John Michell

The Sacred Center (eBook, ePUB)

The Ancient Art of Locating Sanctuaries

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

The symbolism and power behind sacred locations in ancient and modern times • Explains the need and role for ritual centers in modern society • Examines ancient territorial centers in ancient Egypt, Greece, Africa and Asia, and Iceland and the British Isles • Reveals the code of number and geometry behind the idealistic social structure of the ritual center, formed to imitate the heavenly order Symbols of ritual centers are among the most persistent elements of myth and belief between cultures widely separated in time and space. Every tribe and state had its "generation center," a sacred area within its heartland where its legendary founders gave birth to its people and established their laws. Within the inner sanctum of the sanctuary was an altar or pillar, the omphalos or navel stone, that marked the midpoint of the home territory and represented the world-pole on which everything revolved. It was the focus of a perpetual cycle of rituals and festivals that passed with the seasons around the country and held its people under the spell of a golden age. In this book John Michell reveals the precise methods by which the ancients located the appropriate centers and adopted them as sanctuaries. The same principles of ritual geography in the siting of Akhenaten's capital in Egypt and Megalopolis in classical Greece apply also to the traditional centers of small territories and islands. The rediscovery of these sites--such as the spot at the center of Ireland where the Celtic High Kings were installed--sheds new light on the ritualized order of prehistoric societies and the sacred, scientific code on which they were founded. These revelations from the distant past are of great significance in present times, for in them are the secrets of harmony on every scale, from the personal to the universal. Restoring the sacred center to its former place of prominence offers the possibility of a renaissance of human culture, ideally centered upon the image of a perfectly ordered Cosmos.

---

Dieser Download kann aus rechtlichen Gründen nur mit Rechnungsadresse in A, B, BG, CY, CZ, D, DK, EW, E, FIN, F, GR, HR, H, I, LT, L, LR, M, NL, PL, P, R, S, SLO, SK ausgeliefert werden.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: Simon + Schuster LLC
• Seitenzahl: 192
• Erscheinungstermin: 2. März 2009
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781594779275
• Artikelnr.: 49185404

Autorenporträt

John Michell (1933-2009), educated at Eton and Cambridge, was the pioneer researcher and specialist in the field of ancient, traditional science. Author of more than twenty-five books, his work has profoundly influenced modern thinking, including The Sacred Center, The Dimensions of Paradise, The New View Over Atlantis, Secrets of the Stones, and The Temple of Jerusalem: A Revelation.

Inhaltsangabe

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
1 Finding the Center
Sitting Around the Fire
The Infinity of Centers
Contemplating the Navel of the Earth
The Central Point of Paradise
Surveyors and Geomancers
Open-Air Government
Modern Centers: America, Australia
Principles of Symbolic Centrography
Ancient Egypt and Greece
Mediolanum, the Center of Gaul
2 The Northern Isles
Picts and Vikings
The Shetland Al-Thing
Why Did They Meet in the Loch?
The Shetland Thing Circuit
The Pole of Orkney
The Thing on Loch Finlaggan
Islay’s Tingwall
3 Why the Alting Met at Tórshavn
Things of Faroe
The Rock of Tinganes
The Island Things
Iceland’s Ideal Commonwealth
4 The Center of the Isle of Man
The Manx Tynwald
Dividing Up the Island
Locating the Center of Man
Approaching the Center: The Royal Road and the Milky Way
The Sanctuary of the Celtic High King
Inside the Royal Precinct
5 A Diversion to the Center of England
Calculations on the Geographical Center
England’s Natural Axis
Meriden
The Center of Roman Britain
Rival Centers
A Cornish Center in West Penwith
6 The Center of Ireland
Myths of Foundation
Kings and Constitution
Cosmological Divisions
Traditions of the Center
The Domain of the High King
The Geographical Center and the Division of the Provinces
The Once and Future High King: A Helpful Suggestion
7 The Cosmological Prototype
Bibliography
Sources of Illustrations
Index