The Sacred Place: The Ancient Origin of Holy and Mystical Sites

by Devereux, Paul

• ISBN13: 9780304355914
• ISBN10: 0304355917
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-05-01
• Publisher: Octopus Pub Group

Summary

Take time out from the stress of modern life and return to the venerated natural spaces that still hold the ancient sense of the sacred. Visit Mayan caves and Australian aboriginal rock art, stand in awe before the megaliths of Creevykeel, Ireland, and the sacred notched mountain of the Teotihuanicos of Ancient Mexico, commune with the spirits of Minoan temples and sacred lakes. Enhanced by many unusual photos, the prose speaks with intelligence and reverence of sacred places in all their ancient forms, natural or constructed. Not only may it remind you that landscape was to our ancestors full of myth, imagery, memory, spirits, and powers, but also it may rekindle your appreciation of the spiritual power of the natural world.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	6	(1)
Preface	7	(2)
Ancient Mind, Holy Land	9	(34)
A Place in Mind	11	(8)
Mind mapping	11	(3)
Place and memory	14	(2)
Different space	16	(1)
Using the past sense	17	(2)
Sacred Place	19	(21)
Spirit of place	20	(3)
On the nature of sacred place	23	(3)
The varieties of sacred place	26	(4)
What you see and what you get	30	(3)
Centres of the world	33	(7)
Summary	40	(3)
Uneven evolution	41	(2)
Natural Places, Early Signs	43	(70)
First Signs	49	(10)
Making a deposit	51	(3)
Changing places	54	(5)
Rock Art	59	(28)
Southern Africa	62	(2)
The Americas	64	(5)
Australia	69	(3)
The paleolithic painted caves	72	(4)
Atlantic Europe	76	(11)
Natural Sacred Places	87	(26)
Ritual caves	87	(11)
Sacred peaks	98	(4)
Venerated trees	102	(6)
Holy waters	108	(5)
Spirit Rocks, Sacred Stones	113	(32)
Casting the First Stones	117	(12)
'Pieces of places'	117	(2)
Magic markings	119	(7)
Spirits in the rock	126	(3)
Stones Of Light	129	(3)
Quartz and rock art	131	(1)
Remembering the Old Places	132	(4)
Signposts of stones	132	(2)
Circling around	134	(2)
Sky and Stones	136	(5)
Shadow play	140	(1)
Mr. and Mrs. Stones	141	(4)
Enter the ladies	142	(3)
Geographies of the Ancient Soul	145	(39)
Stone Age Sacred Geography	148	(21)
Tombs with a view	148	(9)
Mountains of the mother	157	(3)
Lost horizons	160	(5)
Roads less travelled	165	(4)
Temples In A Landscape	169	(8)
Minoan and Greek temples	169	(3)
Making mountains	172	(3)
The pure lands	175	(2)
Of Shamans and Kings	177	(7)
Landscapes fit for a king	177	(1)
Parallel worlds	178	(2)
Trance landscapes: mapping the invisible	180	(4)
Epilogue	184	(1)
Bibliography	185	(6)
Index	191