John Michell, hugely influential writer on ley lines, archaeoastronomy, sacred geometry, and Earth mysteries passed away yesterday after a long battle with cancer. Michell came to prominence in the 1960s and 1970s for works like “The View Over Atlantis” and “A Little History of Astro-Archaeology” that had profound reverberations within the New Age, Fortean, and modern Pagan communities.

John Michell

“If any one book put ley lines on the map, re-enchanted the British landscape and made Glastonbury the capital of the New Age it was John Michell’s seminal 1969 tome The View Over Atlantis … 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. Its central argument was that ancient sites (be they tracks, crossroads, standing stones or holy ground) not only formed ley-like alignments but contained a meaningful structure of number and proportion encoded in their design, and that this ‘canon’ of number was somehow related to the then new subject of UFOs as well as to the revelation of ‘forgotten’ knowledge of great significance … it was John Michell who … forged an intellectual bridge between the distant past and the unfolding present and provided satisfying spiritual nourishment that inspired hippies everywhere.”

In their obituary, the Cryptomundo blog hails Michell for providing an ” intellectual roadmap” of modern Fortean thought, while the Daily Grail describes him as a “national treasure” who was “arguably the founder of the modern ‘earth mysteries’ movement.” He was also feted by writers like Gary Lachman and Ronald Hutton for his immense influence on occult and Pagan thought and practice in Britain (not least for his “discovery” of the St. Michael ley-line which connects several Christian and pre-Christian sacred sites). While Michell is still well known in Fortean circles, his contributions may be unrecognized today by many of the modern Pagans who are unwittingly spreading and building upon ideas formulated by the writer. Perhaps his passage can spark a new reexamination of the visionaries who helped build a new cosmology for a new Paganism.