First and foremost of the material we deal with are issues of Place and Space, and how we experience them. This section includes phenomenology and psychogeography as ‘ways of seeing’.
Stuart McHardy introduces the idea of geomythography, with an example of the insights to which this process may lead. Geomythography is a process of analysing landscape and society over time through evidence from oral tradition, archaeology, place-names, ritual and belief and the landscape itself. Significantly shaped hills – ‘paps’ – in various parts of …
An Intriguing Find: Geomythography from Scarba and Jura Read More »
John Billingsley walks a haunted and fated ‘spirit road’ in Japan’s spiritual heart Ujibashi: The bridge and torii mark the entrance to the sacred precincto Amaterasu at Ise Naikū shrine. It is aligned on the winter solstice sunrise Visitors purify themselves in the isuzu River at Naikū The Grand Shrine of Japan’s …
Steve Sneyd describes a legendary spiritual journey in West Yorkshire Berry Brow is a hillside suburb a little south of Huddersfield. It is also the location of an unusual natural feature notable equally for its name and its associated weight of folklore. Deadmanstone is a massive rock, perched above a dogleg of a minor road, …
In the early days of ‘earth mysteries’ research, exploratory steps were being taken towards place and the meanings that attach to it, culturally and subjectively, past and present. However, the field was rather thrown off course in the 1970s by the unproductive ‘earth energy’ fascination. NE believes it is time to retrace those steps, and …
There has been a lot of discussion on the NEReaders Forum about transpersonal experiences at ancient sites. This inspired David Taylor to share with NE readers two of his own experiences at Avebury a few years ago. A Flash of Inspiration In the Winter on 1992 a series of events were about to …
Robert W E Farrah suggests an archaeo-astronomical interpretation of a carving on a lintel-stone at the Parish Church Of St Margaret And St James, Long Marton, Cumbria. Long Marton is a fell side village in the Eden Valley below the Pennine fells on the E side of the R Eden, some 5km (3.11m) N …
Christine Rhone visits a little-known piece of London’s mystical heritage No need to travel to Poland or Spain – the cult of the Black Madonna is thriving in NW London. Not just one, but two major shrines exist in the borough of Brent. The name of this recently created borough comes from the River …
Jake Kirkwood reviews an e-book project and suggests it raises issues for development in earth mysteries and neo-antiquarian work. Almscliff Crag ALMIAS: Phil Legard, Layla Smith, and Simon Bradley E-book produced as part of Harrogate Festival 2010 – currently available online as PDF download If like me, you are somewhat reluctant …
Bridging Perspectives: where psychogeography and e.m. meet Read More »
Traditions of a powerful ‘genius loci’ drew Jill Smith to an island in the near Atlantic, and a sense of presence Living in the Hebrides, I have for decades been somewhat obsessed by the islands and stacks of St Kilda, which lie 40 miles to the W of Lewis and Harris. They come and go …
The Amazon Woman of St Kilda: a landscape figure Read More »
Places predate monuments; monuments imply a concrete materialisation of narratives that over time becomes more codified – the narratives become myths, become scriptures etched on to place. Journeys between places infused with narratives become less nomadic, more pilgrimages. Dominant cultures are taking shape, and represented on a landscape; alt-antiquarians need to note that the objects …