Sacred Sites: Places of Peace and Power

By Martin Gray

"anyone wishing to understand societies of the past must makea determined effort to liberate himself from the pressures of hisown mental attitudes."
Georges Duby

"The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science."
Albert Einstein

Since prehistoric times, certain places have exerted a mysterious attraction on billions of people around the world. Many cultures of antiquity recognized the existence of these sites, called power places or sacred sites, and marked their geographic locations in a variety of ways. The names of such places are familiar to us all; they include Stonehenge, Machu Picchu, the Pyramids, Jerusalem, Banaras and Mecca. Power places are found all across the planet in the form of sacred mountains, healing springs, oracular caverns, enchanted forest glens and places of divine revelation.

Ancient legends and modern-day reports tell of extraordinary experiences that people have had while visiting these holy and magical places. Different sacred sites have the power to heal the body, enlighten the mind, increase creativity, develop psychic abilities, and awaken the soul to a knowing of its true purpose in life. While contemporary science cannot explain - and therefore disregards - the seemingly miraculous phenomena which occur at the holy places, these sites continue to be the most venerated and visited locations on planet Earth. What is the key to the mystery of the sacred sites? How are we to explain their power? In suggesting answers to these questions, I may be accused of making broad generalizations about widely different places and religious events. That is precisely my intention.

Sacred sites in Burma are indeed different from those in Mexico, and the pilgrimage practices of Hinduism are quite unlike those of Christianity. Yet many similarities can be found among the world's sacred sites and pilgrimage traditions. I will focus on these similarities, these common denominators. This book is designed to introduce the subject of sacred sites and to show how their common characteristics hold the key to explaining the extraordinary phenomena that occur at the sacred sites. This book chronicles my own search for answers to these questions. Over an eighteen-year period I went upon a rambling yet purposeful pilgrimage to more than 1000 sacred sites in eighty countries around the world. I was able to determine the locations of these sites by researching the anthropology, archaeology, mythology and religious traditions of the world's past and present cultures.

SACRED JOURNEYS
My journeys to these places have been pilgrimages in the real sense of the word. The term pilgrimage means so much more than mere travel. In its original and pure meaning, pilgrimage describes a religious journey to a site or set of sites that have been invested with sanctity by tradition. Pilgrimage may also be defined as exterior mysticism, while mysticism is internal pilgrimage. Such has been the nature of my travels. Wandering extensively around the world, my journeys have fundamentally been an inner exploration of my heart and mind and soul. While I have been concerned with the scholarly study and photography of the sacred places, my primary intention has always been to interact with the sacred sites as a pilgrim.

To gather information on the sacred sites I have used two methods: the objective method of the scientist and the subjective method of the mystic or the shaman. Neither method is inherently a better way of knowing; each merely offers a different perspective, an alternative view of what is essentially a unitary reality. Yet, while both methods are valuable and complementary, in today's world the scientific method is dominant, and the mystic's approach is all but forgotten.

Mystical experience, however, is an equally important way of knowing. It offers a means of gathering information beyond the realm of scientific instruments. Mysticism has as its source of information the direct and personal experience of the sacred.

In applying this dual approach, both subjective and objective, to the study of holy places, I have done something rare. Most anthropologists and cultural geographers studying the institution of pilgrimage visit only a limited number of sites while doing the bulk of their research in libraries. I consider it presumptuous, even arrogant, to write about sacred sites and pilgrimage if one has not personally lived the life of a pilgrim and visited a large number of holy places.

Colin Turnbull, one of the more sensitive anthropologists writing on pilgrimage, echoes these sentiments. He comments:

"that we have tended to avoid, in our study of religious systems, what is central to all religion: the power of Faith, the sense of the Sacred, the perception of Spirit. In just the same way that it is not comfortable or seemingly appropriate, in "polite" society, to discuss God in the living room, so among polite anthropologists it is too often considered improper and inappropriate, if not irrelevant, to discuss Spirit and Faith, Beauty and Goodness, which are dismissed as though they had no substantive reality or application. It is still less acceptable to attempt to capture such qualities and report on them from the point of view of personal experience....The only way that I can see by which we can effectively tackle faith is for the fieldworker to be willing to sacrifice his academic self and perhaps his personal, moral, and "religious" self and, through this self-sacrifice, open himself to total, unfettered participation in the process of spiritual quest and subject himself as nearly as possible to the same conditions in time and space to which the other pilgrims are subjected.(1)

The deep feeling-experience of pilgrimage to the sacred places is enriched by a parallel journey through their mythology and history. To do this, I have read more than 1500 sources of information, mostly books but also a large number of academic journals articles and Ph.D. dissertations. This material has ranged widely over mythology, earth sciences, astronomy, archaeology, anthropology, ethnology and folk lore studies, trance, magic and shamanism, comparative religion, geomancy and sacred geometry, hagiography, parapsychology and mysticism. Combining scholarly study with long-term pilgrimage experience, I have been able to make conceptual leaps of understanding which I will share in these pages with you.

EARTH MESSAGES
My own total and unfettered participation in the process of pilgrimage has brought me many wonderful gifts. Besides a quickening of personal spiritual growth, I have had the remarkable experience of receiving numerous communications from a spirit (or angel or deva) of the Earth. I am referring to the capacity of the Earth to communicate directly and conceptually with human beings. For some people this idea may seem incredible. Occasionally, when I discuss the matter, people wonder if I have lost my mind. I respond by saying no, I have not lost but rather gained my mind. I am being literal and precise in saying this because I am indicating that I have gained access to a fuller range of my inherent mental capacities and thereby have re-cognized something that was common knowledge to many cultures of antiquity.

This is the ability to communicate with living, nonhuman entities, of which the Earth is the oldest and wisest. Ancient and traditional cultures throughout the world have spoken of these matters, of seers and shamans communing with the spirits of mountains and springs, rocks and trees, and of receiving teachings from these spirits for the benefit of people.

This ability to commune with spirits and unseen forces of the living earth does not have to be developed, for it already exists. It needs only to be discovered and used. Consider the analogy of a television set receiving a broadcast. The program is being transmitted but cannot be viewed until the television is turned on and tuned in. It is similar with the human mind and the ‘broadcast frequencies’ of the living Earth. We must turn on a part of our minds that we have not used before in order to more consciously receive the Earth's communications.

The possibility of doing so is a less radical idea than it may at first appear. A large number of scientific studies indicate that nearly all humans use no more than 15 percent of their inherent mental faculties. Contained within the remaining 85 percent are thought to be extraordinary perceptual capacities. My personal experience tells me that among those unused mental capacities is the near-magical ability to communicate with the spirits of the living Earth.

The Swiss psychologist Carl Jung was fascinated by this idea of humans communing with the natural world. Following a lifetime of research on the subject he wrote:

"As scientific understanding has grown, so our world has become dehumanized. Man feels himself isolated in the cosmos because he is no longer involved in nature and has lost his emotional unconscious identity with natural phenomena...no voices now speak to man from stones, plants and animals, nor does he speak to them believing they can hear. His contact with nature has gone, and with it the profound emotional energy that this connection supplied...primitive man was much more governed by his instincts than are his "rational" modern descendants, who have learned to "control" themselves. In this civilizing process, we have increasingly divided our consciousness from the deeper instinctive strata of the human psyche, and even ultimately from the somatic (bodily felt and known) basis of psychic phenomenon. Fortunately we have not lost these basic instinctive strata; they remain part of the unconscious, even though they may express themselves only in the form of dream images." (2)

My own experiences validate Jung’s words. The Earth will speak to anyone who is willing and able to listen. Many times, particularly while meditating at the sacred sites, I have received communications from the spirits of the Earth. These communications have come as distinct voices speaking in my mind or as visions of stunning visual clarity. I perceive these words and pictures as being telepathically transmitted into my mind; on no occasion were they the result of my own linear thought process. I was merely participating as a receiver. But these events in no way imply that I am gifted or special. It has happened to me so often only because I have visited so many power places and have come to them with an open heart and mind.

Let me be honest and direct about this matter. The visionary material communicated to me is supremely relevant to the social and environmental issues of our present times. I see no purpose, and only a great deal of harm, in not admitting the truth regarding the rapidly worsening condition of both natural ecosystems and human institutions. Our planet and our people are beset with many serious problems. We must do something about the situation, and we must do it soon. But, what are we to do? Where are we to look for answers? It is evident that almost no one has much faith any longer in the mainstream structures of social influence, management and control - the political, religious and academic. These structures carry no torch of inspiration, offer no undeniable fountain of wisdom, and offer no leadership towards an ecologically sustainable future.

Sadly, we are a global superculture devoid of direction and leadership. Magic is afoot, however. God or spirit - call it whatever you will - is currently giving birth to seeds of leadership and direction that will blossom magnificently in the near future. The information within these pages is one small part of such direction and leadership. The primary message of this book is that the sacred sites have a spiritual power; that this power magically transforms hearts and minds; and that such transformation is a key to resolving both our personal problems and those of the planet.



The visionary communications I received were conceptually concerned with three general subject areas. First, in the early years of my long pilgrimage, the communications were concerned mostly with how different power places have different types of energies and thereby influence people in various ways. I learned that the different energetic characteristics of the sacred sites had been recognized by ancient peoples, and that this knowledge was encoded, sometimes metaphorically, in the myths and legends told about the sites. I learned that certain power places affect men more strongly while women resonate with others and that the stimulating effects of a power place may either begin while one is at the site or it may manifest weeks after one has departed.

Second, while visiting a category of power places which I call oracular sites, I began to receive information regarding the future. The word oracular comes from oracle, which means to see into the future. In many areas of the world ancient legends speak of certain geographical locations that have the magical capacity to induce prophetic insight in sensitive people. The Greek oracle site of Delphi is a well-known example. My studies of archaeology, mythology and ancient pilgrimage traditions had alerted me to the locations of these oracle sites around the world, and I oriented my travels toward them. After visiting many of them I became aware that the particular power or presence of these sites somehow awakened and catalyzed the psychic ability of precognition. They assisted me peering into the future. At these oracular power points I experienced visionary communications that dealt with events I believe will occur beginning with the dawn of the new century.

This visionary material was at times highly inspiring and at other times frightening. I perceived images of a time when peace had come to our world, when hunger and disease had been eliminated, and when the environment was healthy and strong. I also received pictures of a time of crisis prior to the age of global peace. These visions indicated that a dramatic increase in many of the problems we are experiencing today will soon occur. Widespread famine, terrorism, environmental degradation, and socioeconomic collapse will sweep across the world with a momentum of destruction that may decimate great numbers of people. The visions indicated that these hardships will confront the human species well into the twenty-first century, until the crisis finally awakens people to the necessity of loving and serving the Earth and all of life.

Third, I received visionary material concerning the importance of coming into a spiritual relationship with the Earth. I experienced a profound love for and oneness with the Earth, and a knowing that my own work in life was to serve and protect the Earth with all my heart. At numerous sacred sites I received information about specific ways to nurture and heal the Earth. Upon Mt.Hesperus, a Native American pilgrimage site located in Colorado, I was shown a wonderful technique for doing Planetary Acupuncture. This simple meditation technique is explained later in this book and also on my web site.

I am well aware that certain portions of the teachings I received from the Earth may seem incredible. They certainly were to me at first. At times I was extremely skeptical of my own perceptions. With effort, I tried to listen with an open mind, free of preconceived ideas about what was and was not possible. Sometimes it was necessary to remind myself that I wasn't the only person who had ever spoken about a living Earth or who had sensed the charged energies at particular places. People all over the world, in hundreds of different cultures, spanning many thousands of years, had found and venerated these sites, as evidenced by their great pilgrimage temples. Certainly all of those people over all of those years couldn't all be wrong. Additionally, I couldn't ignore the fact that many of the greatest religious figures of human history had considered certain places to be special. Moses experienced divine revelation upon Mount Sinai, Mohammed upon Mount Hara, Christ in a cave at Quarantana and Buddha beneath the Bodhi Tree. Remembering these stories defused my skepticism and validated my experiences.

(Martin Gray explains about his book, editors note.) Photographs and Words
This book has two textual chapters followed by several photographic ones (this web site includes both these textual chapters and a selection of photographs from the visual chapters). Chapter One gives an autobiographical account of my long pilgrimage to sacred sites around the world, and includes some of the visionary experiences, spiritual teachings and prophetic revelations I was given at various holy places. Chapter Two is concerned with the actual nature of sacred places and answers a number of questions about their legendary power. For example, what is this mysterious "power of place"? What factors cause it to be so highly concentrated at particular sacred sites? Why have humans been so strongly drawn to these places? How are we to explain the extraordinary, often miraculous things that happen at the sites?

Based on my extensive personal experience and scholarly knowledge of sacred sites, I believe a field of power, a density of holiness, saturates and surrounds certain sacred sites. In chapter 2, I identify and examine twenty distinct factors that contribute to the presence of these fields of power at the sacred sites. My ideas on these matters are considered quite controversial in the anthropological and archaeological communities. As far as I know, no other writer has examined the subject of power places in so comprehensive a manner.

Each of photographic chapters focuses upon the sacred sites in a specific geographic region of the world. Each chapter is preceded by maps showing the locations of hundreds of sacred sites in the region and followed by notes on those sites illustrated in the chapter. The photographic notes are not intended to be exhaustive commentaries. They are meant to give a basic mythological, archaeological, and historical context and to provide a sense of the mystery and magic of the illustrated sites. Some of the places pictured are well known and are themselves the subject of entire books. About other places very little is known. The amount that I have written about each place varies in accordance with what is currently known.

The photograph notes contain a great deal of factual information in the form of dates, names, and places. I have gathered this material from the wide variety of sources listed in the extensive bibliography at the end of the book. While conducting this research, I was frequently confronted with inaccuracies and contradictions. Various books gave differing dates for the same event; a single place name was spelled differently; and different locations were given for the same site. This type of inaccuracy is common in old books and in books about the ancient world. Please do not hold me accountable for inaccuracies in the rendering of dates, names and places. Readers desiring more detailed historical information on particular sites are encouraged to consult the bibliography at the end of the book (and on the web site).

Clearly, much of what we think we know about the archaeology and mythology of the sites, the geology of the regions where they are located, the effects on humans of known energies, and other subjects discussed in this book, reflect merely the current state of knowledge. We do not have all the answers. We learn more as time goes on: research reveals new sites, more connections are made between areas of study, and scientific techniques improve. Those of us who study earth mysteries, sacred sites, and miraculous phenomena are very nearly neophytes. We have only begun our exploration. The so-called ‘factual’ material in this book is not the final word on the subject. By introducing it to a wide audience, I hope to stimulate further interest and research in the subject. Greater knowledge will then naturally follow.

Throughout this book, and particularly in chapter 2, I have quoted from the writings of other scholars. I have done this for two reasons. First, I simply do not write as well as the authors I have quoted. The English writer Paul Devereux and the American Alan Morinis, in addition to being brilliant and insightful scholars, are also masters of eloquent and engaging prose. I could have paraphrased their words but my rough attempts would have been an injustice to the art they have created. Second, I wished to introduce my readers to these scholars directly in the text, rather than in footnotes hidden in the back of the book where few readers venture.

Some readers may wonder why I have not included information on UFOs, extraterrestrials, and angels. First of all, my book is not about these subjects. Second, I am currently unable to report much factual information concerning them. Numerous books are available that discuss these matters, but most are filled with speculation, exaggeration, and new-age fantasy poorly masquerading as knowledge. I believe there to be some reality behind each of these subjects, and I keenly anticipate honest discussions about them.

I would like to offer some suggestions on how to use this book. It is not a travel guide, the kind of book you stuff into a tight space in your backpack and carry around the world. It is a reference book, useful for planning those world travels. It is a good idea to keep the book where you, your family, and your friends can see it often - it can provide a continuing stimulation to the wanderlust of many people. Since my intention has been to produce not a travel guide but a dream book, you will notice that I have not given information about traveling to and staying at the sites featured in the book. I can, however, suggest several excellent travel guides for each of the geographic regions I discuss. The best guides are generally the Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kits, the Rough Guides, the country handbooks from Moon Publications, and the Let's Go guides. Each of these companies publishes books on many different countries and regions of the world.

When I travel, I usually take along two or three guide books for each country or region I will visit. Some readers may find this a lot of weight to carry. Here's how I suggest you address this problem. First, if you are visiting only particular places or areas within a country, take along only the exact pages of each guide book that are specifically concerned with those areas. Then discard the pages when you have finished traveling in that area. Another good idea, especially if you are going on a multi-month, multi-country journey, is to send books to yourself in care of the main post office in the larger cities you will be passing through. Purchase the books before you depart on your journey, package them well, and them send them to yourself care of Poste Restante, General Post Office, in each country that you will visit. Most big post offices in the main cities around the world have entire departments devoted to the handling and storage of such travelers' mail.

Mail will be held for you, at little or no charge, for up to a year. Another good way to have access to these guides without having to carry them around is to buy used copies at the small bookstores, hostels, and travelers' hangouts that you will find all over the world. When I am finished with a guidebook, I find one of these places and trade my used books for some other used books (such as novels, which are difficult to find in remote areas of the world).

This book can also be used for guided contemplation of beauty and sacred art. The geographic places illustrated are among the most beautiful in the entire world. To gaze upon these lovely sites is to awaken the soul and fill it with awe. The architectural structures built at these places represent the greatest art creations of human civilization. For example, while artists such as the painter Eduard Monet or the composer Ludwig von Beethoven created many stunning works of art, those works are the creation of single individuals, often made in a matter or weeks or months. The great pilgrimage shrines, on the other hand, took hundreds or thousands of craftsmen many hundreds of years to create (often with unlimited financial patronage from royalty and religious institutions). The magnificent temples, mosques, cathedrals and stone rings at the sacred sites are the quintessential examples of humanity's artistic genius.

I suggest you look at the photographs not simply as photographs but rather as window frames offering views onto the actual places. While composing and photographing each of these pictures (using two cameras and eight to ten lenses) I often made a prayer to the spirit of the place: "Spirit, please fill my photographs with such feeling and power that people may one day look upon them and be magically transported to the places." I personally consider these photographs to be telescopes through which you may peer across time and space into enchanted domains of sublime beauty.

The photographs in this book (and many of the structures they show) were created with something called sacred geometry. Sacred geometry is the geometry inherent in all natural forms from the nucleus of the atom to the arrangement of flower petals to the spiraling of vast galaxies. In ancient times people keenly observed nature, recognized its mathematical perfection, and sought to mirror that perfection in their own works of art. Many of the world's great sacred structures were designed and built using harmonious mathematical proportions that are deeply pleasing to the human eye. My photographs are likewise composed according to the proportions of sacred geometry. Independent of the subject matter of the image, the actual arrangement, or placement, of multiple elements within the image is designed to be alluring of itself. T

his book may be seen, then, as a collection of images for visual meditation. We find something similar in the more esoteric branches of Hinduism and Buddhism, where geometric designs and esoteric symbols, called yantras, mandalas and thankas, are used as objects of meditation for the awakening and enhancement of spiritual consciousness. To use this book's photographs in such a manner, gaze upon an image for some minutes, allowing the geometry, colors and feeling of the image to speak wordlessly to your heart and soul.

Finally, the photographs in this book may be used in the tradition of an oracle. Since ancient times human beings have sought answers to life's mysteries through many kinds of oracles. People have found spiritual direction in patterns in the natural world (for example, the famous Chinese oracle, the I Ching, had its origin with patterned markings upon the back of a turtle shell) and, in more recent times, with such oracular tools as the Tarot cards. Sacred sites function as repositories of wisdom teachings and transformational spiritual energies. Because each site has a different energy or feeling, people will resonate differently with various sites. This resonance can be determined in advance by using this book's photographs as oracular indicators. Ask the question: Which site or sites would be most beneficial for me to visit at this time in my life? The two keys to working with any oracle are the concentrated focusing of intent when asking for guidance and an openness to that guidance in whatever manner it may come. Sit quietly with the book on your lap with your eyes closed. Go within your heart/mind, and from that centered place request guidance and assistance with the next step to take in life. Then let spirit draw your fingers to open the book to a specific photograph. According to the focused intensity of your request, this place may be very important for you to visit. It may provide the catalyst for your further spiritual awakening.

When I was eight years old I began to have visions and dreams of things I might do when I grew to be an adult. Being a young child, I had not yet learned sufficient vocabulary to speak clearly with other people about the things I had seen in my visions and dreams. But I could pray. And my childhood prayers were that I might one day serve as a paintbrush in the hand of god, showering beauty and goodness upon the world. Such has been my prayer for many years, and it has also been the fundamental yearning guiding the creation of this book. I have held a conscious intention throughout the many years of traveling, photographing and writing. I wanted the photographs to somehow function as magical picture beams that would connect my readers with some place half the world away. More than carrying the homeopathic essence of the sites, this book, according to the power of your intention and imagination, may actually become the sites. Peter Lamborn Wilson, writing of pilgrimage in the Sufi tradition, explains,

In ordinary pilgrimage, the traveler receives baraka [spiritual energy] from a place, but the dervish reverses the flow and brings baraka to a place. The Sufi may think of himself or herself as a permanent pilgrim - but to the ordinary stay-at-home people of the mundane world, the Sufi is a kind of perambulatory shrine. (3)

Places of Peace and Power, is my bringing of baraka from the sacred sites to you. The book is itself a shrine. My purpose in creating this shrine has been to share the teachings I received as a wandering pilgrim passionately in love with the Earth. Perhaps these teachings will touch you. Perhaps they and the photographs that follow will compel you to travel, understand and listen to the Earth as only a pilgrim can. Perhaps they will inspire you to love and serve this wonderful Earth more than you have before. That is my hope and prayer.

REFERENCES

(1) Turnbull, Colin; Anthropology as Pilgrimage, Anthropologist as Pilgrim; from Sacred Journeys: The Anthropology of Pilgrimage; edited by Alan Morinis
(2) Jung, Carl; Man and His Symbols
(3) Wilson, Peter L.; The Caravan of Summer


Photographs and text by Martin Gray, http://www.sacredsites.com