Glastonbury – the Ancient Avalon

Millennia before the advent of the Celtic Druids (c.500s BC) there existed at Glastonbury a race of men who shaped the whole terrain to form certain mystical and astrological patterns.

In the far south-west of the British Isles, situated between the sea of the Bristol Channel and two low ranges of hills called the Mendips and the Poldens, there lies an enchanted area of land. It is an area that generates and guards a powerful magic. The county that contains this land is Somerset and the geographical designation of this sacred place has come to be known as the Isle of Avalon.

This romantic and mysterious tract of country has a long historical pedigree, stretching back over countless millennia into eras of strange dreams and endless mystical revelations. Human beings who come to Avalon strong in the disciplines of the Old Knowledge are strangely transformed. They are fused into a form of cosmic consciousness that reflects the patterns of esoteric memory that are shaped into the very landscape itself. The focal point for the area and its arcane forces is Glastonbury, both the name of a town and the symbol of a great and holy mystery.

The roots of this mystery have nothing to do with Christianity, which came late to the area, first as an inheritor, then as a usurper, finally as a destroyer. They are found through a synthesis of pagan ritual and natural, magical intuition, and they are so old, deep and strong as to be inviolable to all forms of fleeting desecration. The key to the secrets of Glastonbury and the whole Avalonian complex lies within the contours of the landscape.

Once this is realised the pattern assumes its correct perspective and balances into a satisfying coherence: magic and mysticism form a delicate equilibrial harmony that fluctuates between microcosm and macrocosm. This of course needs some elucidation. As in most tales of esoteric complexity, it is best to begin at the beginning, for the whole panorama is more important and beautiful at its start than in its later misunderstood manifestations.

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2008-06-05