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Throughout the ancient world the most widespread means of communication with the spiritual realms was achieved through dreams. Whether experienced in deep sleep, or in that hypnagogic trance-like state between waking and sleeping, dreams were known and understood to be a means of directly accessing spiritual truths that could otherwise never be known by the rational mind. For this reason, the dream-oracles of antiquity were many, varied and of enormous significance. Caves, cracks or fissures in the living rock, holy wells and other natural features where the Earth energies are strong were all hallowed by thousands of years of use as centres where people could experience direct knowledge of the unseen. They were places where, quite literally, the Earth spoke.

Listening to the oracle
It may be no coincidence, then, that a dream was the starting point for a project that has, over the last ten years, led us to some of the most remarkable oracular sites of Europe. The dream in question was experienced by the French researcher Jean Richer, who, whilst living in Greece, experienced a vivid nocturnal vision that gave him a clue to the questions that tantalised him: why were temple and oracle sites often located in such inaccessible places, far from human habitation? Why did he feel there to be some profound but inscrutable link between them?

The answer to these deeply perplexing questions came in a sudden revelation. Half awake, he saw a statue of Apollo turning towards him as if to indicate a direct connection between the Greek Sun God and his main sanctuary at Delphi, and Athens, where Richer was living. He immediately awoke and, grabbing a guidebook lying on his bedside table, drew a straight line from Delphi to Athens. He was amazed to find that this line continued directly to the isle of Delos, the legendary site of Apollo’s birth. The line also passed through Kamiros on Rhodes, the site of the oldest Temple of Apollo on the island. Richer had discovered, in an intuitive flash whilst in the dream-state, that these sanctuaries were all in direct alignment with one another. Perhaps it was no coincidence either that he was at the time living on Mount Lycabettos, overlooking the Parthenon on the Athens acropolis. The Parthenon was the foremost Athena site of ancient Greece, and Lycabettos had, in antiquity, been sacred to the Earth Goddess Gaia.

The centre of the world
Richer spent many years exploring the significance of his discovery and eventually detailed his years of work in his book, Sacred Geography of the Ancient Greeks. He claimed that the Greek landscape was divided into astrological segments centred on various important sanctuaries, and that temples were frequently located to mark these divisions. The Delos-Athens-Delphi line that gave him the first clue to this revelation was, he found, one of the main axes of a zodiac whose hub was at Delphi, the centre of the ancient Greek world. This alignment of temple sites was characterised by the shining figure of Apollo, who had been born on Delos and later located his main sanctuary at Delphi.

A further, and even more remarkable development was the discovery by Jean Richer’s brother, Lucien, that if this ‘Apollo’ line was projected outside the confines of Greece, it led to a chain of other sanctuaries across Europe. Using a Mercator projection of the globe, which takes into account the spherical geometry of the Earth, he found that the original Apollo line passed through some of the most notable sites of pre-Christian times. These had once been dedicated to ancient Sun Gods and the Earth Goddess, whose traditions had been absorbed into early Christianity. Legends and accounts of their subsequent rededication tell of a series of miraculous visions of a luminous being hovering above rocky, mountainous outcrops or appearing in dreams, instructing that a church or chapel be built at that very spot. The visions were reported as being of St Michael, the Angel of Light and the cosmic being charged with human evolution.

This new dimension to Jean Richer’s original discovery has considerable implications for the study of ancient science and the knowledge that originally determined the precise location of such significant sites, so closely linked to the changing patterns of religion and spirituality through the ages. Underlying this revelation is the fact that all these places are thus related to each other, and form an axis that suggests a profound principle of earthly existence, once understood by ancient priesthoods but long banished to the twilight world of ancient spiritual science. At an angle of virtually 60 degrees west of North, this ‘Apollo/St Michael axis’ links the major Michaelic sites of Europe with the Apollonian centres of Greek tradition, providing a unifying principle behind both Christian and Pagan religion.

This alignment of ancient sanctuaries dedicated to the Christian and Greek personifications of Light cannot fail to intrigue modern minds and compel us to wonder what such an extraordinary phenomenon could possibly mean. The mystery is deepened further when it is realised that beyond Greece, the line extends to Mount Carmel in the Holy Land, the place where, according to biblical accounts, the Hebrew God Yahweh supplanted the God Baal during a magical battle between Pagan priests and the prophet Elijah.

It seems that along this corridor of primordial sites, the various influences that have determined the currents of human evolution have manifested in successive ages. It appears as a channel of spiritual energies determined by Nature itself. But what of Apollo and St Michael? The similarities suggest that they are in reality different versions of the same archetypal force, symbolised by the Greek Sun God and the Christian Angel of Light.

Dowsing the Dragon
Those who have come across our previous work, The Sun and the Serpent, will be aware that some years ago we tracked the entire length of another St Michael line, this time across southern Britain, which led us to some of the most notable sanctuaries in the land. Glastonbury, as well as a whole host of other sites dedicated to the Archangel, seemed to suggest that there was a further facet to the existence of this phenomenon, for St Michael is most famous as a dragon slayer. Halfway along this straight alignment we came upon the great Serpent Temple of Avebury, which emphasised this aspect of the mystery. We found that the line formed a corridor of Earth energies that wove around the central axis much like the serpents twining around the Caduceus – a perennial symbol of healing and energy operating in equilibrium. These energies, both male and female, were apparently operating in polarity, and were known and understood in the ancient world. They were the vital force within the Earth, the dynamic, living intelligence of Gaia symbolised since the earliest days as the Dragon or Serpent.

Tracking these currents of Earth energy across Britain via the dowsing rods of Hamish Miller, we were led to many places that had often been neglected or forgotten. The pilgrim route that joined them, echoing the course of the natural energies, was of immense antiquity, and left us with the impression that the Dragon energy was not only the reason for the siting of both Megalithic and Christian sanctuaries, but that the legends clearly spoke of this, despite demonisation by the Church. It seemed to us that all these sites had been located because of the flows of energy within the body of the Earth, and marked what we now realised were the ‘paths’ of the Dragon.

Initial work on the Apollo/St Michael line showed that the same principle was in evidence in this case too, for we had apparently uncovered a fundamental principle that was known in antiquity. Traditions of the Druidic Wouivre and the tenets of classic Feng Shui likewise alluded to the male and female energies of the planet, and their profound effects on human existence.

At the beginning of this quest we found that the energies of the British St Michael line and its European version fused dramatically at a particular spot on St Michael’s Mount. Were we in reality exploring the nervous system of the Earth, its veins and arteries spreading across many different countries to encompass the globe, with a major nexus point on the Mount? At that time we could not tell, but the next 10 years were to leave us in no doubt that these currents of natural energy were the reason behind the timeless power and significance of places as remote from each other as Skellig Michael, Monte Gargano and Delphi. And so we began a quest, together with artist Vivienne Shanley and fellow dowser Ba Russell, that was to take over our lives and cause us to travel the entire length of the line, come what may.

It is impossible to convey in a short article more than a tiny fraction of the findings detailed in what is inevitably a weighty book chronicling our discoveries and adventures. Yet the great St Michael shrines of antiquity unquestionably derive the source of their power not from political or official religious sanction, but from the actual force within the Earth itself. We have tracked these energies from southern Ireland, across Cornwall, diagonally across France, along the spine of Italy and through the Greek mainland to Delos, Rhodes and Israel, and are left with the conviction that the dragon-slaying element of Michael and Apollo is indeed a conscious force that can, as in the accounts of the Delphic Oracle, bring gifts of wisdom and enlightenment to ailing humanity.

This energy within the Earth is a sentient power that is available to every living creature, and can be sensed by all to a greater or lesser degree. We may be able to detect and define it with dowsing techniques, but there is a more instinctive level on which everyone responds, each in their own way. The traditions of pilgrimage that have been with us from the dawn of time speak of this close association between humanity and the great Being that is the Earth. For countless thousands of years people have trod the paths of the Dragon, merging their own consciousness with that of their ancestral spirits and the mind of the living Earth itself. Every time we visit a sacred place we are nurtured and inspired by the energetic imprint left in our beings by the innate power of place. These glimpses of spiritual power come as gifts from the Earth, even in these times when the old sanctuaries are largely neglected or misunderstood.

And what of the ultimate significance of this extraordinary phenomenon known as the Apollo/St Michael axis which extends across much of the Western world? There is no doubt that it has, on many occasions throughout the long history of the planet, been a line of transmission of new spiritual impulses. It is not surprising, perhaps, that the Greek influence, with its emphasis on natural harmony and the concept of true democracy, appears to have spread along this axis, or that it became the main channel of expansion for early Christianity under the aegis of St Michael. This line seems to mark both the end and the beginning of ages, and it could be that it has now once again been brought to our attention at another critical time in the evolution of the planet. Is its rediscovery a precursor of things to come, when it will once again become a pathway of Light, heralding a fresh era of spiritual understanding?

Our quest started at Skellig Michael and 10 years later we found ourselves at the extraordinary site of Megiddo in Israel, better known as the biblical Armageddon. We were struck by the atmosphere: it could have been uncomfortable, even intimidating, yet it was neither. The great mound, formed by the ruins of countless cities razed by ancient battles, seemed pure and inspirational. Deep within the mound, a chasm cutting through the archaeological ages of the last 5,000 years revealed the original sacred place – a rough circular stone altar built by the Canaanites, or Phoenicians. To us it was another revelation. The fearsome thought-form that had terrorised humanity for the last 2,000 years was gone, as if melted out of existence by the light of a new age of understanding. Perhaps the dawning new age, as envisaged by modern mystics like Wellesley Tudor Pole and Rudolf Steiner, is indeed to be presided over by the shining figure of St Michael. According to these, and many other visionaries, the Archangel has the power to banish these outmoded accretions of past fears, and replace them with visions that bring us ever closer to the source of the Light that shines within the Earth. Is the Dragon re-awakening?

MORE INFORMATION
• Read the original presentation of this article, and all the accompaning articles by ordering a copy of Kindred Spirit magazine - issue 54.
•The Dance of the Dragon is available from Pendragon Press, Box 888, Launceston, Cornwall, price £16.95 plus £2.50 p&p, and from theKindred Spirit Mail Order Collection. A limited edition hardback, signed and numbered, is also currently available at £28 plus £3 p&p.

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