Geophysical Characteristics of the Sacred Site Location
Planet Earth is an enormously complex entity experiencing multiple energetic phenomena that interact with human beings in known and unknown ways. Atmospheric conditions, temperature variations, and sunlight intensity are energy phenomena that profoundly affect humans physically and psychologically. The same is true of various geophysical phenomena such as magnetism, radioactivity, gravity, the presence of subsurface water, the presence of concentrated mineral ores, volcanic activity, earthquakes, tremors, and other seismic activity, ultrasound, ionization, earth lights phenomena and other geophysical anomalies. Research has shown that many ancient sacred sites are located directly upon or close to areas with unusual levels of these various kinds of geophysical phenomena. Paul Devereux comments that,
In Iceland, for example, the main national site, the tenth-century AD Althing, was built not merely on a fault, but on the rift formed between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates - an extension of the mid-Atlantic ridge. In Ohio, in the United States, the 2,000-year old Serpent Mound, an inexplicable earthwork a quarter of a mile long, was built over a geological site unique in that country: due to volcanic action or meteoric impact it is a highly compressed area of intensive faulting....The greatest megalithic complex in the world, around Carnac in Brittany, France, is hemmed in by fault systems, and occupies France's most volatile tectonic region....In England and Wales all stone circles are situated within a mile of a surface fault or an associated tectonic intrusion....Clearly, the association of such important sites with such distinctive geological features would not have happened by chance. (2)
Devereux also writes,
If we are not dealing with some bizarre coincidence, what could the ancients have been seeking at fault zones? The first, obvious answer is that these parts of the Earth's crust have been subjected to considerable tectonic forces; they are natural "energy zones". Faults tend to have high mineralization around them affecting local electric and magnetic fields, and to be points of weakness where stress and strain in the crust can manifest, causing energy effects within and above the ground. (3)
Ancient people revered particular rock outcroppings, springs, caves, and forest groves in nearly every region of the world. Energy-monitoring studies have revealed that many sites have unusual geophysical energy anomalies relative to the surrounding countryside. Not having scientific devices to measure the high-energy fields of these sites, how did prehistoric people determine their precise locations? Perhaps an answer may be found in the human faculty of sensing; ancient people somehow felt the energies of the sites. While this idea may initially seem preposterous, it gains credibility when we learn that neuroscientists estimate that contemporary human beings use no more than 5-15 percent of their inherent mental faculties. Perhaps prehistoric people used, consciously or unconsciously, other parts of the brain that allowed them to sense the energy fields of the sacred sites. It is common knowledge that human beings develop skills and understandings uniquely appropriate to the place and time in which they live. Ancient people, living in harmony with the Earth and dependent upon its bounty for all their needs, may have developed skills that modern people no longer use, cultivate, or even recognize. Therefore, in the same way, any of us today can sense temperature variations - simply a change in the thermal energy field - prehistoric people could perhaps feel subtle geophysical energies at particular places on the land.
To give further credibility to this hypothesis, consider the ability of various animal species to travel with unerring accuracy across great distances. Pigeons can come home from hundreds of miles away, salmon return to their birthplace after swimming halfway around the world, and swallows return to a previous year's nesting place after journeys of 10,000 miles. How is this possible? Unable to explain the phenomenon, scientists have suggested that these animals have some brain mechanism that allows them to navigate by sensing the electromagnetic fields that crisscross the planet. In other words, these species have a "turned-on" brain and sensing faculty about the energetic environment in which they live. Is it not conceivable that Homo sapiens, with its enormously complex brain, has a similar (though currently primarily unused) sensing faculty? Possessing such a faculty does not necessarily imply having a conscious awareness or understanding of the sensing process. A bird can return to its nesting place without having (as far as we know) any conscious mental awareness of the behavior. Prehistoric people could likewise have been attracted to the power places on the Earth without even being aware of the attraction.
The ancients sensed the places of power, but how then would they explain them? Not having the scientific knowledge to understand the geological causes of their felt experiences of power place energies, prehistoric people might have sought to explain those energies with myths and legends about spirits, deities, gods and goddesses, and magical powers. The sacred sites of antiquity were those places where spirits entered from otherworldly realms. In order to more fully understand the powers of these places, we must study the connection between the existence of localized geophysical anomalies and the so-called paranormal phenomena spoken of in the miracles and legends of holy places.