Sacred Connections Scotland

The spiritual role of the sacred isles of Britain in World history
Barry Dunford

No one can deny that there are other sacred regions and holy places on planet earth, but what inspired the English visionary poet and mystic, William Blake, to perceive the ancient British Isles as the original Holy Land. Is there something peculiarly distinct and perhaps unique concerning the inherent sacred energy patterns which permeate this original Holy Land? Geographical energy patterns which often relate to a grid network and are marked out at key nodal points by the invariably astronomically aligned presence of ancient sites such as megalithic stone circles, standing stones and hill forts. In the remote past these megalithic sites were festooned throughout the landscape of the sacred British Isles and many remains are still to be seen today.

Furthermore, why was the apostolic mission of Christ brought to sacred Britain very early on with the spread of the Christ message? According to strong British tradition this mission was spearheaded by Joseph of Arimathea, traditionally said to be a relative of Jesus himself. Moreover, why was a leading apostle, St. Andrew, charged by Jesus to bring the Christ message to north Britain (i. e. Scotland), which presupposes that Jesus knew of the existence of this scoto-gaelic region of Britain and considered it to be of some importance and significance? This is confirmed by ecclesiastical information from the Middle Ages which is recorded in “The Declaration of Arbroath” (1320 AD), a document sent by Scottish nobles to Pope John XXII declaring Scottish independence from the Roman papacy.

In his book Enchanted Britain (1981), Marc Alexander comments: “Probably most people who sing Jerusalem are not aware that its author, William Blake, was referring to an old belief that Jesus Christ really was ‘On England’s pleasant pastures seen’. The story is that as a boy he visited these shores with a metal merchant, seeking tin in Cornwall and lead and copper from the Somerset hills, whose name was Joseph of Arimathea, said in the legend to be the Virgin’s uncle. The tradition has been an oral one in Somerset, Gloucestershire and the West of Ireland.” And, in New Light on the Ancient Mystery of Glastonbury (1990), the author, John Michell relates: “The legend of Glastonbury is that, shortly after the Crucifixion, twelve holy men from the East, led by St. Joseph of Arimathea, came to Glastonbury and founded there the first church in Britain – or in all Christendom. History neither confirms nor refutes this story, but it does record that Christianity was established in Britain at a very early date, compatible with the legendary date of St Joseph’s mission. In about 200 A. D., Tertullian wrote that by his time ‘parts of Britain inaccessible to the Romans were conquered by Christ’, and this was confirmed by his contemporary, Origen, the early Christian Father, who made several references to an established Church among the Britons.”

John Michell goes on to say: “The tradition of Jesus’s presence at Glastonbury is certainly ancient, for it is implied in the earliest chronicles, beginning with the Life of St. Dunstan, written at the end of the tenth century and containing the first extant reference to the Glastonbury foundation legend. Its anonymous author stated that the wattle church was not built by human hands but was the work of Christ himself, who dedicated it to the Virgin Mary. This is repeated in the legend of St. David, who proposed to rededicate the church after he had enlarged it in the sixth century. He was warned by Jesus in a dream that he himself had already dedicated it to his Mother. The church at Glastonbury could therefore have been founded by Jesus himself. That would explain the mystical epipthets applied to it in ancient ecclesiastical documents, ‘The House of God’ and ‘The Secret of the Lord’, and it would give good reason for the remarkable reputation which Glastonbury enjoyed from the earliest times throughout Christendom…. If Jesus went to the Celtic Mysteries centre on the Isle of Avalon to study the esoteric science in which he later revealed himself to be an adept, his initiators would have been the Druids. Among them at that time were the most learned men in Europe, and their colleges in Britain and Ireland were the last to offer the traditional form of mystical education, attracting pupils from all over the Continent…. If Jesus attended the Celtic college at Glastonbury, that would make sense of an otherwise inexplicable feature of early Christianity in Britain, the remarkable similarity between its rites and doctrines and those of the Druids.”

Glastonbury Abbey

Mary Caine in her work The Glastonbury Zodiac: Key to the Mysteries of Britain (1978) states: “Dr. J. W. Taylor in his book The Coming of the Saints has traced the rumours of Joseph’s journey from Palestine through Cyprus to Provence, then up the Rhone to Morlaix in Brittany, (where they still revere St. Drennalus as a follower of Joseph) and across the Channel, where they are met by corresponding folk-tales in Somerset and Cornwall. Both counties supplied metals to the Phoenicians, and the places that remember Joseph the tin-merchant are mining centres or ports. Taylor makes the penetrating comment that Phoenician trading-posts and colonies were always the first to receive Christian missionaries; not only Antioch and Tyre, but Marseilles, Alexandria, Spain and Cornwall…. For there was a founder of Christianity in Britain in the 1st century, and whether it was Joseph or another, he brought an eastern, not Roman brand of the faith. Celtic missionaries, amazingly enough, were already converting Europe from Britain at that time…. In 190 Tertullian of Carthage wrote ‘The extremities of Spain, the various parts of Gaul, the regions of Britain never penetrated by Roman arms, have received the religion of Christ.’ Sabellius the heretic said in 230 AD ‘Christianity was privately expressed elsewhere, but the first nation that proclaimed it as their religion was Britain’. Origen (185-254) Greek founding-father of the early church, said ‘The power of the Lord is with those in Britain’. In 300 Dorotheus bishop of Tyre, said that the Aristobulus of St. Paul’s epistle was bishop here – a statement confirmed by Greek martyrology and by old Welsh records who knew him as Arwystli…. these eminent theologians confirm the very early, even apostolic mission to Britain…. whoever came here brought an Asian, Gnostic brand of the faith; he used the Phoenician trade-route and was probably employed by the Romans when they annexed British metal-mines, and was on friendly business terms, perhaps even related to, the British Silurian royal family who worked them, and who certainly had Phoenician ties of blood. Joseph, the wealthy man of the Gospels, may well have been a Phoenician tin-trader. He may well have been the ‘noble decurion’ as Jerome calls him – an officer, we are told, often put in charge of mines.”

Regarding the Jesus and Joseph of Arimathea in Cornwall legends, Walter de M. Seaman writes: “There are those among the older folk of the district of St. Just-in- Roseland, near Place Manor, who used to repeat the age-old belief ‘Christ came in a ship and anchored in St. Just Creek,’ and across the waters of the Fal at Falmouth, this odd little story was brought to light: Joseph of Arimathea and the young lad Jesus from Nazareth, landed at the Strand (now the town quay), crossed the stream and went up Smithick Hill…. In the far West of Cornwall, there are or were two rich lodes (or veins) of tin. One was named Corpus Christi (the body of Christ) and the other Wheal Jesus. Wheal is the old Cornish word for mine…. It is interesting in this connection to discover that East Looe has as its coat of arms a ship bringing (so it is thought) Joseph and the young Jesus to Cornwall. This is portrayed on the front of the old Guildhall. A mile off Looe is St. George’s Island. Some of the older folk of the district were heard to say that when they were children, they’d been told by their parents and grandparents that Joseph and the young Jesus had landed on this island.” (The Dawn of Christianity in the West, 1993)

In his spiritual thesis entitled Rising out of Chaos: The New Heaven and the New Earth (1996), Simon Peter Fuller observes: “It was Britain, not Rome, that was the first country to receive the faith of Christ…. The truth is that the Christ consciousness realised by Jesus was not anchored in Palestine, where it was rejected, or in Rome, where it was corrupted, but in Glastonbury, where it was secretly honoured and nurtured by the initiated over the intervening centuries…. The apostolic foundation of the Christ impulse in Britain is supported by the early Christian theologians Origen and Tertullian writing in the 2nd century. St. Gildas, in the 6th century, stated that ‘Britain was illuminated by the Light of Christ the true Sun in the later part of the reign of Tiberius who died in 37CE.’ It is also well known that at all the great Church Councils held in the Middle Ages, the English bishops were given precedence as representing the earliest foundation…. Over five hundred years before Augustine – the envoy of Rome usually credited with Christianising ‘pagan’ Britain – Joseph with his original band of 12 followers and visiting Apostles such as Peter, Paul, James, Philip and Simon Zelotes had already created of Britain the Sacred Isle and ‘Motherland’ of the Christ consciousness, in the estoeric tradition of John.”

William Blake (1757 – 1827) National Portrait Gallery, London. “I am under the direction of Messengers from Heaven” – William Blake

In her book Blake and the New Age (1979) Kathleen Raine comments: “Blake knew that he was the messenger to his nation from the higher and inner worlds…. In symbolic narrative in pictorial image, in rational argument and in the exaltation of poetry he strove to awaken the national consciousness to the vision he himself so clearly beheld…. Blake was indeed the first poet to speak of a New Age.” Furthermore, Peter Marshall in his biography William Blake: Visionary Anarchist (1988) says of Blake: “He looked forward to a time when people would live in harmony with each other and nature, released from economic and psychological dependence, and free to develop the full potential of their being.” And in his book The New View over Atlantis (1983) John Michell further observes: “Stukeley [an 18th century antiquary] and Blake both spoke of Britain as the land on which the spirit would next descend, and the more one reads Blake’s prophecies, the more strongly grows the conviction that he was inspired by a notion so sublime that it can scarcely be conceived; nothing less than the recreation of the old system of spiritual engineering whose ruins are still visible in every corner of the country. From the rocks, mountains and headlands a mysterious current once flowed down avenues of standing stones over mounds and earthworks towards some central hill dedicated to Mercury, the terrestrial spirit. Below the hill an instrument of solar generation produced the spark by which the current became animated and recoiled in a wave of fertility through the hidden veins of the land.”

From Camelot and the Vision of Albion (1971) by Geoffrey Ashe, we learn: ” ‘Albion’ is the oldest recorded name for the island of Britain. The Greek explorer Pytheas quite probably knew it, about 330 B. C. Even before him, there is a Carthaginian captain’s report which refers (if a later paraphrase can be trusted) to ‘the island of the Albiones’. A text ascribed to Pytheas’s contemporary Aristotle, though in fact somewhat later, speaks of the two large ‘Bretannic’ islands in the outer ocean, Albion and Ierne. Ierne of course is Ireland. Afterwards ‘Britannia’ moves gradually into favour as a name for the bigger of the two. The meaning of ‘Albion’ is unknown…. Geoffrey of Monmouth makes it an early name for Britain, and no more. So does Blake in his early verse…. While his Albion myth grows into a grandiose and enduring statement about the human condition, such a growth would have been impossible without the prior notion of Britain as the world’s fountain-head.”

It is of particular interest to note that William Blake believed that Britain was the original Holy Land. A. L. Owen in his work The Famous Druids (1962) comments: “Between 1797 and 1804, when he began to write and etch, Milton and Jerusalem, Blake dramatically changed his mind. He then came to the conclusion that Britain was the original Holy Land. ‘Mount Gilead’, the second version of the ‘Gilead and Hermon’.. is deleted in the manuscript, and in the final draft the sacred site over which the Council meets is the top of ‘Snowdon Sublime’. In the Prophetic Books written during and after 1804, Jerusalem is Albion’s daughter.. The sons of Israel first live in Britain.. The island becomes the immediate setting of Blake’s story, and Palestine becomes the scene of subsequent developments. A comment of Blake’s which he made in 1810 makes it perfectly clear what he thought was the general sequence of events, for he then said that Albion’s history ‘Preceded that of the Hebrews’. The essentials of his cosmogony are unchanged, but after 1797 Blake dwells heavily on the unique importance of Britain in sacred history. It would be going quite against the evidence of his text to minimize the literal meaning of the line ‘All things Begin & End in Albion’s Ancient Druid Rocky Shore’, a line which he places in three different contexts.” Moreover, Comyns Beaumont in his Britain: the Key to World History (1948) says: “The ancient island of Britain is the key to world history in the past and she will be in the future.”

In The Unchronicled Past (1938), the author, J. Foster Forbes, points out: “Folklore is a marvellous storehouse of past realities. Time, age, and circumstance have not been able to disperse the real stories of the past; moreover, the beauty of it is that they all carry with them the hope or even the moral of the future. That some day and at some magic hour the truth will be revealed. I feel that England has been awaiting this hour…. These people [of ancient Britain] knew where the source of power existed, they understood, they realized the stars as being worlds of greater power and force and that they were all inter-related. They were, in fact, the great generating stations of celestial energy and that in the measure to which man could in himself rise to appreciate this power, so in like measure, was this power distributed and appropriated. At certain conjunctions and consummations in the heavens great cosmic activities were set in motion; for this purpose the great astronomic or astrologic scientists studied minutely and with the greatest degree of accuracy exactly what these staral conjunctions implied and the nature of the influence resulting therefrom. Is it surprising, therefore, to know that such temples as these which were erected in western, south-western, and northern Britain conformed in accurate geometric fashion as ground representations of the greater celestial stations within the universe? The whole of Britain was, in fact, constructed and linked up to respond in proper formation to the magnetic influence of the sun, the moon, and the stars.” And Sir John Daniel observes: “Britain, long before the Christian era, was the seminary of Europe and remained so down to the sixth century, when Llantwit Major and several other seats of learning were at their zenith.” (The Philosophy of Ancient Britain, 1927)

Furthermore, Lewis Spence, in his book The Mysteries of Britain (1928) says : “To the peoples of antiquity the isle of Britain was the very home and environment of mystery, a sacred territory, to enter which was to encroach upon a region of enchantment, the dwelling of gods, the shrine and habitation of a cult of peculiar sanctity and mystical power. Britain was, indeed, the insula sacra of the West, an island veiled and esoteric, the Egypt of the Occident…. in the early centuries of our era, and before them, Britain was regarded as specifically sacred, an enclosure of the gods, so throughout the Age of Romance was she thought of as peculiarly the island of faerie glamour and enchanted adventure…. Evidences regarding the belief in the sacred and mystical character of the British Isles in early times are readily forthcoming. Julius Caesar, who almost certainly received his information from the Aeduan Druid Diviciacus, the friend of Cicero, says of the Druid cult: ‘It is believed that this discipline was first instituted in Britain, and from thence transferred to Gaul, for even at this day those who desire to be perfect adepts of their art make a voyage thither to learn it.’ It is thus clear from Caesar’s testimony that the Gaulish Druids regarded Britain not only as the birthplace of their cult, but in some respects as its official headquarters, its Tibet…. Procopius, the Byzantine historian, who flourished in the sixth century (A. D. 500-565) unquestionably refers to a late form of the belief in the mysterious reputation of Britain in his De Bello Gothico.”

Glastonbury Tor

Interestingly, Christine Hartley in her informative work The Western Mystery Tradition (1968) notes: “Merrie does not mean gay; it is from an old German word which means Fairy. Merrie England was Fairyland or – later – Maryland. It was the Holy Land of the West…. At one time the whole Island of Britain was called Insula Pomorum, or Isle of Apples, and though subsequently this title was confined to Glastonbury, it shows how in the early days that set-apartness of our land was recognised. All through Britain may be greater and lesser mounds – the holier places in a holy land – and where there are traces of serpent worship and a mound, there will have been a seat of Druid culture and pre-Druid worship. Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, the town of Eden in Westmorland, Cader Idris (Arthur’s Chair) in Snowdonia, the Tor at Avalon, the old ruin on Great Orme’s Head called Gogarth, which must surely be a corruption of God’s Garth or Orchard – all these are holy places in this holy land.”

Christine Hartley continues: “Even the Early Fathers accepted the Druid priesthood as being something outstanding, for Origen writes that the Druids were held up by the Roman philosophers as examples of wisdom and models for imitation on account of their pre-eminent merit, while Clement of Alexandria called Druidism ‘a religion of philosophers’ and likened it to that of the primitive Persians. He also maintained that they owed nothing to Pythagoras – as had been stated by others – but, on the contrary, claimed that Pythagoras visited the Druids in Gaul to be instructed in their theology and mysteries. Pliny considered them to be the Magi of Gaul and others have held with us that they were of Atlantean descent. Nearer to our own time, Alexandre Bertrand maintains that there is a parallel to Druidism in the lamaseries of Tibet and Tartary, and there is certainly considerable resemblance between some of the Druid beliefs and symbols and those of the Brahmans…. The Druids were the Lords of Time and Space; they looked out into the vast expanses of the heavens and they saw the ordered grouping of the planets and the changing places of the stars as the seasons passed. They reverenced the sun, for they saw it as the motivating power, the great creative light and heat, whether in control of the seasons or in its life-giving propensities…. The last Arch Druid is said to have been Bran the Blessed, contemporary with Joseph of Arimathea; it was thought that he was converted to Christianity and sent to Rome with Caractacus as a hostage. In old age he came back, still a Christian, and began to preach the gospel in South Wales opposite to Glastonbury…. When Christianity came to Britain the beliefs of the Druids were so close to those of the new teaching that they had little or no difficulty in being ‘converted’; they were baptised and accepted new traditions and definitions but fundamentally their faith was unchanged. St. Augustine himself declared later that their philosophy almost approached that of Christian monotheism. No idol or graven image has been discovered among the Druid remains.”

Stonehenge at sunset

Moreover, from Operation Redemption: A Vision of Hope In an Age of Turmoil (1981) by Sir George Trevelyan we learn: “The Druids were the great initiates of their time, establishing Mystery Centres for learning and teaching of the civilized arts…. They were preservers of the great energy grid which related spirit within Earth to Spirit in the higher eternal planes. Thus, the Druids at once recognized the esoteric truth of Christianity. Indeed, when the first news of the descent of the Christ, his Death and Resurrection, was carried to the Celtic West, the Druid masters were already expecting it, since they had clairvoyantly seen the aura of the earth changing and becoming filled with a new light. Thus they knew that somewhere the supreme event for which they had been waiting had at last happened and that the Exalted Lord of Light had descended into the life forces of the Earth. So their work was done and they could merge with the Christian stream. The high culture of Celtic Britain arose from this merging of Druidism and its mystery centers with the esoteric Christian Stream which expressed itself through the Celtic or ‘Culdee’ church and the founding of the early monasteries…. Rise up in consciousness and look down upon our Island. See the Light Centers glimmering – Stonehenge, Avebury, Glastonbury, Iona, St. Michael’s Mount, Westminster Abbey, Durham and all the Cathedrals of Britain, the monasteries, noble ruins which have for centuries been impregnated with prayer and meditation, the Christian Churches great and small where ley lines cross…. and on and on the list could be extended, till the country is covered with glimmering points of light. See the lines of force criss-crossing and unifying in an immense network or grid. And note again how the ancient Druidical pattern is overlayed by the Christian. The spiritual light and Earth-power stored at the ancient temples like Stonehenge and Glastonbury is indeed there and waiting for release. And the Holy Mountains are veritable storehouses of spiritual power guarded by angelic Beings and waiting to be tapped and used in the service of Michael. These are a precious heritage, for they could be misused. We may look down and with inner vision link St. Michael’s Mount, Skirrid, Wrekin, the Eildon Hills, Glastonbury Tor, Malvern, Tryfaen, Schiehallion…. We have compared this network to a great electric grid. If, metaphorically, the cosmic switch were thrown, light and power would instantly flood throughout the land…. Suddenly Britain comes alight. Are we ready for such an event?”

In 1968, Grace Cooke, a well known psychic and medium intuited the following observation: “It looks to me as though Britain is as it were the central or ‘grail cup’ of this whole planet. There are other beautiful centres in various parts of the world, but something uniquely pure and holy is here. It is this very purity and simplicity which is the saving grace of humanity. Britain must learn the meaning of the light and how to use the spiritual sunlight from the Solar Logos, the purity and holiness of which is man’s salvation…. Here in Britain is the point of balance of positive and negative forces between construction and destruction, which meet here. The forces of light will always triumph.” Grace Cook quotes her spiritual guide White Eagle as saying: “It is time for you all to understand the work which is now proceeding, the bringing into manifestation from the very soil of your island of the true light of spiritual brotherhood – brotherhood in very truth, not in word only but in life, in service, in kindness and co-operation, in patience, tolerance and love… the origin of this Brotherhood of the Great White Light is here, here in the mystic isle of Britain. The spirit of those great sun-gods, the god-men who first came to this ancient land of Britain, still lingers to inspire the people of this land to deeds of courage, kindness and goodwill…. although your land may not again be mighty in temporal power, it will once again become the centre of a great spiritual power for it is its destiny to rise again to become a spiritual leader of the world and to bring to fruition the ideal of universal brotherhood…. within the soul of Britain is a light, a power, which will raise your country again to become a spiritual and moral leader of the whole world, not a country with great wealth and possession, but a country free, ablaze with light.” (The Light in Britain, 1971)

According to ancient tradition, some of these advanced spiritual Beings reside on planet Earth at a mystical place known as Shambhala. In the Orient its full name is Chang Shambhala which translates as “the north place of quietude”. It is said that Shambhala relates to an island, the “white island” (Albion?) in the North. What if the real “Shambhala” is not located in the Himalayas as has been suggested in the past? The geology of the Scottish Highlands possesses an extremely primeval energy and is far older than the Asian Himalayas, the European Alps and the Andean mountain range in South America. So from an energetic standpoint the Scottish Highlands, located in the north of sacred Britain, could be construed as being an appropriate location for the spiritual Adepti of Chang Shambhala, i. e. “the north place of quietude”.

The notion of Shambhala in Britain is supported by Geoffrey Ashe who says: “Shambhala probably belongs to pre-Buddhist tradition. Its full name is Chang Shambhala, North Shambhala. ‘Shambhala’ itself means ‘quietude’. ‘Chang Shambhala’, the northern place of quietude…. Lamas declare that a profane traveller cannot find the path to Shambhala at all – one must be summoned…. There is also an elaborate mythology about an Underworld, Agharti, which extends downwards from Shambhala and is part of its realm. Mongolian lamas have taught that Shambhala has long been, and still is, a fountainhead of wisdom…. Alexandra David-Neel quotes Mongols as saying it is ‘an island somewhere in the north’.” Ashe then writes about “a belief among the lamas that about 543 BC, towards the end of Buddha’s life (to which they give an unusual dating), a European came to him to be taught the wisdom of Shambhala. This man, the lamas suspected, was a Celt. They believed that the Shambhalic ‘presence’ – it is hard to know how to express this – was transplanted to Britain…. Stephen Jenkins published a book entitled The Undiscovered Country. In this he mentions Shambhala’s connection with Orion…. But he also reaffirms the British idea: ‘I was considerably taken aback when I began my instruction in the secret doctrines of the realm of Shambhala to be told by high-ranking Mongolian lamas deeply read in the subject that it had had a literal existence on the surface of the earth, and that it had lain far to the west. In the last 100 years discussion of the problem among them had narrowed down the possibilities, and opinion was now unanimous. The Kingdom of Shambhala had once been, they said, in the Island of Britain, the Celtic Britain of the last centuries before Christ’.”

Geoffrey Ashe continues with the observation: “Nothing shows in what sense Shambhala was established in Britain, or whether it ever ceased to be there, and if so, how and why it disappeared. In terms of history I suppose the notion would have to be that initiates of some kind carried Shambhalic lore westwards, and planted it in a British centre. This would still have been important at the time when Britain was the headquarters of Druid teaching…. The impression is that the lamas thought the British Shambhala (whatever it was) ceased to function a long time ago. This might only mean that, from their point of view, it did not count any more after the advent of Christianity. The ‘island’ Shambhala might be Celtic Britain itself or, of course, it might be the Isle of Avalon.” (Avalonian Quest, 1983)

In an interesting work, with a theme based on Shambhala being associated with the world axis, entitled The Lord of the World, originally published in 1927, the author, René Guénon comments on: “…. the archetypal ‘sacred Isle’, situated, as we have seen, in a literally polar location. All the other ‘sacred isles’, although everywhere bearing names of equivalent meaning, are still only images of the original…. In India, the ‘white isle’ (Shwetadwipa), commonly considered to be set in the remote regions of the North, is regarded as the ‘Abode of the Blessed’, a name easily identifiable as the ‘Land of the Living’…. The designation of spiritual centres as ‘white isles’ was applicable, like the others, to secondary centres and not only to the supreme centre, their source. To these must be added the names of places, countries, and towns that express the idea of whiteness. These are frequent enough, from Albion to Albania, through Alba Longa, the mother city of Rome, and the Greek town of Argos…. An additional comment is called for on the representation of a spiritual centre as an island containing a ‘sacred mountain’, for while such a locality may have had a tangible existence (even though not all ‘holy lands’ were islands) there should also be a symbolic meaning. Historical facts, especially those pertaining to sacred history, translate in their own way truths of a higher order owing to the law of correspondence which is the foundation of symbolism, and which unites all the worlds in total and universal harmony. The idea evoking the representation under discussion is essentially one of ‘stability’ that is itself a characteristic of the Pole: the island remains immovable amidst the ceaseless agitation of the waves, a disturbance that reflects that of the external world.”

Guénon also says: “One conclusive piece of evidence emerges quite clearly from the corresponding testimony of all traditions: that an archetypal ‘Holy Land’ does exist; that it is the prototype for all other ‘Holy Lands’, the spiritual centre to which all others are subordinate. The ‘Holy Land’ is also the ‘Land of the Saints’, the ‘Land of the Blessed’, ‘Land of the Living’, and ‘Land of immortality’…. In this contemporary period of our terrestrial cycle…. this ‘Holy Land’, which is defended by guardians who keep it hidden from profane view while ensuring nevertheless a certain exterior communication, is to all intents and purposes inaccessible and invisible to all except those possessing the necessary qualifications for entry.” Commenting on René Guénon’s Shambhalic thesis, Victoria LePage says: “According to Guénon, Shambhala is a center of high evolutionary energies…. it is the prototypic Holy Land…. Guénon indicated that Shambhala exists both above and below ground.” (Shambhala, 1996)

Could it be that the mythological Shambhala, as the World Axis, is somehow located in the sacred Isles of Britain as the Mongolian Lhamas informed the British teacher, Stephen Jenkins. It will be interesting to see how the destiny of the British Isles unfolds within the future course of world events.