PLEASE NOTE: THIS WEBSITE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. IT SHOULD BE COMPLETE BY MAY 08

The Story of this Website

Philip Carr-Gomm writes: Out of the blue a publisher called Quercus, which is Latin for ‘oak’, asked me to write a book on sacred places around the world, which they wanted to publish jointly with Borders Books. I help to lead the Druid group The Order of Bards Ovates & Druids and the oak is the symbol of the Druid, so this seemed auspicious.

I had discovered the power of sacred sites in travels around the world and had experienced the value of pilgrimage when taking one from a sacred hill in my home town of Lewes in Sussex to the Long Man of Wilmington. The book I wrote about that, The Druid Way, seemed to touch a chord for many people who longed to experience the land as sacred.

For the Quercus book I was asked to choose 50 places around the world to write about, so I chose some old favourites like Stonehenge and the Pyramids, but also some lesser-known sites that are really remarkable, such as the Tarot Garden in Tuscany, the secret palace of the Dalai Lama in Lhasa, and Perperikon in Bulgaria.

Now here’s the sad part: as I researched these sites, the inspiring legends and eccentric characters who had often been associated with them, I discovered that these places - like everything else on this planet - are suffering from the effects of environmental degradation.

Conventional religious pilgrimage has seen a huge increase in popularity with the advent of cheap airfares and the use of the internet. Millions and millions of people now visit the major sites of pilgrimage every year.

In addition to ‘conventional’ pilgrimage, more generalized spiritual pilgrimage, sometimes called ‘New Age pilgrimage’ has become an industry as people combine holidays with their spiritual interests and visit sacred sites across the globe.

Visiting sacred places has now become yet another opportunity for ‘spiritual materialism’ - one more industry of the consumer society that is pushing us all to the brink of environmental collapse.

And yet... And yet...

Doesn’t visiting sacred sites help us to appreciate our world and the contribution of spiritual teachers and great civilizations? Isn’t pilgrimage often a key component in many religions and an important spiritual practice in itself?

Doesn’t some exchange of subtle energy sometimes take place at these sites that can heal and help both us, and perhaps the subtle energy fields of the earth?

How can we honour these things and respect the Earth at the same time? This is the conundrum we face.

As I read shocking facts, such as those concerning the Tibetan plateau which is melting so fast the Ganges may well dry up by 2030, I realized my book couldn’t simply be one that waxed lyrical about these magical places - that encouraged people to visit them. And yet it couldn’t just focus on how awful things have become, and actively discourage people from visiting.

There has to be another way we can relate to these sacred places.

Our challenge is to make the pilgrimage of the heart and soul our sacred goal, and to make physical pilgrimage an act which we carry out with the greatest awareness possible.

See the ‘How To’ section for suggestions about a different way of working with, appreciating, and loving Sacred Places.

THE GLAMOURISATION OF SACRED SITES 

Most books on sacred sites only talk about the spiritual and cultural dimensions. The environmental and political problems often surrounding them are left aside, probably because they seem to detract from the beauty and magical fascination of these places. But life is a mixture of the joyous and tragic, the beautiful and the ugly, and to fail to mention the ‘other face’ of sacred sites, is ultimately to do a disservice to the reader and to encourage their glamourisation and their addition to the culture of consumerism.

So in the book, and here on this website, you will find notes on the more difficult issues surrounding sacred places.