1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:11,880 It's pretty crammed. I'm going to go through it a night, so please forgive it. Sacred 2 00:00:11,880 --> 00:00:18,920 geography, we look at some different types of sacred geography and what is sacred geography? 3 00:00:18,920 --> 00:00:25,880 What is sacred geography? It's the meeting of physical landscape to pulgrophy and the human 4 00:00:25,960 --> 00:00:32,480 mind and spirit and soul, whatever you want, geographers of the soul, if you like. It's a meeting 5 00:00:32,480 --> 00:00:47,160 of those two elements. As I shall say at the end, with a dramatic picture, what ancient peoples 6 00:00:47,160 --> 00:00:56,560 did, they invested their landscape with meaning. As a general as a culture, we don't do that 7 00:00:56,560 --> 00:01:03,960 now. Not come back to that. Magical mind escapes. Sacred geography, however you want to describe 8 00:01:03,960 --> 00:01:18,960 it. The most sacred geographies, plural, are either visual or auditory or a bit of both, 9 00:01:18,960 --> 00:01:24,960 but they can use other sensory things and I'll just mention this in passing. For example, 10 00:01:24,960 --> 00:01:36,360 on this Sauriaki in one of the Fijiian islands, there's a sacred place to beach. The 11 00:01:36,360 --> 00:01:45,260 sand smells like vanilla. Because of that scent, natural scent, it became imbued with 12 00:01:45,260 --> 00:01:54,080 meaning with spiritual significance. There can be many things that will trigger sacred geography. 13 00:01:54,080 --> 00:01:59,520 I thought we'd look at about seven or eight different types of sacred geography. The first 14 00:01:59,520 --> 00:02:06,760 being, what I call the topography of myth, venerated natural places, because the first 15 00:02:06,760 --> 00:02:13,760 geographies, the first sacred geography, if you like, was the unadulterated land itself. 16 00:02:13,760 --> 00:02:19,340 And people living in different landscapes would gravitate towards particular features in 17 00:02:19,340 --> 00:02:24,240 the landscape, which they would imbue with the sacred where they would go and get a sense 18 00:02:24,240 --> 00:02:35,240 of the luminous. And these were the first sacred places. Levy Brul, said of the Australian 19 00:02:35,240 --> 00:02:42,380 or Australasian, Abarigni, the land is a living book in which the myths are inscribed. 20 00:02:42,380 --> 00:02:48,320 A legend is captured in the very outlines of the landscape. And as I say, saying that about 21 00:02:48,400 --> 00:02:54,160 Australasian, Abarigni, all peoples, but you could have said it about any Aboriginal 22 00:02:54,160 --> 00:03:01,080 peoples anywhere in the world. Their myths, they lived amongst their mythic imagery. 23 00:03:01,080 --> 00:03:08,320 Okay, what sort of sites would acquire this luminous power, or have a luminous power 24 00:03:08,320 --> 00:03:14,800 that attracted people? Well, we'll start right where we are. What was a good idea? Landmarks, 25 00:03:14,880 --> 00:03:19,080 the various types of landmarks, things that stuck out in the landscape would naturally attract 26 00:03:19,080 --> 00:03:25,880 the attention of people living in those landscapes. And we know here at Glastonbury, I mean, 27 00:03:25,880 --> 00:03:34,400 the tour is quite a distinctive landmark, and it becomes the focus for myth and legends. 28 00:03:34,400 --> 00:03:42,360 And we all know that sort of soft luminosity that occurs here. And it has a magical 29 00:03:42,440 --> 00:03:46,920 the Isle of Abarigni, and all the rest of it. Tell you an interesting legend was associated. 30 00:03:46,920 --> 00:03:55,680 I mean, it was the last supposedly the last place for the King of the Fair is. It was the entrance 31 00:03:55,680 --> 00:04:02,880 to Anun, the Celtic underworld or other world. But it was an interesting feature, you may 32 00:04:02,880 --> 00:04:08,640 may not know about, but you know, Cadbury Castle is about 12 miles away. The leaf to be 33 00:04:08,720 --> 00:04:18,000 the site of the actual historical Camelot. But only this legend certainly goes back to the 15th 34 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:26,960 century, and possibly much much older, which if we are said it's much older, it says that King 35 00:04:26,960 --> 00:04:35,160 Arthur will write out of Cadbury Castle and lead the wild host. And you know, the legend 36 00:04:35,240 --> 00:04:42,400 of the Wild Hoses all over Europe in medieval and early medieval and even earlier times. 37 00:04:42,400 --> 00:04:52,600 The idea of a furious, furious host of spirits led by some charismatic a god, a hero 38 00:04:52,600 --> 00:05:00,840 figure, a goddess, whatever. And they would, whoosh through the landscape, picking up any 39 00:05:00,920 --> 00:05:07,160 body, there was very ill or on the deathbeds or whatever and take the souls with them. And 40 00:05:07,160 --> 00:05:13,480 indeed, this was greatly feared in medieval times, and there are actual instructions of how 41 00:05:13,480 --> 00:05:18,520 not to be taken by the wild hosts. In case you need to learn every in that position, you 42 00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:29,000 lie on your back and you cross your arms like that, like some Egyptian ferro. And they might 43 00:05:29,080 --> 00:05:34,760 pass over with a bit of luck, close your eyes, by the way. So it shoots over you. And what they 44 00:05:34,760 --> 00:05:41,160 did here between Cadbury Castle, they went to the tour to deliver the souls they picked up 45 00:05:42,920 --> 00:05:49,720 to the mouth of Anon. So they do a liver to the underworld. And King Arthur was at the head. 46 00:05:49,720 --> 00:05:55,080 So it's at least half a millennium old that legend may be much older. Now what's interesting, 47 00:05:55,800 --> 00:06:02,360 archaeological digs on Cadbury Castle have revealed, you know, the remains of sort of what might 48 00:06:02,360 --> 00:06:09,640 have been. They all had come a lot of great fortified structures, Citadel. But in the last few years, 49 00:06:09,640 --> 00:06:18,920 they excavated a burial site of early Bronze Age, much older, much older, sort of 2000 BC, 1800 BC. 50 00:06:19,880 --> 00:06:28,840 And it was the burial of a large male, that is, bones there. And he was buried in a ritual 51 00:06:28,840 --> 00:06:37,880 boat. And it was on the side of Cadbury Castle, the faces, the tour, which is perfect, 52 00:06:37,880 --> 00:06:45,640 invisible on the skyline. So it's a landmark. And the prow of this boat, the pointy end, 53 00:06:46,360 --> 00:06:54,840 pointed to the tour. So it looked like, and if you remember the legends, the romances, 54 00:06:54,840 --> 00:07:04,200 the authorium romances, that the dying Arthur is put in a fairy bark and taken to the land of 55 00:07:04,200 --> 00:07:13,560 immortal souls. And one can only wonder if that early Bronze Age burial of this very tall fellow 56 00:07:13,960 --> 00:07:23,320 was really where that element of the authorium romances began. Long ago, thousands of years ago. 57 00:07:23,320 --> 00:07:30,440 To know that as I in each mythology encoded in the authorium romances, but my guess is it goes back further. 58 00:07:30,440 --> 00:07:36,120 But anyway, so the wild host runs down there, you've got this curious archaeological linkage 59 00:07:36,120 --> 00:07:43,320 pointing to the tour. And infragments along the way of the wild host are actual old trackways. 60 00:07:43,640 --> 00:07:51,160 Sections of trackways that mark out exactly the same course. So we get a sense that there's a multi-led 61 00:07:52,200 --> 00:07:59,800 mythological patina over this landscape that relates to this particular landmark. And then we know 62 00:07:59,800 --> 00:08:09,880 what the Christians did. There they are. So it's natural places, venerated places, attracted 63 00:08:10,200 --> 00:08:18,440 the attention of early peoples and through the ages mythological filters built over them. 64 00:08:19,960 --> 00:08:26,920 Another type of sacred natural sacred place, of course, were sacred peaks. 65 00:08:27,560 --> 00:08:32,440 This is just an excuse to show this painting by Nicholas Rory, beautiful, fascinating. 66 00:08:33,800 --> 00:08:38,360 What do we have, sacred people? Oh, Manchester, California, northern California, 67 00:08:39,000 --> 00:08:47,000 the sacred peak to the winter Indians who live in the territory. And their tradition is that when you 68 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:57,240 die, your soul travels to the peak of Manchester and then off to heaven. And there's a secret 69 00:08:57,240 --> 00:09:03,480 geography around here. There are little rocks set up on purchasing on the edges of cliffs and so on. 70 00:09:03,560 --> 00:09:08,200 There are markers and there are markers for the soul of dead people. So they can find them and 71 00:09:09,800 --> 00:09:18,840 get the find their way. Similar ideas in Nochiana, Kiribati has places where the soul goes in a 72 00:09:18,840 --> 00:09:27,800 straight line to the place of dread. And that's a marked route to the landscape. Other examples of sacred 73 00:09:27,880 --> 00:09:36,760 peaks, south or right, is the old mountainide, they're in Crete. The temple palace of Faisdosa lines to it. 74 00:09:37,960 --> 00:09:47,480 There's a whole thing about cleft or saddle peaks in Greece generally. And these are 75 00:09:48,520 --> 00:09:53,560 significant features. You see there's a sort of black hole there. That's the sacred cave of 76 00:09:53,640 --> 00:10:00,920 Camare's. So you've got a double significance here. If you go into mainland Greece, 77 00:10:02,760 --> 00:10:11,080 those Greeks picked up stuff from the Minoans, occupied Crete and they built stuff underneath 78 00:10:11,080 --> 00:10:18,840 cleft peaks. So for example, this is the temple of Alusus and it's overlooked by Mount Karata 79 00:10:19,720 --> 00:10:26,760 to a very significant powerful cleft peak. And Alusus of course was the mystery temple of ancient 80 00:10:26,760 --> 00:10:35,720 Greece where they probably drank agatized beer at natural LSD and went through great rituals 81 00:10:35,720 --> 00:10:41,880 and played to them. I think that all of them went through this and it was said that those who went 82 00:10:41,960 --> 00:10:52,360 through this initiation never feared death afterwards. Back on Crete, if we take the side of 83 00:10:52,360 --> 00:11:02,120 Knossus, the temple palace, that's overlooked by Mount Jectus. There's also a cleft peak. 84 00:11:03,320 --> 00:11:11,000 And if you go up there, Scholar and I did one day and got beaten back by Zeus, Thunderbolts coming 85 00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:16,600 down on all sides but we went up again. This time we let us get up there. And you get to that top, 86 00:11:16,600 --> 00:11:22,760 the peak. There's a rock, big summit rock and there's a physione with one of these physios again 87 00:11:22,760 --> 00:11:29,400 when he's cracks. And long before the Minoans came into Bronze Age, the Neolithic inhabitants of Crete 88 00:11:29,400 --> 00:11:36,360 were throwing vote of objects into that crack. So there's already mountain worship going on but when 89 00:11:36,440 --> 00:11:43,080 the Minoans got there, they put an altar up on this one and they slightly walled in, they 90 00:11:43,080 --> 00:11:53,000 keyed in walling into the natural rock there and made a summit shrine. And there are 22 such peaks 91 00:11:53,000 --> 00:12:02,840 on the island of Crete. What is interesting, Vincent Scully, the American art historian suggested 92 00:12:02,920 --> 00:12:09,960 many years ago, he reckoned that the horns of consecration, the symbol that occurs time and again 93 00:12:09,960 --> 00:12:18,280 in archaeological studies of the Minoans, he thinks that was probably inspired by the horned or 94 00:12:18,280 --> 00:12:24,920 cleft peak mountains, in which case it means that the landscape actually contributed to Minoan 95 00:12:25,000 --> 00:12:34,840 iconography, another way the land can speak. I thought I showed you this one, the Inca were also 96 00:12:34,840 --> 00:12:42,200 great mountain worshipers and as you've noticed now that they found mummified bodies of children 97 00:12:42,920 --> 00:12:53,480 at 20,000 feet or whatever of some of the mountain peaks and some of them had been allowed to 98 00:12:53,560 --> 00:13:01,720 die of cold heavily sedated with cocoa or they'd been hit over the back of the head more 99 00:13:01,720 --> 00:13:10,680 bluntly and offerings late. So there were sacrifices to the mountains but less well know 100 00:13:10,680 --> 00:13:22,040 is that in the Andes the various groups of the Inca would deform their heads. But their heads 101 00:13:22,120 --> 00:13:29,480 were deformed so they took on the shape the outline of their particular sacred peak. So it might 102 00:13:29,480 --> 00:13:37,080 be pointy, it might be flat-topped or it could be rounded as you see there. So they actually carried 103 00:13:37,080 --> 00:13:42,440 the image of the mountain around in the shape of their skulls, not a lot of people moving. 104 00:13:45,880 --> 00:13:51,400 Okay so mountain peaks obviously, waterplates also became sacred to many people's around the 105 00:13:51,480 --> 00:13:58,360 world of course, waterfalls springs, rivers, bends in rivers sometimes became sacred and the ancient 106 00:13:58,360 --> 00:14:05,800 calts considered waterfalls springs and wells to the entrances to anan. The underworld, Celtic 107 00:14:05,800 --> 00:14:11,160 seans would wrap themselves in animal skins and sleep next to the waterfalls in order to have 108 00:14:11,160 --> 00:14:17,960 prophetic dreams. And if you ever sled next to a waterfall you know you can hear sounds like voices 109 00:14:18,040 --> 00:14:25,320 calling and so on. It's a fabulous pink or white noise background into which all sort of things 110 00:14:26,040 --> 00:14:35,240 can be heard and you do have an interesting dream. Another thing about water again quite close to here 111 00:14:35,240 --> 00:14:43,960 of course is Bath in England, pagan sides became a Roman holy side and it also then became a 112 00:14:44,040 --> 00:14:52,680 spar in Regency times. The water comes from, this is a Roman acriduct underneath the thing here and 113 00:14:53,640 --> 00:15:02,200 the water comes out from the mendips. That water is radioactive. We've heard that people have said it 114 00:15:02,200 --> 00:15:07,880 was and we actually conducted measurements there, good many years ago on the Dragon Project and 115 00:15:07,880 --> 00:15:15,640 it is radioactive water. Not radioactive in three mile island sense of course but you know five times 116 00:15:15,640 --> 00:15:24,120 background six times background and I've often wondered if there's a sort of homeopathic dose 117 00:15:25,320 --> 00:15:32,520 of radiation that could have healing effects. I'm not recommending it. I don't want to be sued. Anyway, 118 00:15:32,600 --> 00:15:38,360 very early on of course we all know this case came to be considered a sacred place as and we know 119 00:15:38,360 --> 00:15:44,120 that they left their paintings and we taught this morning a bit about the acoustics in there and you only 120 00:15:44,120 --> 00:15:52,040 have to think of the sound in caves and the darkness sensory deprivation, sound and mysterious noises 121 00:15:53,160 --> 00:15:57,560 and the idea of them becoming ritual places. They were the first cathedrals. 122 00:15:57,880 --> 00:16:08,360 It's both a cave and a water place here. The Balancantje cave and the Yugatán not far from 123 00:16:08,360 --> 00:16:20,200 Chichinitsa and that water under ground lagoon and the Mayans went down there to collect what they call 124 00:16:20,280 --> 00:16:26,360 virgin water. Pure water that had never seen daylight. It could not come running out and running all 125 00:16:26,360 --> 00:16:33,400 like the place. So they collected this. They also in the same cave actually you go past 126 00:16:34,440 --> 00:16:43,400 stalactites under which there are stone bowls and so on. The collected drops of water coming 127 00:16:43,400 --> 00:16:50,120 ripping off and this was virgin water as well. All sorts of vote of offerings thrown in there as well 128 00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:56,440 and I'll show you something else from that cave in a few minutes. What I will tell you 129 00:16:57,560 --> 00:17:03,720 is that either there's not much oxygen well there's not much oxygen down there and I'm not sure 130 00:17:03,720 --> 00:17:08,760 that the rocks are given off something but anyway if you down there for about 15 to 20 minutes you 131 00:17:08,760 --> 00:17:16,520 suddenly find yourself not breathing air anymore and you can get quite scary and I thought it was going 132 00:17:16,600 --> 00:17:22,280 to die. Well we've got a but it's very strange and I wonder if that was also an element in sort of 133 00:17:22,280 --> 00:17:31,480 altered states or so on. Yeah another type of site was trees we know the the Minoans 134 00:17:32,600 --> 00:17:40,280 worshiped, have sacred trees and we know from the sea hench case where the tide uncovered this 135 00:17:41,160 --> 00:17:51,000 ring timber ring with a tree bowl inverted put down in the middle. So we know trees and so on where 136 00:17:51,560 --> 00:17:56,920 worshiped because they're organic and by and large they don't last over thousands of years. 137 00:17:57,640 --> 00:18:03,320 And there's been discussion that the stones are stone hench. Some of them have rather god mortise 138 00:18:03,320 --> 00:18:09,720 and tenon joins with the lynchles but some of them have told them groomed as well and so they were 139 00:18:09,800 --> 00:18:14,360 treated like timber and we know there were loads of timber circles around they found the post holes 140 00:18:14,360 --> 00:18:23,480 of them. So trees timber so on also were natural sacred places a memory of the sacred tree of 141 00:18:23,480 --> 00:18:31,320 a maypoles of my bounds. This is a maybow in third-shired in Germany. This is a maypole in 142 00:18:32,280 --> 00:18:39,960 in Padstau and this is a memory of the sacred tree. Then what happened in different times 143 00:18:39,960 --> 00:18:45,320 in different places that these natural venerated places began to come slightly in banished so there 144 00:18:45,320 --> 00:18:55,160 might be rock art carved on part of a rock face or the bottom of a mountain or objects would be made 145 00:18:55,240 --> 00:19:02,920 from from the rocks of these places or the soil or whatever or very low retaining walls. 146 00:19:03,480 --> 00:19:10,360 If you go to see the tours on on Baudmine Mall for example you look very carefully you can see 147 00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:17,160 very subtle retaining walls around some of them they were a natural sacred place as well and 148 00:19:17,480 --> 00:19:25,800 so it goes. Okay the second type of sacred geography involves what I call places with faces 149 00:19:26,760 --> 00:19:34,440 and these are similar lacquerap things that look like something like face, poodle in a cloud or a face 150 00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:41,480 on in the bark of a tree or whatever and accidental similar lacqueram. It looks like something else 151 00:19:41,800 --> 00:19:50,600 without apparently intelligent design. So for example the Paps of Anu Paps ancient word for 152 00:19:50,600 --> 00:19:57,800 breasts and the goddess Anu this is near Kalani in Ireland where they used to do I think still 153 00:19:57,800 --> 00:20:07,240 do actually dance at Luma and this was the goddess in the landscape. Are there examples? I'm just 154 00:20:07,320 --> 00:20:13,080 giving you a handful of very few examples you understand that this is buffalo rock in Manitoba 155 00:20:14,120 --> 00:20:21,320 and still worshiped by the Indians who closely took me through here actually made offerings of 156 00:20:21,320 --> 00:20:28,280 tobacco and whatever here and it's like the hunt shape of a buffalo at rest and call it the buffalo 157 00:20:28,280 --> 00:20:34,360 rock but actually it's on the way to a weird sacred landscape I'll show you surely another type 158 00:20:34,360 --> 00:20:42,120 of sacred geography but it was a similar it's a similar lacqueram. There's one big place at home and 159 00:20:43,000 --> 00:20:50,840 Manitoba is the giant of calm prey and you see it's a beautiful similar lacqueram she bones and 160 00:20:50,840 --> 00:20:57,320 nose and lips are beautiful beautiful and there's a legend associated with that and another giant 161 00:20:57,320 --> 00:21:02,760 of top of another hell of a six or seven miles away. Germany example extent stones, 162 00:21:03,400 --> 00:21:10,760 stones these weird fingers of rock there's a there's a chapel up there or a pagan temple 163 00:21:10,760 --> 00:21:18,760 lonesever figure out which a scary little bridge over from that to that and it's it's a lot of fun 164 00:21:20,120 --> 00:21:25,400 a lot of people throw themselves off there a lot of suicides you know knocked off there. Anyway 165 00:21:26,280 --> 00:21:38,040 on the side here is this thing here and it's a natural configuration but he does as you see 166 00:21:38,040 --> 00:21:44,920 looks like a figure on a cross or something like that tied to a tree whatever and there's debate 167 00:21:44,920 --> 00:21:54,040 whether it's it was taken red as a Christ on the cross or Odin tied to the World Tree 168 00:21:54,280 --> 00:22:00,600 grassell as he learned the secret of the rooms where whatever it was nine days and night and 169 00:22:03,160 --> 00:22:10,120 it's got mythology probably from different traditions. The reason we think at least was Christian 170 00:22:10,120 --> 00:22:15,480 I because there's a what appears to be an artificial hole in its side you know like the spear 171 00:22:16,120 --> 00:22:23,560 mark on Christ and so if so if that's true then this is probably the only Christian I 172 00:22:24,120 --> 00:22:30,920 similar lacquer a natural similar lacquer I know of but who the hell knows. Anyway over to ancient Egypt 173 00:22:32,760 --> 00:22:38,840 this is hatchet sets temple everybody remarks how modern beautiful it is and people have remarked how it's 174 00:22:38,840 --> 00:22:46,920 keen into the bottom of this rock face here at dear El Bahari and and the value of the kings 175 00:22:47,000 --> 00:22:56,840 and people say that I mean I've waited to fabulous culture of ancient Egypt of diagnostic Egypt 176 00:22:56,840 --> 00:23:02,280 come from like it just appeared well it didn't just appear if you have the eyes to see you can see 177 00:23:02,280 --> 00:23:10,280 how it grew out of the landscape and this is a case in point nobody saw this till 1992 and then it was 178 00:23:10,280 --> 00:23:16,280 Anthony Donna here who saw it he realized there was a similar lacquer of here rising up 179 00:23:16,360 --> 00:23:23,160 behind the temple and if you look carefully you can see perhaps the outline of a fairer with the beard 180 00:23:24,440 --> 00:23:36,120 over the top a a cobra with distended hood and so there it is now interestingly cross the river 181 00:23:36,120 --> 00:23:43,400 over the Nile on the other side and a temple of Cardi they found a figurine so high I think it was 182 00:23:44,280 --> 00:23:52,360 which is just that shows a fairer with the cobra of of Dominion rearing over his head like that 183 00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:59,240 and nobody's seen it because it's very weathered it's natural but it may have been aided and 184 00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:07,000 abetted once Donna who had seen this he went on and looked at other examples so these are pre-diynastic 185 00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:13,640 temples here where you can see this has obviously been worked on but you see a sort of protostinks 186 00:24:14,440 --> 00:24:22,120 and this one here underneath this rock which seems to have a human profile that all man 187 00:24:23,800 --> 00:24:30,440 there's a temple and it's dedicated to men that became the later Roman god pan the god of nature 188 00:24:31,320 --> 00:24:37,400 spirit of nature this may be artificial but we don't know nobody's actually done a study that 189 00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:43,160 anyway Donna who's found about seven or eight temples that are linked to these similar lacquer 190 00:24:43,160 --> 00:24:50,440 along the Nile so these things seem to emerge out of the pre-diynastic landscape not all 191 00:24:50,440 --> 00:24:57,720 similar lacquer are of human shape and form this is back in the Balakanti cave I mentioned a few moments ago 192 00:24:57,800 --> 00:25:04,360 and the similar lacquer am here is this remarkable few stalic types stalic my calcite thing 193 00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:10,760 and it looks like you see like a stone tree and the mines had a tradition of a world tree 194 00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:17,400 calm pronounced the name but anyway they had it and when archaeologists broke him through a rockfall 195 00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:23,880 here in 1959 everything had been left easily was a thousand years before and so you find these 196 00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:29,160 sensors and bowls offerings or whatever were around there and these particular ones have been 197 00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:37,240 left in situ and you see it's blackened because these two burn copal incense here and the smoke 198 00:25:37,240 --> 00:25:41,400 blackened the thing how the hell they did that because I was saying it's not a lot of oxygen around 199 00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:45,800 there so it wouldn't have burned for long and it wouldn't have been a good idea to hang around while 200 00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:53,400 they were doing it okay third type of sacred geography I call Santa Place, mine, body land and 201 00:25:57,080 --> 00:26:07,400 it's the most difficult type to explain if you go to say Delphi various Greek temples ancient Greek 202 00:26:07,400 --> 00:26:13,560 temples you come across stones not most of them are not as elaborate as this this one is one of the 203 00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:21,560 on phallus stones or naval stones at Delphi and about I don't know three foot tall or whatever 204 00:26:22,280 --> 00:26:30,280 and this thing this net nobody quite knows what it is as various theories but anyway the point is 205 00:26:30,280 --> 00:26:39,000 that these on phalloi mark the center of the world and yet every other temple has got one this idea 206 00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:47,160 of the being a center was prevalent throughout the ancient world these are the dogog for example 207 00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:53,640 and this is their image of the center of the world they unfollows it's an upturned granary basket 208 00:26:53,640 --> 00:27:00,600 it's got an arrow sticking in it it oriented to the compass points and so on and that's their image 209 00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:09,800 of a world center we're familiar with this one the north world tree the great ash tree 210 00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:18,200 in grassell and it has the three worlds they sort of heaven world the middle world middle earth 211 00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:25,800 where we hang out and the roots that go down to the underworld world of the ancestors and the 212 00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:37,320 cathonic forces if you go to should you want to go to Siberian see the shaman's there the classical 213 00:27:37,320 --> 00:27:44,280 shaman's some of them will have the world tree and blaze and on their ritual robes and it's 214 00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:52,280 traditional there they say that the the rim of their drums the shamanic drums are fashion from 215 00:27:52,360 --> 00:27:59,320 the branch of a tree the stands at the gold and navel of the world so again this idea 216 00:28:01,560 --> 00:28:05,560 now what the hell does this mean and how can there be so many different world centers well 217 00:28:06,280 --> 00:28:11,720 what the shaman's did they beat on their drum until they went into a trance and it's bloke's 218 00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:16,440 spark out here you see and they put a drum on the back which is a sign that he's traveling it's 219 00:28:16,440 --> 00:28:21,800 traveling in spirit this bloke is well on his way by the looks of his face and 220 00:28:22,280 --> 00:28:27,160 he's been at the vodka I don't know which but anyway it's on his way and they they 221 00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:30,520 inspire it they flew to the world tree all this is metaphorical 222 00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:38,280 language to explain how they trance how they traveled between the world so the shaman could travel 223 00:28:38,280 --> 00:28:48,600 up to the heaven world or down into the ancestral world cathonic world or fly out elsewhere in this world 224 00:28:49,560 --> 00:28:58,280 and perform various functions another type of certain mountains were selected by different 225 00:28:58,280 --> 00:29:08,280 peoples as a world center of central thing and for the Hindus and for the Buddhists 226 00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:15,480 Mount Kai Lash became a world mountain in much more complex than I'm saying there's a whole bunch of 227 00:29:15,560 --> 00:29:23,880 stuff around this but basically that's what it is it was a a world mountain and this has 228 00:29:23,880 --> 00:29:31,400 often symbolized in the temple architecture so here at Angkor Wat for example these these 229 00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:37,880 things here represent the mountains of the corners of the world but that's sent to one is Mount 230 00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:44,920 Mero both a mythical and a physical mountain in this case a Mount Mero is at the center of the world 231 00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:54,120 and the pole star hangs above it the pole star to the Tungus shaman was the nail star it held 232 00:29:55,000 --> 00:30:01,560 it held the the universe together and they would when they went into a trance they might climb up the 233 00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:09,480 the tent pole the yurt go out through the smoke hole and fly to the nail star all these are 234 00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:16,440 images about a an axis a cosmic axis a world center and I'm just trying to indicate that 235 00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:23,000 the come out in all sorts even in Ireland the stone of divisions which is on the hell of ushna 236 00:30:23,640 --> 00:30:31,640 pretty much fairly central in Ireland it's got various of the names in play blow Indian tradition they 237 00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:40,760 have their uh keepers uh their ritual ceremonial chambers semi subteranium and they have a little 238 00:30:40,760 --> 00:30:47,720 hole in it not this thing which is a half but a little hole called a sippapu and this is the point 239 00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:54,600 of emergence where the first people came out of the previous earth into this world and that's what 240 00:30:54,680 --> 00:31:03,000 it symbolizes and represents the sippapu this is a hopian Indian um ulta with the four cardinal 241 00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:09,720 directions and interestingly this a direction here that's down and a direction here which is up again 242 00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:16,680 representing the vertical axis so you have the horizontal axis of the cardinal points the 243 00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:26,040 compass points and a vertical axis this is the beaver Indians of Canada who have a similar sort 244 00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:33,640 thing the three worlds you know just like in a grassill mid-learth heaven world under world and the 245 00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:43,480 compass directions so what's it all about and how can there be um a lot of centers of the world 246 00:31:43,560 --> 00:31:48,520 where we have to think this really modeled on the human being standing in the landscape and it's a 247 00:31:48,520 --> 00:31:55,560 transference into the topography of this basic sense of location the four directions front back 248 00:31:55,560 --> 00:32:04,040 inside your north and south you mouth uh above sun at noon down below on this axis the sun at midnight 249 00:32:05,160 --> 00:32:12,360 and you have uh the image of the body as you like projected onto the land and the reason you can have 250 00:32:13,000 --> 00:32:18,760 a lot of world centers because each of you are in your world center now every one of you has a 251 00:32:18,760 --> 00:32:25,000 circuit around you and there's six billion world centers of whatever the count is lately in the world 252 00:32:25,640 --> 00:32:32,760 so that's the that's the the image that works about and the good thing to remember because you're 253 00:32:32,760 --> 00:32:39,080 at the center of the world you're always here wherever you are even if you're over there you'll 254 00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:46,920 just take the teeth and you are so always remember that it's I find you reassuring you when I get lost 255 00:32:47,640 --> 00:32:55,800 which is often okay the next type of sacred geography is the geography of pilgrimage walking through 256 00:32:55,800 --> 00:33:03,080 holy lands. Himalayan pilgrimage there we are back at Mount Kai Lashrigay as I say Buddhist 257 00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:12,280 Hindu and long before that my suspect a a a a bomb poach tradition a earth 258 00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:19,240 religion tradition and we know there's this big pilgrimage circuit around 259 00:33:20,520 --> 00:33:21,640 the world mountain. 260 00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:31,400 In the Stone Age it's been suggested by Roy Love Day archaeologist he's been looking at 261 00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:39,400 hinges like this in parts of northern England that have double entries these are neolithic features 262 00:33:40,440 --> 00:33:46,200 there's ceremonial features they're not for fortifications but they have two entrances 263 00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:51,800 and he lined up some of the entrances of different ones and he suddenly realized he was looking at 264 00:33:51,800 --> 00:33:59,480 a pilgrimage trail and I'm very interesting much much later Roman roads echo these routes 265 00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:07,560 like there was a route there was well known two thousand years earlier and the route is a very 266 00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:13,080 interesting thing the way a road goes the road itself might be quite recent we've got one near our 267 00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:20,840 place it's a Roman road natural road surface is full feet down beneath the present surface so a route 268 00:34:20,840 --> 00:34:28,920 is an intangible thing it's like an axis of global a globe you know spinning the axis doesn't actually 269 00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:35,720 exist it's not tangible yet it's really there and route route ways are a bit like this so it's 270 00:34:35,720 --> 00:34:41,400 quite possible that these things were part of a whole pilgrimage tradition in the neolithic 271 00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:48,120 I think this one particular one hey I just pulled the picture I think it's Thorne 272 00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:53,800 actually one of the Thorne branches but there are many more of double entrance hinges 273 00:34:54,680 --> 00:35:02,200 then you have Hindu faithscape another type of pilgrimage thing and this one here 274 00:35:02,200 --> 00:35:10,760 bridge is a is a Krishna landscape what the pilgrims do the walk around it's very large area on a 275 00:35:10,760 --> 00:35:16,760 particular routes and in some places it's a certain times the there they actually have people performing 276 00:35:16,760 --> 00:35:23,720 underneath the tree or in a particular grove a a scene from the life of Krishna so you have 277 00:35:23,720 --> 00:35:30,200 actually visit you follow the mythography of Krishna in the physical landscape and the pilgrimage route 278 00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:35,880 represents that and will stop you at certain places and whatever and certain places you shouldn't 279 00:35:37,080 --> 00:35:40,920 get to until certain times of day because you don't want to disturb the spirit of 280 00:35:40,920 --> 00:35:47,720 Krishna's having a bit of nucky in one corner over there or there's a sleep somewhere else and 281 00:35:47,720 --> 00:35:56,200 it's it's beautifully orchestrated geography and this of course familiar to us all the bathing 282 00:35:56,200 --> 00:36:03,400 in the ganges at Varanasi of Banaras but less well known is that I think this it's like 52 283 00:36:04,120 --> 00:36:11,480 circuits pilgrimage circuits around and some of you do it sometimes in the air and not others 284 00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:17,400 and the Hindus they call them faith scapes do I think it's a wonderful phrase 285 00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:23,960 Christian pilgrimage well too many to mention really but we'll go to an early one Mount Sinai 286 00:36:25,800 --> 00:36:34,200 in Egypt and again this is an orchestrated journey through the landscape so you stop at certain 287 00:36:34,200 --> 00:36:40,840 points where you can see the mountain or some significant feature away you would stop and perhaps 288 00:36:40,840 --> 00:36:46,280 cut off your hair or whatever some makes them offering so it's highly orchestrated and then 289 00:36:46,280 --> 00:36:52,760 one of the greatest Christian pilgrimages of course is that a Santiago de Compostela in northern 290 00:36:52,760 --> 00:36:59,160 Spain and people came from all over Europe to this still do actually from all over the world and 291 00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:04,760 then there's an organized particularly organized route to the shrine and again there are 292 00:37:04,760 --> 00:37:11,160 stops on the way the field of stars there is other things where the events the legendary events 293 00:37:11,160 --> 00:37:18,120 were set to occur so it's a mythologized landscape with an orchestrated route through it 294 00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:24,600 which is the best way to describe pilgrimage I guess and then perhaps the most famous pilgrimage 295 00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:33,000 of all the hatch the the circuit of the kaba which contained what is possibly 296 00:37:33,000 --> 00:37:40,520 improbably a meteoric stone and a tow off the circulation of that but less well known to a lot of 297 00:37:40,520 --> 00:37:46,440 non-Muslims is that at only a bit of the pilgrimage journey there's a controlled 298 00:37:47,560 --> 00:37:53,080 movement through the landscape to outline places each of them having meaning in the life of 299 00:37:53,080 --> 00:38:01,080 Muhammad and so on and you know you take the day or two to do the whole thing and 300 00:38:04,520 --> 00:38:11,240 another image of the pilgrimage I'll give two couple of examples of native American pilgrimage 301 00:38:11,240 --> 00:38:17,560 because very little is known about those this particular one is a human Indian pilgrimage 302 00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:29,880 circuit can I find it it goes up the Colorado River Valley up here sort of and it actually goes 303 00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:38,040 at there and it starts near a place a hill mountain called Malpilot Nom almost on the 304 00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:49,000 way well almost on the the Mexican border and it follows up as you go along and 305 00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:59,160 the end point in just a southern tip of Nevada is what's called dead mountain dead man that's 306 00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:07,000 not snow that's being rock it's a bald mountain and the Indians called it have a Kwame or 307 00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:15,640 spirit mountain and shaman's rain shaman's would come from perhaps 400 miles away to this place 308 00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:23,400 an ordinary Indians as it were would do their pilgrimage up to it periodically and they didn't actually 309 00:39:23,400 --> 00:39:29,480 go to the top of the mountain this was the point they they came to it's called great vine canyon 310 00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:35,960 and when you get inside the canyon you find it absolutely loaded with rock art everywhere no rock art 311 00:39:36,840 --> 00:39:41,880 this symbol here the big horn sheep you find everywhere when you go there and look and the big horn 312 00:39:41,880 --> 00:39:47,800 sheep was the symbol of the rain shaman the whole thing about killing a big horn sheep and producing rain 313 00:39:48,920 --> 00:39:54,520 metaphorically and then there's all this stuff here which seems to be geometric imagery the 314 00:39:54,520 --> 00:40:00,040 came because a lot what they did they take a deter of mix when they got there very powerful mine 315 00:40:00,120 --> 00:40:05,480 altering it's like a active thing and they'd commune in this place was said to be 316 00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:13,560 the house of a particular creator god and as I say they came from all over across the Great Basin 317 00:40:13,560 --> 00:40:19,080 and so on into this but untold hundreds of years we don't know how long but some of the rock arts 318 00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:26,040 very ancient some of it's more recent the last snow rain shaman to go there was 1940 a deter 319 00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:33,160 the last one another example is this thing here a pilgrimage to this very big rock 320 00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:39,000 biggest a house big as a big house and it's called aes rock no not the one in Australia but in 321 00:40:39,000 --> 00:40:46,920 California and when you get up to it apart from being very very big you find this fabulous rock art 322 00:40:46,920 --> 00:40:55,640 on it and this one of actually obbyshaman is eyes are hollows and these are sort of spirit 323 00:40:55,720 --> 00:41:04,440 familiar spirit helpers but as you go around this vast rock which bigger than it looks you find 324 00:41:04,440 --> 00:41:09,960 little areas of paintings and so on and certain shaman's might sit in certain niches of the rock 325 00:41:09,960 --> 00:41:17,160 and again they came from all along the California stairs to this place there was another pilgrimage 326 00:41:17,160 --> 00:41:24,280 point I still current pilgrimage because one of these now a current but one it is current is the 327 00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:31,480 pilgrimage of the the annual pilgrimage of the We Shall Indians to the very Kutar Plateau 328 00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:41,160 where they collect payote and baskets and eventually take it back to their home about 300 miles away 329 00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:49,800 and then use it through the air for ritual sacramental purposes but they also use the the payote 330 00:41:49,880 --> 00:41:56,200 while they're up there and certain rituals are conducted and it's known as a great hunt and the 331 00:41:57,240 --> 00:42:03,720 the payote becomes a deer complicated stuff but anyway it's a fabulous pilgrimage and I 332 00:42:03,720 --> 00:42:09,480 heard a couple of years ago that the four devils one way back was stopped by the police are carrying drugs 333 00:42:10,920 --> 00:42:18,600 been doing it for hundreds of years you know per leaves okay another time very mysterious type 334 00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:25,640 of sacred geography are lines lines drawn in the land the secrets of straightness 335 00:42:27,080 --> 00:42:32,440 and immediately when we talk about these sort of things we think of Naskah and here's some of the 336 00:42:32,440 --> 00:42:40,520 Naskah lines in Peru and these lines all over the place are very straight some are very fine 337 00:42:40,520 --> 00:42:48,120 and narrow some are quite broad and some are sort of trapezoid in shape so having air view here with a 338 00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:56,200 great big area like a airfield there and then thinner fine lines coming in and here's a few 339 00:42:56,200 --> 00:43:05,960 for ground level of these things there's another one here you can see the edges of something here 340 00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:11,480 and then you see that going on up there and sometimes when you're on the ground they're not that 341 00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:18,040 clear so here's an example of looking along a line and you see because the rocks have moved 342 00:43:18,280 --> 00:43:24,600 with winds or whatever over the ages but at a distance you can see the lines more easily 343 00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:32,440 so we have that sort of thing and then we say well what are these lines well welcome back to that 344 00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:42,120 actually over in Bolivia on the Alty Plano there are longer lines more lines 345 00:43:42,200 --> 00:43:52,440 which more than Naskah so what are they about well okay Naskah's famous because of the 346 00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:58,280 best selling books of Von Daniken who said that they were landing strips for alien craft 347 00:43:59,640 --> 00:44:07,800 leaves it was a mid 20th century mechanistic projection onto what these things were because 348 00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:14,280 initially they weren't apparent what they were we didn't know now it's pretty clear that they 349 00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:19,880 are a spirit geography a sacred geography because if you look at some of quite a lot of the of the 350 00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:28,120 Naskah lines they've been walked what what what deep roots apparently from nowhere and to nowhere 351 00:44:28,120 --> 00:44:34,760 that's meaningful to us but obviously what's to them and it was a place called Kawachi which 352 00:44:34,840 --> 00:44:41,000 seems to have been a pilgrimage center related to at least some of the lines some of the lines 353 00:44:41,000 --> 00:44:46,280 are related to water sources and so on but clearly they were more than that they were they were 354 00:44:46,280 --> 00:44:52,600 non-mundane ways through the landscape now I don't quite have been at work in the Americas on these 355 00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:57,160 things and I've got to tell you the straight lines are almost everywhere in pre-Columbian 356 00:44:58,040 --> 00:45:02,360 but they find them in the Amazon now for example have been doing virtually for a few years 357 00:45:03,240 --> 00:45:11,720 and it was the anthropologists Marlene Dobkin Dereos who suggested which said look at the these 358 00:45:11,720 --> 00:45:18,440 these are the Naskin lines you know 1500 years old maybe even a bit older and if you look at the 359 00:45:18,440 --> 00:45:25,240 pottery of that time you get pictures like this what they call the flying god of Paracas and it seems to be 360 00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:33,160 flying along happily it's hair streaming out holding something rather mushroom like what we do 361 00:45:33,160 --> 00:45:38,600 know is that all the people of the andies took a hell of a lot of psychoactive drugs no doubt about it 362 00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:45,160 a lot they find enough paraphernal if a psychoactive snuffs drinks 363 00:45:46,600 --> 00:45:54,920 cacti or some pedro cacti having to wantar and it was located with two things one was spirit 364 00:45:55,000 --> 00:45:59,720 flight and the other was transformation into animals the sense of transforming 365 00:45:59,720 --> 00:46:08,920 bodily transformation this is in the Amazon winged figures carved on the rock and this is a woodblock 366 00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:17,080 from medieval Europe which is flying on a broomstick because they're their flying ointments 367 00:46:17,160 --> 00:46:26,840 psychoactive herbs mixed into goose fat and so forth so it looks more likely that the 368 00:46:30,600 --> 00:46:38,040 the lines are to do with this idea of of of of the world travel and we had this confirmed with the 369 00:46:38,040 --> 00:46:46,280 work on the co-gindians in northern Columbia you may have seen the fabulous BBC documentary 370 00:46:46,360 --> 00:46:56,200 now available on DVD the heart of the world via lina rara and it shows these images 371 00:46:58,280 --> 00:47:04,840 on the edge of one the these are the the shaman's if you like the mammoths of the co-gindians 372 00:47:05,480 --> 00:47:11,720 and their basic training traditional training is that as a young child if they they use 373 00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:21,160 divination a lot mainly using bubbles in bowls of water and if they identify a child as being 374 00:47:22,520 --> 00:47:30,360 mammoth cereal as it were it just means enlightened ones they they take them away and put him inside a cave 375 00:47:31,400 --> 00:47:37,320 where the child would not see daylight and perhaps for some years they massaged him to keep his 376 00:47:37,320 --> 00:47:44,680 muscles supple whatever and he would be kept in the dark you'd be trained in the way of 377 00:47:44,680 --> 00:47:51,480 the mammoths and after a little while like a few years he might be taken outside about only 378 00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:58,680 taking outside at night and he'd wear a big hat big rimmed hat so the moon didn't shine you didn't see 379 00:47:58,680 --> 00:48:04,280 it directly and you didn't see the stars you just saw the moon let landscape and then finally 380 00:48:04,280 --> 00:48:10,360 as a fabulous bit in the film where they they recreate this finally the the kid has taken out 381 00:48:10,360 --> 00:48:15,560 the young initiate when he starts rocking backwards and forwards and singing certain songs 382 00:48:16,280 --> 00:48:22,920 that's always a sign that he's there he's in the other world or can see or is in touch with the other 383 00:48:22,920 --> 00:48:29,320 world and they take him out into the broad daylight and remember you don't seem any like 384 00:48:30,280 --> 00:48:36,280 the light blasts into his eyes and they say from that moment you can see the physical world 385 00:48:36,280 --> 00:48:42,680 but he can see the other world that they call a lunar the dream world superimposed one on the other 386 00:48:44,600 --> 00:48:49,400 and these people are the descendants of the Tyroneous culture which flourished 387 00:48:51,720 --> 00:48:56,840 it's fluorescence came when they discovered magic mushrooms and they've got little gold 388 00:48:56,920 --> 00:49:04,840 amulets and things with little mushrooms on and that became sacramental to them and there's this 389 00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:11,400 mapstone near one of the Tyroneous towns covered in these lines just in these lines mark 390 00:49:13,720 --> 00:49:23,000 these rows and the the ordinary tribal members are told that it's a religious duty to walk 391 00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:30,200 walk walk these rows think of the tracks in on nascar walk walk the roads like we might tell 392 00:49:30,200 --> 00:49:36,040 rows of repeats if you're a if you're a Catholic of something like that that was their religious 393 00:49:36,040 --> 00:49:42,520 activity duty but these these lines mark not only these physical roads but at some point 394 00:49:42,520 --> 00:49:48,920 the physical roads end but the mama can see them continuing on in a lunar in the other world 395 00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:55,800 so that spirit wrote and what the physical roads are are physical traces of part of these 396 00:49:55,800 --> 00:50:03,960 other world roots so we probably have here a living tradition that tells us quite a bit about what 397 00:50:03,960 --> 00:50:13,320 the old lines were ultimately about the Tyroneous trust is their Tyroneous trust dot org 398 00:50:13,400 --> 00:50:21,560 they're under constant risk these people and and so they ask for help and funding us on to keep 399 00:50:21,560 --> 00:50:30,760 them clear as much as possible and then these sort of simple desert lines in more structured hierarchical 400 00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:38,600 American cultures American Indian cultures became sort of ceremonial ways this is a 401 00:50:38,600 --> 00:50:44,920 my own cause where are sack bay this happens to be in teaching it sir but there are many others 402 00:50:44,920 --> 00:50:50,280 they're cadets straight through through the forest through the jungle and there's all sorts of 403 00:50:50,280 --> 00:50:55,720 legends and traditions about these ways here's some more near a place called Saeil is one this is the 404 00:50:55,720 --> 00:51:04,760 course of one another one here leading up to a feature in the Saeil the longest one of these 405 00:51:04,760 --> 00:51:13,480 causeways mine causeways starts out from here this pyramid in kova which is like there and it 406 00:51:13,480 --> 00:51:22,120 runs for sixty odd miles straight to Yashuna another ritual ceremonial city now I've traced parts of 407 00:51:22,120 --> 00:51:28,360 this and it starts off as a nice causeway because it's been reconstructed but it quickly descends into 408 00:51:28,440 --> 00:51:33,240 what's left and it's a a jumble of stones and rocks that you have to pee through the 409 00:51:34,040 --> 00:51:39,240 jungle and the growth to see so still there but it's traceable and has been traced and that's 410 00:51:39,240 --> 00:51:45,960 as don't quite a bit of work here using light art photography and infrared photography so these 411 00:51:45,960 --> 00:51:53,080 roots are traced through the jungle and I talked to one of the great archaeologists there who 412 00:51:53,160 --> 00:52:00,520 has spent 40 years with the mines tracing and tracking and mapping these those roads there's 413 00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:08,760 a tradition of the kusam's soon which is an invisible sat bay one that runs through the air like a tube 414 00:52:09,720 --> 00:52:15,720 and there's another that runs under the ground at links all the ceremonial ball courts of the mine 415 00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:22,760 ceremonial cities and so on so there's like a whole network and we've come across these virtual 416 00:52:22,920 --> 00:52:30,760 invisible networks elsewhere in the Americas and I got to move on anyway the autopnotch rooms 417 00:52:30,760 --> 00:52:38,680 and stuff like that lack of marital in northern Mexico's like a take-ass as citadel nobody really 418 00:52:38,680 --> 00:52:45,400 knows too much about it or the people who used it but around it are these straight road systems 419 00:52:46,040 --> 00:52:54,120 you can see these lines here and if you go up onto the citadel and look out you can just see the 420 00:52:54,120 --> 00:53:04,200 traces of some of them like that so this is a mysterious sacred geography this is Chaco Canyon 421 00:53:04,200 --> 00:53:12,520 New Mexico this is one of the great houses on the floor of the of the of the canyon and the 422 00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:20,360 these roads coming into are going out of of Chaco you see some coming in here once upon time they were 423 00:53:20,360 --> 00:53:25,240 very visible this photograph is taken in 1901 and you can see they're very big these people the 424 00:53:25,240 --> 00:53:34,280 Anasazi who built this had neither wheeled vehicles nor horses so why do you build a footpath that 425 00:53:34,360 --> 00:53:42,680 wide a when it comes to the rim rock of the of the canyon there are these remains heavily eroded 426 00:53:43,480 --> 00:53:48,840 ceremonial staircase was down into the floor lot more architallia stuff here this one is 1600 427 00:53:48,840 --> 00:53:58,680 year old line in the healer river balley and southern Mexico sorry southern Arizona and this is 428 00:53:59,160 --> 00:54:03,960 vision quest ring that that's the course of the line there's a rock at the other end with a 429 00:54:03,960 --> 00:54:12,040 notch in it and you can see the sacred mountain there and the pima Indian shaman ancestral pima 430 00:54:12,040 --> 00:54:19,240 would take their datora mix sit here throughing midwinter night and then as the sun rose over there 431 00:54:19,240 --> 00:54:25,960 they leave their bodies as they're going to this psychoactive outer body state fly along the line 432 00:54:26,040 --> 00:54:32,360 to the mountain to meet their spirits we have them here too something like that's these curious 433 00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:37,560 linear features known as cursuses this is about a hundred of them been found by aerial photography 434 00:54:38,200 --> 00:54:42,840 this one's a mile long goes on up there they seem to link places at the dead 435 00:54:44,040 --> 00:54:51,320 their neolithic this is bronze age stone rose sort of thing you see on darkmore like this one in elsewhere 436 00:54:51,880 --> 00:54:59,000 and then we have the idea of fairy paths very strong in Celtic countries fairy paths in island 437 00:54:59,000 --> 00:55:06,360 paths of the dead in Britain for example and they link certain sites called raths which are late 438 00:55:06,360 --> 00:55:13,800 prehistoric structures this is a famous one in county might mayer there is markers along them like 439 00:55:14,600 --> 00:55:21,080 fairy trees this happens to be one at latu near enness and then throughout medieval Europe 440 00:55:21,080 --> 00:55:28,200 there were this idea of virtual ways invisible roots along which spirits would walk but you 441 00:55:28,200 --> 00:55:32,920 couldn't see them but they had a definite geography you may sure you didn't walk on them at night 442 00:55:32,920 --> 00:55:37,560 because you might encounter something you don't want to encounter but what they did they linked 443 00:55:37,560 --> 00:55:45,320 physical cemeter is but there were these paths of the dead then there were physical paths 444 00:55:45,880 --> 00:55:50,440 this one for example the old hell way on Yorkshire which were corpse ways or funeral paths 445 00:55:50,520 --> 00:55:59,800 occurring the dead to burial in in Holland or called dodewagon or spoken wagon spook roads 446 00:56:00,520 --> 00:56:08,200 because these things became associated with the much older spirit law that existed in Europe 447 00:56:09,480 --> 00:56:15,000 and it's expressed by the old bardom self in a mitzum and it's stream 448 00:56:15,080 --> 00:56:20,760 now it is that time of night of the graves or gaping wide everyone lets forth his sprite in the 449 00:56:20,760 --> 00:56:25,880 church way paths to glide so we knew that tradition idea of spirits moving down and the spirit 450 00:56:25,880 --> 00:56:31,000 traps put on some of these roads and so incidentally if you want to read the full story of this 451 00:56:32,360 --> 00:56:39,880 I think Rome are harding on her bookstall has my spirit roads where we're going to all this thoroughly 452 00:56:40,760 --> 00:56:46,280 and I haven't got any copies but she's managed to find some somewhere there are other lines 453 00:56:46,280 --> 00:56:53,480 that do not relate to the spirits out of body spirits or spirits of the dead or spirits of nature 454 00:56:53,480 --> 00:56:59,480 and we don't know what they are this is Ty Creek you pass that buffalo rock on the way to this 455 00:56:59,480 --> 00:57:05,640 scrape glacially scrape bedrock and these curious probably about 1500 year old 456 00:57:06,280 --> 00:57:12,280 bolder patterns or petroforms as they're known extraordinary things the Indians call the Manito 457 00:57:12,280 --> 00:57:18,280 RB where God or the great spirit sets and of course it's where Manito they get this name from 458 00:57:18,280 --> 00:57:26,360 so these are very curious features another odd feature again near that pilgrimage route 459 00:57:26,360 --> 00:57:33,400 of the Colorado River Valley full of lines and these lines we use for ritual running 460 00:57:34,360 --> 00:57:39,320 the American Native American Brains did run and run and run to a little till they dropped 461 00:57:39,320 --> 00:57:44,360 sometimes they died and it was getting to other states of consciousness wonderful record of 462 00:57:44,360 --> 00:57:51,000 some of the visions some of the runners had then if you go to art places like death valley into some of 463 00:57:51,000 --> 00:57:57,240 the remote locations and you know where to look there are very ancient pathways this one 464 00:57:57,240 --> 00:58:02,520 created simply by the removal of the volcanic rock litter others that are just dead off things that 465 00:58:02,840 --> 00:58:11,640 built that are probably magical result from magical activity by the Pima Indian ancestral 466 00:58:11,640 --> 00:58:19,160 Indians about 2000 years ago we have some ethnology on that giants in the earth another type 467 00:58:19,160 --> 00:58:27,160 of highly related in many cases highly related sacred geography the famous serpent man for example 468 00:58:27,240 --> 00:58:32,760 in Ohio about four or five feet tall there's no burials or anything in it just a serpent man 469 00:58:33,960 --> 00:58:41,400 very interesting the hope well Indians produced loads of pure beautiful geometric earth works 470 00:58:42,600 --> 00:58:48,680 hexagon circles all sorts of geometric shapes and long straight road as well the cut 471 00:58:48,680 --> 00:58:54,680 almost all the way across Ohio for example we know the hope well people actually would have 472 00:58:54,760 --> 00:59:01,960 a confederation of tribes but they all subscribed to a shamanism that sounded on the use of 473 00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:10,440 magical mushrooms and these antlehead and this wooden model of the mushrooms found in a shaman's grave 474 00:59:11,720 --> 00:59:16,200 death valley strange imagery laid out in petroforms very much like 475 00:59:16,920 --> 00:59:27,400 a manitoba then in northern upper Midwest Wisconsin I war and so on there are these effigy 476 00:59:27,400 --> 00:59:32,360 mounds some of which look like crosses between human beings and birds 477 00:59:33,480 --> 00:59:39,080 again probably to do with the idea of spirit fly this is a 1912 photograph of one of the 478 00:59:39,640 --> 00:59:44,760 great images in Wisconsin they've been outlined with flour so you can see it down difficult to 479 00:59:44,760 --> 00:59:50,520 photograph of ground level from the air in Iowa you've got all these images mainly abstract 480 00:59:50,520 --> 00:59:57,400 but some things like this bear which is about 300 feet long and which will give you a scale but 481 00:59:57,400 --> 01:00:00:05,480 lots of circles and other shapes and so on these birds this bird here outlined in the snow is this one here 482 01:00:05,640 --> 01:00:15,480 and a lot of stuff you know and that that human Indian pilgrimage trail that I mentioned 483 01:00:16,520 --> 01:00:24,680 is a periodic point so long it our giant jigslifts big markings of animal or human figures 484 01:00:24,680 --> 01:00:30,440 these post of five feet high to give you some sort of a scale and there's lots of them well I say 485 01:00:30,440 --> 01:00:36,920 lots but it's quite a few dating seems to go back to about 3000 years ago I'm going to skip a lot 486 01:00:36,920 --> 01:00:42,600 of stuff and now mapping the monuments you're all familiar without anyway stone circles put it 487 01:00:42,600 --> 01:00:48,920 exact points that within a hundred yards if you move this stone circle and bug me more this way a bit you 488 01:00:48,920 --> 01:00:58,920 wouldn't see brown willy there the distance and natural sights this is a ghost vows stone circle 489 01:00:59,000 --> 01:01:05,240 and precisely that is the card men in out crop there and again you see it's on the skyline 490 01:01:05,240 --> 01:01:12,600 actually if you go to the herlers on bodmin more on the skyline there is the cheese ring natural 491 01:01:12,600 --> 01:01:21,640 tour and we know about our chaos astronomy so I won't go into that then the soundskates where we 492 01:01:21,640 --> 01:01:27,560 did sound this morning but I mentioned a couple of interesting other aspects of acoustics 493 01:01:28,440 --> 01:01:36,280 these are the Arab-ish people in Papua New Guinea and these are members of the men's 494 01:01:36,920 --> 01:01:44,120 secret society the tambaran and Donald twos in who who lived with them for a while anthropologists 495 01:01:44,120 --> 01:01:50,040 noted these curious instruments that they have some of them at like 15 feet long often put 496 01:01:50,040 --> 01:01:56,280 the sort of tubes that fit into a slid drum at the end very some of the things and at certain times 497 01:01:56,360 --> 01:02:01,240 they all gathered together bring out the secret instruments and start playing them 498 01:02:01,240 --> 01:02:06,440 blowing in them whatever they do and he said this unearthly sound comes up out of the forest and 499 01:02:06,440 --> 01:02:11,640 they're supposed to be the voices of the forest spirits but he said to some other element going on here 500 01:02:11,640 --> 01:02:17,880 so it really gets through to a what he found out was they they started doing this activity 501 01:02:17,880 --> 01:02:22,440 when they were thunderstorms about 12 miles away and he said you couldn't hear the thunder 502 01:02:22,520 --> 01:02:27,880 but he was pretty sure the infrasound from the thunder was rolling through their landscape 503 01:02:27,880 --> 01:02:34,040 and these things sort of roamed the infrasonic waves through the landscape and he said it gave them 504 01:02:34,040 --> 01:02:40,840 a powerful and eerie experience you could imagine the Buddhists pass especially shingong 505 01:02:40,840 --> 01:02:47,480 Buddhism we're very into landscapes that spoke with the cosmic language of the Buddha 506 01:02:48,200 --> 01:02:57,000 this is how grappard put it waves pebbles winds and winds sorry pebbles winds and birds 507 01:02:57,560 --> 01:03:03,160 the elementary and unconscious performers of the cosmic speech of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas 508 01:03:04,280 --> 01:03:12,520 this happens to be Mount Nantai and Lake Chuzengi and the temple Chuzengi was noted by Kukai 509 01:03:12,520 --> 01:03:18,280 founder of of shingong Buddhism he said all this landscape speaks with the voice of the Buddha 510 01:03:18,280 --> 01:03:26,360 you listen to the natural sounds and that was a similar thing with the the Kunisaki peninsula in 511 01:03:26,360 --> 01:03:31,880 Japan and that was in Japan of course and the Kunisaki peninsula is very interesting because 512 01:03:31,880 --> 01:03:37,480 got all these radial valleys coming out as you see there just as they say not a very clear picture 513 01:03:37,560 --> 01:03:44,440 and as you wander around you will see rock carvings and so on and you will say that it's basically 514 01:03:44,440 --> 01:03:50,520 the lotus scroll in landscape form there are so many valleys as there are verses in the lotus scroll 515 01:03:51,400 --> 01:03:56,040 and whatever and just walking and listening to the babbling brooks of the birds on whatever 516 01:03:56,040 --> 01:04:03,960 is the equivalent of reading the lotus scroll so this idea of remember the the two van 517 01:04:04,760 --> 01:04:14,200 throat singers at a similar idea and then in in the book that's coming out sacred 518 01:04:14,200 --> 01:04:18,760 jobbichu book I also are going to enchanted gardens and I mentioned a little of that with the acoustics 519 01:04:19,560 --> 01:04:26,600 this is a Zengaden which is a sort of miniature landscape but some Zengaden is also used the 520 01:04:26,600 --> 01:04:33,720 great in landscape and we think it's probably in acoustic dimension there as well but this will 521 01:04:33,720 --> 01:04:38,040 be the book it's supposed to be out next month but you know publishes likes and having pushed back 522 01:04:38,040 --> 01:04:45,400 till October and if you're really interested in lots and lots of pictures and proper 523 01:04:46,280 --> 01:04:53,080 reference stuff what I just babble at you to keep within the thing so what does it teach 524 01:04:53,080 --> 01:04:58,680 well it's not good we don't want to create these landscapes now but they do teach us something 525 01:04:58,680 --> 01:05:06,280 this idea mentioned the beginning of investing the land with mythic meaning and in a way we're 526 01:05:06,280 --> 01:05:13,160 doing it now like the bellemus line and the so Michael line and that thing their projections 527 01:05:13,160 --> 01:05:21,240 onto the land I have to tell you but they they is a way of sort of seeking meaning in our modern 528 01:05:21,320 --> 01:05:27,720 world I would like us to seek something a bit richer and more deeply rooted myself but anyway it's the 529 01:05:27,720 --> 01:05:38,600 same but idea of investing the land the waters the sky with meaning and if we could do that 530 01:05:39,320 --> 01:05:45,960 see as we know our culture the mainstream culture only sees land and these things as utilities things 531 01:05:46,040 --> 01:05:54,280 we can draw oil from or a got rocks you can use and grind down it mate roads with and so on 532 01:05:55,080 --> 01:06:02,680 and so we have a utilitarian thing with the landscape but Aboriginal peoples ancient peoples 533 01:06:03,640 --> 01:06:11,240 also invested the land with these these spiritual aspects and I guess if we could do that as a whole 534 01:06:11,240 --> 01:06:18,280 culture today as the whole western culture could do it then we'd look after that landscape a little better 535 01:06:19,000 --> 01:06:29,240 and our sacred geographies now global and we have to think of it in that rounded way 536 01:06:29,800 --> 01:06:36,360 whereas other people only had relative of small territories to invest with their mythology and 537 01:06:36,840 --> 01:06:43,160 spirituality but we need to do that now we do know this this idea of treating the earth as a sacred thing 538 01:06:43,960 --> 01:06:49,480 come through the guy hypothesis and so on and the people are becoming aware of that but it's still a 539 01:06:49,480 --> 01:06:59,160 long, long way from reaching the ears of the corporate world and the political world so the soon 540 01:06:59,160 --> 01:07:06,760 we can get them to invest meaning in the land in the globe the safer will all be okay thank you