The Alchemical Secrets of Glastonbury Tor
by Ishtar Babilu Dingir
Since its starring role in Danny Boyle’s Olympic opening
ceremony, friends have been asking me about the magical significance of
Glastonbury Tor. Well, I don’t profess to know everything about the Tor. I
doubt there are many that do. But I do live here in Glastonbury and, as a
shaman, when I walk these lands, they reveal to me some of their secrets. And
so I can share with you what I know, and also the thoughts of those more expert
than me.
In a nutshell, Glastonbury Tor is a huge vortex of spiritual
and temporal power for these Isles of Wonder. Wnen Alfred the Great was trying
to recapture them back from the Vikings, in the 9th century, he was camped out
near here. But before that, as a child of just six, he had been sent to Rome to
learn the great arts and his curriculum would have included magical alchemy, as
this was practised by the monks of that time. And so it is my belief that
Alfred used the power of the Michael and Mary leylines, which intertwine in a
kind of etheric fertility dance to create the incredble vortic energies of
Glastonbury Tor, to change who held the power in the land. After signing a treaty with the Vikings, to consolidate his power, a series of campaigns by Edward Elder and his
sister, Aethelflaed, known as the Lady of the Mercians, swiftly saw off the
countrymen of Eric Bloodaxe and Ragnald son of Sygtrygg ~ and they haven’t been
back since!
Of course, it’s no great news that the
powers-behind-the-thrones use their knowledge of the occult to maintain their
position at the top of the pyramid. But that they have been doing so since the
9th century may be new. I’m not saying that this is necessarily a good or a bad
thing. It’s mainly those who haven’t shaken off their Christian conditioning
that are terrified of magic and automatically assume anyone using it must be
the devil in disguise. It’s just another way of wielding power ~ and the word
‘occult’ means ‘hidden’ because it is performed away from the prying eyes of
those who would wish to stop it, of whom there have been more than a few over
the past couple of thousand years. But it’s clear that whoever does rule world
affairs knows about the power of magical
ritual and ceremony on the psyches of the masses, which in itself is a kind of
alchemy that creates new life, or new realities, and this is also a form of
magic.
I was reminded of this during the Olympic Stadium scenes
which brought to life the dreams and nightmares of the children of Great Ormond
Street Hospital and alluded to the creation its main benefactor, J M Barrie,
Peter Pan ~ who I’m sure most have figured out is the great fertility god Pan,
rumours of who’s death have been greatly exaggerated. These same dreams were
also referred to when the words of Caliban from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, were
delivered by the actor Kenneth Branagh as he stood on the Olympic Glastonbury
Tor.
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.
- Shakespeare’s The Tempest, III, ii
It has always been the role of the wandering storyteller, bard, minstrel or poet to broadcast to the masses, through drama, tales and music, the stories that kings and princes want us to dream, in order to shape our day-to-day realities. And in these difficult and dangerous times, it was obviously felt that there was a need for a new and freshly inspired story while also harking back to our roots, to give us a sense of continuity and connection. Whatever story we’re told, if it’s told well enough, we will take it into ourselves and make it our own, so that when questioned upon it later, we will defend it to the hilt as if we had thought of it ourselves. This is because the story enters into our deepest subconscious through a kind of alchemy.
A master storyteller like Danny Boyle knows how to weave his
multi-coloured rug densely with multi-layers of archetypes and metaphors that
our right side brain laps up with gusto while our left side brain, vainly
searching for reason and rationale, is left reeling.
So are you sitting comfortably? Then let me begin.
We began our story with a Blakeian image of Glastonbury Tor,
and music set to the words of his hymn, Jerusalem, which allude to Jesus of
Nazareth’s feet walking upon these green and pleasant lands. Jesus was here in
Glastonbury first, in other words, before the revisionism of Bishop Iraneus,
before the Synod of Whitby, before the Roman Catholicism of Constantine, before
St Augustine was even a twinkle in his miserable and controlling mother’s eye. This
would make Glastonbury the original birthplace of Christianity in the British
Isles. Whether it’s true or not, it makes a good story and one that has, for
more than a thousand years, caused no end of discomfort to the Roman Catholic
church. But why should Jesus, even in myth, visit Glastonbury Tor? What is so
special or even spiritual about an iron-impregnated hill in Somerset, sitting
on beds of limestone, clay and marl?
It’s really about the subtle energetic conditions pervading
it, and these are naturally created by an aquifer of swirling waters within it, which were laid
down many millions of years ago. Quantum
physics is now catching up with vortical science ~ and we find that the vortex
is the pattern which is preferred by water and all structures in
water-dependent biological worlds.
According to Nicholas Mann in his book, The Red and White
Springs of Avalon, “The multiple layering of a vortex allows the greatest
interaction between the elements within it. .. An essential procedure of
alchemists was the solutio, in which the contents of the retort [long necked
glass container] could be dissolved back into the prima materia as a first step
in purification, preliminary to the creation of a new form. In the process, the
mysterious Mercurius acted both as ‘supreme solvent’ and as the base matter in
which the alchemist must return before making further progress. “While the Tor
functions as an alchemical retort or alembic, its alchemical potency is due to
the fact that it is also a point of interaction and connection with the
revolving heavenly dimension. In Northern Europe, the summit of the axis mundi
is attached to the Pole Star around which revolve the heavens ~ sometimes shown
as the twelve houses of the Zodiac. The axis mundi is a conductor of celestial
energy, sometimes shown as the lightening from the Gods and thus the passageway
between worlds.
“In the Celtic
tradition, the Tor as a revolving and brilliant spiral castle ~ Caer Sidi ~
also receives and steps down the energies of the greater cosmos. At the same
time, the water and the iron in the aquifer that forms its core may increase
the Tor’s receptivity to the fields of celestial energy, such as the magnetic
and electromagnetic fields of the sun…
“Through the calcium
and iron in the upper and lower parts of the aquifer, together with the solvent
and vortical effects of the water, Glastonbury Tor maintains a specific
energetic polarity that makes it highly receptive to subtle celestial
influences.” To really understand how the alchemical processes of the double
vortex of Glastonbury Tor work, you would need to read Nicholas Mann’s
excellent book, The Red and White Springs of Avalon.
But suffice to say, kings and princes have been advised by
alchemists since at least the 9th century and this was alluded to in the clip
of Her Majesty the Queen and James Bond 007, the spy. The previous, Elizabeth,
Elizabeth 1st, had an extremely famous astrologer and alchemist named John Dee
in her court, who was also her spy and his cypher was also 007.
I’ll just finish with another great story about Glastonbury,
because it alludes to the final part of the opening ceremony. This ancient
legend, passed on by the tin miners, is
about Jesus’s uncle, who apparently came to Glastonbury from the Middle East,
after the crucifixion, and he was carrying the red and white vials of Jesus’s
blood and plasma. Of course this again is metaphor for alchemy, mirroring the
red and white stages of the alchemical process (following the black or nigredo stage)
and the red and white springs of Glastonbury Tor.
But to go back to the story, when Joseph and his party
arrived via the inland sea that surrounded Glastonbury in those days, they
landed at Wearyall Hill and Joseph planted his walking staff there. The staff
took root and sprouted, and eventually it grew to become the Holy Thorn of Glastonbury. Again, this
story may just be a myth. But we do know that the Holy Thorn does come from the
Middle East, because it flowers when Lebanon thorns do, in December (instead of
at Beltane when the May thorns usually flower here) and from that tradition, a
sprig of the Holy Thorn is always sent to the Queen on Christmas Day.
For all it’s quaint,
down-home, multicultural and socialist undertones, this opening ceremony of
Olympics 2012 was an incredible show of power on the world stage.
Mirroring the story about Joseph’s staff, but taking it much
further, by the end of the Olympic opening ceremony, all the worlds’ flags were
planted on Glastonbury Tor.
All I can say is, whoever the alchemist was that advised on
this part of the event, I hope he knew what he was doing ~ and that he had the
current going in the right direction!
ishtarsgate
ishtarsgate
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