Twelve-Tribe Nations and the Science of Enchanting the Landscape
John Michell and Christine Rhone
Throughout the world there survive traditions of a former ideal social order in which nations were divided into twelve tribes, each corresponding to one of the twelve signs of the zodiac. Examples of such societies are to be found in all times and places, from remote antiquity to the nineteenth century, from Iceland to Madagascar, from Europe through the ancient East to America. Wherever they occur they are associated with a golden age, in which the comforts and culture of civilization combined with the spiritual values of primal human nature.
In the Laws, Plato gives the blueprint for an ideal twelve-tribe constitution. Best known of such organizations are the twelve tribes of Israel under King Solomon, but there have been many others. They are described here for the first time, together with the musical, mythological and astronomical enchantments which kept these societies in harmony with the cosmos.
This is also a book of revelations. New light is shed on many ancient mysteries: the aligned St. Michael sanctuaries of Europe, the astrological landscapes of classical Greece, and the true site and function of the Temple at Jerusalem. Most remarkable is the disclosure of Jerusalem's early foundation plan, a pattern of symbolic geometry which unites the Temple and the Christian holy places within one great sanctuary. These subjects are not only of antiquarian interest, but lead to the rediscovery of an ancient code of knowledge which produced harmony between nature and humanity and is therefore as relevant to the present and future as it was to the past.
|
