti. Its curative and recharging waters draw people far and wide. Above the pool stand the stone faces of the two guardians of the site. Before his first ever visit to the site, the dowser Hamish Miller sketched their images (below) following a vivid dream whilst lying in a hospital bed, 1200 miles away in Sydney.

 

THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF SACRED SPACE:

11. Electromagnetics.

 

 

The Earth is linked to the Sun by a network of magnetic portals which open every eight minutes.

—NASA, 2008

 

Snakes whichsoever move along the Earth. Which are in sky and in heaven... which are the arrows of sorcerers.

—Yajurveda c.9000 BC

 

 

 

A masterpiece of Gothic architecture, England’s Salisbury cathedral sits at the crossroads of two of the earth’s telluric lines of energy. It’s walls and entrances reference underground veins of water, while beneath its spire, the energy organizes and discharges like ripples in a pond.

 

 

 

Ancient people discerned and marked a place that was energetically different because it empowered them to experience direct contact with subtle realms. Today, the inhabitants of Santa Clara Pueblo in New Mexico still venerate their sacred hill Tsikumu, which they describe as a place of access to the Otherworld, from where their culture is said to have emerged. On this landscape temple the tribespeople work with Po-wa-ha , an energy that provides a doorway or conduit between the material world and other realities. ¹

The Aborigines describe such places as increase centres , and the use of correct ritual elicits a life force that intensifies the fercundity of people, plants and land. These ‘spots of the fawn’ are connected to each other by spirit roads, pathways of a terrestrial current which Navajo lore describes as tunnels along which the Anasazi once invisibly traveled, and, in a manner of speaking, still do.

The essence of this life force or mana , baraka , prana or pneuma can be confusing, but energy it certainly is. It is also described as telluric current , earth energy and geomagnetic force , and it involves the intertwined forces of electricity and magnetism. As the anthropologist William Howells attempted to classify it, “It was the basic force of nature through which everything was done… [its] comparison with electricity, or physical energy, is here inescapable. [It] was believed to be indestructible, although it might be dissipated by improper practices… It flowed continuously from one thing to another and, since the cosmos was built on a dualistic idea, it flowed through heavenly things to earthbound things, just as though from a positive to negative pole.” ²

When NASA discovered magnetic energy spiraling inside tubes linking the Earth to the Sun ³ — even employing the metaphysical word ‘portals’ — they essentially validated the ancient master geomancers and temple-builders who sourced these very same flux events on the land, because they were all too aware of their connection to territories far and beyond the confines of our terrestrial sphere. The image they chose to represent this elusive telluric force was the serpent or dragon, and in time, this would become a culturally-shared archetype describing the energy’s winding behavior along its earthly course as well as the skies; or as it is expressed in the Yajurveda , “snakes whichsoever move along the Earth, which are in sky and in heaven.” ⁴ The same expression is mirrored in the Book of What is in the Duat dating to the times of the creator gods at Zep Tepi .

Typically, when a serpent motif is displayed in temples it is an instruction that the telluric current passes through the site, it is the ‘X’ that marks the spot of the fawn. The Greek and Semitic omphaloi also mark the crossing paths of telluric forces and are sometimes depicted with a serpent wound around them, one of the best-known being the omphalos of Delos, while its sister stone at Delphi even bears the description tomb of Python ; in Avebury the main repository of energy is marked by a lozenge stone bearing a large carving of a serpent on its outer face; the menhirs of the Carnac region and the betilos throughout central Portugal often have carved snakes rising from the bottom of these stone sentinels like rays of fire.

The serpent stone, Avebury

 

 

The association between the sacred site and winding paths of energy was continued throughout early Christian sites with the depiction of the archangel Michael spearing a dragon, a chore later entrusted to his Catholic equivalent St. George. This negative connotation extends from one of the fundamental doctrines of the Catholic Church, who sought to stamp out all vestiges of so-called pagan traditions (pagan meaning ‘a person who lives in the country’), in which the serpent was turned into a representation of evil, and evil was to be eliminated wherever it raised its tail. But to ancient practices the serpent was a natural force to be harnessed for all manner of beneficial purposes, as Richard Wilhelm notes: “In China dragons are not slain; rather their electrical power is kept in the realm, in which it can be made useful. Thus the dragon… is the supreme symbol of temporal power assigned to the Son of Heaven. Only a dragon that kicks over the traces… is dangerous and needs to be subdued.” ⁵

Small details reveal much about the architect’s knowledge of subtle energy. In Wells cathedral a monk piercing a snake and a breath from a dragon’s mouth mark the path of telluric lines inside the building.

 

 

 

There are parallels here to the instructions in the Edfu Pyramid Texts setting forth the conditions by which a sacred space is established: after the ground is sanctified by the builder gods Djehuti and Seshat, four deities stand at each of the four faces of the site as protectors, while Horus “battles the enemy snake.” After this snake is overthrown, the group “settles beside the snake,” whereupon it is “pierced.” ⁶ The site is then dedicated to Ra, the solar deity, whereupon it becomes the seat of the mansion of the gods. The fight against the ‘enemy snake’ is described as an essential pre-condition before a god sanctifies the site. That the builder gods settled beside the snake implies they were comfortable in the snake’s presence; nowhere in the Building Texts is it killed. ⁷ It is true that some types of electromagnetic energy are detrimental to the human body, it is a condition known as geopathic stress , and given their understanding of subtle forces it is likely the temple builders knew this. So, in ‘battling’ and ‘overthrowing’ the snake the builder gods were removing such detrimental forces.

Modern physics also understands that this same electromagnetic energy moves as it comes under the influence of the Moon and Sun, not to mention the rotating iron core at the Earth’s center. And geomagnetism even more so. Thus, if telluric currents were fundamental to the establishing of a temple, they required anchoring, they had to be pierced .

In the same instructions we are told how the Egyptians were under no illusion that the original sacred temples of the gods were temporary places whose decay merely followed the natural cycle of things in the material world. It is mentioned that the first mansion of the gods perished in a great storm, when a great snake, “the Great Leaping One pierced the feet of the protective entity of the temple, splitting the domain and covering the land in darkness.” ⁸ Since snakes don’t leap, we are meant to accept this as a metaphor. Substitute snake for magnetic force, re-read the above paragraph within the context of the period it is describing, and a new insight is revealed. The text refers to the time of the great flood, and prior to the deluge it is established in the geological record that the Earth’s magnetic field flipped 180º. It is plausible that the ‘Great Leaping snake’ was the Egyptian metaphor describing this catastrophic shift in the earth’s magnetic field. Such a disastrous action would have indeed ‘pierced the feet of the god’, as the force that typically provided the energetic protection of the site now turned against the resident deity. In this manner, the temple was compromised at the hands of the enemy snake.

As mentioned earlier, the re-discovery of the Michael and Mary, and Apollo and Athena telluric lines brought to our attention the existence of the earth’s neurological pathways and how these are ‘pierced’ at the sites through which they flow. Thousands of temples, holy wells, churches, cathedrals, dolmens, menhirs, hill sanctuaries and other special places of veneration are connected to each other like beads on a string — needles of stone performing acupuncture across the face of the Earth.

The majority of early Celtic churches and Gothic cathedrals are situated above pre-existing structures, so the width of aisles and transepts typically conform to the width of the telluric lines flowing through them, with two lines generally meeting beneath the spire — spire being a derivation of spiral — giving the buildings’ cruciform shape a whole different meaning. ⁹ Together with the underground water veins, they converge at the altar, the spot identified with the original place of shamanic experience, whose radiations are most likely to ‘alter’ brainwaves.

In Old English, altar used to be spelled alter , and together with its Latin derivative alterar , it identifies the spot as both a high place and a place of altering . Which begs one to ask, just who or what is being altered and which high place are they being transported to?

Since water is also a pre-requisite for the founding of any sacred site, and water generates its own electromagnetic field when spun, it is useful to know that water attracts geomagnetic lines, as NASA has discovered: “when we search for magnetic lines of energy across the face of the Earth, we first locate underground streams of water, because one will attract the other.” ¹⁰ The combination of these two elements sets up a unique energetic environment, and when a building is placed along its path, the atmosphere inside the structure becomes highly charged. On occasion, light phenomena such as balls of light are witnessed in churches, and more commonly in dolmens, where scientists have watched light beams rising high into the atmosphere. My colleagues and I have witnessed such phenomena over long barrows in southern Britain — the so-called giant’s graves; I have also seen an orange orb of the most incandescent color encompassed within a large green halo emerging from the top of Silbury Hill, translucent, yet strangely solid; relative to the mound it must have measured 20 feet in diameter, hovering for about thirty seconds above the summit before abruptly evaporating. The phenomenon is part of the folklore of the area.

Obviously these temples are far from being dormant structures.

Castlerigg is a stone circle in the north of England whose 360º unencumbered view of the post-glacial Cumbrian valleys and mountains makes it a sight to behold at any time of the day or year, in rain or freezing cold. Energy readings taken of a prominent stone on its eastern flank shows it giving off an ultrasonic signal at sunrise, and when its surrounding area was checked for electrical ground current, the meter went haywire every time it crossed the perimeter of the circle. Eventually the machine ceased to function. ¹¹

Castlerigg.

 

 

The idea that temples are encircled by a force field has been widely explored. Electrodes planted at henge monuments in southern England reveal how their earthen ditches break the transmission of telluric ground current and conduct its electricity into the ditch, in effect concentrating the energy and releasing it at the entrance to the site, sometimes at double the rate of the surrounding land. This has led to the realization that stone circles, even mounds like Silbury Hill, behave like concentrators of electromagnetic energy. ¹² At Avebury, surges in geomagnetic energy have been detected in the remaining stones of the two avenues leading into this massive stone circle, suggesting that, in their original form, these winding causeways were placed on or aligned with areas rich in electromagnetic energy which the stones conducted into the center of the site. ¹³

Magnetic readings at Avebury die away at night to a far greater level than can be accounted for under natural circumstances. They charge back at sunrise, with the ground telluric current from the surrounding land attracted to the henge just as magnetic fluctuations of the site reach their maximum. ¹⁴ This reveals inasmuch why temple-builders regarded the temple as a living organism that sleeps at night and awakens at dawn, to the accompaniment of orations from the priests.

The magnetic properties of temples are enhanced by stones containing substantial amounts of magnetite, which makes them behave like weak, albeit huge, magnets. Where granite is used, the inherent magnetic field is strong enough to deflect a compass needle, in some cases by as much as 180º from north to south. ¹⁵ One of the scientists who painstakingly took magnetic readings of all remaining sixty-seven stones at Avebury made the following discovery: “The south pole of each stone faces the next stone in line as you move toward the circle. This arrangement means the north poles of the stones generally point south, which are opposing the geomagnetic field. Inside the main and minor stone circles, the south poles of all stones point at the next stone in the circle, in a clockwise direction, with two exceptions: the stones at the two intact causeway entrances have their magnetic poles aligned with those of the avenue, rather than with the clockwise pattern of the circle, up to a ninety-degree difference from their companions in the ring.” ¹⁶ Those two massive stones happen to be the entrance stones into the site. The conclusion by physicist John Burke reveals how the design of Avebury and its aligned ‘magnets’ follows the same principle as a modern atomic particle collider, in which airborne ions are steered in one direction.

Very similar conditions exist at the megalithic stone metropolis that is Carnac, where 4000 stones arranged in up to thirteen parallel lines, 4300 feet in length, begin and end in egg-shaped stone circles; these stand on deposits of water, where the air is easily ionized. Like Avebury, the height of the stones increases from two feet to as much as thirteen the closer they get to their respective circles. Pierre Mereux’s exhaustive study of Carnac shows how the dolmens in the surrounding area amplify and release the telluric energy throughout the day, with the strongest magnetometer readings occurring at dawn. The voltage and magnetic variations are related, and follow the phenomenon known as electric induction: “The dolmen behaves practically as a bobine (coil), an electrician would say solenoid, in which currents are induced, provoked by the variations, weaker or stronger, of the surrounding magnetic field. But these phenomena are not produced with any intensity unless the dolmen is constructed with crystalline rocks rich in quartz, such as granite... it is the granite that is important.” ¹⁷

Carnac.

 

 

His readings of menhirs reveal an energy that pulsates at regular intervals at the base, positively- and negatively-charged, and behaves like ripples in a pond, up to thirty-six feet away from the upright stones. Extreme pulsations recycle approximately every 70 minutes, showing that the menhirs charge and discharge regularly. ¹⁸ Mereux also noticed how the voltage of standing stones in the Grand Ménec alignment diminished the farther away they lay from the stone circle, which itself behaved as a kind of condenser — a concentrator of energy.

Before a violent earthquake toppled it, one of the area’s biggest stones, Le Grand Menhir Brisé, stood 64 feet tall, with a volume of 4732 cubic feet. It could theoretically have generated a magnetic field of 134,000 gammas, close to 1/3 of the earth’s magnetic field and enough to deflect a compass. ¹⁹ It makes one wonder the kind of effects that can be elicited at sacred sites covered by thousands of these menhirs!

Plan of ripples of energy generated by a menhir. Note how the relationship of the energy conforms to an underlying geometry. Outeiro, Portugal.

 

 

Mereux came to the conclusion that a menhir acts like an accumulator, a dolmen like a coil, and a stone circle like a concentrator and accumulator. The composition of the stones and their ability to conduct energy was not lost on Mereux and others either. Being very high in quartz, the specially chosen rocks are piezoelectric, which is to say they generate electricity when compressed or subjected to vibrations. So, Carnac and its 4000-plus stones, being positioned on thirty-one fractures of the most active earthquake zone in France, is in a constant state of vibration, making the stones electromagnetically active. It demonstrates that the menhirs were not planted on this location by chance — particularly as they were transported from 60 miles away — because their presence and orientation is in direct relationship to the terrestrial magnetism.

A group of mounds anchor and shape the flow of telluric force on the land. Wiltshire.

 

 

 

Rising amid the idyllic backdrop of the Usk Valley in Wales, the Llangynidr menhir stands at 14 feet and has been the subject of careful study for years, principally because one dowser who touched the monolith was sent airborne by the static shock he received. Dowsers have noted how the spiral energy circles up from the ground and around the stone like a cosmic whirlpool. As have scientists measuring its magnetic field strength, who’ve noted anomalies far beyond normal, leading one to comment, “a water-diviner told us about it, and we went there and found something measurable. It may be the stone contains, geologically, the reason for the anomaly. Or it may be caused by something we don’t yet understand. But I do not personally believe that the stone was accidentally chosen or accidentally placed. The people who put it there knew about its power.” ²⁰

Like their European counterparts, most mounds along the Mississippi River and the Ohio valleys have yielded no skeletal remains, so it stands to reason they were constructed with another purpose in mind. True to form, they have been found to lie at the confluence of telluric energy paths. Where mounds were actually used for ceremonial burials, these too lie along telluric paths, for it was custom to rest the body of a shaman or prominent elder on a spirit road to enable the soul to journey to the Otherworld as quickly as a possible so it might return and convey important information to the tribe.

Central Ohio is very rich in such temples, its most famous effigy being the sinuous Serpent Mound. Each of its coils references the rising and setting motions of the Sun and Moon at their extreme positions during the year, as well as the equinox sunrise and sunset; ²¹ in its mouth, the serpent holds an egg where once stood an omphalos or ritual pole. An alignment through the egg’s long axis not only marks the summer solstice sunset, its angle of alignment from east to southeast appears to be 32.72º. It is through this oval feature that the telluric line passes, connecting with a group of ancillary mounds to the northeast, while to the southwest, the energy’s path crosses a nearby field and precisely through a genuine crop circle that manifested in 2003. The quarter-mile long serpent sits on a peninsula surrounded by rivers, and to reach it one must first walk past two large mounds that essentially mark the en-trance to the site. Several giant skeletons were exhumed here, ²² and what’s more, each of the mounds also mark the nodes of a series of intersecting telluric lines.

During the approach of thunderstorms, magnetometer readings reveal how the site’s magnetic field drops dramatically, no doubt helped by the proximity of water as well as the Serpent Mound’s position atop a peninsula of dolomite, a particularly electrically-conductive type of limestone. ²³ The entire sacred temple even sits in the middle of a massive geological magnetic anomaly caused by a crypto-explosion , a type of impact crater.

Serpent Mound. The egg holds a feminine telluric current which connects with other nearby mounds. Each coil references important solar/lunar events over the course of the year. A superb example of a temple whose form follows its function yet does not reveal its true purpose to the uninitiated eye. Ohio.

 

 

Still in Ohio, Chillicothe is known for its high concentration of mounds, all of which fall between two large regions of magnetic fields to the north and south. Every mound is placed on a single magnetic anomaly, and where there exists a long straight path of positive magnetic anomalies, a linear mound was erected with its ridge running across them all. ²⁴

Further west, across the bay from San Francisco stands the hulking mass of Mount Tamalpais. There are at least six native sacred sites here, one of which is a seat large enough for a tall person to sit comfortably. Made from a natural outcrop of serpentine, this green stone has strong magnetic properties that greatly disturb compass needles. It too sits over a fault line, and even today it is a landscape temple used for shamanic journeying. ²⁵

The Long Man. Wilmington, UK.

 

 

Carved out of the chalk hillside in Wilmington, England, is a 230-foot tall effigy of a human figure with arms extended and touching two tall poles. In many ways it is reminiscent of the Egyptian god Ptah marking the primordial mound with his staffs of life. A feminine telluric current runs through its course, but otherwise, the full explanation behind this odd figure remains elusive. It does, however, remind me of the pairs of isolated menhirs I often come across in my travels. These stones have always invited me to stand between them with my arms outstretched, not unlike the pose of the Long Man of Wilmington. Even though I am very tall, the paired stones lie beyond my fingertips; but for someone around nine feet in height they would be an ideal fit. The sensation when standing between them is very pleasant, making you feel recharged and balanced after just a few minutes. It is often the case that one stone emits a positive charge and the other a negative charge, not dissimilar to the way the electrical circuits on the palms of the hands are arranged, ²⁶ suggesting these staffs of stone may once have been used to charge or stimulate the body’s electromagnetic circuitry, the Neolithic equivalent of a morning cup of expresso.

Infinity flow of energy between menhirs. Preseli, Wales.

 

 

Such paired menhirs share three things in common: first, in Ireland, Wales and Portugal they all appear to be spaced equally apart as if measured by the same architect; second, the energy field alternating between them forms an infinity symbol, with its intersecting loop crossing where a standing person’s heart would be (or the base of the spine in a much taller person); and third, the energy originates from an invisible whirlpool about ten feet in front of the stones, what dowsers call a blind spring . A small departure from this format is Men-an-Tol in Cornwall ('stone with a hole'). While the same infinity motion of energy is present between its two upright stones, the exact crossover sits in the middle of a holed stone. Since remote times people have brought themselves and their children here to be healed. These stones are made of granite, they are magnetic and naturally radioactive, and the obvious comparison to a modern MRI scanner is inescapable.

Energy field of Men-an-Tol. England.

 

 

In 1983 a comprehensive study was finally undertaken to locate magnetism in sacred sites. Using the Rollright stone circle in England as a test subject, the engineer Charles Brooker discovered that “the average intensity of the [geomagnetic] field within the circle was significantly lower than that measured outside, as if the stones acted as a shield.” ²⁷ His magnetometer survey shows how bands of magnetic force spiral into the stone circle through a narrow gap of three stones that deviate slightly from the perimeter to create an entrance. These bands then spiral towards the center of the circle as if descending down a hole. To add to the bizarre behavior of the local magnetic field, two of the circle’s western stones are magnetically pulsating, tying-in with earlier findings around the Rollrights’ outlying menhirs, which pulsate with concentric rings of alternating current and resemble ripples in a pond. ²⁸

Magnetomer survey of the Rollright stone circle.

 

 

Energy behaving like a force field validates claims that a protective zone was established around sacred sites following the ‘harnessing of the snake’, as defined in the Edfu texts. As strange connections go, it brought to my mind another ancient statement, this time from the Funerary Texts at Saqqara, and a curious one at that: “Seven degrees of perfection enable passage from earth to heaven.” This instruction is widely interpreted as referring to a series of challenges the soul needs to pass before gaining entry into the Otherworld. Then again, with Egyptians being so fond of allegory and metaphor, I wondered if the phrase alludes to some doorway or protective barrier the individual crosses when they enter the temple. A passage from earth to heaven is a crossing from the physical into the etherial, which is precisely the purpose of the temple. But why should there be ‘seven degrees of perfection’? Does the visitor undergo a process of purification? Possibly. If you recall, the temple was considered a mirror of heaven on earth, the material dwelling place of a god as well as its physical embodiment. The purity of the temple was everything, and defilement of its sanctum , physically or energetically, was seen as a precursor to the downfall of the spirituality of the individual, and hence, the collapse of the tribe.

The more I read this statement allegorically the more it made sense that it refers to a ritual of purification and protection. How all this was to be proved was another matter, but the discovery of a force field around stone circles already shows these places do define a threshold between boundaries.

After the preparatory entrance at Saqqara, one enters the courtyard of the mansion of the gods.

 

 

In support of this possibility, there exists a kind of woven electromagnetic grid over the entire face of the globe. Named after one of the men who discovered it, Dr. Ernst Hartmann, the Hartmann Net is composed of small rectangular ‘nets’, and appears as a structure rising from the earth, each line 9 inches thick and spaced at intervals of 6 feet 6 inches by 8 feet, magnetically oriented; the dimensions are very close to the mathematical roots of the Great Pyramid. ²⁹ Hartmann noticed that the intersecting points of the network — the knots — are influenced by underground veins of water as well as magnetic forces emanating naturally from the earth. Consequently he found that the knots alter in strength from time to time and that a relationship exists between the location of the knots and the adverse health of people who work or sleep on them. Dowsers have been aware of this geopathic stress for centuries, and it is not uncommon for them to be hired to alter the location of the Hartmann Net on a property, by embedding conductors such as metal rods into the ground, which stretch the electromagnetic net away from desired locations. It is the dowser’s equivalent of ‘piercing the snake’.

Conversely, the holes of the net are places of neutral space where the weather is perfect. Could a relationship exist between temples and the stretching of this net?

Nothing more came of my musings until I read a fascinating research document by the geobiologist Blanche Merz, in which she conducted readings at temples in Europe, Egypt and India, and found the Hartmann Net to be stretched around the temples like a protective membrane. Merz wrote: “the gigantic Pharaonic structures have this in common: the Hartmann network forms a veritable dam of 18 geomagnetic lines around the perimeter of the buildings.” ³⁰ Celebrated temples such as Saqqara, Karnak, Luxor, Kom Ombu, as well as the pyramids, enjoy an immense neutral zone, much in the same way as the henge monuments in Britain circulate electromagnetic forces which concentrate the energy inside the temples and in a controlled manner that is beneficial to people. All these places are listed in the Edfu Building Texts as the original primordial mounds of the gods. Merz went on to find other energy hotspots at Chartres cathedral, Santiago de Compostela, and a plethora of Indian sacred sites; in Tibet she found that stupas marked with nagas ('serpents') identify the position of Hartmann knots, and that telluric energy is transmitted via these upright stones. ³¹

Naturally this revived my interest in the “seven degrees of perfection” and the possibility they might be referring to a threshold of some kind. As it happens, in Egyptian mythology, the passage of the soul into heaven is made through a place called Sekhet Ianu , the 'Field of Reeds', a land of paradise where the spirit spends eternity; we simply know it today as the Elyssian Fields . To reach this much-desired land, Egyptian mythology states that one must pass through a series of gates. ³²

During a visit to Saqqara I had the opportunity to study the passageway leading from the profane world and into the grand courtyard and its evocative stepped pyramid, engineered by Imhotep, an architect of the gods.

The passageway is unique in that it is a colonnade of 18 reeds separated by narrow alcoves. Each of the alcoves discharges an alternating field of positive- and negatively-charged force which serves both as a barrier into the temple while at the same time influencing the body’s electromagnetic circuitry. In essence, as one walks down this preparatory hallway into Saqqara, one is suitably entranced prior to making contact with the courtyard of the temple and the mansion of the gods. In its time, this was the procedure necessary for dispelling negative thoughts and emotions one may be harboring before entering the sacred abode. Or as the Funerary Texts eloquently put it, one had “to master oneself before crossing the threshold of each gate.” ³³

The numerical relationship between the 18 reeds and the 18 Hartmann lines protecting the perimeter of the temples is unmistakable. But for me, the revelation lay in the readings of the alternating energy field, for they consisted of exactly seven positive-charged currents. Suddenly an answer to those “seven degrees of perfection” loomed near. Merz’ own research reveals that at the wide thresholds preceding the initiatory rooms of the temples, the Hartmann Net traverses the entrances with seven tightly-packed grid lines protecting “the passage from the known to unknown.” ³⁴

The Field of Reeds entrance with the seven positive ‘gates’.

 

 

I found this engineering isn’t reserved just for Egyptian temples. In Ireland the entrance to the ceremonial chamber at Newgrange is similarly protected by alternating energy currents, with seven positively-charged lines anchored on either side of the chambered passageway before it reaches the inner sanctum . ³⁵ It seems these precautions were undertaken in different parts of the world, not just for the protection of the site, but also as a preparatory area for the initiate prior to crossing the threshold between visible and invisible, much like the ritual a Muslim pilgrim undertakes as he winds seven times in an ever-decreasing spiral around the Ka’Ba before touching this stone called the 'Soul-Body'.

Churches erected after the 16 ^th century rarely conform to the underlying telluric pathways of the land. This is not unusual, in fact, it is perfectly consistent with the religious outlook of the times and the move towards scientific rationalism. This did not just happen in Europe, but also in North America. In all the churches I have visited throughout the United States I have been hard-pushed to find a structure referencing telluric forces. I’d thought the earliest churches erected in New England would have maintained a connection to the old ways, but then, given their Puritan heritage, it wasn’t surprising to discover they didn’t, after all, these were the very same fun-loving individuals who’d encouraged the destruction of sacred sites in the Old World, along with the abolition of festivities celebrating all life-affirming cycles. The closest I found is the cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York. This bizarre conglomerate of Romanesque, Byzantine and Gothic revival styles is sited beside two telluric lines; one flows through the garden fountain and its statue of, incredibly, the archangel Michael; the other, through the adjacent Senate Hall, once the site of a Masonic meeting place attended by the Freemason George Washington.

Kiva and en-suite Spanish Mission. Pecos, New Mexico.

 

 

If you look hard enough you’ll find exceptions. New Mexico is a place where the spirit of the land is still venerated, and I was pleased to discover that in Santa Fe, the oldest church in America, built of adobe in 1610 and dedicated to our friend San Miguel, marks on the node of two telluric lines. It also stands on top of a Navajo sacred site. Several miles to the north is El Santuario de Chimayo, a contemporary Roman Catholic pilgrimage site with what must be — aside from the sacred mound of Siauliai in Lithuania — a record amount of crucifixes per square inch in the world; even before parking the car you feel you ought to be guilty of some infraction.

The present adobe structure was erected in 1810, yet it is oriented northeast, a feature common to very ancient temples. I was therefore not surprised to find two telluric energy lines forming a node at its center, but referencing only the inner part of the building which, I later discovered, had been an Anasazi place of veneration, later honored by the Tewa, who coveted its healing soil and highly mineral waters, just as 300,000 pilgrims do today.

Not far from Santa Fe, the Spanish built a church at Pecos Pueblo in 1621. It is not on a telluric line, but the adjacent native kiva certainly is. Obviously the native tribes followed the traditional practice, which their European overlords sometimes made use of, even if for the most part they were unaware.

Where I did find a virgin and ‘modern’ church built to old temple specifications was in Pasadena, California, at the Mission San Gabriel Arcangel, constructed in 1791 by Father Cruzado of Cordoba in the Moorish style typical of his original domicile. While dowsing the building I discovered the telluric lines all pass through the doorways of the original structure, not the additions, with the node marking the altar. But when one energy line ended at a brick wall I thought my theory was blown, and that the Spanish church builders also had lost the plot by the 18 ^th century. That is until the gardener who, unbeknownst to me, had been quietly watching in the shadows and came over to tell me that the wall where my theory fell short was one of the original doors of the building, since bricked up and plastered over.

So, honor is due to Father Cruzado.

It is not just the newer religious places that loosely follow the telluric forces or miss them entirely. Temples along the Nile rescued from rising floodwaters after the building of the Aswan Dam and moved to higher ground have not retained their relationship to telluric forces either. Philae, while still an exceptionally moving site, has its main telluric current cross diagonally in the courtyard, missing all but the corner of the main temple; while Abu Simbel, although unquestionably an impressive restoration, has no energy whatsoever. As I later found out, this was independently validated by Blanche Merz: “18 geomagnetic force lines encircle Egyptian temples, except where they have been moved, as with Philae. Even engineers responsible for re-assembling the limestone blocks noted “the temple is no longer the same.” ³⁶

An Egyptian goddess, and Khrishna. The concept of builder gods and archangels in charge of earth energy is shared across cultures.

 

 

 

Why are these energies fundamental to places of power? The human body, far from being a series of chemical interactions, is now widely accepted as being made of particles of energy. It is a walking electromagnetic edifice sensitive to minute fluctuations in the local geomagnetic field. With electromagnetism playing such a pivotal role in the temple, its influence on the body and its 72% content of water is immediate; not to mention the human skeleton, since bone is a crystalline structure through which flows an electrical charge.

Because the blood that flows through our veins and arteries carries a fair amount of iron, magnetism will work on it like a magnet re-organizes iron filings on a sheet on paper. The same is true for the brain. Substantial amounts of biogenetic particles of magnetite are found in brain tissue and the cerebral cortex. These pyramid-shaped crystals allow humans to detect the Earth’s magnetic field. However, under the right conditions, magnetic stimulation of the brain induces dreamlike states, even in waking consciousness. ³⁷

Lastly, and possibly most importantly, is the effect that telluric energies in temples may have on the pineal gland, a pine cone-shaped protuberance located near the center of the brain. Fluctuations in the geomagnetic field affect the production of chemicals made by the pineal, such as pinoline , which interacts with another neurochemical in the brain, seratonin , the end result being the creation of DMT, a hallucinogen. It is believed that this is the neurochemical trigger for dream states — the hallucinogenic state of consciousness that allows information to be received. In an environment where geomagnetic field intensity is decreased, people are known to experience psychic and shamanic states. ³⁸

It is one of the reasons why the temples were built, and why anyone would wish to attend.

THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF SACRED SPACE:

12. Sacred Measure.

 

 

 

By means of the doctrine of numbers, virtuous conduct is brought into contact with invisible things.

—The Chinese Book of Diagrams

 

 

 

Djehuty, god of wisdom, with his wife Seshat, goddess of buildings.

 

 

Djehuti arrives at the primordial mound, where a new temple is about to be built, and recites, “I came here in my true form upon the foundation ground of the Great Seat of Ra-Harakhte. I cause its long dimension to be good, its breadth to be exact, all its measurements to be according to the norm, all its sanctuaries to be in the place where they should be, and its halls to resemble the sky.” ¹ After this declaration of intent, Djehuti and the builder gods establish a unit of measure based on the length of an arm, called the cubit. They are joined by the Seven Sages and Djehuti’s wife, Seshat, the goddess of sacred buildings. Seshat then initiates the ceremony of Stretching the Cord, a crucial part in the foundation of the physical temple. Djehuti picks up the thread of the ceremony from here: “I hold the peg. I grasp the handle of the club and grip the measuring cord with Seshat. I turn my eyes to the movements of the stars… I count off time, I watch the clock, I establish the four corners of your temple” ² In this manner the builder gods establish the four sides of their Enclosure, ‘speedy of fashioning’, and thus a Great Seat — a mansion of the gods — is born.

This account from the Edfu Building Texts describes the process of measuring the temple — the third principle in the creation of a sacred space.

Being sticklers for observing nature’s ways and means, it would be astounding if the ancient architects resorted to some plain unit of measure when it came to laying out their temples. As it happens they didn’t: they correctly observed the rhythms of the universe, then figured out how to extrapolate important processes via the use of number.

The Egyptians worked with the cubit, one of the most accurate methods of measure, because it is commensurate with the principal dimensions of the Earth. Measurements taken by satellite can nowadays establish an accurate picture of the planet’s girth to several decimal places, and yet calculations using the Egyptians’ arcane system comes remarkably close. Armed with the Sacred Cubit it is possible to calculate such things as the Earth’s polar radius as well as its equatorial circumference. ³ Conversely, the cubit was employed in the layout of the pyramids, from whose measures it is possible to extrapolate all the numbers relating to the size and functions of the planet. It could be said that the Great Pyramid alone is an analog of the planet. The reason was two-fold: one, so that the structure would serve as a reference book for posterity; and two, as the Chinese were well aware, by means of distilling the universe down to number, man-made structures enter into a dialogue with the rest of the universe, and from that conversation, favorable forces come into contact with the structure and the people who enter it.

The cubit system also took into consideration the relationship between the Earth and the Sun, and harmonized weight and time with measure. This timeless and universal appeal meant it was adopted by many other cultures, principally the Babylonians and later, with some alterations, by the Greeks and Romans, before finally becoming the basis of the English Imperial System of Measures. ⁴

The engineer Hugh Harleston, Jr. spent a goodly portion of his life studying the 32-square mile metropolis of Teotihuacan. He calculated that the principal unit of measure used by its creators was the hunab , which in the Aztec language means ‘unified measure’. Harleston figured out the hunab is commensurate with the Egyptian cubit, ⁵ and its application in both the measurements of the structures and the spatial proportions of the ground plan of the entire ceremonial city revealed the builders’ predilection for using the precessional numbers 18, 36, 54, 72, 108 and 144. Just as with Egypt and Angkor, the structures of Teotihuacan employ the same sky-ground dualism, and go a step further in that they are positioned so as to reflect the precise numerical proportions of orbits of planets in the solar system; even the proportional distances between principal structures such as the pyramids of the Sun and Moon correspond to the ratios of the music scale. With its use as a calendar, and repository of stellar and triangular data, the temple complex of Teotihuacan is nothing short of a cosmic university. ⁶

Harlesdon’s calculations of Teotihuacan as a reflection of the planets in the solar system.

 

One of the most methodical attempts at revealing a common unit of length employed in ancient temples was conducted by another engineer, Alexander Thom, who surveyed hundreds of stone circles throughout the British Isles and the Carnac region. ⁷ In old times, surveyors and tradespeople in the Iberian Peninsula used the vara ('stick') as a standard unit of measure. It emerged in France as the verge , and upon its northern migration to Britain it became the yard , which originally meant ‘a rod of wood’. Thom noticed how the value of the vara averaged 2.75 feet in Iberia, and how this stick was exported during the Conquista to the Americas, where it resurfaced in California, Mexico and Peru with an average length of 2.76 feet. ⁸ Following accurate measurements of stone circles using a theodolite, Thom proved that the sites did follow a common unit of measure, in whole number multiples or fractions thereof. It was based on a specific unit of 2.72 feet. Thom would call it the Megalithic Yard .

Only one such comparable unit of measure has existed in recent times, the pu of 2.72 miles, ⁹ last used in the region around Cambodia, home of the Angkor temples.

Thom’s hard work was given extensive analysis by top statisticians Broadbent and Hammersley, and his results were later confirmed by the rigorous mathematician David George Kendal.

After thirty-nine years of on-site exploration, the temples must have exerted their influence on the Scottish engineer, albeit subconsciously, because he later became aware of how so many of the stone circles, avenues and stone rows of the ancestors also took important astronomical events into consideration. Thom’s surveys of the 5000-year-old complex at Callanais alone is generally accepted as one of the great contributions to the field of archaeoastronomy, and demonstrates just how the ancient builders incorporated metrology, geometry and astronomy into their creations of stone. As he pointed out, “Whatever we do we must avoid approaching the study with the idea that Megalithic man was our inferior in ability to think.” ¹⁰

So, there are measures, and then there are sacred measures.

The world of the ancients was all about correspondences. Since the mechanics of the cosmos can be reduced to numerical values, if the blueprint of a temple is based on a unit of measure derived from fundamental universal forces, the temple establishes a resonance and correspondence with all that exists.

God, so the saying goes, is a geometer, and it is not unusual to find numerous murals, illustrations and statues in which It is shown holding a globe in one hand and a compass in the other, as though he/she is measuring the world. Now thanks to Thom’s discovery of the exact proportion of the Megalithic Yard it becomes easier to work out the method by which the master builders arrived at 2.72 as the unit of measure. Here's how they did it.

The primary geometric building blocks of matter are the tetrahedron and the sphere. The tetrahedron is a triangular pyramid, and its geometry is seen in nature as the lattice that connects the chemical bonds of molecules; in the case of water, the hydrogen bonds between molecules are held in equilibrium by tetrahedral geometry, and the space between H ₂ O molecules in solid ice measures a uniform 2.72 angstroms. ¹¹

The water molecule.

 

 

The geometric solid that is the sphere speaks for itself.

When the two come together, an amazing thing happens: when a tetrahedron is circumscribed within a sphere, so that each of its four points touch the surface, the ratio of the surface area of these two solids is precisely 2.72.

Tetrahedron circumscribed within a sphere.

 

 

To go off on a slight tangent, the edges of a circumscribed tetrahedron touch the surface of the sphere at exactly 19.47º. Transposed onto the Earth, this is equivalent to latitude 19.47º N, where we find the most active hotspot of energy on the planet, the Mauna Loa volcano; the temple complex of Teotihuacan is sited to within 0’ 05” of the same latitude. As strange coincidences go, 19.47 sq. km marks the area of the parish of São Miguel in the Açores, which we encountered in an earlier chapter as one of the locations along the New Zealand-Santiago de Compostela ley line.

But let us return to 2.72. This numerical value is also found in the orderly motion of heavenly bodies. The Solar Year consists of 365.242 days, whereas the Lunar Year consists of 354.367 days. The difference between the two is 10.875 days.

10.875 days divided by the full lunar month of 29.53 days equals 2.7154, or 2.72 for short. ¹² And since the lunar cycle influences life on Earth, it is probably no coincidence that the female gestation period is approximately 272 days.

It seems this numerical ratio is repeated at many all levels of reality, what is referred to as a transdimensional constant . And the linear expression of this value culminates in the Megalithic Yard of 2.72 feet.

Or if you work in inches, 32.64.

A unit of measure derived from such numerical correspondences becomes an analog of the actions taking place on Earth as well the universe. A temple that is based on such a universal harmonic means that all actions taking place within its space come under the influence of that harmonic.

As does anyone who interacts with it.

God the geometer.

THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF SACRED SPACE:

13. Stone.

 

 

Each of us is carving a stone, erecting a column, or cutting a piece of stained glass in the construction of something much bigger than ourselves.

- Adrienne Clarkson

 

 

 

The sanctuary of Athena Pronaia at Delphi, a truly feminine temple. Greece.

 

 

Wales is dark, brooding territory. In a positive kind of way. Mostly mountainous and composed of some of the oldest and volcanic rocks on the planet, it once provided the sonorous bluestones that make up two circles and a horseshoe of Stonehenge. Many of its sacred sites are associated with Arthurian legends, and dolmens such as Coetan Arthur still bear his name. The farther north one travels the more mysterious and concealed it becomes, especially in Ynis Mon — now the isle of Anglesey — poised on the tip of this proud land, and separated from it by the thin Menai Strait. Its isolation was perhaps why the Druids chose it as the seat of one of their academies, and later served as the last protective barrier against the encroaching Roman legions.

Druids fascinated Julius Caesar. They terrified Nero, and no wonder: a group whose wisdom descended from the Followers of Horus, stories abound of their ability to cast spells and bend the laws of nature to their will. One account by Tacitus describes the moment Roman soldiers finally cornered the Druids on Ynis Mon: “a line of warriors of the opposition was stationed, mainly made up of armed men, amongst them women, with their hair blowing in the wind, while they were carrying torches. Druids were amongst them, shouting terrifying spells, their hands raised towards the heavens, which terrified our soldiers who had never seen such a thing before, so much that their limbs became paralysed. As a result, they remained stationary and were injured.” ¹

Two thousand years later and the power inherent in the rocks of Wales has hardly diminished. During a visit to a remote standing stone near Preseli I wandered up a hill with a colleague into what looked like unchartered territory. On a desolate plateau, at the end of a track long overgrown with wild grasses, stood a hulking menhir. “It looks like it hasn’t spoken to anyone in hundreds of years,” we exclaimed, simultaneously. Indeed, the bulbous stone seemed like it was glad to finally receive visitors. It’s strange how such an inanimate object exudes so much personality. I reached out my hand to touch the surface of the stone, whereupon a magnetic force, like an invisible arm, reached out and pulled my hand to its warm surface.

For what felt like an eternity, I could not retract my hand, and all the while marriages, births, ceremonies, duels, festivities, deaths and whole cycles of lives and gossip were downloaded into my head. It was as though I’d watched a hundred centuries of reality shows in seconds. Even stranger, I was later able to recall most of the details. My colleague witnessed the whole episode and asked me if I felt fine, because obviously I didn’t, and for the next twenty four hours I was nauseous, drained of energy, as if the 72% of water in my body had just been microwaved.

Given that the stones stand at hotspots of telluric currents soaking up electromagnetic forces, it is not unusual for sensitives, dowsers or lay people to get electric shocks at sacred sites, particularly if the stone’s residual energy has not discharged for some time. ² A researcher at Newgrange in Ireland received a shock from the mound’s lintel stone one morning which affected his whole arm. The second time he did it, hesitantly, the charge was gone, as if the stone had discharged itself. ³ The same happened to a retired military officer while touching one of the monoliths of the Rollright stone circle, which left his arm numb for 20 minutes. ⁴

Another person investigating the Rollright stones in 1919 describes how “my landlady was afraid to go as lights had been seen and there were tales of people losing their memory after touching them… I went one evening after work and was fingering one of the group of ‘Whispering Knights’… when my hand and arm began to tingle badly and I felt as though I was being pushed away… The tingling lasted throughout the night and the next day.” ⁵ One scientist, coincidentally working at the very same site, reported that “for several nights when there was no moon, I saw a pool of diffuse white light which seemed to be coming out of the ground; it rose a bit above the stones and then tapered off. The whole centre of the circle was generating light.” ⁶

Such reported effects are a strong indication of an active, living and breathing, organic temple.

The red granite monoliths of the Sphinx temple.

 

 

Pierre-Roland Giot, a Breton archaeologist with an international reputation, once asked some engaging questions regarding the role of stones at sacred sites. For example, there seems to be no reason to erect thousands of stones to verify certain risings or settings of the sun or moon. It would have been much simpler for the builders to plant wooden poles; even Professor Alexander Thom realized the sites were far more elaborate than needed.

More questions follow: although they were not built as tombs, the structures were sometimes rediscovered later and used as tombs by people with different views and purposes. And why quarry the stones at a distance when there were plenty available nearby? Was the type of stone important? The architects did not want any old granite. They wanted a specific granite. The bluestones of Stonehenge were quarried 140 miles away and transported down a mountain, over rough, undulating terrain, across an estuary, then through marshland, fields, forests and plains. It’s the same story in Egypt: the cyclopean red granite blocks of the inner chambers of pyramids, weighing over 50 tons each, came from a quarry in Aswan 625 miles to the south. None of this makes any rational sense unless the stones possess specific properties that make them an integral part of the energetic experience of the temple.

Granite gives off a significant electrostatic charge, and the type used in the Great Pyramid contains 25% quartz and has the ability to enhance sound. ⁷ The magnetite contained in the granite, often in great quantity, is a natural magnet that creates around it a certain magnetic field. In the Carnac stone avenues, the granite consists of feldspar, quartz, mica, other trace minerals and up to 30% magnetite. ⁸

An Egyptian pyramid is a fine example of combining different stone to create a kind of energy storage device. The core consists of red granite, one of the most conductive rocks on earth due to its high content of quartz, iron and magnetite. It exudes a natural radioactivity. This core is encased in a rough limestone with a high content of magnesium that acts as an electrical conductor; this limestone in turn was dressed on the outside by a different type of limestone called Tura — finer-grained and highly polished — and because it contains minute traces of magnesium, unlike the inner limestone, it serves as an insulator, keeping the energy inside the temple.

Naturally this energy seeks to escape to the top of the structure, so the tips of pyramids were capped with a Benben stone, often made of dororite and covered with electrum, a two-thirds mix of gold and silver, making it an excellent conductor.

The people entrusted with choosing the correct stone for the temples in Egypt were the Masons, who most likely would have been trained at Heliopolis and certainly would have been made aware of the properties of each material, and what stone can do for you and to you. These adepts would much later re-emerge as Free Masons.

In a previous chapter we learned that when the ground for the temple is being prepared, Horus “overthrows the enemy snake” and the builder gods settle beside it. Once the veins of water and electromagnetism are manipulated, the measure of the temple is applied. Then the fourth principle of sacred space goes into motion, namely the anchoring of the telluric lines of energy. And that’s where the correct use of stone is important. In addition to the magnetite, the stones used for sacred sites contain large amounts of quartz, a piezoelectric substance that not only can hold a charge, but like the silica used for computers, it can be instructed to do so.

This may answer the fundamental question of why the stone was needed far-and-above what seemed necessary: it prevented the roving telluric forces from moving, by anchoring them to the spot — after all, there’s nothing more inconvenient than spending years building a fabulous temple only to discover the underlying ‘serpent’ has slithered elsewhere by the time you finished!

The ancients did not regard stone as Victorian scientists once did, that it is nothing more than lifeless matter. To them each stone held specific properties, because, and quite rightly, every stone is made under different conditions. In the world of correspondences, the appropriate type of stone enhances the purpose for which the temple is created.

Being the explosive and expansive personality that it is, the Sun was considered masculine. Its energetic properties are mirrored on Earth by volcanic action. Thus volcanic or igneous rock vectors masculine energy, and temples where masculine forces are at work are built predominantly with granite, particularly red granite, as well as basalt, dolorite, greenstone and serpentine.

Conversely the energy of the Moon was associated with feminine properties, due to the Moon’s influence on the fertility cycles of women, animals and crops, as well as the fluid motion of water; plus, the Moon is a reflector of the light of the masculine Sun. Thus, rocks borne of the sedimentary action of water were considered feminine, and temples designed to vector feminine qualities are built predominantly with limestone, sandstone, sarsen (a highly compressed sandstone), marble, schist, and on rare occasions such as the floor of the temple of the Sphinx, alabaster.

Masculine and feminine do not imply genders, they are merely types of polarity, much like electricity has its positive and negative currents.

Not all temples favor one quality over another. Some were built with dual-purpose in mind, either because the builders wished to create a balanced environment of forces, or because the nature of the temple itself changed over time due to mitigating circumstances. For these types of temples a combination of volcanic and sedimentary stones were used.

On my travels I have noted that temples where the lunar or feminine principle has been honored are exclusively built with sedimentary stone; for example, temples along the Mediterranean dedicated to Diana or Aphrodite; or Denderah, dedicated to the goddess Hathor, and the lunar circle of Avebury — there’s not a pebble of granite anywhere in sight. And yet temples with a solar or masculine history always incorporate one element, no matter how small, of sedimentary stone. Just as positive poles on a magnet repel each other, a masculine temple typically requires one feminine element to function properly.

Boys, it seems, will always pine for girls.

Shorter bluestones dwarfed by sarsens. Lunar-solar Stonehenge.

 

 

 

The sacred sites were created with such conviction, such perfection, that even after thousands of years it is still possible to measure the energy originally established there, still attached to the perimeter of the structures, just as we saw in the previous chapter on electromagnetics. It is a testament to the builders who knew how to harness creative forces that would enable the temples to remain as functioning entities for future generations. Archeologists working at sites such as Avebury have often expressed amazement when dowsers locate missing stones that long ago were toppled into pits and covered with soil. One of the most significant archaeological finds of our age took place at Knowlton henge, a smaller version of Avebury, now minus its entire stone circle. A group of dowsing students located its buried stones by tuning-in to their residual energy and, upon digging, the stones were recovered. ⁹

With the addition of stone and its anchoring properties, the temple becomes a kind of condenser. The residual energy of the site is stored in the quartz, iron or magnetite of the stone, its accumulated energy discharging on the visitors who act as grounding rods. It is worth pointing out that nowadays one is forced to walk temples wearing shoes, with their insulating rubber soles, thereby minimizing the grounding of the energy of the site through the soles of the feet. Which makes a visit to a stone circle or a mosque that much more invigorating, since one is invited to walk barefoot.

THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF SACRED SPACE:

14. Sacred Geometry.

 

 

The true mathematical science is that which measureth the invisible lines and immortal beams which can pass through clod and turf, hill and dale. It was for this reason, it was accounted by all ancient priests the chiefest science; for it gave them power both in their words and works.

~ John Dee, astrologer and scientist

 

 

 

The cubic shape of the the Ka’ba represents the symbolic geometry of the material world in its simplest form.

 

 

The universe is a vast energy event of which Galileo once remarked, “it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written...its characters are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth.” ¹

Galileo’s predecessors probably faced the same conundrum, but they also reached the same conclusion: the universe is geometry. Sky-watchers right up to the era of the Greek gnostics conferred on each of the planets the status of god, referring to them as akousmata, the ‘resonant ones’, because rather than being lifeless lumps of matter, those large atoms floating in space are vibrant and alive. When measuring their mean orbits one discovers how an inherent geometric order subtends their places in the sky: the relative orbits of Mercury and Earth are defined by a pentagram; Earth and Jupiter by nested hexagons; Jupiter and Neptune by a nine-pointed star, and so on. ² Since this geometry reflects the heavenly abode of the gods, it was considered sacred, and thus the concept of sacred geometry entered our lexicon.

The geometric order of the cosmos descends and inhabits our everyday world in the hexagons of a honeycomb, the pentagonal seeds of a dandelion, the octagonal structure of a jellyfish. These harmonics reduce gnomonically into the microscopic world of diatoms, the simplest single-cell life forms, which are resolutely geometric. Smaller still, the molecular bonds that constitute matter are held together by a geometric lattice. Essentially geometry is a whirlpool of conscious energy manifesting toward solid form. It is the ultimate language of life.

In eastern esoteric and religious philosophy, geometry is seen as an anthropomorphic image of the Creator. Its blueprint is reflected in the most essential component of the human body, DNA, where the four base compounds are arranged in bonds of pentagons and hexagons. So like it or not, we are hypnotically drawn to geometric order because, to our biogeometric cells, it is as if we are looking in the mirror. We are a distillation of the universe.

The influence of geometric shape on organic substances and metals was most famously demonstrated by Czech patent 91304, in which scaled models of the Great Pyramid were used in Europe to sharpen razor blades and maintain dairy products fresh for up to three weeks. ³ Something about the shape and alignment of this building, even in miniature, has a direct effect on physical, chemical and biological processes. The radio engineer Karel Drbal, who re-discovered the effects of the pyramid shape, reasoned that “by using suitable forms and shapes we should be able to make processes occur faster or delay them.” ⁴ If the environment inside a pyramid is even capable of making the crystals in a blade of metal return to their original form, it is highly feasible that the same is possible with human bone, after all, bone is a crystalline structure. The NASA scientist Ottmar Stehle commented that the pyramid shape focuses energy fields, which, he pointed out, is not a far-fetched idea since TV antennas do the same thing. ⁵ Besides, its shape is a perfect representation of the magnetite crystal, which no doubt played an active part in its design and its influence on the Earth’s geomagnetic field.

In his book Ondes des Formes , the French engineer and professor of radio Louis Turenne asserts that shapes such as pyramids, spheres and squares act as resonators for telluric and cosmic forces. Just as the shape of a violin improves the quality of tone, shape provides a resonant cavity for crystalline structures. ⁶ Experiments with geometric shape in Bulgaria and Canada reveal how hospital patients placed in pentagonal shaped rooms have a higher rate of recovery, while schizophrenic patients fare better in trapezoidal rooms; blood placed in spherical shapes coalesces quicker. ⁷ It seems geometric shape does have a corresponding effect on the human body’s own geometry after all. This science was not lost on Czech brewers, who noticed how changing the shape of a barrel noticeably effects the taste of beer. ⁸

The geometry of a space influences the way atoms and air interact and move within a given area, just as a vortex in water behaves differently according to the shape through which it flows. ⁹ Thus, rooms of differing shapes generate different energetic environ- ments that are capable of influencing the senses.

With regard to temples, the geometry of nature was dissected to reveal the inner blueprints of forms and shapes; their cause and effect was measured and considered, and once it was established that form follows function, specific geometries were applied functionally and strategically to the design of temples so as to induce a corresponding effect on the individual’s state of awareness.

The primarily intent was to facilitate growth and transformation of consciousness, the goal being nothing less than the total transmutation of the soul. On a secondary level, the geometric language of nature was used to teach self-understanding in order to accelerate self-development. This was performed, by-and-large, by initiates who understood how to translate shape and symbolism into meditative exercises that led to higher states of consciousness — a practice enshrined in Buddhist mandalas, the geometric dynamics of which are capable of generating an introspective effect on the minds of their meditators, the idea being to achieve total experience of the source of creation. ¹⁰

There was also a third aim: to surround people with harmony, and in doing so, they in turn would replicate this harmony in their internal and external worlds. Like people, nature undergoes continual transformation yet ultimately finds balance and whole-iness. If geometry shapes the universe then surely, the ancients posited, the living geometry of a temple can help reshape people.

Geometry and strategic angles were used in temples — inside, outside, overtly or invisibly — to initiate a process of sensory manipulation that begins to open the body’s electrical circuits, making it more receptive to finer, more penetrating frequencies and vibrations. Every temple feels different partly because of the type of geometry upon which it is based. Taking the Giza plateau as an example, the consciously-aware pilgrim quickly realizes how each pyramid exerts a different effect on the senses: the Great Pyramid feels different to the Red Pyramid feels different to the Bent Pyramid, and each structure is indeed based on different geometries, just as each was constructed for different purposes. The Giza pyramid’s slope angle is based on the seven-sided heptagon; the Red Pyramid is based on the pentagon ¹¹ ; and the Bent Pyramid, by using a trigonomic formula, reveals the geometries of both the pentagon and hexagon. ¹²

Of all the pyramids I’ve visited, I can comfortably sit inside or outside the Bent Pyramid for hours and feel very much at home; the same cannot be said of the Great Pyramid which, impressive as it is, can feel unsettling and overwhelming. Many people have expressed the same feeling. The Bent Pyramid is striking, hypnotic, grounding, and far from being a mistake (as most archaeologists see it), this temple was strategically designed to exert a direct influence on the body while simultaneously working on the functions of the planet.

The effect is due to the combination of its two geometries, the pentagon and hexagon, both of which are bound in human DNA andnthe Earth. Geometry is the expression of number in space, thus the pentagon is to the hexagon as 5 is to 6, and of all the planets in the solar system, only the Earth incorporates this ratio. It is calculated by taking the 21,600-year period of obliquity (the tilt of the Earth’s axis) and dividing it by the precessional cycle of 25,920 years (the wobble at the pole). The ratio is 5:6, or geometrically speaking, pentagon : hexagon, making the Bent Pyramid an analog of both planetary and human bodies, and perhaps a point of fusion between them.

Incidentally, being a metaphor of the balanced relationship between pentagon- based living organisms and hexagon-based non-living things, this ratio allows for self-aware human life to evolve on this planet and no other, since the 5:6 ratio is unique to the Earth. ¹³

This understanding is often encoded in temples. In the Gothic cathedral of Salisbury each archway in the cloisters is composed of alternating pentagrams and hexagrams, the idea being that as one circumambulates in quiet contemplation, the body’s sensory organs are opened prior to entering the nave of the cathedral. In many ways, Salisbury Cathedral is an echo of the Bent Pyramid.

Sacred geometry is the fourth principle of sacred space, and a very important one at that, since one of the purposes of the temple is to re-establish unity between body and mind and cosmos. When the body is under stress, its geometry is said to become distorted. Under such fragmentary conditions the body seeks to return to a balanced state, searching for a biogeometric environment in which it can restore compatibility with its surroundings. You will find throughout the course of life that you are attracted to certain temples at certain times, because your internal geometry is seeking that which it needs to achieve optimum balance, just as it seeks a harmonious, natural setting to revive its soul whenever a disconnection from life occurs. The geometer Michael Schneider states this very well: “The power which we seek is the power with which we seek.” ¹⁴

The fundamental proportions of classic temples such as Luxor, Angkor Wat and the Parthenon are based on the harmonics of the Golden Ratio, the spiral that underlies all living organisms. Since the same proportions are inherent in the human body, walking into such temples makes you feel as though you are an integral component of the structure because, in a sense, you are walking inside your self. There are seven principal sacred geometries used in temples, each vectoring specific properties:

TRIANGLE

The triangle represents the primary force of creation held in perfect equilibrium. This is represented throughout religious systems as the Holy Trinity, and the Trimurti of the creator gods Siva-Vishnu-Brahma. The triangle is given solid form in the tetrahedron, the strongest and most stable of geometric solids, and the primary bond between atoms and molecules. Such invisible processes are expressed in the human body, which begins life as a microscopic three-part structure; after three weeks, the embryo becomes an enfolded sphere that diversifies into three distinct layers to become the intertwined systems of the body. ¹⁵ The cycle outwardly repeats itself in the physical bond between male, female, and their created offspring.

These processes of creation find their way into the modern world, where the threefold division of light — red, green, blue — allows for a full spectrum of color to be made visible on television screens. The triangle embodies the qualities of strength, stability, and prime creative force. To give strength to communication we often resort to emphasizing commands in threes, just as in the construction industry, beams are fitted in triangles to give maximum strength to weight-bearing structures.

SQUARE

Whereas the triangle reflects actions taking place in the ethereal, its complimentary opposite in the material is the square, which represents the prime elements held in balance on the physical plane: earth, water, fire and air. The square is the essence of harmony in the physical world, the defining of invisible forces on the material realm. The concept is represented in the Celtic cross with its four elements held in equilibrium by a central force or God. It is often equated with the carbon atom — the symbol of humanity — since carbon is the second most abundant element in the body. A mythopoeic description this may be, yet modern science does acknowledge matter to consist of four states: solids, liquids, gases and plasma or electronic incandescence. Plato had a very novel way of demonstrating this by filling a jar with soil, water and air and shaking it. The natural layering into which these settle shows the order of elements: the dense earth on the bottom, followed by water, air, and the light (fire) passing through.

The square is the establishment of coordinates on the physical plane, figuratively represented by the four cardinal directions of north, south, east and west, and embod- ied in the Hindu swastika, a recently stigmatized symbol with origins in the Neolithic period, and meaning ‘that which is associated with well being’.

PENTAGRAM

There are pentagrams on flags, logos, five-star hotels, reviews and generals. The pentagram is pervasive in every culture due to its underlying relationship with the Golden Ratio, nature’s very own spiral, which is inherent in the mathematical proportions of the pentagram. The pentagram reflects the harmonics of Earth’s living systems, of nature, and it embodies the qualities of life-affirmation, growth, intuition, fertility and the divine feminine. Lunar temples favor pentagonal geometries due to the Moon’s influence on fertility cycles. It also favors temples dedicated to Venus, Ishtar and Isis. As such the pentagram was inverted during the Middle Ages during the Catholic Church’s smear campaign against women, depicting the divine feminine as evil, and degrading ancient symbols and their meanings, not unlike the Nazi misuse of the swastika.

 

 

Pentagonal geometry in the Osirion.

 

 

HEXAGRAM

The pentagram is fluid and feminine, and just as flowing water freezes into ice crystals, its opposite, the hexagram, is rigid and structured. It is therefore considered masculine. The six-pointed star lies behind organizational forms such as the beehive and the microchip. And just as the pentagram is associated with water and the Moon, when the Sun reflects thru glass or water it reveals the six-pointed star, so the hexagram’s properties are solar, logical and rational. It represents the divine masculine, the spiritual warrior.

Heptagonal angles define the slopes of the Great Pyramid.

 

 

HEPTAGRAM

When working with seven we see the forces that shape the universe: the prime notes of sound and the colors of visible light. To the Egyptians, sound and light were primal causes of matter, and they did not necessarily distinguish between either, for in their cosmology Ra was said to have “emitted a cry of light” when the universe came into being.

The seven-sided heptagram represents the mystery of creation, the unknowable, and thus the source of life. Since the source of the soul is also a mystery, the heptagram equally represents the search for truth, which ultimately leads to enlightenment. And it is through truth and enlightenment that the individual is finally liberated from the illusions of the physical world.

Appropriately, it is the only form in geometry that cannot be bisected to a whole angle: 360º÷7= 51.4285714286... into infinity, so the heptagon is a mystery unto itself! Its qualities are represented by gods such as Apollo and Seshat, while its numerical symbol is found in the rays emanating from the apply-named Statue of Liberty, which was presented as a gift to the founding American Freemasons by their French counterparts.

Templar influence on the ceiling of the octagonal Founder’s Chapel. Batalha, Portugal.

 

 

OCTAGON

The octagon represents the ultimate balance between material and invisible forces, the fixed male and the mutable female; total balance between material and spiritual, heart and mind: the fully aware, christed human. It is both the inhalation and the exhalation of the breath of creation. Once again we see this creative force reflected in the human body, where the sperm and egg unite to form a whole cell, which doubles to become two, then four, and finally the eighth seamless stage of mitosis — a process mirrored in the seven pure notes of sound that make-up the final octave. Science’s modern analogy is shown in the Periodic Table of Elements, its cosmological model of all naturally-occurring atoms, which chemists discovered are organized in eight main types of elements. In fact molecular, atomic and subatomic structures are strikingly similar to the geometric patterns of Islamic art and eastern temple architecture, particularly the octagon, since it is said to represent Allah the Compassionate.

The octagon symbolizes the ultimate aim of esoteric traditions. Buddha himself prescribed the eightfold path as a cessation of sorrow, by following right views, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.

Notable enlightened figures throughout history such as Mohammed, Merlin, the archangel Michael and Jesus have been characterized by either the octagon or its numerical value 8, or the infinity symbol ∞; in gematria, the name Jesus even carries the value of 888. It comes as no surprise, then, that esoteric orders such as the original Knights Templar should have built their temples according to this geometry.

NONAGON

To the ancients, the nine-sided nonagon is the triangle manifested threefold, and given how the triangle represents the prime force of the universe, its threefold expression represents utmost perfection, utmost expression, highest attainment.

This is expressed in that creation of the earth, the human body, which evolves in the female womb over the course of nine months. The tail of the sperm half-cell is made of nine twisted threads, and after it unites with the egg, the first step in the doubling process of mitiosis is the duplication of a centriole, a set of nine parallel tubes arranged in a ring.

We see this perfection in nature reflected in the Egyptian Ennead of gods, each representing an archetypal principle that regulates the Universe. We also see it reflected in our everyday language expressing the utmost in any endeavor: when we are in love we float on cloud nine; to do our very best is to go the whole nine yards; when we dress up we dress to the nines.

Sacred geometry is bound within us just as it is bound within the walls and stones of temples, be it visibly or occult. Whenever we walk within their perimeter we bring our sacredness into the sacred space that is a material expression of God, and the interaction becomes palpable and inseparable as though the two are one and the same tapestry.

The mystic abbot of the Cistercian Order, Bernard de Clairvaux, was once asked, “What is God?”

He simply replied, “He is length, width, height and depth.”

 

 

Octagonal fountains are prominent central features of mosques.
The same geometry was applied to early Christian and Celtic church fonts.

 

 

A few of the geometrical relationships found in the arranging of the stones of Stonehenge.

THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF SACRED SPACE:

15. Orientation.

 

 

It is the direction and not the magnitude which is to be taken into consideration.

~ Thomas Paine

 

 

 

Stone rows at Kilmartin aligned north-south. Such sites work with magnetic forces. Scotland.

 

 

After Pierre Mereaux conducted his painstaking survey of Carnac, he considered that the orientation of the roof slabs on dolmens could have a significant influence on their purpose, and discovered they did. For one thing, the closer they were oriented magnetic north-south, the stronger the voltage emitted from the stones. ¹

Mereaux held steadfast to the concept of science as the only law in the land. For him, New Age thinking was anathema. Thus he would not have been aware that his research unknowingly validated an established principle throughout esoteric disciplines: that temples are aligned in accordance to their specific purpose, a similar concept to the Chinese art of feng shui .

And so it is that temples sharing similar functions also share the same compass alignments. Pyramids from Giza to Xi’an in China are typically aligned to the four cardinal directions (notable exceptions being in central America), their entrances always pointing north; most of the oldest sites on Earth are aligned to the northeast; temples associated with fertility always face southeast.

Native tribes do not draw any sharp lines of distinction, such as we see, between animals, people and inanimate objects. To them, animate and inanimate forms are considered to be of the same nature and differ only in shape. ² Even thousands of years ago they considered all elements to be imbued with consciousness; there was no such thing as dead matter, everything was seen as energy in a constant state of transmutation.

Because our visual cortex is capable of detecting only a small fraction of the light spectrum, unless your intuitive abilities are well developed, much of the elemental world escapes our attention. So to make them tangible and ‘visible’, each force was given physical form by attributing it a guardian, a daemon or god. Celts, Hindus, Egyptians and Sumerians created whole pantheons of gods to represent these life forces and used them as tools to help focus attention on a specific element. Some of them are still with us today, enshrined in the archangels Uri-el, Micha-el, Rapha-el, Gabri-el — el meaning 'shining one' — each of whom represent the four material forces: earth, fire, air and water.

Never were idols created for the purpose of worship. Such a notion developed much later with the fall of culture which ushered the rise of the power of the centralized priesthood, and with it, the descent into idolatry.

Orienting the temple to the energy of specific creative processes enhances the actions taking place inside the sacred space. The orientation is typically defined by the direction in which the entrance faces, for it welcomes the energy into the temple’s inner sanctum . The earlier discoveries of the way ground energy is directed and channeled through the entrances of monuments leaves little doubt that the concept is not just symbolic but also perfectly functional, and so this sixth principle establishes an additional layer of correspondence.

Temple orientation is arranged in two distinct groups, the fixed cardinal directions and the mutable cross-quarters.

The capstones on dolmens are deliberately oriented to concentrate the effect of telluric energy, much like an antenna. Trevethy Quoit, Cornwall.

 

 

NORTH

When the doorway faces north it faces the cold and hardness of the Pole and its bitter winds, making the senses more keenly aware of the physicality of the planet. North-facing temples are therefore associated with the element of earth. They also reference geomagnetism, since magnetism enters the Earth through the Pole.

When rows of standing stones are oriented north-south they are working with this force, since they mimic the path of geomagnetism flowing through the planet’s core; such places make a direct link with the Earth’s veins and arteries, they are mediating points between the surface and the inner workings of the planet.

In turn this has a direct influence on humans, for not only do we emanate from the soil, we also are electromagnetic beings. North temples help to achieve a very close bond between people and planet, and may explain why pyramids — already shaped like the mineral magnetite — have such a profound effect on people, both visually and physically.

SOUTH

A temple with an entrance to the south faces the heat of the equator and invokes the element of fire. Symbolically, fire is associated with strength, power and protection, so these are typically solar temples, places that imbue the individual with the power of the Spiritual Warrior. One excellent example is the present temple of Edfu built by Ramasses II, possibly Egypt’s most powerful warrior-pharaoh, and judging by his military record he most certainly used such a place of power to his advantage.

EAST

Entrances in the east symbolically face the light of the reborn Sun. Such temples benefit from the purified morning air, and thus represent that element. Dawn is the awakening from darkness, the Sun emanating out of the underworld, the light returning to the land, hence these are temples associated with enlightenment.

When light shines on something it illuminates, and with illumination comes understanding. Pharaohs and kings and queens who were initiated into the Mysteries would seek to be buried with their heads in the east, so that as their souls entered the spirit world they would find understanding.

It has been discovered that the frequency of light is at its purest at sunrise. Probably for this very reason, seeds are also at their most receptive to growth at this time of day. Since the electrical charge in the air is also at its most formidable, healing temples, such as native American sweat lodges, are oriented east.

WEST

West follows the path of the setting Sun as it descents into the underworld, the location of the spirit. Temples facing west are therefore places of the night horizon, they are places where one follows the Sun into communication with the world of soul; they are places for traveling within, halls of introspection. This direction references the element of water, which is traditionally associated with communication. In scripture, water and west are presided by the archangel Gabriel, who is always the one entrusted with communication and messages from the world of God; in Christianity, it was he who notified Mary she would be conceiving Jesus. As the Arabic Jibral, he is also said to have delivered the Qu’ran to Muhammad.

Sometimes there are multiple entrances to a temple, indicating the site has a dual purpose. Temples with an east-west alignment are processional sites, for their aisles follow the figurative path of the rising and setting Sun across the sky. Churches and cathedrals tend to be so aligned. Traditionally, baptisms enter via the east door (or are performed in a chamber in the eastern part of the building) so the new-born child may benefit from the pure light and air, whereas funerals enter through the west door so the soul may begin its journey into the world of spirit; traditional church fonts are also placed in the west to reference the element of water.

Dual-purpose temple. Southeast and southwest entrances at Swinside celebrate both fertility and harvest. The two tallest stones are placed on the north and south points and are the only stones containing large particles of iron; the north stone, in particular, is known to emit high energy readings and deflect compasses. Swinside, Cumbria.

 

 

Where there exist four entrances, such as pagodas and specific central American pyramids, their alignment to the four cardinal points harness each of the material elements, indicating the site is working with all material forces. Interestingly, Mount Kailas — the earthly depiction of Meru — is the central source of four rivers oriented to the four cardinal directions. ³

These, then, are the fixed, cardinal directions. But to the ancients, the mutable directions — the cross-quarters of the compass — were considered the most energetic because they represent points of equilibrium or transition between the fixed, material elements. These are the invisible moments of transition, alchemical and mysterious, and depending on the temple’s location on the face of the Earth, they often have the additional value of referencing solstices and lunar maximums.

SOUTHEAST

Temples oriented to the southeast tend to be precisely aligned to the first emerging rays of the winter solstice, the moment during the solar year when light begins to overcome the dark. In a manner of speaking it is the rebirth of the light, so literally, practically and metaphorically, such sites are associated with fertility, birthing, creativity, even the teaching of sacred sexuality.

One excellent example is the Cradle of Atum, also called Adam’s Grave, a long barrow in southern England. Every December 21 ^st this prominent giant’s grave, situated on the promontory of the tallest hill in the area, receives into its womb the first rays of the solstice Sun as it breaches the cold, winter horizon.

Adam’s Grave long barrow, poised to receive the mid-winter sunrise.

 

 

SOUTHWEST

When facing southwest, the temple reflects the August quarter days, when the light that first emerged out of winter has fertilized crops to their full potential and the time of harvest beckons. It is the highest achievement of the light of the Sun. Depending on its latitude, the temple may also reference the Harvest Moon at its most southerly setting — typically the Full Moon closest to the Autumn Equinox — thus honoring the influence that planetary sphere has upon this cycle of fertility. Such temples are places of celebration, they honor the bountiful fruits of the earth, when life is at its most manifest and the fruits of one’s labor are exalted. In the Celtic world they celebrate solar deity Lugh and the corn maidens on the feast of Lughnasadh .

NORTHWEST

Temples facing the northwest represent the time of year when the Sun begins to withdraw, and the long, dark winter nights begin their ascent. At this time, honor is given to the spirit world for the protection of the people through the long darkness of winter and their safe passage into the light of spring. To ancient cultures this was a time when the veil between the worlds was thinnest, the days of Sammain , or as it is known today in the West, All Hallows Eve, now Halloween. Such places invoke the feeling of going within, a ‘return to the womb’ allowing for a process of self-contemplation as one goes deep inside the mystery of life.

NORTHEAST

Temples aligned to the northeast face the rising light of the midsummer Sun, when the solar disc is at its zenith in the northern hemisphere. Metaphorically speaking this represents the fullest exultation of the ascending light. Such places are associated with ancestral wisdom, with the universal knowledge of the ancient ones. Not surprisingly they are also some of the oldest sites in the world: Stonehenge, Delphi, Luxor; Samarra, Esfahan, Cordoba; the Osirion at Abydos, the stone rows of Carnac, the pyramid of Cholula; the complexes of Teotihuacan, Tula, Chitzen Itza and Tulum; the Aka stone circles off the coast of Okinawa and now underwater; Santo Domingo cathedral on top of the temple of Viracocha in Cuzco.

Chartres cathedral, once a Druid academy, and possibly a Mesolithic site, is aligned to the northeast and faces the southwest, making it a processional temple for both ancient wisdom and the glory of its fruits.

Stonehenge’s northeastern entrance is reached via a spirit road that begins in a small stone circle by the River Avon, then follows a three-mile route marked by two earthen ditches. Just beyond the entrance into the henge stands a menhir, the Heel Stone , which in 3100 BC would have aligned with the rising summer solstice Sun, casting a shadow received by the horseshoe of bluestones inside the temple, as though a life force was impregnating a womb.

Stonehenge (inset) and its processional spirit road, not dissimilar to the passageways connecting the Nile to the pyramids. Dots represent just some of the mounds and barrows in its vicinity.

 

 

 

In the southern hemisphere, the above correspondences appear to be reversed. One of the most sacred of sites in New Zealand is Miringa Te Kakara, the Temple of the Four Winds, a pre-Polynesian Maori crosshouse continuously maintained until 1982, when the last structure became dilapidated and burned down. This Wharewaenanga or ‘School of Learning’ was once an impressive, carved wooden structure in its time, its design underpinned by an octagonal framework and aligned to the four cross-quarters, indicating it as a site of great antiquity; its plan can still be seen on the ground, now marked by two large furrows in the shape of a cross.

Temple of the Four Winds, in its last days. New Zealand.

 

 

Since, like Heliopolis, it was an ancient academy teaching astronomy, genealogy and natural medicine, I was eager to test the theory of orientation at this site, since it is so remote from many of the world’s classic temples. True to form it follows the same principles of sacred space. It maintains the association with water by being located at the source of three sacred rivers; opposite each entrance there once stood four niu poles — an equivalent of the omphalos — each oriented to the solstices and equinoxes The location of the site’s burial ground (the ‘place of going within’) sits on the southwest corner, exactly as it would be in the northern hemisphere, because in the southern hemisphere the orientation of sites is switched: north is represented by the South Pole, while south faces the equator; east and west remain constant since the Sun still rises where it should.

Orientation becomes the sixth principle of sacred space. Each principle adds a further level of correspondence between the temple and the natural world around it, making the site as close to a mirror image of the universe as possible.

It took many travels around the world to realize the final principle, but when the epiphany finally occurred, in the true tradition of the temple, it was both a major revelation as well as an obvious one.

 

 

Perched inside a natural arch high up on a cliff, this limestone kiva marks the node of two feminine energy lines. Its entrance aligns to the southwest, a tribute to harvest. Inside, two wall niches are carved in the north and southeast, indicating the tribe also honored the earth and the cycle of fertility. Bandelier, New Mexico

THE SEVEN PRINCIPLES OF SACRED SPACE:

16. The Human Key.

 

 

The gematrian value of 1746 represents the number of ‘fusion’ and the ‘ideal city’. By adding the alpha, the number of the upright human, it becomes 1947, the adept becomes the embodiment of the ‘city of God’: they become the ‘knowledge of god’, the ‘fruit of the vineyard’.

 

 

 

Devotion. Grande Mosquée de Paris.

 

 

Having carried out well-designed experiments over the last decades, a number of respected scientists have reached a conclusion concerning the forces governing the human body and the cosmos: elementally they are not chemical reactions, they are energetic charges. The human body is an aggregate of an energy field, and that field is interconnected to everything that exists. Energy is the engine that drives everything including our consciousness, and as such, energy can influence us and we can influence it. This energy field is a force and it is full of information, or as Einstein succinctly stated, “the field is the only reality.” ¹

In all my meanderings in and around sacred sites I have observed how the principles of water, electromagnetism, measure, stone, sacred geometry and orientation combine like layers on a cake to produce an environment that is tangibly different to its surroundings. Certainly this environment generates a unique effect on the senses of perception. But not every time, and in this lies the mystery behind the last principle of sacred space.

When hordes of tourists circumambulate Stonehenge armed with walkie-talkies, listening to an institutional voice filling their heads with the distorted history of this effulgent monument (“… and hundreds of slaves inched the stones on wooden rollers…”), it seems as though you are looking at a bunch of inert rocks, the site feels shut down, vacant and devoid of soul. It’s the same when approaching any sacred site for a purpose other than the one for which it was designed. As the scholar Philip Cousineau observes: “The difference between pilgrim and tourist is the intention of attention, the quality of the curiosity.” ² By shifting the focus of our intent we alter the energetic relationship with the space around us. When that space is a temple, the quality of our intent ignites a symbiotic resonance with the memory of place, as though body and structure become connected by the same tissue, as F.W. Putnam discovered when he surveyed Ohio’s Serpent Mound in 1883: “The most singular sensation of awe and admiration overwhelmed me at this sudden realization of my long-cherished desire, for here before me was the mysterious work of an unknown people... I mused on the probabilities of the past; and there seemed to come to me a picture as of a distant time” ³

The acoustics pioneer and scientist John Reid lives in the vicinity of the majestic stone circles of Castlerigg and Swinside, in one of the most poetic landscapes in the world, the Lake District of northern England. Whenever he has approached temples with the intent of working with them, at those times the spirit of place opens up to him in a way that differs from general visits: “In visiting Swinside stone circle, on one occasion I approached the site in a very quiet, meditative state. Upon walking into the circle I had a fleeting glimpse into the past: around 100 people were milling around and dancing gaily in simple rustic garb. The flashback lasted only three or four seconds, but the scene was as real as watching a movie.” ⁴ And Swinside, with one of its two entrances facing the southwest, is indeed a temple where harvest was celebrated.

Reid’s dedicated research on acoustics in the Great Pyramid of Giza ⁵ has allowed him to experience that energetic exchange between body and building on numerous occasions: “Some years ago, during an evening research session in the pyramid, I was given a glimpse of a ritual in which the Shem priest, garbed in a leopard skin, conducted a ceremony involving four tonsured priests whose fingertips appeared to be touching the sarcophagus. They were intoning vowel sounds and I even heard their voices, though again only momentarily. It’s as though, under certain conditions, a portal to the past opens but it is so transient we have to be alert to have any recall of what we see or hear.

“The vision left me within seconds, so I never knew the purpose of the ritual. In my subsequent textual research I came across a quote by a Greek traveller called Demetrius who wrote ‘In Egypt when priests sing hymns to the gods they sing the seven vowels in due succession and the sound of these vowels has such euphony that men listen to it instead of the flute and the lyre.’ So it seems that use of chant was part of their devotional practice.” ⁶

John’s experience is uncannily similar to Paul Brunton’s as well as my own, as we saw earlier. The ancient mysteries author Paul Broadhurst is himself no stranger to the effects of coincidence and the mysterious opening of otherwise closed doors whenever he travels to sacred places, in the spirit of understanding what makes them so. Obstacles are removed as though by magic, clues manifest in the unlikeliest of places, helpful individuals appear at the right juncture pointing to the correct fork in the path of the quest.

As a living entity, a purposefully constructed mansion of the gods is capable of reading one’s intent like an electric lock reads a magnetic strip.

It occurred to me that when the individual is aware of the site, even subconsciously, the site becomes aware of the individual. We consecrate a sacred site when we bring our sacred geometry and our intent to the temple. Awareness and intent, both electromagnetic impulses, interact with the forces concentrated at the site to create a fusion, in essence uniting two temples. Scriptures such as the Talmud often refer to this bond: “Just as God resides in the innermost precincts of the temple, so also the soul dwells in the innermost part of the body.” ⁷ If the temple of God resides within every person, as adepts like Jesus stated, ⁸ once a sympathetic resonance exists between both, a sacred marriage naturally follows.

Intent, our silent, inner voice, becomes the seventh ingredient of sacred space. It glues the other principles together and brings the structure to life, just as the Followers of Horus once awoke the temple every morning with their orations and oblations. The temple of Man and the temple of the land become one indivisible and mystical whole.

Intent is also the key that allows access into the invisible temple: its subtle energy field. Temple-building cultures such as the Tamils and Egyptians believed in the divinization of the physical form of the original creators, and that their embodiment became divine in the consecrated sacred mounds, Sivalingams and stupas; these became the dwelling places of Siva and Atum, from which the four elements were created and represented as tangible divine beings. ⁹ Their integrity was protected — from the ‘seven gates’ of the pharaohs and the seven Hartmann lines guarding the entrances, to the force fields around stone circles. Their immune system is defended from the impurity of thoughts that could lead to the putridity of the zero-point energy field protecting the inner sanctum. And once access is granted to the living structure — the physical embodiment of a god — the initiate experiences this kingdom of heaven on Earth.

The skeptic, by contrast, will never feel anything at a temple, for he is already pre-programmed not to have an experience, expecting something to be done for him, like a magic trick. To the non-believer, seeing is believing, just as to the initiate, believing is seeing. Two faces of the same pillar. Magic aplenty there is, but the temple does not exist as a vending machine dispensing instant energy and self-empowerment; it was deliberately built to be of service, and like any functional partnership, you have to meet it half way.

This subtle difference in the frequency of your intent is what distinguishes you in the presence of a place of divinity, and it will generate an invitation from the site.

Rigorous experiments using directed human thought have shown how our electromagnetic impulses are capable of altering the random movement of machines, even alter the beat of a computerized drumbeat, proving something revolutionary about human consciousness that was once believed limited to the field of mediums and magic. ¹⁰

One such experiment relies on the measurement of small changes in the behavior of an electronic device called a Random Event Generator, or REG, designed to produce a random output of + or — pulses which are converted into binary computer language. The REG is used for the Global Consciousness Project data collection, where the output is measured relative to a mean value. The output of the REG differs from what would be expected without the influence of consciousness.

In field studies, a team from Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research found consistent deviations from expected randomicity in data taken in situations where groups become integrated or unified by something of common interest. The evidence infers that a “consciousness field” exists and that intentions or emotional states which structure the field are conveyed as information that is absorbed into the distribution of output of the machine.

Roger Nelson, doctor of Psychology and member of the P.E.A.R. team, conducted several experiments at sacred sites. He was intrigued as to whether the sacredness of these places was due to their collective use over time or because they were imbued with a certain energetic resonance in the first place, or because a combination of forces such as stone, electromagnetism and so forth made it so. During an initial experiment at a Native American landscape temple in Wyoming called Mato Tipila (“Bear’s Lodge,” now westernized as Devil’s Tower), the REG’s output was demonstrably affected by a medicine man ceremony. Nelson then decided to see what affect meditation groups would have on the REG when chanting or meditating at interesting sites which were not necessarily sacred. The machine was influenced but only to a small statistical degree. ¹¹

After trips with meditation groups to Luxor, Karnak and several pyramids, the effects were six times that of ordinary REG trials in the field. In fact they represented the largest effects ever seen. But what astonished Nelson was that the results from twenty seven sites were even higher whenever he walked around the sites in respectful silence, with a portable version of the machine sitting in his pocket. For him it proved that the spirit of place itself registered effects as high as the power emanating from a meditating group. ¹²

While temples resonated a high degree of consciousness, the combination of focused group veneration and the temple seemed to create an expanded consciousness that had a marked affect on a machine. Inside the Great Pyramid of Giza the REG veered off its random course with a positive trend during group chants in the Queen’s Chamber, and then a strong negative trend in the King’s chamber; the same effects also occurred at Karnak. This is consistent with how sensitive people describe the effects in each chamber: the Queen’s chamber is uplifting whereas the King’s chamber is heavier, making one feel as if dragged into the depths of the earth. It is worth pointing out that the two are lined with different stone — red granite for the King’s chamber, limestone for the Queen’s. Curiously, when plotted on a graph, the results from the REG formed a large pyramid, as if the machine had experienced the trip as well. ¹³

The focus of intent, especially with a devotion involving a higher, intermediary power, has always been a proven method of achieving the impossible. As the Persian god Ahura Mazda said: “if the due… prayer is offered unto [god] just as it ought to be performed in the perfection of holiness, never again will a hostile horde enter… nor any plague, nor leprosy, nor venomous plants… nor the uplifted spear of a foe.” ¹⁴

It’s early morning outside Minster church in Cornwall, a Norman structure inclined towards the northeast, built on the site of a Celtic monastery, nestled amid a verdant, atmospheric wood. It was once the site of a rock-cut chapel, the home of a Celtic saint, hence the original name of the site, Talkarn, ('rock chapel'). ¹⁵ It is so piercingly quiet that Isabelle Kingston, Jane Ross and I can hear the mellifluous trickling of water from the nearby sacred spring deep in the moss and trees. We’ve come to take-in the atmosphere of this ancient place of veneration huddled in the steep valley above the fishing village of Boscastle.

The aroma inside the old church conveys the spirit of quiet contemplation; the musty scent of stone intertwines with the beeswax of candles and the dampness from holy books long thumbed by parishioners, here and departed. Isabelle suggests we offer a dedication to the spirit of place by joining our voices in reverence and performing a toning. As usual she dedicates her sound offering to the archangel Michael; Jane offers hers to archangel Gabriel; as for myself, I casually offer my voice to Saint Cecelia.

“Good choice,” remarks Isabelle.

“Surely there is no such thing as Saint Cecilia!?” I reply.

“Are you kidding, she’s only the patron saint of music,” says Jane.

I learn something new every day! We tone for what feels like a good ten minutes, the natural acoustics of the building blending the three voices into an opulent choir. The lights go out by themselves.

The last syllables cascading from our tongues echo into eternity as we stand silently, interspersed in a triangle throughout the nave. As we make our way to the oak front door I glance over at the large, ornate stained glass window. “Would you believe it! The three people we dedicated are represented in the window,” I exclaimed. All mouths were ajar.

“Well, well, will you look at that!” Indeed, framed by the gothic arch stand three tall figures, each made of the most colorful stained glass.

We reveled in our glory for the rest of the day. Not only had we communicated with the spirit of place, we even intuited it, and were rightfully pleased with ourselves.

The following year, Jane and I returned with another person, keen to relieve the experience. As we approached the exterior of the church something was amiss. I looked up at the arch where the stained glass window should be, but there was only clear leaded glass. Had something happened? Had the window been damaged, was this a temporary replacement? Quite by chance the priest appeared. We explained the situation. The priest looked at us in disbelief, for “never in the history of the church has there ever been a stained glass window in that wall. Any wall.” He walked away to continue his chores, his facial expression implying “crazy tourists.” I walked up to the window and inspected the caulking. Indeed he was right. It was extremely old, some of it encrusted with mould; certainly it had not recently been mended. Puzzled, we walked down to the village to seek expert advice and several pints of cider — that is, research.

Paul Broadhurst is Boscastle, in fact he is Cornwall. There’s little of the history of every sacred place in this wind-beaten corner of Albion he is not aware of. “No, there’s never been a record of any stained glass in Minster church,” he stated emphatically, “and certainly not in recent times.”

The mystery deepened. There was one other witness who could confirm Jane and I were not certifiable. We called on Isabelle at her home in Wiltshire.

“Do you remember that trip we took to Boscastle last year?”

“Indeed, how could I not, that thing with the angels and St. Cecilia in the stained glass window, that was a good laugh, wasn’t it?” she glowed.

“There was no window. There has never been a window.”

In the silence, one could hear the mellifluous steam rising from her tea.

Ascending pilgrim. St. Michael’s Tower, Glastonbury Tor.

 

 

 

Regardless of their shape and size, all temples were built to the same end: to be mirrors of the universe so that ordinary men and women, regardless of culture or creed, may be transformed into gods. These cities of knowledge, once the repository of creator gods, are sacred because of their underlying spiritual technology and the thousands of years of residual energy accumulated from veneration by inquiring minds. The temple is the contact station with the miraculous, the eternal reminder of our own co-creative power, an island of balance on a planet where change is the only constant. Indeed they act “as a magical protector for him in heaven and in earth, unfailingly and regularly and eternally.” ¹⁶

The architects designed these heirlooms for our common wealth, an insurance policy for times which they foresaw as cynical and dangerous to the proper conduct of human affairs, when we’d abandon our trust in the divine purpose of life.

They built these places of power so we’d always remember who we really are.

ACT III

 

 

17. THE RISE AND FALL OF THE TEMPLE.

 

 

“The mind has lost its cutting edge… we hardly understand the Ancients.”

~ Grégoire de Tours, 6th century

 

 

 

Callanais. Isle of Lewis, Scotland.

 

 

Luck, as they say, favors the prepared.

In contrast to the linear thinking adopted throughout the West, many Eastern philosophies follow the concept of a world governed by circular dynamics in which recurring cycles play a central role. This idea of ‘thinking in the round’ is found in the oldest of cultures, such as the Aboriginal and the Hopi. They reached this understanding observing the stars and the cycles of nature, from which they distilled the mechanism driving the world down to a few simple concepts, even if from our perspective the symbology they used sometimes seems obtuse.

A close examination of the fundamental alignments behind the majority of temples shows a positive obsession with astronomy. From the Chankillo complex in Peru to the stone circle of Calanais in Scotland, the motions of the planets and stars were meticulously tracked and calculated over enormous spans of time, and their corresponding effects predicted. More than 4,000 years ago the Chinese already considered astrology as the basis of an established order. The cosmos in its entirety was considered a living, sacred organism, and its rhythms revealed harmony, permanence and fertility. ¹

It was believed that everything that happens on the material plane is a reflection of recurring actions taking place in the celestial sphere, that the universe is one giant, gnomonic and self-simulating holograph, not unlike the position now considered in quantum physics. ² As one Confucian moralist advised, “Love everything in the universe, because the sun and the earth are but one body.” ³

The prime device used for calculating cycles was the Precession of the Equinoxes — the wobble of the poles that traces an invisible cone in the sky as seen against the background of ‘fixed’ constellations. From an earth-bound observer, each constellation is seen to move one degree every 72 years, and that same constellation returns to its original position 25,920 years later — what is known as the Great Platonic Year. Conveniently, there are precisely twelve constellations that circumambulate the equator; each more or less occupies 30º of the sky, the equivalent of a house of the zodiac. Elementary multiplication shows that 30º x 12 = 360º, the circumference of a circle; and 30º x 72 years = 2,160 years, the period of each cycle or ‘age’. And 12 constellations x 2,160 years = a full 25,920-year cycle.

It seems the Creator, in addition to being a geometer, is also a mathematician.

The cycles do not have strict beginnings and endings, as we in the modern, quantitative world expect. Instead they ebb and flow and overlap over a liquid period of time, influencing and challenging our perception of the world and the pre-conceived notions of ourselves, much like an incoming tide wipes away footprints by rearranging the particles of sand. However, the effects of an impending age intensify the closer it approaches, just as water becomes more agitated the closer it reaches boiling point.

Each cycle is governed by the characteristics of its overarching constellation which in turn influences the course of human affairs. ⁴ The constellation’s symbolism was reinforced throughout temples built or adapted during that cycle, so in the Age of Taurus (c.4420-2260 BC ) effigies of the astrological bull dominate art and sculpture. The traits consistent with Taurus — strength, stability, material forces, earth, great sensual beauty — were therefore the dictum of that period, a time of unusual stability, with the rise of writing, agriculture and social husbandry, and the construction of elegant structures including pyramids and temples, and Mesopotamian, Maltese and Minoan sites of veneration.

As each cycle or age slowly begins to wane, it comes under the influence of the following age, and tied to this almost imperceptible motion there is a gradual increase in natural and celestial phenomena.

Such portents of impending change did not go unnoticed by the temple builders. Around 3100 BC there is a sudden rise in construction activity. An entire megalith metropolis is erected at Calanais; in the Boyne Valley region of Ireland, the passage mounds of Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth make their appearance; in England, Stonehenge suddenly inherits its bluestone circles, while the complex around Avebury is given form; in Malta, Haggiar Khem and Mnajdra are either built or expanded, as are temples along the Nile and the fertile crescent of Mesopotamia, while throughout the Mississippi valley there’s a sudden proliferation of native American mounds. ⁵ This noticeable burst in activity may have reflected a number of structures lost to an abrupt rise in sea level which affected sites along coastal regions. Recently discovered stone circles, ceremonial chambers and menhirs in the northern French intertidal regions around Carnac, and the Seine and Somme valleys and estuaries, reveal these sites to have been rapidly inundated by up to fifteen feet of water leading up to 3100 BC ; several stone circles and menhirs along the Bretagne coast are now only visible at low tide. This coincides with a peak in coastal flooding in the Mississippi delta and the eastern seaboard of America.

Newgrange passage mound. Ireland.

 

Several paleoclimatic events appear to have overlapped during this period, because global climate worsened dramatically. Comparative analysis of Greenland ice cores along with tree-ring data identifies land strikes of meteorites in 3150 BC , one landing in China. ⁶ Global spikes in sulphate and methane levels indicate such events affected worldwide climate patterns. Throughout Europe and the North Atlantic, a neoglacial period dropped the upper tree line in the Alps by 300 feet, and the effects of this northern cooling period extended as far south as Peru and produced a corresponding drought in the Near East. ⁷ The Tigris-Euphrates River saw sharp reductions of stream flow, while the Iranian Plateau changed from humid to arid. ⁸ Most significant of all, what is known today as the Persian Gulf was then low-lying alluvial land, but in a matter of five hundred years the sea rose so rapidly that the fabled cities of Ur, Eridu, Shuruppak and Sippar suddenly found themselves very close to the sea; silt deposits indicate a complete transgression of the ocean, flooding the cities before lowering to the level it is today. ⁹

Significant cooling of the planet was also caused by debris ejected from a 3190 BC eruption of the volatile Icelandic volcano Hekla, so it is with good reason Icelanders refer to this temperamental stratovolcano as “the gateway to Hell.” The geologist Robert Schoch summarizes the conditions at this time of overlapping cycles well: “There is evidence that currents in all the major oceans changed, probably in response to shifts in the atmosphere. The surface of the earth itself was moving around a great deal at this time. Every continent was affected by various patterns of uplift, subsidence, tilt, down-warping, earthquakes, and shifting riverbeds.” ¹⁰

Some 7,000 years earlier, the changeover from the Age of Leo to Cancer ushered the time of the First Occasion — Zep Tepi — and with it came a magnetic flip of the poles, followed shortly thereafter by a global flood. That time saw the creation of the primordial mounds, the Sphinx and the sites of the Giza pyramids. So, with the previous change of ages and their effects well carved in myth and memory, the temple-builders no doubt took heed and engaged in a new cycle of construction to preserve the “mansions of the gods.” And just like the forces that precipitated the great flood, the events around 3100 BC most likely also moved the telluric lines, causing the “enemy snake to churn in the abyss.” By anchoring the shifting nodes of these currents worldwide with great stone circles, tens of thousands of dolmens and menhirs, in addition to expansions of existing temples, the 'cities of knowledge' would be protected against potential catastrophe.

Perhaps it is no coincidence that this renewed era in temple-building occurs precisely as Menes (the first pharaoh of a purely human bloodline) is enthroned in Egypt, while in India the Hindu cycle of Kali Yuga is set in motion, and in Central America the last cycle of the Olmec calendar begins its countdown. All these events occurred within a few years of each other, if not at the same time. ¹¹

Perhaps it is also no coincidence these same cultures recognized the perpetual churning mill of the heavens. ¹² In the Tamil/Hindu view, Yugas are epochs within a cycle of four ages that wax and wane like the seasons, from creation to destruction, gestation and re-creation. Each Yuga exerts an influence upon the Earth and human consciousness, since both are intertwined and integral components of the grand machinery of the solar system, its motion around a central Sun, and the Sun’s relationship to the center of our galaxy. During the former cycle of Satya Yuga, humanity found itself immersed in a Golden Age, a time of technical and spiritual advancement, grand temples, and the governance by gods, truth, and cities of knowledge. By comparison, this present cycle of Kali Yuga is regarded as the cycle of quarrel, war, strife, discord, hypocrisy, spiritual degradation, and a move away from God — essentially the time of unbridled solar/masculine power, an “age of vice.”

The ram comes storming in.

Which perfectly describes the characteristics governing the Age of Aries. After the stable world of Taurus came a gradual decline of culture and the increase of blind impulse and bluster, certainly the traits of the ram. The Age of Aries (c.2260-100 BC ) marked the demise of established civilizations and the rise in warfare and centralized power. It was no doubt a time of locking horns, noted by a gradual disintegration of responsibility of governorship, and its replacement by ego and the rise of despots and spiritually unqualified kingship.

Severe climate changes again played their part in this scenario. The consequences of the aforementioned neoglacial climate did not go away overnight; instead they persisted for a thousand years, causing inconsistencies in food supplies across much of the third millennium BC . With weather and the agricultural map becoming unpredictable, temple cultures gradually adopted solar principles (masculine) over lunar (feminine). Tens of thousands of new henges, stone circles, dolmens and passage mounds marked a new round of temple-building c2600 BC — especially across Europe — the vast majority, like Gavrinis in France, oriented southeast and towards the rising power of the winter solstice Sun. When crops fail you, the corresponding power of the Sun needs to be exalted. In Egypt, temples are extended, the Giza pyramids are added to and restored; ¹³ and Stonehenge sees its tall, sarsen trilithons erected, essentially completing the site we know today.

Once again the timing of this renewed construction phase was impeccable, for another meteorite found land in 2345 BC . ¹⁴ And as times move deeper into the Age of the Ram, the empires of Mesopotamia, Helmand and the Indus Valley go into a tailspin, as do those of Celtic Britain, Greece and Anatolia.

During these fluctuating years, temples acted as a bulwark against uncertainty, after all, the transfiguration of the soul never sleeps. In times of inconstancy, when the unknown is your compass, people look to what is certain, and inside a stable and defined environment such as a temple, one can find that balance. Additionally the temple had proved its worth for thousands of years, it was the place to be close to God because it was built in the image of God, and at times when a climate of fear establishes a bulkhead in the human psyche, the safest place to turn to is where order prevails. Since the temple was a place where one could access information, be it through personal introspection or stones marking celestial transits, the buildings proved an invaluable asset in predicting the arrival of events that may not bode well for the tribe. If the skies indicate a chance of being hit by a piece of it, at least preparations can be made for the certainty that life is going to be impacted very negatively. Luck, after all, favors the prepared.

In this way the temple itself began to accrue a misplaced sense of power, and in an escalating climate of fear, the opportunity was not lost on candidates positioning themselves as potential saviors of the people.

From brotherhood to bother-hood.

Written around 1600 BC , the Book of Psalms records in its arcane language what seems to be a piece of the sky falling down to earth: “Then the earth shook and trembled, the foundations of the mountains moved and were shaken… There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it… At the brightness that was before him his thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire... he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; and he shot out lightning, and discomfited them. Then the channels of waters were seen and the foundations of the world were laid bare.” ¹⁵

Just like the consistencies throughout the flood myths, the midpoint of the Age of Aries is marked by stellar observations from Britain, France, the Levant and China, all similarly describing the unusual behavior of the sky. Even Venus is noted by Babylonian astronomers as being absent from view for nine months — a near impossibility considering it is one of the firmament’s brightest objects. Indeed, ice core and tree-ring data from 1628 BC identifies land strikes of meteorites, in addition to substantial volcanic activity leading to more volatile weather patterns. ¹⁶ This generated further turmoil, particularly in the Near East, where marauding armies overwhelmed Egypt from the north and south and inevitably split the kingdom into a number of fiefdoms.

Between 1200-1150 BC Greenland’s ice core and tree-ring data match up to reveal high levels of acidity, as weather patterns were flipped across the globe, with normally wet areas becoming dry and freezing, and dry areas becoming unusually wet and warm. ¹⁷ This matches a long period of major upheaval, famine, plague and mass movement of people from the British Isles to the Mediterranean, across the Middle East and all the way to China.

Hardly an ancient city was left standing as rulers took advantage of chaos to declare allegiance to a new god: war. All the cities of Anatolia were destroyed; Homer’s Troy was plundered and with it fell the golden age of the Greeks; the major centers in Cyprus, Israel, Syria, the Levant, and across the Middle East were burned to the ground. The intimate relationship between nature, gods, temples and people were sorely tested as famine, warfare and social chaos took their toll.

In China even the Mandate from Heaven was withdrawn from the Shang Dynasty c.1122 BC because the appointed emperor failed to bring an abundant harvest for the people. An emperor was considered the Son of Heaven, and like his Egyptian counterparts, it was his duty to assure good relations between heavenly forces and human affairs. ¹⁸ As with all rulers borne from the ideology of the temple, governorship of the people was a highly spiritual responsibility; kingship was a representation of the divine on Earth, and those chosen possessed the knowledge of mediation between the forces of the material and invisible. Now with spiritually-attuned leadership becoming usurped by ever-increasing warlords, good governorship became a hit-and-miss affair as pretenders positioned themselves politically to rule for the sake of acquiring power or prestige. The temple itself was becoming a symbol of acquired power for the individual rather than a steward for the people. Thus, when famine descended upon China, the new emperors were revealed for what they were: impostors. And as failed mediators, their power was stripped.

Like so many ancient world-views, the Chinese regarded human corruption as a symptom of the loss of connection with elemental forces. ¹⁹ The problem was, just as one corrupt despot was removed, so a whole succession of false gods lined up to take his place.

Understandably there was a marked movement away from a feminine and intuitive sanctity of nature, to a dominant masculine, aggressive, possessive culture. True to the traits of the Age of Aries, humanity was poised to experience the absence of Godliness, and marauding armies desecrated temples and scoured their material wealth. As a final insult, in Britain, the warring between tribes meant the hilltop temples were appropriated and reshaped into fortifications. It took centuries for kingdoms to recover, if they ever did, and the Bronze Age effectively came to an abrupt end.

The politics surrounding the period of Amenhotep III’s rule c.1386 BC typifies this era, which from the point of view of our inquiry concerns the power struggle for control of the temple away from the pharaoh through the encroaching influence of a corrupt priesthood. Thousands of years of observation would have revealed to the cunning observer that whoever has the pulse of the temple owns the potential for manipulating the psyche of the people. Naturally such a notion runs counter to the purpose and principle of sacred space, but in times of turmoil the unbalanced mind becomes the devil’s playground, and apparently noble concepts become a means to an end. Amenhotep III was perhaps one of the last of a line of spiritual pharaohs. He presided over a period of unprecedented prosperity and artistic splendor in Egypt, quite a feat considering the chaos ensuing all around; statues of him and his wife Tiye show her hand touching the pharaoh’s arm, demonstrating his consideration for the equality of women. Nevertheless, he did inherit an Egypt by now wedded to a highly political priesthood that had cemented its power and control of the temple, and worse, asserted itself as an intermediary between people and the gods. ²⁰

Amenhotep and Tiye.

 

 

By the time of his passing, attempts at removing this bastardized system had fallen short, and the problem was bequeathed to his son Akhenaten, a much misunderstood figure, who attempted to complete the process his father began, by reforming the basic assumption: that the pharaoh — the personalization of a creator god on Earth — should be more powerful than the existing domestic order, as represented by the priests of Amun and their substantial temple estates. ²¹ He attempted to break their influence by first moving the center of temple culture from Thebes to Amarna, then reigning-in the ever-expanding pantheon of gods into one monotheistic society.

Akhenaten

 

 

At Amarna he built the city of Akhet-aten ('the Horizon of the Aten'). Akhenaten’s aim was to return the temple to the people, by removing intermediaries, ceasing the blind devotion of idols, and refocusing attention on the original principles on which the temple was founded — namely, self-empowerment through the transfiguration of the soul. In this sense Akhenaten was way ahead of the game, since monotheism was still but a twinkle in the eye of the Age of Pisces, 1,200 years away in the future.

Such a move not surprisingly undermined the employment security of the priestly caste. Needless to say, the reign of Akhenaten came to an abrupt end, his temples, monuments and inscriptions eradicated from the face of the earth at the hands of a vengeful priesthood; even his name was excised from official king lists, which place Horemheb, the commander-in-chief of the army, as his father’s successor!

Akhenaten’s son and heir, Tutankhaten, was barely eighteen when he met with an early and highly suspicious death: a blow to the skull, a hasty interment, and a tomb hardly fit for a king of his era. Barely had the boy-king been seated at the throne when the priests forced the young pharaoh to change his name from aten to amun and move the capital back to Thebes, all of which was meant to signal to the people there was no doubt as to who controlled the temple, and hence, the power in the land. ²²

Cult of blood.

Historically speaking, in times of chaos people are likely to give up all manner of freedoms and swear blind allegiance just to afford a little peace at night. And that is precisely how a few abusive people acquire power over the many.

The rise in idolatry followed the disintegration of knowledge, as more temples around the world fell under the aggrandized power of the priesthood. With so much fear to be spread around it was easy for the powerful to position themselves as saviors from uncertainty, and any allusions by rulers to rule by divine mandate was nothing more than mere lip service. Indeed, wise leadership became the exception.

By the time the Age of Aries gave way to the Age of Pisces c100 BC , many temples were being appropriated for purposes different to those for which they’d been built, the most typical being their new use as burial sites. The rich and influential could now be associated with the source of a god’s power on Earth by being buried as close as physically possible to the temple. Our modern concept of church graveyards developed from this era, and a casual browse of headstones in old churches reveals that the more status you carried in the community (ie. money), the closer your grave was located to the altar.

Some temples were shut down or closed, physically as well as energetically. The entrance to the Great Pyramid was sealed, and only through much gunpowder was a hole blown on its northern flank by treasure hunters; beneath the sacred mountain of Dehenet, Hatshepsut’s temple was shut down energetically following the misuse of sacred sexuality as a means of control rather than education. ²³ In Britain a 90-ton megalith plugged the entrance to the long barrow of West Kennett, effectively sealing the passageway and preventing the telluric energy of the site from further misuse.

In the Americas, the Inca, Toltec and Maya appear to have upheld the true concept of the temple right up to the time of Christ, but inevitably even these cultures and their extraordinary works — not to mention all those they inherited — slowly became relics of a bygone era, succumbing to desert sands and jungle vines just as surely as the sites of the Celts were reclaimed by the peat. Like Edfu, they became curiosities of forgotten ages, created by people of such remote antiquity that few understood the original reason why the monuments were built in the first place.

Ancient academies fell under the weight of centralized religious beliefs and political direction, and with the loss of knowledge and its mentors, errors slowly crept into the system, as even the high culture of the Greeks went into decline. ²⁴

The Romans gained control over ancient temples and draped them in the excesses, misconceptions and whims of the new solar gods, the Caesars.

These are, of course, very broad strokes in a complex and still-emerging global picture. The culture of the true temple did not vanish entirely during these times, it merely went underground, but its importance as the spiritual compass of people was greatly diminished because its principles fell into direct conflict with prevailing politics and an aggressive social landscape. In Central America, temple culture actually saw a renaissance, albeit under a veil of ignorance, when the Aztec took the misuse of the temple and the misinterpretation of spiritual knowledge to unprecedented extremes.

During their southerly migration through Mexico, the Aztec inherited the symmetrical metropolis of Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City. By their time, the 32.04 square miles of the 'birthplace of gods' to the northeast, Teotihuacan, was already an abandoned ruin. To the Aztec these dilapidated mounds (and by then the Pyramid of the Sun actually resembled a natural mountain) had been built by a long-lost civilization “at a time when giants and sages inhabited the Earth.” ²⁵ The passage of the Pleiades across the meridian of the sky provided the Aztec with an excuse to engage in a bloodbath of human sacrifice, and every fifty-two years this ritual took place to appease the gods: “Deep in their soul the ancient Mexicans could not trust the future. Their world was too fragile, always exposed to a catastrophe. Every fifty-two years the people of the whole empire succumbed to terror, fearing that the last sunset of their “century” would not be followed by a new dawn… terror-stricken crowds thronged to the [Temple of Ul Xochitecatl]. On its summit, the priests were watching the constellation of the Pleiades. The astronomer-priest gave a signal. A prisoner was stretched out on the altar, a stone knife was plunged into his breast with a dull noise, and over the gaping wound a burning stick was waved… The flame would flicker, as if born from the broken breast, and among joyful clamor, messengers lit torches and left to spread fire to the four corners of the central valley. Thus, the world had once more escaped destruction.” ²⁶

Aztec use of the temple during the age of fear.

 

 

According to 17 ^th century accounts by conquistadores, blood sacrifices and cannibalism were widely practiced in temples throughout Central America: “They strike open the wretched Indian’s chest with flint knives and hastily tear out the palpitating heart, which with the blood, they present to the idols... They cut off the arms, thighs and head, eating the arms and thighs at ceremonial banquets. The head they hang up on a beam and the body is… given to the beasts of prey.” ²⁷ Even the barbaric Cortez was revulsed: “They have a most horrid and abominable custom, which truly ought to be punished and, which until now we have seen in no other part, and this is that, whenever they wish to ask something of the idols, in order that their plea may find more acceptance, they take many girls and boys and even adults, and in the presence of these idols they open their chests while they are still alive and take out their hearts, and entrails burn them before the idols, offering the smoke as sacrifice. Some of us have seen this, and they say it is the most terrible and frightful thing they have ever witnessed.” ²⁸

When original understanding is lost, all that remains is superstition.

One energy, many masters.

Through the personal and collective stories in earlier chapters, I attempted to give an idea of the power and potential at work in the temples. The experience is difficult to convey in words and only through direct contact can anyone understand what these “mansions of the gods” do for you and to you. It is an unselfish energy that empowers the self, and the results and experiences are, to a degree, dependent on what the seeker is seeking, and the level of intent and commitment they bring into the premises. So be careful what you ask for, you may well manifest it!

Paradoxically, in this power lies the seed of the downfall of the self. Like great sex, love, food and Alfa Romeos, it has the potential to make one heady and prone to over-indulgence which ultimately gives rise to ego. In essence this is what occurred to the guardians of the temple during the “age of vice.” They got drunk on ‘the knowledge’, and when you start to believe this power somehow makes you all-powerful and more important than everyone around you, that’s when problems arise. Absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

Working with subtle energy requires care. The human body is a finely tuned electromagnetic instrument, ²⁹ and the introduction of too much energy too quickly does strange things. Depending on your disposition it has the potential to burn out your fuses. Or it can embolden you to become a tyrant. This is why initiates-in-training were never allowed inside pyramids, for the energy in temples of such design is too concentrated; instead, to prevent the body’s energy circuits from being overwhelmed, they were trained to raise their residual energy gradually from temple to temple before being allowed loose in those magnificent halls of eternity.

Napoleon discovered this for himself after spending a night inside the King’s Chamber, only to run for his life the moment the door was flung open in the morning, revealing a pale and visibly shaken man. Napoleon vehemently forbade anyone should ever ask him what took place inside that place. After he became emperor he hinted that he’d received a presage about his destiny, and lying on his death bed, at the point of confiding to the historian Emmanuel las Casas, he instead shook his head and said, “No. What’s the use, you’d never believe me.” ³⁰

Temples are repositories of power, designed by master craftsmen possessed of great spirituality and humility. And just as they are capable of altering the individual, so the electromagnetic individual can disrupt the temple, and creation myths and traditions warn of the dangers inherent in this two-way force.

The omphalos is the sacred pillar marking all at once the primeval mound, the umbilical cord with a creator god, and a place where the knowledge can be sourced, hence why adepts who worked with such power places were referred to as sorcerers . It was also considered to be a kind of plug that secured “the waters of the abyss from overflowing.” Metaphorically speaking, if the omphalos is moved, altered or misused in some way, the power of place can become unstable. In the myths of the Akwasi of British Guyana, their ‘navel of creation’ sits on a watery cavity connected to the bowels of the Earth, and to prevent its overflow, a tightly woven basket is wrapped around the central tree. When a mischievous monkey lifts the basket, the world falls apart. ³¹ In Central India, the Agaria say “it was the breaking of a large nail of iron that caused our city from the golden age to be flooded.” There are identical stories throughout Mongolia and Sumer linking the destruction of the planet with interference of the lingam and altering the forces restrained at the site, much like the “stirring of the enemy snake” caused the disintegration of the temples of Egypt. ³²

Glastonbury Tor is a natural hill that 2,000 years ago still resembled a primeval mound as it sat surrounded by shallow inland waters. It stands on fissures that go deep into the land, and its pressurized mineral waters are still a wonder to imbibe today. The legends that surround it and its attendant Abbey also speak of the demise of Britain should the site be desecrated. And that is precisely what happened after 1539 following a rampage by Henry VIII as he sought the ‘treasure of the abbey’, but failing to find it, had the buildings razed to the ground. As with so many legends of sacred sites, the treasure is not so much physical as it is metaphorical. Like the legend of a King Sil buried with a life-size gold statue of himself on a horse beneath Silbury Hill, the metaphor symbolizes the process of spiritual enlightenment through self-realization in the temple; as for Glastonbury, the treasure was embedded in the geometric and mathematical values of the structure itself, so when mad Henry destroyed the buildings he wrecked the very treasure he’d been searching for.

Creation myths from Easter Island to Egypt describe how a god creates a ‘navel on the earth’ from which springs a tree bearing fruit, knowledge, and all manner of things that foster civilization. Then, as the Akwasi tradition goes on to state, “in order to diffuse the benefits of the tree all over the world, Sigu [the creator] resolved to cut it down and plant slips and seeds of it everywhere.” ³³ The task is undertaken by all creatures except that mischievous brown monkey, whom the creator god distracts by sending him off to fetch water while the transplanting takes place. This tradition has parallels to the story of Osiris, who gets chopped into fourteen pieces and scattered throughout the land before being reassembled and re-emerging as a tree. The same symbolism is used throughout classic Norse, Roman and Greek rites involving creator gods, founders of holy cities or solar kings, whose dismembering into pieces enriches the land and serves to promulgate his status as a bearer of divine influence.

You can also read such stories as allegories: the place where the power of the land meets the descending power of a god serves as a focal point of energy. Groups of adepts in direct communication with the divine source travel to the four corners of the Earth and set up new centers of culture, whose focus is a temple occupying other nodes of telluric energy. It is interesting that in the Akwasi story the only mischievous being present is distracted while the sacred work is carried out. The process of temple-building — with its harnessing of telluric forces and encoded astronomy and mathematics — was too important to be tampered with by mischief makers. Certainly there has always been a synergy between ‘navels of the earth’, telluric energy and the empowering of the individual. However, since energy is simply energy and it knows not right from wrong, the places of power can equally fall into the wrong hands, and whenever they do, typically the story ends badly for everyone involved.

As history bears witness, a corrupt priesthood did figure out how to wrestle power away from the adepts and used the temple as a tool for control rather than the education and empowerment of others.

The focal point of this latent energy sits below every altar or holy of holies, nourishing the land and maintaining the balance of life like blood flowing through veins. And it was the charge of adepts to learn to harness this energy with integrity, as the Babylonian Talmud legend of King David illustrates:

David is digging the foundation for a temple when, at a great depth, he finds the original omphalos. The stone tells David, “I rest upon the abyss,” and as the embodiment of the power of God it “lie[s] here to cover-up the abyss.” ³⁴ David lifts up the stone to see if this is true and discovers that, yes, removing a stone that is the receptacle of divine energy indeed lets all hell break loose, because suddenly “the Deep arose and threatened to submerge the world.” ³⁵

Solomon’s Temple under Temple Mount.

 

 

David then makes us aware he has been instructed in the ways of the sacred knowledge because he turns to his privy councilor and asks, “Is there anyone who knows whether it is permitted to inscribe the [ineffable] Name upon a sherd, and cast it into the Deep that its waves should subside?” ³⁶ He is addressing Ahithophel, a kind of mentor, who decides to play a game of one-upmanship with the King by withholding the information. Meanwhile the Deep continues to rise, forcing David to issue a command tinged with a curse: “Whoever knows how to stem the tide of the Deep and fails to do it will one day throttle himself.” ³⁷ Whereupon Ahithophel tells David, “Yes, by all means inscribe the ineffable name of God [presumably Tetragrammaton] on the sherd,” which he does, and casts it into the Deep. Ahithophel’s spell works only too well: the waves of the Deep not only subside, they do so to such a degree that David fears the Earth will be destabilized. So David sings the fifteen Songs of the Ascents as an antidote, whereby the Deep is raised sufficiently and balance is restored to the land. ³⁸

Later Jewish literature assumes the text is referring to water, but nowhere in the Babylonian myth is water ever mentioned, it just mentions waves. Waves of water below the soil are highly improbable, but not electromagnetic waves, and as we saw earlier, a telluric current anchored by stone is indeed part of the technology of sacred space.

The stone holding the energy of David’s site is quite possibly the Eben Shetiyah ('Stone of Foundation') on Temple Mount, which like so many identical places of power sits over deep fissures. Many world legends identify these ‘navels of the earth’ as sitting on subterranean channels linking one navel to another like “irrigation channels” that “bear fruit in each country.” Thus the legends inform us this network of energy fertilizes the land, on one hand, and on the other is capable of causing global dysfunction whenever its presiding omphalos is tampered with.

In David and Ahithophel we are dealing with two sorcerers — they work with the source — the latter engaging in very unethical grandstanding. The Haggadah states that Ahithophel’s devotion to the study of the Laws was not founded on worthy motives, that he abused his sacred knowledge in the pursuit of greed and power. Like the prophet and diviner Balaam, he and Ahithophel were the two great sages of the era who, failing to show gratitude to the Source or humility for their wisdom, perished in dishonor — Ahithophel, as David rightly predicted, by hanging himself. Like many notable adepts, Ahithophel was 33-years old when he died. His death was a great loss to David; his wisdom was so great that Scripture itself avoids calling him a man, for his wisdom bordered on that of the angels. ³⁹ A true Darth Vader of his time.

David’s dream was to build a temple every bit as good as those made by the creator gods, but he was well aware that only a humble person of right intent and right action is afforded the right to do so, as the words spoken to his son attest: “My son, I had it in my heart to build a house to the name of the Lord my God. But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, you have shed much blood and have waged great wars; you shall not build a house to my name, because you have shed so much blood before me upon the earth. Behold, a son shall be born to you; he shall be a man of peace.” ⁴⁰

And indeed Solomon (sol-amun , a solar hero) goes on to realize his father’s dream of building a perfect temple above a ‘navel of the earth’ at Uru-shalim, the “abode of peace.” It is curious that the Dome on this rock, the Holy Sanctuary of the Arabs, is also said to have been built by Suleiman ben Daoud (Solomon, Son of David.) ⁴¹ And yet despite so many similarities, the abode of peace in Jerusalem has ever since been anything but.

The decapitation of the divine feminine.

Olympia was a high priestess at the Temple of Dodona, the oldest sacred site in Greece, created when Zeus manifested his essence on Earth in the shape of a betyl , a navel stone, upon which was built a temple dedicated to Zeus-Amun. and by implication linking Dodona with the Theban temples as principal centers of veneration of Amun. Legend states that two Theban priestesses each went to Siwa in Lybia and Dodona to found those very ancient sites. This may account for the similarities between classic Greek and ancient Egyptian cultures; for one, their gods are interchangeable — Hermes-Djehuti, Dionysus-Osiris, Pan-Min, Aphrodite-Isis/Hathor, and of course Zeus-Amun/Ra. But more so because Greece’s most famous luminaries, such as Pythagoras and Plato, had sojourned as students of the Heliopolitan priests, and the wisdom they acquired at that ancient city of knowledge made Greek culture one of the great wonders of the world. Even Herodotus makes such a claim. ⁴²

Theater of Pyrrhus, Dodona.

 

 

But by 343 BC Egypt had become a very different place. It found itself under the barbaric rule of Persian despots who desecrated the temples and systematically reduced what was left to rubble. True to the spirit of great legends, a hero appears in 332 BC , when Alexander the Great, son of Olympia, defeats the Persians and marches triumphantly into Memphis. The grateful Egyptians immediately make Alexander a pharaoh, whereupon Alexander’s first priority is to restore the dual temples of Luxor and Karnak which had fallen into decay. He also amends the Greek calendar by making the New Year fall on July 21 ^st , the traditional heliacal rising of Sirius, the Dog Star, symbol of Isis and the divine feminine and rebirth of knowledge. ⁴³

Given the thousand years of ascent of the masculine, this sudden interest in resuscitating the temple and the feminine seems almost anomalous, and thus intriguing.

From the age of fourteen Alexander had been surrounded by tutors of the highest caliber in Greece: Aristotle, who studied under Plato, and whom Plato described as “the intelligence of the school”; Theophrastus, a scientist and renaissance man whose works on physics, metaphysics, biology and botany greatly influenced later medieval thinkers; and finally, Callisthenes the historian. This brain trust would have molded the young Alexander well, for Aristotle alone taught him philosophy and the sciences, and instilled in the young lad the virtues, the most important being reason. He also would have discussed with his inquiring pupil his most famous work Politika in which Aristotle outlined the philosophy of human affairs in what he called the Ideal State. ⁴⁴

Did this have an impact on Alexander’s enlightened actions in Egypt? Let’s consider that another great influence on Alexander was Homer’s Odyssey , particularly the legend of Jason and the Argonauts, who’d set sail from the island of Pharos, located on the tip of the Nile Delta. ⁴⁵ All these ideals coalesced into a vision as Alexander set into motion a plan for a new city in Egypt dedicated to the resurgence of wisdom which, it was hoped, would re-ignite the world.

Riding out with Ptolemy and Callisthenes, Alexander reached Pharos, where he laid the foundation for the city of Alexandria. Its tutelary goddess would be none other than Isis. On Pharos itself, a lighthouse was erected that would later become one of the seven great wonders of the world, not least because its light was said to shine “as bright as a second sun,” a term also attributed to Sirius, the star associated with Isis, Sophia, and wisdom.

Alas, Alexander would not see his dream come true for he dies in Persia, just shy of his 33 ^rd birthday. The city that bore his name was put into motion by his enlightened friend and newly-appointed pharaoh Ptolemy, designed as a grid with a cross as its central axis, in the same manner as Saqqara and Akhetaten; ⁴⁶ its main axis, earlier fixed by Alexander himself, was aligned through the eastern Gate of Helios (the Sun) to the heliacal rising of Sirius. ⁴⁷ If projected into the horizon, the alignment passes the now-submerged portion of the city of Heraklion and its temple dedicated to Isis’ consort, Osiris. ⁴⁸

In time Alexandria does blossom as a universal city of wisdom and learning, with the help of Manetho, a priest of Heliopolis, as well as its most famous institution, the Great Library, a combination of the great temple library at Heliopolis and the contents of Aristotle’s own Lyceum, which Ptolemy had transferred from Athens. The Great Library was charged with accumulating the world’s knowledge and it duly became the spark that revitalized interest in the great arts.

But as with all great tales, there has to be a modicum of tension. This was aptly provided in 307 A.D. during the Roman period of occupation, when Catherine, the daughter of the pagan governor of Alexandria, came to symbolize all that was evil in the world — at least in the Roman way of looking at the world. Catherine was an enlightened woman of the period and a noted scholar who, upon her conversion to Christianity (not to be confused with Catholicism) visited the Roman Emperor Maximinus in an attempt to convince him of the immorality of persecuting Christians. Although unsuccessful, she nevertheless managed to convince his wife, a number of pagan philosophers, as well as many of Maximinus’ army. Suitably impressed, the emperor had them all martyred.

However, that would not be the end of it. Catherine was imprisoned, yet all who visited her were also converted. She was subsequently tortured, flayed alive, then condemned to be beaten to death on a spiked wheel. But since the wheel broke when she touched it, she was beheaded instead. Catherine of Alexandria would become a symbol against oppression and tyranny, the inspiration for many emerging esoteric orders such as the Cathars, just as she became the patron saint of the Knights Templar.

Barely five years after her brutal death, the new Emperor Constantine initially accepted Christianity as a faith (humans really are strange, aren’t they?). However, in the ensuing seventy years Christianity would not only become the only faith but Constantine was bullied by bishops to accept its dominance by militant Christians, and the repercussions of this decision shaped the Catholic Church into what it became: a perversion of the ethics of its central figure, Jesus, much like latter-day Islamist extremists have attempted to dominate the ethics of Islam. ⁴⁹

But the Romans were just getting into the downfall of Alexandria, ironically while their own empire was doing the same, and their actions typify the rule of the bully and the ignorant who adamantly despise knowledge and the sacred feminine. This was hardly a propitious era for intellectuals: Neoplatonists were considered heretics alongside Jews (a heretic being “someone in possession of facts who is able to choose”); even Christian Gnostics were considered “agents of Satan” and became targets of the militant Christians. ⁵⁰ In 391 A.D. one-hundred new laws were issued by Emperor Theodosius I depriving Gnostics, Jews, and any order outside the strict confines of Orthodox belief, of property, liberty, temples and books. ⁵¹ Then, life in Alexandria reached a state from which it never recovered.

Temple of Luxor in 1870.

 

 

According to an account by the Greek historian Socrates Scholasticus: “At the solicitation of Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, the Emperor issued an order at this time for the demolition of the heathen temples in that city… Seizing this opportunity, Theophilus exerted himself to the utmost to expose the pagan mysteries to contempt… he destroyed the Serapeum [part of the Great Library] … he showed full of extravagant superstitions, and he had the [omphalos] carried through the midst of the forum.” The rampage through the library and the temples was carried out by Christian fanatics and monks incited by Bishop Theophilus, massacring members of the oppressed sects taking refuge in the Serapeum. Irreplaceable books containing the wisdom of millennia were burned along with their protective buildings. ⁵² Emperor Theodosius I even held the victims responsible for their own demise. ⁵³

The destruction of temples extended as far as Delphi. ⁵⁴ During this time the codices of the Nag Hammadi Library were secretly ensconced to avoid destruction; their discovery in 1945 would reveal the hitherto discredited gnostic vision of Jesus, the existence of his brother and potentially a holy bloodline, ⁵⁵ a gospel banned by the Church and deemed to be older than the four canonical gospels ⁵⁶ — all of which has since become a source of huge embarrassment for the Catholic Church.

The embers were still glowing when the mob turned on yet another female intellectual, the accomplished scholar Hypatia. In 400 AD, in addition to her illustrious career as a mathematician, astronomer, physicist and inventor, she became the head of the Platonist School of Alexandria. As far as Christian zealots were concerned, science and mathematics were heresies and those who practiced such evil “were to be torn by beasts or else burned alive.” ⁵⁷ Somehow not the kind of ethics Jesus had had in mind. When the fanatical Christian Cyril became Patriarch of Alexandria he began first persecuting Jews, afterward turning his attention to Neoplatonists. Then, as Hypatia returned home one day, “...waylaid her, and dragging her from her carriage, they dragged her into the Church called Caesarium, where they stripped her, and then murdered her by scraping her skin off with tiles and bits of shell. After tearing her body to pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron and there burnt them.” ⁵⁸

Cyril was canonized.

Rome collapsed.

The temple and its sages did not altogether die, they just took a sabbatical.

Like Osiris, they were broken up, their parts sown throughout many territories, later to be reborn as tall trees bearing many fruit.

There’s a Greek aphorism which states “God without goddess is spiritual insufficiency.” It is the same with any temple that thrives on the exclusion of others, as the declaration by God in Isaiah 56:7 makes evidently clear: “Even them I will bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer… My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.”

But sometimes, to appreciate what there is, it is necessary to experience what there is not, and that is true of so many things.

 

 

The state of the Parthenon by 1860. Greece.