Shadow of Heaven
"Haunted by spirits, the abode of fairies and demons, the Tor casts an awe-inspiring ’shadow of heaven’ across the surface of the earth" [1]
Anthony Roberts was born in Kensington, London in May 1940. Living in Fulham, throughout his early career he covered such diverse jobs as building-site labourer, exhibition designer, vagrancy and library researcher for The Times newspaper. He travelled extensively throughout the British Isles constantly seeking the atmosphere of the living past. He is best described as a “mystical anarchist in the Blakean tradition”. [2] He maintained a magical, occult view of landscape. One of his abiding interests was fairy hills.Anthony Roberts was one of the most original thinking leading lights in the Earth Mysteries movement of the 1960’s and 70’s in Britain, along with John Michell, Nigel Pennick, Paul Devereux, and Paul Screeton. Information on most of these authors is generally readily available but very little, part from details of his publications, seems to exist on Anthony Roberts. Often termed a controversial author with an eye for the magic of landscape, Roberts, is the forgotten pioneer of the early Earth Mysteries movement.
John Michell’s seminal work The View Over Atlantis (1969) took Alfred Watkins “ley” theory [3] to a new level, arguing that the whole earth was linked in pre-historic times by a common cultural heritage whose origins can be traced to the lost civilisation of Atlantis. The impact of Michell’s book was nothing short of explosive and earned him the label of the Father of the Earth Mysteries movement and captured a the imagination of a new generation. This doctrine to megalithic science was clearly a major influence on Roberts who first met Michell in the late 1960’s.
After moving to Glastonbury Roberts set up his own publishing company Zodiac House Publications with his wife Jan in 1969, publishing such ground breaking works as Principles Of Prehistoric Sacred Geography, by Josef Heinsch, and went onto to write his first book Atlantean Traditions in Britain, after a year in the writing was published in 1971. Mention of Atlantis is frowned upon of course by academic scholars and authors venturing down this road tend to get labelled as the “lunatic fringe” but this was not to deter Roberts.
He produced six works which can be quite readily obtained with just a little searching, first editions being quite expensive:
Atlantean Traditions in Ancient Britain – Zodiac House 1971, Unicorn 1974, Rider 1977.
Glastonbury: Ancient Avalon, New Jerusalem (Editor) – Zodiac House 1977, Rider 1978.
Sowers of Thunder: Giants in Myth and History – Rider 1978
The Dark Gods (with Geoff Gilbertson) – Rider 1980.
Geomancy: A Synthonal Re-appraisal. Zodiac House 1981.
Sacred Glastonbury: A Defence Of Myth Defiled. Zodiac House 1984.
Robert’s was captivated by the notion of the Glastonbury Zodiac, sacred engineering on a grand scale, no doubt influenced through his association with Mary Caine. Glastonbury’s Temple of the Stars, was first publicised in modern times by Katherine Maltwood in 1929. Forty years later, Mary Caine brought this to public attention when she published an article about the Glastonbury Giants in the cult magazine Gandalf's Garden. [4]
The same year the Reasearch into Lost Knowledge Organisation (RILKO) published Glastonbury: A Study in Patterns, a collection of scholarly articles edited by Professor Mary Williams giving the notion of man engineering the landscape an air of credibility. Consequently many new age thinkers were attracted to the Somerset town, Anthony Roberts was amongst the new arrivals, moving to Somerset from London. The Glastonbury Giants was expanded into a book and self published by Mary Caine in 1976, and with the arrival of the book Glastonbury: Ancient Avalon, New Jerusalem, edited by Roberts (1977), Glastonbury’s transformation as the New Age capital of Britain was complete by the end of the decade.
Anthony Roberts was clearly influenced by Brinsley le Poer Trench’s book Men Among Mankind , (1962), which proclaims that Britain had been a refuge for survivors of the crumbling Atlantis civilization who took their megalithic culture with them to their refuges across the globe.
Le Poer Trench suggested that the megalithic ruins of Stonehenge, Avebury, Carnac and the buildings on the Giza plateau shared a relationship with ancient Central, Mexican and South American temples to ancient astronomy and astrology as depicted in the Somerset Zodiac at Glastonbury.
Le Poer Trench wrote:“Britain is a remnant of Atlantis and that, prior to the sinking of Poseidonis, the ‘Heavenly’ half of the Human Race left the instructions to the earthly half in the shape of the colossal Zodiac in Somerset...leaving us to find our own fumbling way back to full recognition that we are but two halves of a whole.”
Trench’s theory that the megalithic ruins around the world there runs a thin thread of forgotten history that weaves them all together into a pattern depicting a civilisation with an origin of commonality was the inspiration behind Roberts first book, Atlantean Traditions in Ancient Britain, in which he wrote;
“That brilliantly unorthodox scholar Mr. Brinsley Le Poer Trench published a book some years ago which is one of the best summations of post-Atlantean history to have appeared since the 1880’s. It was called ‘Men Among Mankind’, and in a completely non-sensational way, Le Poer Trench traces the strands of history up to and after the final sinking of the last Atlantean islands and the wide scattering of the few survivors. In a long section dealing with the Glastonbury Zodiac Circle, Trench refutes the arguments that the figures would have been submerged in the early period”. [5]
Roberts goes on to quote Trench at length on the Somerset Zodiac.
More recently most of us, perhaps, are more familiar with the 'civilising Atlantean survisors theory' as sensationalised by Graham Hancock in Fingerprints of the Gods in 1995, which like Trench's work seemed to capture the imagination of a new generation at the time, who had by all accounts forgotten the earlier story. However, this was hardly a new theory, being detailed by H P Blavatsky in the Secret Doctrine first published in 1888. Men Among Mankind was re-released in 1976 under the new title of Temple of the Stars, re-named no doubt to stress much of the content of the book in the emerging New Age Glastonbury.
Brinsley le Poer, 8th Earl of Clancarty, was also a firm believer in UFO's, editing Flying Saucer Review magazine in the late 1950’s, and the Hollow Earth theory, went on to suggest that a civilization (Atlanteans?) existed beneath the Earth’s crust. The UFO connection may have influenced Roberts writing of the later book The Dark Gods in 1980, which argued that mankind has been beleaguered throughout the ages by 'dark forces' which in modern times have resurfaced in the form of UFO's and aliens.
Following Atlantean Traditions in Brtain, Roberts next book Glastonbury: Ancient Avalon, New Jerusalem (1977) further augmented le Poer Trench’s speculation. For Roberts the landscape zodiac is all about myth in the landscape, for which he coined the terms geomythics:
“Imaginative Symbolism was physically writ large across the geomantic terrain of Avalon’s Holy Ground. Everything is really symbolically physical and physically symbolic. This is the core of my geomythics. It is also an excellent description of the Glastonbury Zodiac; those vast nature/star effigies that dreamingly spin on the Round Table of earth, the rich, seminal emanations of the Living Thoughts of God.”
Here Anthony Roberts introduces the reader to the new term Geomythics, meaning the myth in the landscape, the “geomyth.” Geomythics has been described as the interaction of mythology and landscape; the living spirit of the earth communicating fluently through the language of geomythics. Geomancy and Geomythics are discussed in detail in Sowers of Thunder (1978).
In his next book Geomancy: A Synthonal Re-appraisal (1981) Roberts discusses the geomancy and the geomythics of Fairy lore associated with megalithic sites and barrow mounds. This was a relatively short work of some forty pages of new material, the appendix Geomantic Mounds and Fairies publication being a compilation of three articles, that had appeared as a series in 1977 in The Ley Hunter.
In 1981 Roberts met Robert Coon, a visionary with an interest in international sacred sites of cultural significance. He is the originator and pioneer of the world’s first unified Earth Chakra System, coined the phrase “earth chakras” in 1967. Twelve Foundation Sites form the Complete Planetary Chakra Structure, the chakras being linked by the great planetary arteries termed The Rainbow Serpent and The Plumed Serpent, that encircle the world, crossing each other at two locations – Lake Titicaca and Bali. The northern edge of the Rainbow Serpent is known as the Michael line where it crosses Britain. Together, Glastonbury and Shaftesbury form the Inspirational world Heart Chakra. The geometric centre is at God's Hill just south of Castle Cary.
One can only wonder at the conversations that these two visionary’s, Coon and Roberts, must have had. After Sacred Glastonbury: A Defence Of Myth Defiled, a short booklet of some 15 pages in 1984, Roberts did not produce any further major works but during the 1980’s continued to contribute prefaces and essays to various publications.
The Still Centre
Katherine Maltwood saw the Glastonbury Zodiac as a representation of King Arthur´s Round Table and the quest for the Holy Grail, the centre being Park Wood, representing the Pole Star, the axis mundi, motionlessness as the astral wheel travels through the heavens.
Park Wood is an unassuming copse of a few acres just a few miles from Glastonbury Tor, on the outskirt of the village of Butleigh, totally isolated among the fields. Near its perimeter which is banked and ditched, there is a straight line of old oaks. In Atlantean Traditions in Ancient Britain (page 17) Roberts said that the woods shape is a perfect replica of the Serpent Sun Crown worn by the Gods and Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. There are also legends of serpents and dragons attached to Park Wood. Roberts noted that paths within the wood do seem to define a serpent’s head. Roberts claimed he had psychically received information that Park Wood was the burial place of King Arthur’s wizard: Merlin and adds that the area around Butleigh and Park Wood used to be known locally as the “Place of the Most Holy Grave”.
Roberts returned to the theme of Park Wood in his Preface to Robert Coon’s Elliptical Navigators through the Multitudinous Aethyrs of Avalon:
“Park Wood is made up of some very magical trees indeed and its careful geomantic shaping (protected by a bank and ditch) takes the form of the serpent/dragon sun-crown of old Egypt. In her celebrated book A Guide to Glastonbury's Temple of the Stars Mrs. Maltwood says that the Pole Star in the last Taurean era was Kochab, meaning "The Star" and it was the "abode of the essence and spirit of life". Kochab is in Ursa Minor, once called "the little fiery Chariot", being represented as a wheeled magical "vehicle" that related back to Adam and Eve. Again this is all arkitypal, tree-orientated and Atlantean based. (Tree of Knowledge, antediluvian Adam, magic vessel, etc.) According to Maltwood, the star Kochab was given as covering the "place of the crown of the land", being the Pole or world axis star. It falls of course over Park Wood. The earth axis of Pole can be translated as a World Tree with the Star of Life blazing at its apex. In fact crowning it. If my psychic source is correct then Merlin dwells in the "crown of the land" at Park Wood under the benign influence of a Life Star.This all fits well into both Mrs. Maltwood's and Mr. Coon's inspired research patterns. As a Druid Merlin was/is associated with serpents/dragons through the "serpent egg" and earth energies dragon current motifs. He was also responsible for a royal coronation... Arthur's! Serpents, like Druids, are mythically noted for their wisdom and mastership of lore. In Geoffrey of Monmouth's ciphered history Merlin discovers two dragons fighting, another clue towards the dual Royal blood lines mentioned above. Park Wood has a dragon myth attached to an internal dragon shape formed by old paths”. Serpents and dragons are folklorically intertwined in the legends and geomythics of Park wood which is the “crown of the land” and also the crown of the vast Glastonbury Zodiac”. [6]
In 1986 Robert Coon expanded Elliptical Navigators through the Multitudinous Aethyrs of Avalon into a new edition called Voyage to Avalon: An Immortalist’s Introduction to the Magick of Avalon, which included Roberts updated Preface.
Anthony Roberts contributed to other works By Robert Coon, providing prefaces and Geomythic Essays. [7] Possibly his last work appeared in Roll Away the Stone, Volume 1, 1993, edited by Emma and Robert Coon:
Proverbs Direct from the New Jerusalem.
1. Words can be Lanterns in the Night, illuminating the darkest places and providing beacons of hope.
2. The stars that are shaped in the earth are myths that glow in the sky.
3. To dream in the dark produces the brightest of enlightenments.
4. The minds of the Living Stars geomythically reflect through the consciousness of men.
5. To dance is to live – but the Dance of Life needs mastery of many curious steps.
6. The rhythms of life are cycles of Eternity dancing in the hearts of mankind.
7. Years re less than moisture molecules upon the honeyed lips of Eternity.
8. We are all smiles upon the face of Eternity.
9. The children of lover are the messengers of Joy.
10. To seek Joy in the apocalypse is to know the wisdom of Eternal Renewal.
11. The Wisdom of the Ages resounds in the laughter of children, for they are the Immortal Renewal of Life.
12. If love is strength, then hate is weakness.
13. Only love can vanquish time.
14. Human souls form living water forever nurturing the geomthic Seed of Avalon.
15. The True Grail is the Grail of Truth: invisible and all-pervading, universal, yet endlessly particular, wholly microcosmic, yet macrocosmic is observed in Union.
16. To fulfil Destiny the knots of Fate must be severely cut.
17. To know God is to know yourself.
( - transmitted through a Devic Angel & with love to William Blake)
Contained on the same page was the following Editor’s note:
“Anthony Roberts resides, from time to time, within the invisible dimension of Glastonbury Tor – planetary Heart Chakra and Foundation Stone of the Gaian New Jerusalem. On the 9th of Februry, 1990 – at the time of the total eclipse of the Leo full moon – knots of Fate were severely cut. The global Dance of Life needs mastery of many curious steps: To fulfil his own curious and endlessly particular Destiny, Anthony suddenly and severely cut his spirit from his Body. Certain ignorant folk would say that he “died” on the Tor. Those of us who love Tony know better. May his word be a Lantern in the Night, illuminating the darkest places of this earth with Hope and the Laughter of the Stars. May the Living Waters of his Spirit forever nurture the Geomythic Seed of Avalon!” [8].
Others reported his death in more mysterious circumstances. [9]
Anthony Roberts never seem to achieve his full potential; he should have been on a par with John Michell as the key instigators of modern Earth Mysteries. Roberts did not publish any further major works following Geomancy: A Synthonal Re-appraisal in 1981, preferring to write shorter essays for inclusion in others work. Indeed in that last work on Geomancy in 1981 he states in the bibliography that his own Shadows of Heaven: A Study of British Mythological Patterns is in “preparation” – but it does not seem to have materialised.
One can only speculate what Anthony Roberts might have achieved if he had produced more from that great visionary mind and had not been taken from us so early, as Jeremy Harte says:
“Roberts wielded an influence in the early days out of all proportion to his published output. But will his long, passionate, prophetic and irritable style mean anything to researchers who never made contact with the man's magnetic personality? He remains the best advocate for a spiritual vision of the land” [10]
Anthony Roberts 1940 - 1990
A Lantern in the Night
A Lantern in the Night
>> Anthony Roberts Bibliography <<
Acknowledgment: My thanks to Robert Coon for permission to quote from his works.
Acknowledgment: My thanks to Robert Coon for permission to quote from his works.
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Notes:
1. Glastonbury – the Ancient Avalon, Anthony Roberts from Glastonbury – Ancient Avalon, New Jerusalem, ed Anthony Roberts, Rider, 1977.
2. Glastonbury – Ancient Avalon, New Jerusalem, ed Anthony Roberts, Rider, 1977, p8.
3. "The Old Straight Track: Its Mounds, Beacons, Moats, Sites and Mark Stones" by Alfred Watkins, 1925.
4. The Glastonbury Giants by Mary Caine, Gandalf’s Garden Issue 4 - [http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~pardos/GGZodiac2.html]
5. Atlantean Traditions in Ancient Britain, Anthony Roberts, Unicorn 1974, p15.
6. Elliptical Navigators through the Multitudinous Aethyrs of Avalon By Robert Coon (1984) was expanded and released as Voyage to Avalon: An Immortalist’s Introduction to the Magick of Avalon in 1986, and included the same preface by Anthony Roberts further writing of an Addendum: Concerning the “Still Centre”, Myth and Griffins. Voyage to Avalon by Robert Coon, further expanded as a fourth edition is now available at Lulu [http://www.lulu.com/content/4836447] or through Robert Coon’s website [http://www.earthchakras.org/]
7. Spheres of Destiny: The Shaftesbury Prohecy, Robert Coon, 1993.
8. Roll Away the Stone, Volume One, Edited by Robert and Emma Coon, 1993, pp 20-21.
9. “It is said that he died of a heart attack on midsummer's day upon Glastonbury Tor, which is, of course, fairy hill. Chillingly it is said that at the time he was preparing a magical working to contact the spirit of Robert Kirk, author of Secret Commonwealth of Elves and Fairies. Kirk too died on a fairly hill but it was thought his corpse was a changling and that he had been carried away to the land of fairy that he had so compellingly described. When Kirk's spirit showed itself his family, in shock, failed to act in the prescribed manner and Kirk became destined to act as a guide between our world and the land of fairy” - Caduceus Books
http://www.lashtal.com/nuke/Article989.phtml
10. Research In Geomancy 1990–1994, Jeremy Harte, 1999.
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