At the Center of the World: Polar Symbolism Discovered in Celtic, Norse and Other Ritualized Landscapes

by John Michell

The powers of ancient rulers emanated from the ritual centre of the tribal territory. This centre was also regarded as the birthplace of the tribe and belonged to the people. Installed upon this sacred rock (the omphalos or navel of the world), at the axis around which all revolved, the king could survey his realm, ordered from the centre according to the divisions of the cosmos itself, reflecting the harmony and balance of paradise.

184 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1994

About the author

John Frederick Carden Michell was an English writer whose key sources of inspiration were Plato and Charles Fort. His 1969 volume The View Over Atlantis has been described as probably the most influential book in the history of the hippy/underground movement and one that had far-reaching effects on the study of strange phenomena: it "put ley lines on the map, re-enchanted the British landscape and made Glastonbury the capital of the New Age."

In some 40-odd titles over five decades he examined, often in pioneering style, such topics as sacred geometry, earth mysteries, geomancy, gematria, archaeoastronomy, metrology, euphonics, simulacra and sacred sites, as well as Fortean phenomena. An abiding preoccupation was the Shakespeare authorship question. His Who Wrote Shakespeare? (1996) was reckoned by The Washington Post "the best overview yet of the authorship question."