| Sacred Earth Sacred Stones |
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| Reviewed by Harmonious Living | |
| Friday, 28 October 2005 | |
 Author: Brian Leigh Molyneaux and Piers Vitebsky   This is a wonderful coffee table book full of stunning pictures and detailed information about some of the world's most sacred places. The authors have tried to combine readable highly detailed research in the form of essays with a very reader friendly layout, unfortunately is doesn't always hang together. Despite this it does make a great book to dip into to find information about specific places of interest to you. The book covers twenty-five key sites including the Parthenon of ancient Athens, Stonehenge, Machu Michu in Peru and the River Ganges in India. Each section of the book is divided into key themes such as Earth goddesses, sacred journeys, creation myths, celestial alignments, the spirits believed to inhabit natural features, and the deities to whom ancient temples were dedicated. It also gives detailed coverage to the Earth's energy lines (ley lines and dragon pathways) and the principles of geomancy. I have enjoyed dipping into this book and love absorbing all the interests facts, speculations and details that it includes but when I have tried to read it more thoroughly I find that the regular inserts about particular places, myths or facts with their variety of formats to be quite off putting. Sometimes these are quite small and might take up only a small corner of a page but they often cover a double page spread with the sentence you were reading on the previous page finishing after it. The end result of this is that the reading experience becomes quite disjointed and frustrating. I thought it was very intriguing the way each section of the book is grouped according to spiritual significance rather than geographical location. This helps to give an impression of the oneness of mankind across the globe, although we are separated by cultural differences and distance we are united in our search for understanding, truth and finding our place in the universe. Having said that though it was sometimes difficult to find areas or places of specific interest to me, I think that some kind of geographical grouping might have helped. If you're looking for a good book on the sacred places of the world to have sitting around your house that you and your visitors can browse through once in a while then you won't go too far wrong with this one. If however you're looking for something to read through from cover to cover then make sure you have a lot of patience before you try to do so. |
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