Discover Sacred Places

Since the Stone Age, humankind has honored Earth’s places of power with carvings in stone (petroglyphs), rock and cave paintings, plus remarkable structures that mark sacred sites where even today we can experience uplifting and transformative power.

Giant circles of standing stones 3,000 years old and more, pyramids built as long as 6,000 years ago, and more recent cathedrals and monasteries provide evidence from around the world that humans are drawn to places on Earth which contain powerful energies. In many cases the more recent holy structures were built over far older sacred sites.

Was the power in sites like the standing stones at Stonehenge and Avebury in England or the Pyramids in Egypt activated as a result of the structures, or was the power inherent somehow in the Earth, and that inspired the building of those structures? No one knows for sure, but there are many such places around the world that have never been touched by a man-made structure.

Energy studies
Although always surrounded with a certain amount of skeptical controversy, the belief that the Earth has stable currents and sites of elevated energy has been studied and theorized about for millennia. Ancient Greek mathematicians, early Arabic and Chinese scholars, Korean and African shamans and the early Celts, to name a few, each developed carefully structured theories and techniques to explain and track Earth energies. These theories are now collected loosely under the title Geomancy. Even modern science has measured high levels of negative ions present, even in arid climates, and biochemical changes in people visiting sacred sites.

Whatever you call the energy currents or power spots (vortexes, pilgrimages or healing sites), all the Geomantic theories and labels seem to imply the same thing. It’s that Earth is naturally covered with energy lines and nodes that are much like human acupuncture meridians and chakras (the 7 major energy centers).

The earth’s chakras
Here’s what matters: People have made pilgrimages to holy places since before the Stone Age because friends, relatives or fellow townspeople returned from their own pilgrimages transformed. It doesn’t really matter if the stones and structures are repositories of ancient wisdom or activated centers of Earth’s wisdom and power, the results are the same. Most people are changed for the better when they visit sacred sites. It can be as subtle as an awakening to personal and spiritual responsibility or as astonishing as an instant spiritual feeling or the spontaneous onset of healing gifts. The results can be profound on many levels.

Spiritual vacation spots
If you decide you want to make a sacred journey, listen to your gut, your instincts and your spirit guides as you research your options, because they’ll direct you to a place that has special gifts for you! Here are a very few of the best known natural power places and historical sacred sites.

Africa: Sphinx and Pyramids at Giza. Ancient Egyptian temples along the Nile. Shrines of the Dogon in Mali.

Asia: Bali’s temples. The hidden shrines and ancient ruins along the old Silk Road from the Middle East through China, Nepal and Tibet. The Himalaya mountains and China’s Taoist mountains. Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Kathmandu in Nepal. Mt. Kailash and Lhasa in Tibet.

Australia: Uluru (Ayers Rock).

Canada: Banff and Lake Louise. The Majorville, Roy Rivers, Tipperary Creek and Turtle Medicine Wheels. The Great Sandhills. Peterborough and Sproat Lake Petroglyphs. Keremeos Mound.

Central & South America: Machu Picchu in Peru. Mayan pyramids in the Yucatan Peninsula such as Chichen Itza and Palenque. The sacred volcanoes of Costa Rica.

Mexico: Teotihuacan. The basilica of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe and the Church of Talpa de Allende, both constructed over pre-Christian goddess temples. Lake Titicaca and Tihuanaco in Bolivia.

England: Glastonbury (Abbey, Tor and Chalice Well), Avebury and Stonehenge stone circles in England.

Ireland: Newgrange and Tara in Ireland.

Europe: Lourdes, the Cathedral at Chartres, the four ancient goddess sites now devoted to the Virgin Mary (Recomadour, the Cathedral of Notre Dame Le Puys and Saintes Marie de la Mer and the shrine at Vezelay) in France. The Parthenon, the Oracle at Delphi, Mt. Olympus, in Greece. Cathedral at Avila, Spain.

India: The Ganges River. Ellora caves. Innumerable Hindu and Islamic temples and Buddhist holy sites, including the Bodhi Tree.

Japan: Mt. Fuji; Shinto shrines and temples throughout Japan’s sacred mountains.

Middle East: Dome of the Rock and Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (site of Jesus’ crucifixion); Mecca in Saudi Arabia; Damascus’ mosque, shrine and cave; Nemrut Dagi and Mt. Ararat in Turkey

United States: Mt. Shasta in California, Devil’s Tower in Wyoming, Chaco Canyon and Ship Rock in New Mexico and the whole Four Corners area of the Southwest; Sedona, Arizona; Hawaii’s Mauna Kea and Mt. Haleakala; Mt. McKinley in Alaska’s Denali Park, and the mounds and caves in the Mississippi area.